What’s in a name? ‘Mama Samia’ and other ‘misnomers’

 It’s not what people call you but what you respond to that matters. These are the words of the late Nigerian writer, Dr Chika Onyeani, the author of a book which all Africans must read, Capitalist Nigger.

The words of Dr Onyeani come to mind as we reflect on the recent ascension of the first female presi- dent in Tanzania, H.E. Samia Suluhu Hassan, and the question of how she should be addressed, officially and unofficially.

The matter of contention has been the name “Mama Samia” as she is widely known. The issue was brought to the fore by some shangazi (Swahili for aunts) – a group of firebrand postmodernist feminists and formidable opponents of the late President John Magufuli.

 Commanding an army of social media followers, the shangazi are merciless: if you become a target of one of them, you only risk becoming a laughingstock of all the online population for the rest of your life; but if you become the target of all of them, may God have mercy on your soul!

But, following the anticlimactic end of their “war” with Magufuli, the shangazi found themselves with so much pent-up energy that they had to find a new battlefront fast to release it.

Moreover, knowing how remarkably fickle their followers are, they had to give them something, otherwise lose their influence to any new internet sensation that would tickle their followers’ fancies. And that was not hard to find – Tanzanians were calling the new president “Mama Samia”.

How dare they? A battle-hardened shangazi by the name of Vicensia Shule, PhD, wrote, in Swahili, that, “...there is a fast-growing custom of calling the (new) Commander-in-Chief MAMA.

 Her predecessors were not called father(s). She should be given her due respect.” When I got wind of this discussion I felt that the shangazi were making a mountain out of a molehill.

 I argued, as many did and still do, that calling the President by the name “Mama Samia” was a sign of respect and affection.

 We don’t do that to every- body, do we? After all, what is the alternative – President Hassan? That might take some getting used to. However, it is through a recent news programme on ITV that I started to appreciate the problem – one interviewee after another addressed the president not as “Mama Samia” but “mama” or mama yetu (our mother).

That’s a step too far, even for conservatives such as myself. Imagine mature adults calling Mama Samia “mama” or mama yetu in public!

 President or not, something is wrong with that. According to Dr Shule, that behaviour stems from people’s presumption that the President should behave as a sympathetic mother, which will ultimately lead to her being judged by – much to the good Shangazi’s irritation – determining whether she has been a good mother to the nation or not!

That perspective is not uncom- mon. For example, isn’t that the very essence of Catholics’ relation- ship with the Virgin Mary? Similarly, isn’t that why many increasingly call their religious leaders baba (father)? Many people instinctively seek some patronage, spiritual or not, that would ascertain their success in life and beyond.

But here is the catch: Jesus said, “And call no [man] your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.” So, was Jesus trying to negate the fact of existence of biological or even spiritual fathers?

Nay. The essence of his injunction was, as scholars would inform us, to direct their focus to God as a source or essence of their spiritual nourish- ment and sustenance.

 This probably gives us a slightly better insight into what is happening in the mama or mama yetu craze, and that is, people think that the President ought to be their provider and their sustainer.

This, unfortunately, goes against the very essence of the relationship between citizens and their elected officials – their social contract.

A social contract, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica, is “an agreement, between the ruled and their rulers, defining the rights and duties of each”.

In this relationship, the ruled give up some of their rights so that they may get some benefits in return from the work that the rulers do. For example, in protection of people’s lives and property, people must be protected effectively but without being abused by the protectors.

 This means that the protectors – the army and the police – must also follow the rules that protect the people. This, it must be said, is not a right that the government can choose to give or not: any government that doesn’t do that violates the social contract, and ultimately loses its legitimacy.

It is, therefore, quite alarming to see citizens prostrating themselves in front of their elected officials for benefits which they ought to demand as a basis of the implied social contract.

This shows how disempowered the people are, and it is an issue that the new president ought to address seriously in her nation-building agenda.

Having such a disempowered citizenry risks getting a bully as a president who will practically enslave the whole nation.

That possibility must be arrested now, or the nation will pay a heavy price in the future. While Tanzanians are fond of calling their elders and respected men and women mzee and mama, when that is personified, as in mama yangu or mzee wangu, the connotation usually changes – that’s now kowtowing or prostrating oneself.

For public officials, that makes them masters and the citizenry servants. As for “Mama Samia”, I think that name, and only that, is enough. The President will do well to reject other sycophantic additions to her good name.

“What’s in a name?” Shakespeare wrote in Romeo and Juliet, “that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.” Not in Africa.

Charles Makakala is a Technology and Management Consultant based in Dar es Salaam