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Our tribes are who we really are — that’s what the Scots seem to be suggesting

Saturday September 20 2014

The referendum on Scottish independence has had a ripple effect, raising the question of self-determination in other societies around the world that yearn for self-determination.

And although globalisation is bringing us closer on various levels, there is something romantic about separatist movements: A touch of David and Goliath in pitting the small and downtrodden against the powerful interests of a larger entity, and no small amount of tribal identity.

Tribal is a word not used when talking about minority issues and identity politics in developed countries, but from here in East Africa, there is something rather comfortingly familiar about the Scottish independence quest.

In fact, just raising the topic naturally leads to a discussion about the beautiful isles of Zanzibar that may or may not be voluntary parts of the Union of Tanzania, or the lost islands of Somalia perhaps, or fully and righteously independent entities, depending on who you ask.

Tanzania came very close to managing the process of making a new constitution. It would have been quite a coup to pull it off in the time given — just a couple of years and perhaps one of the world’s fastest referendums. Still, the signs were there.

Many social commentators who weren’t supporting or being supported by any of the competing agenda expressed serious reservations about the likelihood that we would be able to make a satisfactory document.

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Early on, it was bogged down by fundamental concerns about how many governments Tanzania should have if it was going to continue being a Union.

Where there is smoke there is fire, and this contentious Union of ours has been controversial for a few years. Over the many decades of our coming together, rather than maturing into a complacent satisfaction with each other — which was probably the intention — the Mainland and Zanzibar have developed a chronic condition of perpetual debate about what is fair or not in our agreement.

And the Establishment and general political culture in Tanzania has framed the issue in such a way that it is taboo to even talk about the Zanzibari independence movement if you happen to be a Mainlander.

Tanzania has always prided itself — and with good reason — for flying the flag of the pan-African dream, and practising its tenets through our grim determination to make this Union work while waiting for the East African Federation.

The interesting contradiction is that we are also reluctant to join politically with any of our neighbours. I think there is something there worth examining, but for some reason there isn’t a name for it.

Between the stubbornness of separatist sentiments and the push towards some kind of world order is a glorious set of complications. Are the nation-state model and the subsequent movements towards pan-continental unions the only ways to organise ourselves?

Arguably, such a debate would find a natural home in East Africa and by extension the rest of the continent. Trouble is, for years now, the dominant narrative is a rather clean account of how and why we should cleave together under a common identity, if one ignores the pesky civil wars.

One of the most compelling factors of the Independence movement in the sixties was its ability to rally disparate peoples under the banner of freedom. And isn’t it interesting that this very same notion of freedom can be used to tear apart existing territories to give rise to new ones based on identities that more often than not pre-date our countries?

Generation Independence may have rewritten our histories to suit its nation-building agenda, but somehow tribalism refuses to die.

As a character in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s account of the Biafran war in Half of a Yellow Sun pointed out, maybe that is because our tribes are who we really are. The Scots seem to be suggesting so.

This is precisely why I find pan-continental unions increasingly appealing. It seems a great solution to the perpetual problem of borders and all the identity crises that these can generate at the political level.

When we don’t have to define our identities in opposition to a perceived threat, maybe tribalism can evolve into a positive identity concept that allows people to have community as they require it.

Well, that’s one way I would try to convince Zanzibar to stick around, if it so pleases them. Hopefully, it would be more convincing than a drive for multiple, expensive governments in the Union.

Elsie Eyakuze is an independent consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report, http://mikochenireport.blogspot.com. E-mail: [email protected]

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