There are three things that I like to check on when mid-October rolls around: How far has the canonisation of Julius Nyerere as a Catholic saint come along? How will we use Brand Nyerere to assess, praise or condemn the current leadership? And finally, what is the tone of the celebration telling us about what’s likely to show up when we celebrate Tanganyika’s Independence Day in December?
Will the mood dictate more resplendent displays of military power and Chinese choreography... Or is it going to be a relaxed opportunity to watch invited heads of state and the diplomatic corps pretend their suits aren’t killing them in our summer-heated stadium? Or both?

This year marks the 15th since Julius Kambarage Nyerere passed away. Tanzania celebrated his life on October 14 which some pundits pointed out was a little gruesome considering people should be celebrated on their birthdays. And so they should, but I think that Tanzanians are still recovering from the loss of Mwalimu even a decade and a half after the fact.

As uncertainty continues to challenge our nationalist project, it is nice to have an individual who is no danger of surprising us, if you know what I mean.

On the issue of sainthood I was surprised to learn this year that Uganda appears to be most enthusiastic with their efforts to get the Vatican to give Nyerere this ultimate accolade. Excellent! Nothing like a little help from a, uh, friendly neighbour with no ulterior motive?

Tanzanians, well, we can’t go into the issue too deeply. So long as we maintain that the country is evenly divided between two major world faiths with a complementary smattering of “other” to explain minorities and followers of traditional beliefs, it makes it awkward for his sainthood to be a national issue.

Besides which, sainthood is a difficult proposition in Bongo. In a piece in the Guardian making the case for historians to reclaim their place in public policy titled “Why Politicians Need Historians,” David Armitage offers this thought in conclusion:
“History should not be just affirmation, like Michael Gove’s myth of a single ‘national past.’ Nor should it be entertainment: Merely something ‘people enjoy.’ It is a critical science for questioning short-term views, complicating simple stories about causes and consequences, and discovering roads not taken. History can upset the established consensus, expand narrow horizons and, in Simon Schama’s words, ‘keep the powerful awake at night.’ In that mission lies the public future of the past.”

Talking about keeping the powerful awake and upsetting the established consensus, this year Brand Nyerere was used pretty progressively. Best thing about mid-October: The season of speeches and collective nouns is officially open to all.

It allows for the citizenry to use him to cane the current leadership, who need it for their health. Turns out that Nyerere, The Idea? Everyone has a story about that. Including people who are entirely too young to have any recollection of the man himself, which is wonderful in its own way.

Useful, really, because Nyerere doesn’t have a Foundation — actually, he does but let’s not talk about that — that can focus invocations of his name.

It is a glorious mess that affords us the ability to remind our otherwise recalcitrant leaders that there is indeed, yes, a standard to which they can be held up to by the people. And that this standard will be dictated not always by a strict adherence to what is repeated as fact but by something more irritating, like ideals.

As for December 9, I only raise it to highlight a discrepancy about these histories we tell ourselves during the season.
Tanganyika, which no longer exists, or perhaps does, might be celebrating freedom from colonial rule at the end of the year. But only if it were an entity, which it isn’t, because it makes sense to keep Zanzibar semi-autonomous and somewhat reluctantly united with a place without a name.

A contradiction that interestingly enough does have Nyerere at the centre of it because of what he said. See how that works? Part of the beauty of a flexible and imagined nation.

All signs are pointing towards another strong speech by an incumbent who seems to have found, in this final stretch, all the certainty and command that we were hoping for sometime in the early and middle years. But this season, when we address otherwise difficult ethical issues and future thinking under the guise of Tanzaphilia, let’s admit to the impatience.

If we’re talking about Mwalimu again with such fervour, it is really because it’s just time, really, to get a glimpse at what 2015 holds for us.

Elsie Eyakuze is an independent consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report, http://mikochenireport.blogspot.com.

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