Julius Nyerere’s arrival in Scotland in the spring of 1949 marked the zenith of his scholarly ambitions. He had, since an early age demonstrated an extraordinary hunger for knowledge, often isolating himself in the company of books even in primary school.
Now, in Edinburgh, he was at the very gates of the halls of universal learning, and he embraced the experience with enthusiasm.

According to Dr Thomas Molony, whose book, Nyerere: The Early Years was launched in Dar es Salaam recently, he arrived in Scotland’s capital full of hope, eager to learn and explore. Here was a college like no other he had seen, and here was a metropolis like no other he had been to, his experience till then being limited to Musoma, Tabora, Dar es Salaam and Kampala.

The university environment put him in contact with learners from other parts of East Africa, Africa and the world at large, which introduced him to fresh thinking among other “colonials,” especially those whose countries were beginning to agitate for independence from the United Kingdom.

The world was in flux, and a lot of political discussion was taking place in Scotland and the UK generally, and a young and bright Tanganyikan was bound to be influenced by the climate of the times.

The memories of World War II were still fresh and its destruction still palpable. India had attained a painful and divisive independence two years earlier; the Chinese Communist Party was taking over the most populous nation in the world, having defeated Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang; Indochina was caught up in the first spasms of the Cold War that would define the half century to come.

Neighbouring Kenya, victim of an avaricious white minority, was about to combust, and Kwame Nkrumah was in prison in the Gold Coast.

Molony devotes three chapters of his book to Nyerere’s time at Edinburgh and the influences of the lecturers he interacted with, the books they made him read, the families who entertained him, as well as the general environment in Scotland and the UK.

Needless to say, there was racial bias aplenty, and, according to Molony, African students found themselves on the receiving end of this type of bigotry when it came to securing accommodation.

He quotes an official who recorded the fact that 90 per cent of prospective landladies in London declared they could receive all types of students except “coloureds,” a few of them going further to state they would lodge “all except Negro types/Negroes/blacks.” There was even an implied “colour tax” meant to cover extraordinary services such as cooking “exotic” foods demanded by Africans.

Nyerere was lucky to be lodged on Palmerston Road, which was proper University accommodation, where he mingled easily with other African students, and there is no recorded evidence that in these surroundings he could have been a victim of discrimination.

He also had gentle contact with Scottish families, especially members of the White Fathers, who were his employers back in Tanganyika, where he had been a teacher at St Mary’s Secondary School, Tabora.

His director at St Mary’s, Fr Richard Walsh, had introduced him to a number of the Catholic family in Scotland, including the Wilsons, and these received him graciously, making his Scottish sojourn as pleasant as it could be. According to Molony, Walter Wilson, a friend, and his mother Jean Wilson, received Nyerere on many evenings and weekends and treated him as a son of the house. Later, the Wilsons would remark that he seemed to win all the word games, including cryptic crossword puzzles, though English was only his third language.

On the academic side of things, the young teacher had much soul searching to do while in Scotland. He wanted to study medicine, but dropped the idea in favour of something that would enable him to be of more use to his people, whether that meant his Zanaki tribe or the wider Tanganyika stage.

He had already been in contact with the budding nationalist movement in the Territory while at Makerere College, where he had met with an older student, Hamza Mwapachu — the two became and remained close — who had introduced him to the Tanganyika African Association (TAA) activists, including the Aziz and Sykes families, the leading political families in Dar es Salaam.

He chose to study politics, economics and philosophy, no doubt recognising these as means for his own retooling for the struggle back in his country. The choice having been made, Nyerere delved into his studies with his, now, known determination.

Molony discusses the lecturers and professors in detail in chapter six of the book. Prominent among them is Alexander Gray, who taught Political economy. Under him, Nyerere read Frank Taussing’s Principles of Economics as well as Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations.

He was also introduced to John Stuart Mill’s ideas of political economy. He had already studied Mill’s thoughts on women’s subjugation while at Makerere, where Nyerere had written Uhuru wa Wanawake, advocacy for women’s emancipation. Under George Saunders he studied the American Constitution.

Though sometimes put off by some of the writings of Western philosophers when it came to Africans, whom they regarded as “savages,” still Nyerere found something from reading them that reinforced his thought on the situation back home and how it could be caused to improve.

The moral philosophy he studied under Prof John Macmurry introduced him to the philosophers of antiquity, including Plato and Aristotle, the Stoics and the Scriptures. Molony continually draws from Nyerere’s studies at Edinburgh to explain, in part, the ideological path he chose later in his political career in Tanganyika/Tanzania, Africa and the world at large.

Works by Immanuel Kant, T.H. Green, JJ Rousseau, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Karl Marx, Engels and Lenin, the Welsh co-operative thinker, Robert Owen, among others, came under his eye. He of course did not agree with all he read — he had little time for the Marxists, for example — but his world view was broadened by them.

The ethos of community is very much in evidence, as are co-operation, inclusiveness and hard work. On inclusion, Molony shows how Nyerere questioned a would-be democratic system that kept half the population outside decision-making processes in the name of a competitive politics in a winner-take-all setting.

The author examines the future leader’s ingestion of what he got in Edinburgh and how it synthesised and blended with his traditional background and the anthropological roots in Uzanaki to form the politician. In several places in the book, Molony tries to draw parallels between the subject matter of this period’s learning with his man’s latter writings.

He goes on record around this time, through his writing, as a committed anti-racialist, a character trait he was to maintain throughout his life. He also takes a clear stand against the formation of the Central African Federation, a fight he pursued into the years of Independence campaigns of the countries of East, Central and Southern Africa.

Those who interacted with him at the time remember him as “not the usual type, a very decent fellow;” “of a very independent turn of mind”; “a delightful person; a student with a clearly evident awareness of opportunity to learn; a quiet, likeable young man of integrity.”

In Scotland Nyerere met with Hastings Banda a medical doctor practising there, who went on to lead Nyasaland (later Malawi) to Independence, and back in Africa and as leader of Tanganyika’s independence campaign he linked up with others who worked for the demise of the federation and laid the foundations for the Frontline States, which he chaired, and which was an important prop for the liberation of Southern Africa.

Nyerere maintained close links with the University of Edinburgh throughout his life. In 1962 he went back to receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. In 1963, already president of Tanganyika, he stood as a candidate for rector of the university. His candidature was spearheaded by prominent academics and political activists around Edinburgh.

The field of candidates included Yehudi Menuhin, the celeb violinist; Sean Connery, of James Bond fame; Peter Ustinov (Monsieur Poirot); and another actor, Robertson Justice. In the end Justice was elected.

A decade later his name was proposed once more, this time by Gordon Brown, future UK premier, who was then student leader and who wanted to depose the then rector, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh; this time round, president Nyerere declined.

It is safe to state that of all the influences that played on the young Nyerere, Edinburgh enjoyed pride of place in terms of his intellectual grooming and the formation of his political vision. He had no doubt undergone significant maturation right from his boyhood in Butiama, his primary education in Musoma, the secondary schooling at Tabora, and his college days at Makerere.

He had already distinguished himself as an avid devourer of books and a keen debater. He had already made his positions known on a number of political and social issues.

All these culminated in the determination formed in Edinburgh by a young man who knew he was going back home to teach for a while and then embrace a political career for the rest of his life. Nyerere is quoted in the book as saying:

“It wasn’t a sudden inspiration, I didn’t suddenly see the light. It was not like the call of the Christian, ‘I’ve been called.’ At Edinburgh, I was certain I was coming back (to Tanganyika) to get myself involved in full-time politics. I had made up my mind that my life would be political.”