The greatest of them all

A friend from Tanzania once related to me a story about former president Julius Nyerere which has really stuck hard in my mind. When Nyerere met with the Queen of England and she extended her gloved hand, he paused for a minute then extended his walking staff, thus forcing the queen to remove her gloves and give him a real African greeting – flesh to flesh.

He later said that she felt it was a white superiority complex that made the queen feel the black hand was dirty. “If she can’t greet me with bare arms I also will not and if the gloves are a symbol of royalty then my staff is our symbol of authority”.

JULIUS NYERERE was among a special group of African statesmen – including Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, Zambia's Kenneth Kaunda and Kenya's Jomo Kenyatta – who led their countries out of British rule into self-determination and provided the backbone for independence movements which changed the face of the continent. They believed in seeking ''the political kingdom'' which would ultimately lead to independence for all of Africa and solidarity between people whose countries had been under colonial rule.

This was the man who came from teaching to politics and it seems the name Mwalimu (Swahili for teacher stuck with him). A real teacher he was for he taught Tanzanians to love themselves and never let anyone make them feel inferior.

Alagwa, Akiek, Akie, Arusha, Assa, Barabaig, Balouch, ,Bembe, Bena,Bende, Bondei,Bungu, Burunge, Chaga, Datooga, Dhaiso, Digo, Doe, Fipa, Gogo, Goa, Gorowa,Gujirati, Gweno, Ha, Hutu, Hadza, Hangaza, Haya, Hehe, Holoholo, Ikizu, Ikoma, Iraqw, Isanzu, Jiji,Jita, Kabwa, Kagura, Kaguru, Kahe, Kami, Kamba, Kara (also called Regi), Kerewe, Kimbu, Kinga, Kisankasa,Kisi, Konongo, Kuria, Kutu, Kw'adza, Kwavi, Kwaya, Kwere, Kwifa, Lambya, Luguru,Luo, Maasai, Machinga, Magoma, Mbulu, Makonde, Makua, Makwe, Malila, Mambwe, Manyema, Manda, Mahara, Mediak, Matengo, Matumbi, Maviha, Mbugwe,Mbunga, Mbugu, Meru, Mosiro, Mpoto, Msur, Mwanga, Mwera, Ndali, Ndamba, Ndendeule, Ndengereko, Ndonde,Nyanja, Ngas, Ngasa, Ngindo, Ngoni,Ngulu,Ngazija, Ngurimi,Ngwele, Nilamba, Nindi, Nyakyusa,Nyasa,Nyambo,Nyamwanga, Nyamwezi, Nyanyembe, Nyaturu, Nyiha, Nyiramba, Omotik, Okiek people, Pangwa and Pare are but some of the more than 260 tribes in Tanzania. There is no richer legacy in the world than the man who taught all the 260 tribes of Tanzania that they are one people. They may speak with different voices but the language has to be one.

The greatest source of conflict has been ethnicity. When ethnicity is mixed with religion, it becomes a lethal ticking time bomb. Mwalimu Nyerere may have failed in some areas but what he achieved in making the great Tanzania into one is more than an harvest of three billion barrels of oil or 1000 acres of gold with a depth of five kilometers.

Mwalimu achieved this through a visionary mind. He saw where he wanted Tanzanians to be and how they were to live then he led the way.

He never created a mafia of greedy friends, relatives and tribesmen around him. He never made his tribe special above the other 259 tribes. He led a life of sacrifice and abhorred greed. More than 40 years later, the results are there for all to see.

Tanzania is a real nation, not nations made of tribes competing each other to death. Even Southern Sudan, the world’s youngest nation would have been different if they learnt from Mwalimu Nyerere.

A man who chose a simple life over extravagance common with the leaders of his generation, Julius Nyerere was born at Butiama, on the eastern shore of Lake Victoria, into the small Zanaki tribe. He was 12 before he first went to school, but was immediately singled out for his lively intelligence by the Roman Catholic priests. After Makerere University, in Kampala, he taught for three years, admitting, later in life, that he was a schoolmaster by choice and a politician by accident.

He was the first Tanzanian to study at a British university, when he went to Edinburgh on a government scholarship. Nyerere left teaching in 1954, formed the Tanganyika African National Union, and campaigned for the nationalist movement. He was elected to the then Tanganyika legislature in 1958, and became leader of the opposition. He became chief minister in 1960. But it was not until 1961, when he was sworn in as prime minister of the newly-independent Tanganyika that he would be in a position to start putting the ideas into practice.

In the same year, he joined other African leaders in denouncing the racist policies of South Africa and declaring that, if the apartheid regime remained in the Commonwealth, Tanzania would never join. South Africa subsequently withdrew its membership.

This marked the beginning of an effective commitment to African liberation movements: later, he played host to the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan- African Congress (PAC) of South Africa, to Samora Machel's Frelimo - battling against the Portuguese in Mozambique - and to Robert Mugabe's fledgling Zanla forces, which opposed colonial rule in the then Southern Rhodesia. He broke off relations with Britain, Tanzania's principal aid donor, after its failure to use force when Ian Smith declared UDI in 1965 - earning himself the description by Smith of the "evil genius" behind the ensuing guerrilla war.

He later stood against the brutal regime of Idi Amin in Uganda in the late 1970s. Despite almost universal condemnation of the dictator's excesses, it was left to Tanzania to intervene militarily and dislodge Amin. A brief invasion of Tanzania by Amin in late 1978 brought a swift response from Nyerere: Tanzanian troops, joined by Ugandan exiles, were mobilised to drive back the invaders. But they didn't stop at the border. Kampala fell in 1979, with its residents lining the streets chanting the name of the Tanzanian leader. It was the first time in African post-colonial history that one country had invaded another and captured its capital. It was a fundamental breach of the principles of the Organisation of African Unity. But Nyerere weathered the storm.

He preached water and drank water because he believed in the water.When he stepped down, Nyerere declared that "although socialism has failed in Tanzania, I will remain a socialist because I believe socialism is the best policy for poor countries like Tanzania". His successors decided otherwise, embracing capitalism and the free market, but with arguable benefits to the country. Even here he was the first African leader to ever step down and hand over power so peaceably.

Julius Kambarage Nyerere, politician, born 1922; died October 14 1999. I regard him the greatest African leader in the last 100 years.