April 14, 2012
President Kikwete sends a Condolence Message to the President of Algeria
H.E. Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, the President of the United Republic of Tanzania sends a condolence message to H.E. Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the President of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria following the death of H.E Ahmed Ben Bella, First President of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria. The message reads as follows:
“H. E. Abdelaziz Bouteflika
President of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria
ALGIERS
Your Excellency and Dear Brother,
I am deeply saddened by the sad news of the untimely death of the founding Father of your great Nation that took place on 11 th April, 2012.
On behalf of the Government and People of the United Republic of Tanzania, and indeed on my own behalf, I wish to convey our deepest sympathies and condolences to Your Excellency and, through you, to the bereaved family and relatives as well as the Government and the entire brotherly People of Algeria for this untimely death.
Tanzania will always remember the late Ahmed Ben Bella for the important role he played in cementing the relations between our two countries that so happily exists to-date.
He will also be remembered as a truly son of Africa who stood for unity and dignity of the African people. Africa has indeed lost one of the charismatic and revolutionary leaders who dedicated his life not only for the struggle for the independence of Algeria but also for the other African countries that were still suffering under colonialism. He also contributed positively to the peace and stability of Africa in his capacity as the Chairperson of the Panel of the Wise of the African Union.
At this difficult moment of agony and distress, we share your grief and pray to the Almighty God to give the bereaved family, relatives and all the people of Algeria strength and courage to endure the agony resulting from this great loss. May the Almighty God rest the soul of the deceased in eternal peace.
Please accept, Your Excellency and Dear Brother, the assurances of my highest consideration.
Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete
President of the United Republic of
Tanzania ”
Issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation
DAR ES SALAAM
14 th April, 2012
Jumatatu, 11 Aprili 2016
Jumatano, 6 Aprili 2016
Marais wawili wafariki wakitokea Dar es Salaam.
6 Aprili 1994 - Rais wa Rwanda Juvénal Habyarimana na Rais wa Burundi Cyprien Ntaryamira wanafariki katika ajali ya ndege muda mfupi kabla ya kutua kwenye Uwanja wa Ndege wa Kimataifa Kigali nchini Rwanda wakitokea Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Siku iliyofuata tarehe 7 Aprili, 1994 mauaji ya kimbari (genocide) yalianza. Zaidi ya Watusi 800,000 na Wahutu wa msimamo wa wastani waliuawa katika mapigano hayo yaliyodumu kwa takriban siku 100.
Timu ya Soka ya Tanzania yaigaragaza Marekani.
6 Aprili 2014 - Timu ya Soka ya Mtoto wa Mtaani kutoka Tanzania yashinda Kombe la Dunia. Timu hiyo inayoundwa na watoto kutoka kituo cha Tanzania Street Children Sports Academy (TSCSA) kilichopo jijini Mwanza, Tanzania iliicharaza Burundi magoli 3-1 katika mchezo wa fainali. Mchezaji Frank William alitia kimiani magoli yote matatu yaliyoipa ushindi timu yao kutoka Tanzania. Awali katika hatua ya nusu fainali, Tanzania iliigaragaza vibaya Marekani kwa magoli 6-1. Fainali hizo zilifanyika jijini Rio de Janeiro nchini Brazil. Kombe la Dunia la Mtoto wa Mtaani (Street Child World Cup) huwakutanisha watoto wa mitaani kote duniani.Kuelekea michuano ya mwaka 2014, mwanasoka wa zamani wa Uingereza David Beckham alinukuliwa akisema: “I look forward to Brazil in 2014 when street children from around the world will play football and represent the millions of children who still live or work on our streets.“
Jumatatu, 4 Aprili 2016
Tanzania's Recognition on Biafra
STATEMENT BY THE MINISTER OF STATE (FOREIGN AFFAIRS) MR. C. Y. MGONJA AT STATE HOUSE ON TANZANIA'S RECOGNITION OF BIAFRA.
On behalf of the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania, I have the following statement to make:-
The declaration of independence by Biafra on the 30th May 1967, came after two military coups d'etat - in January and July 1966 - and two major pogroms against the Ibo people. These pogroms, which also took place in 1966, resulted in the death of about 30,000 men, women and children, and made two million people flee from their homes in other parts of Nigeria to the tribal homeland in Eastern Nigeria. These events had been interspersed and followed by official discussion about a new constitution for Nigeria, and also by continued personal attacks on individual Ibos who had remained outside the Eastern Region.
The basic case for Biafra's secession from the Nigerian Federation is that people from the Eastern Region can no longer feel safe in other parts of the Federation. They are not accepted as citizens of Nigeria by the other citizens of Nigeria. Not only is it impossible for Ibos and people of related tribes to live in an assurance of personal safety if they work outside Biafra; it would also be impossible for any representative of these people to move freely and without fear in any other part of the Federation of Nigeria.
These fears are genuine and deep-seated, nor can anyone say they are groundless. The rights and wrongs of the original coup d'etat, the rights and wrongs of the attitudes taken by different groups in the politics of pre and post coup Nigeria, are all irrelevant to the fear which Ibo people feel. And the peoples of Eastern Nigeria can point to too many bereaved homes, too many maimed people, for anyone to deny the reasonable grounds for their fears. It is these fears which are the root cause both for the secession, and for the fanaticism with which the people of Eastern Nigeria have defend the country they have declared to be independent.
Fears such as now exist among the Ibo peoples do not disappear because someone says they are unjustified, or says that the rest of Nigeria does not want to exterminate the Ibos. Such words have even less effect when the speakers have made no attempt to bring the perpetrators of crimes to justice and when troops under the control of the Federal Nigerian Authorities continue to ill-treat, or to allow others to ill-treat, any Ibos who come within their power, The only way to remove the Easterners' fear is for the Nigerian Authorities to accept its existence, to acknowledge the reason for it, and then to talk on terms of equality with those involved about the way forward.
When people have reason to be afraid you cannot reassure them through the barrel of a gun; your only hope is to talk as one man to another, or as one group to another. It is no use the Federal Authorities demanding that the persecuted should come as a supplicant for mercy, by first renouncing their secession from the political unit. For the secession was declared because the Ibo people felt it to be their only defence against extermination. In their mind, therefore, a demand that they should renounce secession before talks are begun, is equivalent to a demand that they should announce their willingness to be exterminated. If they are wrong in this belief they have to be convinced. And they can only be convinced by talks leading to new constitutional arrangements which take account of their fears.
The people of Biafra have announced their willingness to talk to the Nigerian Authorities without any condition. They cannot renounce their secession before talks, but they do not demand that the Nigerians should recognise it; they ask for talks without conditions. But the federal authorities have refused to talk except on the basis of Biafran surrender. And as the Biafrans believe they will be massacred if they surrender, the Federal Authorities are really refusing to talk at all. For human being do not voluntarily walk towards what they believe to be certain death.
The Federal Government argues that in demanding the renunciation of secession before talks, and indeed in its entire 'Police Action', it is defending the territorial integrity of Nigeria. On this ground it argues also that it has a right to demand support from all other governments, and especially other African governments, for every state, and every state authority, has a duty to defend the sovereignty and integrity of its nation. This is a central part of the function of a national government.
Africa accepts the validity of this point, for African States have more reason than most to fear the effects of disintegration. It is on these grounds that Africa has watched the massacre of tens of thousands of people, has watched the employment of mercenaries by both sides in the current civil war, and has accepted repeated rebuffs of its offers to help by mediation or conciliation.
But for how long should this continue? Africa fought for freedom on the grounds of individual liberty and equality, and on the grounds that every people must have the right to determine for themselves the conditions under which they would be governed. We accept the boundaries we inherited from colonialism, and within them we each worked out for ourselves the constitutional and other arrangements which we felt to be appropriate to the most essential function of a state - that is the safe guarding of life and liberty for its inhabitants.
When the Federation of Nigeria became independent n 1960, the same policy was adopted by all its people. They accepted the federal structure which had been established under the colonial system, and declared their intention to work together. Indeed, the Southern States of the Federation - which includes Biafra - delayed their own demands for independence until the North was ready to join them. At the insistence of the North also, the original suggestion of the National Council for Nigeria and the Cameroons (the political party which had its centre in the South) that Nigeria should be broken up into many small states with a strong centre, was abandoned. The South accepted a structure which virtually allowed the more populous North to dominate the rest.
But the constitution of the Federation of Nigeria was broken in January, 1966, by the first military coup. All hope of its resuscitation was removed by the second coup, and even more by the pogroms of September and October 1966. These events altered the whole basis of the society: after them it was impossible for political and economic relations between the different parts of the old Federation to be restored. They meant that Nigerian unity could only be salvaged for the wreck of inter-tribal violence and of fear by a constitution drawn up in the light of what had happened, and which was generally acceptable to all major elements of the society under the new circumstances. A completely new start had to be made, for the basis of the State had been dissolved in the complete break-down of law and order, and the inter-tribal violence which existed.
The necessity for a new start by agreement was accepted by a conference of military leaders from all parts of the Federation, in Aburi, Ghana, in January 1967. There is a certain difference of opinion about some of the things which were agreed at that conference. But there is no dispute about the fact that everyone joined in a declaration renouncing the use of force as a means of settling the crisis in Nigeria. Nor does anyone dispute that it was greed that a new constitution was to be worked out by agreement, and that in the meantime there would be a repeal of all military decrees issued since January 1966 which reduced the powers of the regions. There was also agreement about rehabilitation payments for those who had been forced to flee from their homes, and about members of the armed forces being stationed in their home regions.
The Aburi conference could have provided the new start which was necessary if the unity of Nigeria was to be maintained. But before the end of the same month, General Gowon was restating his commitment to the creation of new States, and his determination to oppose any form of confederation. And on the last day of January, the Federal Military Authorities were already giving administrative reasons for delay in the implementation the agreements reached at Aburi, It was the middle of March before a constitutional decree was issue which was supposed to regularise the position in accordance with the decisions taken there. But unfortunately this decree also included a new clause - which had not been agreed - and which gave the Federal Authorities a reserve power over the Regions, and this completely nullified the whole operation. Nor had any payment been made by the Federal Government to back up the monetary commitment for rehabilitation which it had accepted in the Ghana meeting.
In short, the necessity for an arrangement which would take account of the fears created during 1966 was accepted at Aburi, and renounced thereafter by the Federal Authorities. Yet they are now claim to be defending the integrity of the country in which they failed to guarantee the most elementary safety of the twelve million peoples of Eastern Nigeria. These people had been massacred in other parts of Nigeria without the Federal Authorities apparently having either the will or the power to protect hem. When they retreated to their tribal homeland they were expected to accept the domination of the same peoples who instigated, or allowed, the persecution in the country which they are being told is theirs - i.e. Nigeria.
Surely when a whole people is rejected by the majority of the state in which they live, they must have the right to life under a different kind of arrangement which does secure their existence.
States are made to serve people; governments are established to protect the citizen of a state against external enemies and internal wrong-doers. It is on these grounds that people surrender their right and power of self-defence to the government of the state in which they live. But when the machinery of the State, and the powers of the Government, are turned against a whole group of the society on the grounds of racial, tribal or religious
prejudice, then the victims have the right to take back the powers they have surrendered, and to defend themselves.
For while people have a duty to defend the integrity of their state, and even to die in its defence this duty stems from the fact that it is theirs, and that it is important to their well-being and to the future of their children. When the sate ceases to stand for the honour, the protection, and the well-being of all its citizens, then it is no longer the instrument of those it has rejected. In such a case the people have the right to create another instrument for their protection - in other words, to create another state.
This right cannot be abrogated by constitution, nor by outsiders. The basis of statehood, and of unity can only be general acceptance by the participants. When more than twelve million people have become convinced that they are rejected, and that there is no longer any basis for unity between them and other groups of people, then that unity has already ceased to exist. You cannot kill thousands of people, and keep killing more, in the name of unity. There is no unity between the dead and those who killed them; and there is no unity in slavery or domination.
Africa needs unity. We need unity over the whole continent, and in the meantime we need unity within the existing states of Africa. It is a tragedy when we experience a setback to our goal of unity. But the basis of our need for unity, and the reason for our desire for it, is the greater well being, and the greater security, of the people of Africa. Unity by conquest is impossible. It is not practicable; and even if military might could force the acceptance of a particular authority, the purpose of unity would have been destroyed. For the purpose of unity, its justification, is the service of all peoples who are united together. The general consent of all the people involved is the only basis on which unity in Africa can be maintained or extended.
The fact that the Federation of Nigeria was created in 1960 with the consent of all the peoples does not alter that fact. That Federation, and that basis of consent, has since been destroyed. Nor is this the first time the world had seen a reduction in political unity. We have seen the creation of the Mali Federation, the creation of a Union between Egypt and Syria, and the establishment of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. And we have also seen the dissolution of all these attempts at unity, and the consequent recognition of the separate nations which were once involved. The world has also seen the creation of India and Pakistan out of what was once the Indian Empire. We have all recognised both these nation states and done our best to help them deal with the millions of people made homeless by the conflict and division. None of these things mean that we have liked these examples of greater disunity. They mean that we recognise that in all these cases the people are unwilling to remain in one political unit.
We recognise Mali, Egypt, Syria, Malawi, Zambia, Pakistan and India, What right have we to refuse, in the name of unity, to recognise the fact of Biafra? For years the people of that State struggled to maintain unity with the other peoples in the Federation of Nigeria; even after the pogroms of 1966 they tried to work out a new form of unity which would guarantee their safety; they have demonstrated by ten months of bitter fighting that they have decided upon a new political organisation and are willing to defend it.
The world has taken it upon itself to utter many ill-informed criticisms of the Jews of Europe for going to their deaths without any concerted struggle. But out of sympathy for the suffering of these people, and in recognition of the world's failure to take action at the appropriate time, the United Nations established the State of Israel in territory which had belonged to the Arabs for thousands of years. It was felt that only by the establishment of a Jewish homeland, and Jewish national state, could Jews be expected to live in the world under conditions of human security. Tanzania has recognised the State of Israel and will continue to do so because of its belief that every people must have some place in the world where they are not liable to be rejected by their fellow citizens.
But the Biafrans have now suffered the same kind of rejection within their state that the Jews of Germany experienced. Fortunately they already had a homeland. They have retreated to it for their own protection, and for the same reason - after all other efforts had failed - they have declared it to be an independent state.
In the light of these circumstances, Tanzania feels obliged to recognise the setback to African Unity which has occurred.
We therefore recognise the State of Biafra as an independent sovereign entity, and as a member of the community of nations. Only by this act of recognition can we remain true to our conviction that the purpose of society and of all political organisation, is the service of man.
Dar-es-Salaam,
13th April, 1968.
On behalf of the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania, I have the following statement to make:-
The declaration of independence by Biafra on the 30th May 1967, came after two military coups d'etat - in January and July 1966 - and two major pogroms against the Ibo people. These pogroms, which also took place in 1966, resulted in the death of about 30,000 men, women and children, and made two million people flee from their homes in other parts of Nigeria to the tribal homeland in Eastern Nigeria. These events had been interspersed and followed by official discussion about a new constitution for Nigeria, and also by continued personal attacks on individual Ibos who had remained outside the Eastern Region.
The basic case for Biafra's secession from the Nigerian Federation is that people from the Eastern Region can no longer feel safe in other parts of the Federation. They are not accepted as citizens of Nigeria by the other citizens of Nigeria. Not only is it impossible for Ibos and people of related tribes to live in an assurance of personal safety if they work outside Biafra; it would also be impossible for any representative of these people to move freely and without fear in any other part of the Federation of Nigeria.
These fears are genuine and deep-seated, nor can anyone say they are groundless. The rights and wrongs of the original coup d'etat, the rights and wrongs of the attitudes taken by different groups in the politics of pre and post coup Nigeria, are all irrelevant to the fear which Ibo people feel. And the peoples of Eastern Nigeria can point to too many bereaved homes, too many maimed people, for anyone to deny the reasonable grounds for their fears. It is these fears which are the root cause both for the secession, and for the fanaticism with which the people of Eastern Nigeria have defend the country they have declared to be independent.
Fears such as now exist among the Ibo peoples do not disappear because someone says they are unjustified, or says that the rest of Nigeria does not want to exterminate the Ibos. Such words have even less effect when the speakers have made no attempt to bring the perpetrators of crimes to justice and when troops under the control of the Federal Nigerian Authorities continue to ill-treat, or to allow others to ill-treat, any Ibos who come within their power, The only way to remove the Easterners' fear is for the Nigerian Authorities to accept its existence, to acknowledge the reason for it, and then to talk on terms of equality with those involved about the way forward.
When people have reason to be afraid you cannot reassure them through the barrel of a gun; your only hope is to talk as one man to another, or as one group to another. It is no use the Federal Authorities demanding that the persecuted should come as a supplicant for mercy, by first renouncing their secession from the political unit. For the secession was declared because the Ibo people felt it to be their only defence against extermination. In their mind, therefore, a demand that they should renounce secession before talks are begun, is equivalent to a demand that they should announce their willingness to be exterminated. If they are wrong in this belief they have to be convinced. And they can only be convinced by talks leading to new constitutional arrangements which take account of their fears.
The people of Biafra have announced their willingness to talk to the Nigerian Authorities without any condition. They cannot renounce their secession before talks, but they do not demand that the Nigerians should recognise it; they ask for talks without conditions. But the federal authorities have refused to talk except on the basis of Biafran surrender. And as the Biafrans believe they will be massacred if they surrender, the Federal Authorities are really refusing to talk at all. For human being do not voluntarily walk towards what they believe to be certain death.
The Federal Government argues that in demanding the renunciation of secession before talks, and indeed in its entire 'Police Action', it is defending the territorial integrity of Nigeria. On this ground it argues also that it has a right to demand support from all other governments, and especially other African governments, for every state, and every state authority, has a duty to defend the sovereignty and integrity of its nation. This is a central part of the function of a national government.
Africa accepts the validity of this point, for African States have more reason than most to fear the effects of disintegration. It is on these grounds that Africa has watched the massacre of tens of thousands of people, has watched the employment of mercenaries by both sides in the current civil war, and has accepted repeated rebuffs of its offers to help by mediation or conciliation.
But for how long should this continue? Africa fought for freedom on the grounds of individual liberty and equality, and on the grounds that every people must have the right to determine for themselves the conditions under which they would be governed. We accept the boundaries we inherited from colonialism, and within them we each worked out for ourselves the constitutional and other arrangements which we felt to be appropriate to the most essential function of a state - that is the safe guarding of life and liberty for its inhabitants.
When the Federation of Nigeria became independent n 1960, the same policy was adopted by all its people. They accepted the federal structure which had been established under the colonial system, and declared their intention to work together. Indeed, the Southern States of the Federation - which includes Biafra - delayed their own demands for independence until the North was ready to join them. At the insistence of the North also, the original suggestion of the National Council for Nigeria and the Cameroons (the political party which had its centre in the South) that Nigeria should be broken up into many small states with a strong centre, was abandoned. The South accepted a structure which virtually allowed the more populous North to dominate the rest.
But the constitution of the Federation of Nigeria was broken in January, 1966, by the first military coup. All hope of its resuscitation was removed by the second coup, and even more by the pogroms of September and October 1966. These events altered the whole basis of the society: after them it was impossible for political and economic relations between the different parts of the old Federation to be restored. They meant that Nigerian unity could only be salvaged for the wreck of inter-tribal violence and of fear by a constitution drawn up in the light of what had happened, and which was generally acceptable to all major elements of the society under the new circumstances. A completely new start had to be made, for the basis of the State had been dissolved in the complete break-down of law and order, and the inter-tribal violence which existed.
The necessity for a new start by agreement was accepted by a conference of military leaders from all parts of the Federation, in Aburi, Ghana, in January 1967. There is a certain difference of opinion about some of the things which were agreed at that conference. But there is no dispute about the fact that everyone joined in a declaration renouncing the use of force as a means of settling the crisis in Nigeria. Nor does anyone dispute that it was greed that a new constitution was to be worked out by agreement, and that in the meantime there would be a repeal of all military decrees issued since January 1966 which reduced the powers of the regions. There was also agreement about rehabilitation payments for those who had been forced to flee from their homes, and about members of the armed forces being stationed in their home regions.
The Aburi conference could have provided the new start which was necessary if the unity of Nigeria was to be maintained. But before the end of the same month, General Gowon was restating his commitment to the creation of new States, and his determination to oppose any form of confederation. And on the last day of January, the Federal Military Authorities were already giving administrative reasons for delay in the implementation the agreements reached at Aburi, It was the middle of March before a constitutional decree was issue which was supposed to regularise the position in accordance with the decisions taken there. But unfortunately this decree also included a new clause - which had not been agreed - and which gave the Federal Authorities a reserve power over the Regions, and this completely nullified the whole operation. Nor had any payment been made by the Federal Government to back up the monetary commitment for rehabilitation which it had accepted in the Ghana meeting.
In short, the necessity for an arrangement which would take account of the fears created during 1966 was accepted at Aburi, and renounced thereafter by the Federal Authorities. Yet they are now claim to be defending the integrity of the country in which they failed to guarantee the most elementary safety of the twelve million peoples of Eastern Nigeria. These people had been massacred in other parts of Nigeria without the Federal Authorities apparently having either the will or the power to protect hem. When they retreated to their tribal homeland they were expected to accept the domination of the same peoples who instigated, or allowed, the persecution in the country which they are being told is theirs - i.e. Nigeria.
Surely when a whole people is rejected by the majority of the state in which they live, they must have the right to life under a different kind of arrangement which does secure their existence.
States are made to serve people; governments are established to protect the citizen of a state against external enemies and internal wrong-doers. It is on these grounds that people surrender their right and power of self-defence to the government of the state in which they live. But when the machinery of the State, and the powers of the Government, are turned against a whole group of the society on the grounds of racial, tribal or religious
prejudice, then the victims have the right to take back the powers they have surrendered, and to defend themselves.
For while people have a duty to defend the integrity of their state, and even to die in its defence this duty stems from the fact that it is theirs, and that it is important to their well-being and to the future of their children. When the sate ceases to stand for the honour, the protection, and the well-being of all its citizens, then it is no longer the instrument of those it has rejected. In such a case the people have the right to create another instrument for their protection - in other words, to create another state.
This right cannot be abrogated by constitution, nor by outsiders. The basis of statehood, and of unity can only be general acceptance by the participants. When more than twelve million people have become convinced that they are rejected, and that there is no longer any basis for unity between them and other groups of people, then that unity has already ceased to exist. You cannot kill thousands of people, and keep killing more, in the name of unity. There is no unity between the dead and those who killed them; and there is no unity in slavery or domination.
Africa needs unity. We need unity over the whole continent, and in the meantime we need unity within the existing states of Africa. It is a tragedy when we experience a setback to our goal of unity. But the basis of our need for unity, and the reason for our desire for it, is the greater well being, and the greater security, of the people of Africa. Unity by conquest is impossible. It is not practicable; and even if military might could force the acceptance of a particular authority, the purpose of unity would have been destroyed. For the purpose of unity, its justification, is the service of all peoples who are united together. The general consent of all the people involved is the only basis on which unity in Africa can be maintained or extended.
The fact that the Federation of Nigeria was created in 1960 with the consent of all the peoples does not alter that fact. That Federation, and that basis of consent, has since been destroyed. Nor is this the first time the world had seen a reduction in political unity. We have seen the creation of the Mali Federation, the creation of a Union between Egypt and Syria, and the establishment of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. And we have also seen the dissolution of all these attempts at unity, and the consequent recognition of the separate nations which were once involved. The world has also seen the creation of India and Pakistan out of what was once the Indian Empire. We have all recognised both these nation states and done our best to help them deal with the millions of people made homeless by the conflict and division. None of these things mean that we have liked these examples of greater disunity. They mean that we recognise that in all these cases the people are unwilling to remain in one political unit.
We recognise Mali, Egypt, Syria, Malawi, Zambia, Pakistan and India, What right have we to refuse, in the name of unity, to recognise the fact of Biafra? For years the people of that State struggled to maintain unity with the other peoples in the Federation of Nigeria; even after the pogroms of 1966 they tried to work out a new form of unity which would guarantee their safety; they have demonstrated by ten months of bitter fighting that they have decided upon a new political organisation and are willing to defend it.
The world has taken it upon itself to utter many ill-informed criticisms of the Jews of Europe for going to their deaths without any concerted struggle. But out of sympathy for the suffering of these people, and in recognition of the world's failure to take action at the appropriate time, the United Nations established the State of Israel in territory which had belonged to the Arabs for thousands of years. It was felt that only by the establishment of a Jewish homeland, and Jewish national state, could Jews be expected to live in the world under conditions of human security. Tanzania has recognised the State of Israel and will continue to do so because of its belief that every people must have some place in the world where they are not liable to be rejected by their fellow citizens.
But the Biafrans have now suffered the same kind of rejection within their state that the Jews of Germany experienced. Fortunately they already had a homeland. They have retreated to it for their own protection, and for the same reason - after all other efforts had failed - they have declared it to be an independent state.
In the light of these circumstances, Tanzania feels obliged to recognise the setback to African Unity which has occurred.
We therefore recognise the State of Biafra as an independent sovereign entity, and as a member of the community of nations. Only by this act of recognition can we remain true to our conviction that the purpose of society and of all political organisation, is the service of man.
Dar-es-Salaam,
13th April, 1968.
Alhamisi, 31 Machi 2016
Tanzania History: FOUNDING PRESIDENT JULIUS NYERERE: “AFRICANS UNITE – WITHOUT UNITY, THERE IS NO FUTURE FOR AFRICA!”
For centuries, we had been oppressed and humiliated as Africans. We were hunted and enslaved as Africans, and we were colonised as Africans. The humiliation of Africans became the glorification of others. So we felt our Africanness. We knew that we were one people, and that we had one destiny regardless of the artificial boundaries which colonialists had invented.
Since we were humiliated as Africans, we had to be liberated as Africans. So 40 years ago, we recognised [Ghana’s] independence as the first triumph in Africa’s struggle for freedom and dignity. It was the first success of our demand to be accorded the international respect which is accorded free peoples. Thirty-seven years later – in 1994 – we celebrated our final triumph when apartheid was crushed and Nelson Mandela was installed as the president of South Africa. Africa’s long struggle for freedom was over.
I was a student at Edinburgh University when Kwame Nkrumah was released from prison to be the Leader of Government Business in his first elected government [in 1951]. The deportment of the Gold Coast students changed. The way they carried themselves, the way they talked to us and others, the way they looked at the world at large, changed overnight. They even looked different. They were not arrogant, they were not overbearing, they were not aloof, but they were proud, already they felt and they exuded that quiet pride of self-confidence of freedom without which humanity is incomplete.
And so six years later, when the Gold Coast became independent, Kwame Nkrumah invited us – the leaders of the various liberation movements in Africa – to come and celebrate with Ghana. I was among the many invitees. Then Nkrumah made the famous declaration that Ghana’s independence was meaningless unless the whole of Africa was liberated from colonial rule.
Kwame Nkrumah went into action almost immediately. In the following year, he called the liberation movements to Ghana to discuss the common strategy for the liberation of the continent from colonialism. In preparation for the African People’s Conference, those of us in East and Central Africa met in Mwanza in Tanganyika to discuss our possible contribution to the forthcoming conference. That conference lit the liberation torch throughout colonial Africa.
Attempts at unity
Another five years later, in May 1963, 32 independent African states met in Addis Ababa, founded the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), and established the Liberation Committee of the new organisation, charging it with the duty of coordinating the liberation struggle in those parts of Africa still under colonial rule. The following year, 1964, the OAU met in Cairo [Egypt]. The Cairo Summit is remembered mainly for the declaration of the heads of state of independent Africa to respect the borders inherited from colonialism. The principle of non-interference in internal affairs of member states of the OAU had been enshrined in the Charter itself. Respect for the borders inherited from colonialism comes from the Cairo Declaration of 1964.
In 1965, the OAU met in Accra [Ghana]. That summit is not well remembered as the founding summit in 1963 or the Cairo Summit of 1964. The fact that Nkrumah did not last long as head of state of Ghana after that summit may have contributed to the comparative obscurity of that important summit. But I want to suggest that the reason why we do not talk much about [the 1965] summit is probably psychological: it was a failure. That failure still haunts us today. The founding fathers of the OAU had set themselves two major objectives: the total liberation of our continent from colonialism and settler minorities, and the unity of Africa. The first objective was expressed through immediate establishment of the Liberation Committee by the founding summit [of 1963]. The second objective was expressed in the name of the organisation – the Organisation of African Unity.
Critics could say that the [OAU] Charter itself, with its great emphasis on the sovereign independence of each member state, combined with the Cairo Declaration on the sanctity of the inherited borders, make it look like the “Organisation of African Disunity”. But that would be carrying criticism too far and ignoring the objective reasons which led to the principles of non-interference in the Cairo Declaration.
What the founding fathers – certainly a hardcore of them – had in mind was a genuine desire to move Africa towards greater unity. We loathed balkanisation of the continent into small unviable states, most of which had borders which did not make ethnic or geographical sense.
The Cairo Declaration was promoted by a profound realisation of the absurdity of those borders. It was quite clear that some adventurers would try to change those borders by force of arms. Indeed, it was already happening. Ethiopia and Somalia were at war over inherited borders.
Nkrumah was opposed to balkanisation as much as he was opposed to colonialism in Africa. To him and to a number of us, the two – balkanisation and colonialism – were twins. Genuine liberation of Africa had to attack both twins. A struggle against colonialism must go hand in hand with a struggle against the balkanisation of Africa.
Kwame Nkrumah was the great crusader of African unity. He wanted the Accra Summit of 1965 to establish a union government for the whole of independent Africa. But we failed. The one minor reason is that Kwame, like all great believers, underestimated the degree of suspicion and animosity which his crusading passion had created among a substantial number of his fellow heads of state. The major reason was linked to the first: already too many of us had a vested interest in keeping Africa divided.
Prior to the independence of Tanganyika, I had been advocating that East African countries should federate and then achieve independence as a single political unit. I had said publicly that I was willing to delay Tanganyika’s independence in order to enable all the three mainland countries to achieve their independence together as a single federated state. I made the suggestion because of my fear – proved correct by later events – that it would be very difficult to unite our countries if we let them achieve independence separately.
Once you multiply national anthems, national flags and national passports, seats of the United Nations, and individuals entitled to a 21-gun salute, not to speak of a host of ministers, prime ministers and envoys, you would have a whole army of powerful people with vested interests in keeping Africa balkanised. That was what Nkrumah encountered in 1965.
After the failure to establish the union government at the Accra Summit, I heard one head of state express with relief that he was happy to be returning home to his country still head of state. To this day, I cannot tell whether he was serious or joking. But he may well have been serious, because Kwame Nkrumah was very serious and the fear of a number of us to lose our precious status was quite palpable. But I never believed that the 1965 Accra Summit would have established a union government for Africa. When I say that we failed, that is not what I mean; for that clearly was an unrealistic objective for a single summit.
What I mean is that we did not even discuss a mechanism for pursuing the objective of a politically united Africa. We had a Liberation Committee already. We should have at least had a Unity Committee or undertaken to establish one. We did not. And after Kwame Nkrumah was removed from the African scene, nobody took up the challenge again.
Confession and plea
So my remaining remarks have a confession and a plea. The confession is that we of the first generation leaders of independent Africa have not pursued the objective of African unity with the vigour, commitment and sincerity that it deserved. Yet that does not mean that unity is now irrelevant. Does the experience of the last three or four decades of Africa’s independence dispel the need for African unity?
With our success in the liberation struggle, Africa today has 53 independent states, 21 more than those which met in Addis Ababa in May 1963. [Editor: With South Sudan’s independence in 2011, Africa now has 54 independent states]. If numbers were horses, Africa today would be riding high! Africa would be the strongest continent in the world, for it occupies more seats in the UN General Assembly than any other continent. Yet the reality is that ours is the poorest and weakest continent in the world. And our weakness is pathetic. Unity will not end our weakness, but until we unite, we cannot even begin to end that weakness. So this is my plea to the new generation of African leaders and African peoples: work for unity with the firm conviction that without unity, there is no future for Africa. That is, of course, assuming that we still want to have a place under the sun.
I reject the glorification of the nation-state [that] we inherited from colonialism, and the artificial nations we are trying to forge from that inheritance. We are all Africans trying very hard to be Ghanaians or Tanzanians. Fortunately for Africa, we have not been completely successful. The outside world hardly recognises our Ghanaian-ness or Tanzanian-ness. What the outside world recognises about us is our African-ness.
Hitler was a German, Mussolini was an Italian, Franco was a Spaniard, Salazar was Portuguese, Stalin was a Russian or a Georgian. Nobody expected Churchill to be ashamed of Hitler. He was probably ashamed of Chamberlain. Nobody expected Charles de Gaulle to be ashamed of Hitler, he was probably ashamed of the complicity of Vichy. It is the Germans and Italians and Spaniards and Portuguese who feel uneasy about those dictators in their respective countries.
Not so in Africa. Idi Amin was in Uganda but of Africa. Jean Bokassa was in Central Africa but of Africa. Some of the dictators are still alive in their respective countries, but they are all of Africa. They are all Africans, and all perceived by the outside world as Africans. When I travel outside Africa, the description of me as a former president of Tanzania is a fleeting affair. It does not stick. Apart from the ignorant who sometimes asked me whether Tanzania was in Johannesburg, even to those who knew better, what stuck in the minds of my hosts was the fact of my African-ness.
So I had to answer questions about the atrocities of the Amins and Bokassas of Africa. Mrs [Indira] Ghandi [the former Indian prime minister] did not have to answer questions about the atrocities of the Marcosses of Asia. Nor does Fidel Castro have to answer questions about the atrocities of the Somozas of Latin America. But when I travel or meet foreigners, I have to answer questions about Somalia, Liberia, Rwanda, Burundi and Zaire, as in the past I used to answer questions about Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia or South Africa.
And the way I was perceived is the way most of my fellow heads of state were perceived. And that is the way you [the people of Africa] are all being perceived. So accepting the fact that we are Africans, gives you a much more worthwhile challenge than the current desperate attempts to fossilise Africa into the wounds inflicted upon it by the vultures of imperialism. Do not be proud of your shame. Reject the return to the tribe, there is richness of culture out there which we must do everything we can to preserve and share.
But it is utter madness to think that if these artificial, unviable states which we are trying to create are broken up into tribal components and we turn those into nation-states, we might save ourselves. That kind of political and social atavism spells catastrophe for Africa. It would be the end of any kind of genuine development for Africa. It would fossilise Africa into a worse state than the one in which we are.
The future of Africa, the modernisation of Africa that has a place in the 21st century is linked with its decolonisation and detribalisation. Tribal atavism would be giving up any hope for Africa. And of all the sins that Africa can commit, the sin of despair would be the most unforgivable. Reject the nonsense of dividing the African peoples into Anglophones, Francophones, and Lusophones. This attempt to divide our peoples according to the language of their former colonial masters must be rejected with the firmness and utter contempt that it richly deserves.
The natural owners of those wonderful languages are busy building a united Europe. But Europe is strong even without unity. Europe has less need of unity and the strength that comes from unity in Africa. A new generation of self-respecting Africans should spit in the face of anybody who suggests that our continent should remain divided and fossilised in the shame of colonialism, in order to satisfy the national pride of our former colonial masters.
Africa must unite! That was the title of one of Kwame Nkrumah’s books. That call is more urgent today than ever before. Together, we, the peoples of Africa will be incomparably stronger internationally than we are now with our multiplicity of unviable states. The needs of our separate countries can be, and are being, ignored by the rich and powerful. The result is that Africa is marginalised when international decisions affecting our vital interests are made.
Unity will not make us rich, but it can make it difficult for Africa and the African peoples to be disregarded and humiliated. And it will, therefore, increase the effectiveness of the decisions we make and try to implement for our development. My generation led Africa to political freedom. The current generation of leaders and peoples of Africa must pick up the flickering torch of African freedom, refuel it with their enthusiasm and determination, and carry it forward.
Source: www.africaresource.com
Since we were humiliated as Africans, we had to be liberated as Africans. So 40 years ago, we recognised [Ghana’s] independence as the first triumph in Africa’s struggle for freedom and dignity. It was the first success of our demand to be accorded the international respect which is accorded free peoples. Thirty-seven years later – in 1994 – we celebrated our final triumph when apartheid was crushed and Nelson Mandela was installed as the president of South Africa. Africa’s long struggle for freedom was over.
I was a student at Edinburgh University when Kwame Nkrumah was released from prison to be the Leader of Government Business in his first elected government [in 1951]. The deportment of the Gold Coast students changed. The way they carried themselves, the way they talked to us and others, the way they looked at the world at large, changed overnight. They even looked different. They were not arrogant, they were not overbearing, they were not aloof, but they were proud, already they felt and they exuded that quiet pride of self-confidence of freedom without which humanity is incomplete.
And so six years later, when the Gold Coast became independent, Kwame Nkrumah invited us – the leaders of the various liberation movements in Africa – to come and celebrate with Ghana. I was among the many invitees. Then Nkrumah made the famous declaration that Ghana’s independence was meaningless unless the whole of Africa was liberated from colonial rule.
Kwame Nkrumah went into action almost immediately. In the following year, he called the liberation movements to Ghana to discuss the common strategy for the liberation of the continent from colonialism. In preparation for the African People’s Conference, those of us in East and Central Africa met in Mwanza in Tanganyika to discuss our possible contribution to the forthcoming conference. That conference lit the liberation torch throughout colonial Africa.
Attempts at unity
Another five years later, in May 1963, 32 independent African states met in Addis Ababa, founded the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), and established the Liberation Committee of the new organisation, charging it with the duty of coordinating the liberation struggle in those parts of Africa still under colonial rule. The following year, 1964, the OAU met in Cairo [Egypt]. The Cairo Summit is remembered mainly for the declaration of the heads of state of independent Africa to respect the borders inherited from colonialism. The principle of non-interference in internal affairs of member states of the OAU had been enshrined in the Charter itself. Respect for the borders inherited from colonialism comes from the Cairo Declaration of 1964.
In 1965, the OAU met in Accra [Ghana]. That summit is not well remembered as the founding summit in 1963 or the Cairo Summit of 1964. The fact that Nkrumah did not last long as head of state of Ghana after that summit may have contributed to the comparative obscurity of that important summit. But I want to suggest that the reason why we do not talk much about [the 1965] summit is probably psychological: it was a failure. That failure still haunts us today. The founding fathers of the OAU had set themselves two major objectives: the total liberation of our continent from colonialism and settler minorities, and the unity of Africa. The first objective was expressed through immediate establishment of the Liberation Committee by the founding summit [of 1963]. The second objective was expressed in the name of the organisation – the Organisation of African Unity.
Critics could say that the [OAU] Charter itself, with its great emphasis on the sovereign independence of each member state, combined with the Cairo Declaration on the sanctity of the inherited borders, make it look like the “Organisation of African Disunity”. But that would be carrying criticism too far and ignoring the objective reasons which led to the principles of non-interference in the Cairo Declaration.
What the founding fathers – certainly a hardcore of them – had in mind was a genuine desire to move Africa towards greater unity. We loathed balkanisation of the continent into small unviable states, most of which had borders which did not make ethnic or geographical sense.
The Cairo Declaration was promoted by a profound realisation of the absurdity of those borders. It was quite clear that some adventurers would try to change those borders by force of arms. Indeed, it was already happening. Ethiopia and Somalia were at war over inherited borders.
Nkrumah was opposed to balkanisation as much as he was opposed to colonialism in Africa. To him and to a number of us, the two – balkanisation and colonialism – were twins. Genuine liberation of Africa had to attack both twins. A struggle against colonialism must go hand in hand with a struggle against the balkanisation of Africa.
Kwame Nkrumah was the great crusader of African unity. He wanted the Accra Summit of 1965 to establish a union government for the whole of independent Africa. But we failed. The one minor reason is that Kwame, like all great believers, underestimated the degree of suspicion and animosity which his crusading passion had created among a substantial number of his fellow heads of state. The major reason was linked to the first: already too many of us had a vested interest in keeping Africa divided.
Prior to the independence of Tanganyika, I had been advocating that East African countries should federate and then achieve independence as a single political unit. I had said publicly that I was willing to delay Tanganyika’s independence in order to enable all the three mainland countries to achieve their independence together as a single federated state. I made the suggestion because of my fear – proved correct by later events – that it would be very difficult to unite our countries if we let them achieve independence separately.
Once you multiply national anthems, national flags and national passports, seats of the United Nations, and individuals entitled to a 21-gun salute, not to speak of a host of ministers, prime ministers and envoys, you would have a whole army of powerful people with vested interests in keeping Africa balkanised. That was what Nkrumah encountered in 1965.
After the failure to establish the union government at the Accra Summit, I heard one head of state express with relief that he was happy to be returning home to his country still head of state. To this day, I cannot tell whether he was serious or joking. But he may well have been serious, because Kwame Nkrumah was very serious and the fear of a number of us to lose our precious status was quite palpable. But I never believed that the 1965 Accra Summit would have established a union government for Africa. When I say that we failed, that is not what I mean; for that clearly was an unrealistic objective for a single summit.
What I mean is that we did not even discuss a mechanism for pursuing the objective of a politically united Africa. We had a Liberation Committee already. We should have at least had a Unity Committee or undertaken to establish one. We did not. And after Kwame Nkrumah was removed from the African scene, nobody took up the challenge again.
Confession and plea
So my remaining remarks have a confession and a plea. The confession is that we of the first generation leaders of independent Africa have not pursued the objective of African unity with the vigour, commitment and sincerity that it deserved. Yet that does not mean that unity is now irrelevant. Does the experience of the last three or four decades of Africa’s independence dispel the need for African unity?
With our success in the liberation struggle, Africa today has 53 independent states, 21 more than those which met in Addis Ababa in May 1963. [Editor: With South Sudan’s independence in 2011, Africa now has 54 independent states]. If numbers were horses, Africa today would be riding high! Africa would be the strongest continent in the world, for it occupies more seats in the UN General Assembly than any other continent. Yet the reality is that ours is the poorest and weakest continent in the world. And our weakness is pathetic. Unity will not end our weakness, but until we unite, we cannot even begin to end that weakness. So this is my plea to the new generation of African leaders and African peoples: work for unity with the firm conviction that without unity, there is no future for Africa. That is, of course, assuming that we still want to have a place under the sun.
I reject the glorification of the nation-state [that] we inherited from colonialism, and the artificial nations we are trying to forge from that inheritance. We are all Africans trying very hard to be Ghanaians or Tanzanians. Fortunately for Africa, we have not been completely successful. The outside world hardly recognises our Ghanaian-ness or Tanzanian-ness. What the outside world recognises about us is our African-ness.
Hitler was a German, Mussolini was an Italian, Franco was a Spaniard, Salazar was Portuguese, Stalin was a Russian or a Georgian. Nobody expected Churchill to be ashamed of Hitler. He was probably ashamed of Chamberlain. Nobody expected Charles de Gaulle to be ashamed of Hitler, he was probably ashamed of the complicity of Vichy. It is the Germans and Italians and Spaniards and Portuguese who feel uneasy about those dictators in their respective countries.
Not so in Africa. Idi Amin was in Uganda but of Africa. Jean Bokassa was in Central Africa but of Africa. Some of the dictators are still alive in their respective countries, but they are all of Africa. They are all Africans, and all perceived by the outside world as Africans. When I travel outside Africa, the description of me as a former president of Tanzania is a fleeting affair. It does not stick. Apart from the ignorant who sometimes asked me whether Tanzania was in Johannesburg, even to those who knew better, what stuck in the minds of my hosts was the fact of my African-ness.
So I had to answer questions about the atrocities of the Amins and Bokassas of Africa. Mrs [Indira] Ghandi [the former Indian prime minister] did not have to answer questions about the atrocities of the Marcosses of Asia. Nor does Fidel Castro have to answer questions about the atrocities of the Somozas of Latin America. But when I travel or meet foreigners, I have to answer questions about Somalia, Liberia, Rwanda, Burundi and Zaire, as in the past I used to answer questions about Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia or South Africa.
And the way I was perceived is the way most of my fellow heads of state were perceived. And that is the way you [the people of Africa] are all being perceived. So accepting the fact that we are Africans, gives you a much more worthwhile challenge than the current desperate attempts to fossilise Africa into the wounds inflicted upon it by the vultures of imperialism. Do not be proud of your shame. Reject the return to the tribe, there is richness of culture out there which we must do everything we can to preserve and share.
But it is utter madness to think that if these artificial, unviable states which we are trying to create are broken up into tribal components and we turn those into nation-states, we might save ourselves. That kind of political and social atavism spells catastrophe for Africa. It would be the end of any kind of genuine development for Africa. It would fossilise Africa into a worse state than the one in which we are.
The future of Africa, the modernisation of Africa that has a place in the 21st century is linked with its decolonisation and detribalisation. Tribal atavism would be giving up any hope for Africa. And of all the sins that Africa can commit, the sin of despair would be the most unforgivable. Reject the nonsense of dividing the African peoples into Anglophones, Francophones, and Lusophones. This attempt to divide our peoples according to the language of their former colonial masters must be rejected with the firmness and utter contempt that it richly deserves.
The natural owners of those wonderful languages are busy building a united Europe. But Europe is strong even without unity. Europe has less need of unity and the strength that comes from unity in Africa. A new generation of self-respecting Africans should spit in the face of anybody who suggests that our continent should remain divided and fossilised in the shame of colonialism, in order to satisfy the national pride of our former colonial masters.
Africa must unite! That was the title of one of Kwame Nkrumah’s books. That call is more urgent today than ever before. Together, we, the peoples of Africa will be incomparably stronger internationally than we are now with our multiplicity of unviable states. The needs of our separate countries can be, and are being, ignored by the rich and powerful. The result is that Africa is marginalised when international decisions affecting our vital interests are made.
Unity will not make us rich, but it can make it difficult for Africa and the African peoples to be disregarded and humiliated. And it will, therefore, increase the effectiveness of the decisions we make and try to implement for our development. My generation led Africa to political freedom. The current generation of leaders and peoples of Africa must pick up the flickering torch of African freedom, refuel it with their enthusiasm and determination, and carry it forward.
Source: www.africaresource.com
Jumamosi, 26 Machi 2016
Karudi Baba Mmoja, Toka Safari ya Mbali
1. Karudi baba mmoja,
toka safari ya mbali,
Kavimba yote mapaja,
na kutetemeka mwili,
Watoto wake wakaja,
ili kumtaka hali,
Wakataka na kauli,
iwafae maishani.
2. Akatamka mgonjwa,
ninaumwa kwelikweli,
Hata kama nikichanjwa,
haitoki homa kali,
Roho naona yachinjwa,
kifo kimenikabili,
Semeni niseme nini,
kiwafae maishani.
3. Yakawatoka kinywani,
maneno yenye akili,
Baba yetu wa thamani,
sisi tunataka mali,
Urithi tunatamani,
mali yetu ya halali,
Sema iko wapi mali,
itufae maishani
4. Baba aliye kufani,
akajibu lile swali,
Ninakufa maskini,
baba yenu sina hali,
Neno moja lishikeni,
kama mnataka mali,
Kama mnataka mali,
mtayapata shambani.
5. Wakazidi kumchimba,
baba mwenye homa kali,
Baba yetu watufumba,
hatujui fumbo hili,
akili zetu nyembamba,
hazijajua methali,
Kama tunataka mali,
tutapataje shambani?
6. Kwanza shirikianeni,
nawapa hiyo kauli,
Fanyeni kazi shambani,
mwisho mtapata mali,
haya sasa buriani,
kifo kimeniwasili,
Kama mnataka mali,
mtayapata shambani.
7. Alipokwisha kutaja,
fumbo hili la akili,
Mauti nayo yakaja,
roho ikaacha mwili,
Na watoto kwa umoja,
wakakumbuka kauli,
Kama mnataka mali,
mtayapata shambani.
8. Fumbo wakatafakari,
watoto wale wawili,
wakakata na shauri,
baada ya siku mbili,
wote wakawa tayari,
pori nene kukabili,
Kama mnataka mali,
mtayapata shambani.
9. Wakazipanda shambani,
mbegu nyingi mbalimbali,
tangu zile za mibuni,
hadi zitupazo wali,
na mvua ikaja chini,
wakaona na dalili,
Kama mnataka mali,
mtayapata shambani.
10. Shamba wakapalilia,
bila kupata ajali,
Mavuno yakawajia,
wakafaidi ugali,
Wote wakashangilia,
wakakumbuka kauli,
Kama mnataka mali,
mtayapata shambani.
11. Wakanunua na ng'ombe,
majike kwa mafahali,
wakapata na vikombe,
mashine na baiskeli,
Hawakuitaka pombe,
sababu pombe si mali,
Kama mnataka mali,
mtayapata shambani.
12. Wakaongeza mazao,
na nyumba za matofali,
Pale penye shamba lao,
wakaihubiri mali,
Wakakiweka kibao,
wakaandika kauli...
KAMA MNATAKA MALI
MTAIPATA SHAMBANI."
toka safari ya mbali,
Kavimba yote mapaja,
na kutetemeka mwili,
Watoto wake wakaja,
ili kumtaka hali,
Wakataka na kauli,
iwafae maishani.
2. Akatamka mgonjwa,
ninaumwa kwelikweli,
Hata kama nikichanjwa,
haitoki homa kali,
Roho naona yachinjwa,
kifo kimenikabili,
Semeni niseme nini,
kiwafae maishani.
3. Yakawatoka kinywani,
maneno yenye akili,
Baba yetu wa thamani,
sisi tunataka mali,
Urithi tunatamani,
mali yetu ya halali,
Sema iko wapi mali,
itufae maishani
4. Baba aliye kufani,
akajibu lile swali,
Ninakufa maskini,
baba yenu sina hali,
Neno moja lishikeni,
kama mnataka mali,
Kama mnataka mali,
mtayapata shambani.
5. Wakazidi kumchimba,
baba mwenye homa kali,
Baba yetu watufumba,
hatujui fumbo hili,
akili zetu nyembamba,
hazijajua methali,
Kama tunataka mali,
tutapataje shambani?
6. Kwanza shirikianeni,
nawapa hiyo kauli,
Fanyeni kazi shambani,
mwisho mtapata mali,
haya sasa buriani,
kifo kimeniwasili,
Kama mnataka mali,
mtayapata shambani.
7. Alipokwisha kutaja,
fumbo hili la akili,
Mauti nayo yakaja,
roho ikaacha mwili,
Na watoto kwa umoja,
wakakumbuka kauli,
Kama mnataka mali,
mtayapata shambani.
8. Fumbo wakatafakari,
watoto wale wawili,
wakakata na shauri,
baada ya siku mbili,
wote wakawa tayari,
pori nene kukabili,
Kama mnataka mali,
mtayapata shambani.
9. Wakazipanda shambani,
mbegu nyingi mbalimbali,
tangu zile za mibuni,
hadi zitupazo wali,
na mvua ikaja chini,
wakaona na dalili,
Kama mnataka mali,
mtayapata shambani.
10. Shamba wakapalilia,
bila kupata ajali,
Mavuno yakawajia,
wakafaidi ugali,
Wote wakashangilia,
wakakumbuka kauli,
Kama mnataka mali,
mtayapata shambani.
11. Wakanunua na ng'ombe,
majike kwa mafahali,
wakapata na vikombe,
mashine na baiskeli,
Hawakuitaka pombe,
sababu pombe si mali,
Kama mnataka mali,
mtayapata shambani.
12. Wakaongeza mazao,
na nyumba za matofali,
Pale penye shamba lao,
wakaihubiri mali,
Wakakiweka kibao,
wakaandika kauli...
KAMA MNATAKA MALI
MTAIPATA SHAMBANI."
Ijumaa, 25 Machi 2016
Uhuru wa Namibia Wanikumbusha Ujinga Wangu Zamani
Hivi karibuni nilisoma (mtandaoni) gazeti moja la tarehe 21 Machi 1990 likiwa na kichwa cha habari kinachosema:
"Namibia yapata Uhuru Baada ya Utawala wa Miaka 75 Kutoka Pretoria."
Habari hii ilinikumbusha ujinga wangu zamani. Zamani nilishangaa sana kwanini nchi ya Afrika Kusini inaitawala Namibia ambayo nayo ni nchi ya Afrika. Nilishangaa sana ni kwanini Waafrika wanawaonea kiasi kile Waafrika wenzao.
Baadaye nilikuja kujua kuwa Afrika Kusini ya kipindi kile ilikuwa chini ya utawala wa Makaburu. Makaburu waliitawala Namibia kwa miaka 75 hadi Namibia ilipojinyakulia uhuru wake tarehe 21 Machi 1990.
Hakika bila kufahamu historia, baadhi ya kumbukumbu za kihistoria zitabaki kutushangaza kila siku.
"Namibia yapata Uhuru Baada ya Utawala wa Miaka 75 Kutoka Pretoria."
Habari hii ilinikumbusha ujinga wangu zamani. Zamani nilishangaa sana kwanini nchi ya Afrika Kusini inaitawala Namibia ambayo nayo ni nchi ya Afrika. Nilishangaa sana ni kwanini Waafrika wanawaonea kiasi kile Waafrika wenzao.
Baadaye nilikuja kujua kuwa Afrika Kusini ya kipindi kile ilikuwa chini ya utawala wa Makaburu. Makaburu waliitawala Namibia kwa miaka 75 hadi Namibia ilipojinyakulia uhuru wake tarehe 21 Machi 1990.
Hakika bila kufahamu historia, baadhi ya kumbukumbu za kihistoria zitabaki kutushangaza kila siku.
Jisajili kwenye:
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