The union and McCarthyism

On Tuesday November 9, 1999 and three weeks after the passing of Mwalimu Nyerere, there was this article in a newspaper on the status of the Union.

The inspiration of writing that article was a heated debate which was took place in the National Assembly.

It was a solemn, sombre and dignified function that took place to honour our departed Father of the Nation, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere.

It was also an occasion befitting the honour and respect which Mwalimu himself has bequeathed to the Tanzanian people.

As the National Assembly proceedings took their course in the House and in the presence of the Union President and other dignitaries, a friend telephoned to draw my attention to the statement, which the Honourable Fatma Maghimbi, the leader of the opposition, was delivering.

Unfortunately, I was caught up in a meeting at the time and neither did I have access to radio.

When I read the newspapers the next morning, I discerned what my friend had tried to draw my attention to. Knowing him, it is the Hon. Maghimbi’s admonition of what she described as “Presidential Sultanism”.

It is not my wish to open a debate about the use of those words or their meaning.

Clearly though, I find: “Presidential Sultanism” to be in poor taste.

Sultanism is hereditary while Presidents - when in democratic use, even in those democracies where the language of dynasty, (e.g in India’s Nehru’s family) is often used - are elected in free and presumably fair elections.

Extension of electoral terms beyond what is constitutionally provided for presidential elections has nothing to do with Sultanism. It is a flawed description.

The extension may be politically immoral, but then who determines the morality of politics or, for that matter, of the sanctity of constitutions. Isn’t this a question about the nature and maturity of democracy?

Why must it be assumed that a people would submit, almost in divine fashion, to a change of a constitution if they abhor such a change?

Why did Zanzibar go through a revolution in 1964 if not to show its anger in violent terms against an unacceptable constitutional framework that guided the electoral law?

It is also important to underscore that if democracy infers the will of the people, directly expressed through a referendum or via elected representatives, then such a will ought to be respected.

This friend of mine that drew my attention to Hon. Maghimbi’s statement feels strongly that there is nothing like ‘will of the people’.

That people invariably get manipulated in all political systems - the US and Tanzania alike. My question to him all the time is: “What then is democracy and how can it be assured?” Isn’t one becoming anarchical in disputing the will of the people? Let us debate this issue.

Coincidentally, however, a day later, that is Thursday, another friend, a prominent figure holding no political or government office, happened to have visited the business firm where I earn my daily bread.

Through an intercom greeting (we never physically met), he jolted me with the statement: “I gather that you are one of the leading proponents of the three Tanzanian government system.” Of course, ordinarily, I would not have been taken aback by the statement which evidently came as a bolt out of the blue.

As I was one of the Members of the Justice Nyalali Commission who expressly proposed the restructuring of the Tanzania Union by establishing a three-government system or federation; I believe that the Chief Justice Francis Nyalali as well as the now Speaker of the National Assembly, Pius Msekwa were among those in the Commission who also supported the proposal for a federation.

I am not aware if their positions have changed. Be that as it may, my natural reaction would have been: “What is the big deal?” Indeed, the present Government, in its wisdom, has already seen the need to seek people’s views, pursuant to a Constitutional White Paper, on the Union Question.

In particular, about the efficacy and appropriateness of the present two government system. But also, about the issue relating to the results of the Kisanga Commission...

No; what actually jolted me was the statement: “Why now?” My mind, for evident reasons, raced back to President Mkapa’s eloquent state funeral speech delivered at the National Stadium and, more importantly, in the context of the subject in hand, to the President’s passionate speech delivered at the burial of our beloved Mwalimu.

President Mkapa vowed to defend the Union at any cost and with the power vested in him. Then came last Tuesday’s solemn function in the National Assembly to honour the late Father of the Nation.

The Union Question featured, and it featured within the framework of a call to reality; a call to move with the times and to ensuring the Union’s sustainability through a different dispensation from what currently obtains.

This is the context which has prevailed over me to write this piece. I believe strongly that this latter friend of mine was communicating a message to me.

A message, in my view, that attempts to distort what is increasingly becoming a topical question, namely: “What precisely is Mwalimu Nyerere’s legacy?” It also attempts to impute a certain orthodoxy about Mwalimu’s thinking and principles which I view to be a disservice to Mwalimu and certainly dangerous to the kind of democratic values which Tanzanians seek to develop and cement.

I fear that there may be some of us who are also trying to over-read President Mkapa’s burial eulogy for Mwalimu Nyerere.

Indeed, I fear further that there are some of us who are now trying to misread what democratic values entail.

That there are also Tanzanians who feel strongly that the survival, and indeed strengthening of the Tanzanian Union is predicated on.

Transforming the Union into a three government depends not only an anti-Union mindset but also anti the present government.

In saying this, I know for certain that the late Mwalimu opposed the three-government system. In fact, I knew about it well before he even spoke publicly against it.

For I was privileged to be one of the few members of the Nyalali Commission to have travelled to Butiama early in 1992, to discuss the Union Question, with Mwalimu. And herein lies the rub.

Even after an almost two hours of emotional exchange which included the proposal for a three-government system, with me more or less playing the devil’s advocate, as it were, in driving the majority Commission opinion, Mwalimu (peace be upon his soul) took me by the hand and said: “Juma come with me, let me show you my library.”

All my colleagues had to stay behind, including the Chief Justice and now Speaker Msekwa.

What is the lesson? The lesson is that Mwalimu never believed in political McCarthyism. In other words, somebody would not have suddenly become a “Communist” simply because he or she propagated an idea that was contrary to what another person or the government felt or believed in.

It would be recalled that the Communist threat in the US, in the early 1950s, led to what came to be described as “McCarthyism” (after the ex General and Senator, Joseph McCarthy).

It referred to a search for heresy in society in which the end objective of eliminating alleged un-American attitudes and behaviour justified any means, including the disregard for due process of law - a basic guarantee of civil liberties.

My point here is that if there is one important legacy that Mwalimu bequeathed to us, and which we must treasure, is an anti-McCarthyist attitude.

Yes, Mwalimu Nyerere was opposed to the three-government system.

However, he did not initiate a ‘witchhunt’ against those who opposed his view. In fact, Nyerere did not castigate the Nyalali Commission for its majority opinion on a new Union dispensation.

On the other hand, he openly called for the resignation of Hon. Malecela and the late Kolimba apparently because he believed they had abdicated collective responsibility in their roles in government and CCM (as the sole ruling party then) for the positions they had taken over the Parliamentary Group of 55 petition for the formation of a Government of Tanganyika.

Nyerere drew a distinction between a transparent stance of the Nyalali Commission and what appeared, to him, to be an underhand stance by the two CCM leaders. History will, ultimately, judge whether Malecela and Kolimba deserved Mwalimu’s harsh rebuke.