It is ‘Lucy Lameck-strasse’ in Berlin!
I was going through some news published by one international media house when I came across reports that our very own historical pillar of Bongoland womanhood, the late Lucy Lameck (1934-1993) has been honoured by Councillors in the German capital Berlin.
Initially I thought it was simply another fake news. But then the same news was carried by other media outlets including by this esteemed paper’s edition of last Saturday. Indeed it was an unprecedented fact.
Apparently the Berlin Councillors in their wisdom, a few days ago voted to replace a street name honouring a colonial governor in East Africa accused of having ordered massacres.
And who did they pick to replace that honour with? They settled on our very own Lucy Lameck. So as I presently pen this piece there is a street in that old and former imperial city of Berlin named Lucy Lameckstrasse.
Now Lucy Lameck, who passed on in 1993 at the tender age of 59, was Tanzania’s first female Cabinet minister and a leading member of the country’s independence struggle.
Lucy Lameckstrasse replaces Wissmannstrasse, a street named after one Herman Wilheim Leopold Ludwig Wissman or simply Herman von Wissman, a former German ‘explorer’ who in the 1880s twice crisscrossed the African continent and added knowledge of the Upper Congo River. His ‘explorations’ led to the establishment of German colonies in East Africa.
Herman von Wissman was born in Frankfurt an der Order in 1853, eighty one years before Lucy was born. He enlisted in the German army in 1870 and four years later was commissioned Lieutenant.
His colourful story includes a four month stint in prison after he wounded an opponent in a duel. And then in 1879 his life changed after he met by chance one Dr. Paul Pogge, an ‘explorer’ who whisked him to Africa.
His extraordinary sojourns in the African continent included, in 1880, leaving Luanda, in Angola and traversing Africa to Saadani, in the then Tanganyika, arriving in 1882.
He briefly worked for another tyrant, King Laopold-II of Belgium who was in the process of creating his personal African empire, the Congo Free State.
But he soon caught the attention of the company, German East Africa who enlisted him to assist in quelling the native resistance to German imperial domination, which included forced taxation.
In due course he, with assistance from mercenaries, pillaged and burned villages in the hinterland of Tanganyika; laid waste to agricultural fields; and executed great numbers of natives. He tolerated no opposition.
Even his German counterparts accused him of being arrogant, tactless, being undiplomatic and lacking organisational and administrative skills.
Notwithstanding in 1888 he was appointed Imperial Commander for East Africa to suppress rebellion.
He resigned in 1891 but in 1895 came back as Imperial Governor. He returned to German in 1896 dying in a hunting expedition in 1905.
I can understand why the Berlin Councillors voted to replace the name of the street honouring him with that of our late Lucy Lameck.
Indeed, I met this charming lady one morning in the early 80s when I was assigned to pick her, for a meeting, from her home along United Nations Road in Dar es Salaam.
She was by then no longer a cabinet minister; but I was highly impressed by her commitment to the development of our Bongoland, and in particular that of women.
Ironically it is the Councillors in Berlin who are honouring her and not those from our Dar es Salaam city.
I will not be surprised that most of them do not even know her name - let alone her contribution to this great nation.
