The nine (or more) lives of Julius Nyerere

Julius Nyerere will defy easy characterisations because, though he donned simplicity in his garb and demeanour, he was far from being a simple person in his thought and his action.

Nor was his life one long, linear existence of your regular politician: Evolving from the poor schoolmaster of lore, through the first tentative bites at the political cherry, whetting his appetite faster than his ethics; being swept to power on the crest of popular inebriation from the heady wine of Independence; sinking deeper into corruption and authoritarianism, and eventually dying a revered man.

Nyerere’s legacy is likely to be extremely complex because he was so many things to so many people, and led so many lives that he made the proverbial cat green with envy.

First, let’s take the linear: Schoolteacher turned political organiser and agitator, campaigning for Tanganyika’s independence; absolute ruler of Tanganyika/Tanzania for 24 years in an imperial presidency par excellence; retirement at an age when his peers were consolidating power and wealth. Simple enough, wouldn’t you say?

Now, onto that skeleton frame, weave the threads that complete the fabric of the man: Consider the “teacher” tag, fit for a man who started his working career as a schoolteacher, but which now has to refer to those lectures he gave to the nation and the world when he was president and, especially, after his retirement — lessons that Tanzanians and others seem to digest better today as they see what he warned them against happening.

Consider his persona as an “authoritarian” leader, which can hardly be disputed, but also think of the amount of energy he invested in cajoling his successors into accepting the inevitability of multiparty politics.

In his “retirement,” he did more than any other person to chaperone Tanzania into plural politics, often in the teeth of opposition from bigwigs within his party.

Take a look at his uncompromising stance on many things, including his singular commitment to Ujamaa.

Yet it was the same man who stated, circa 1990, “I don’t hate capitalism. In fact, I believe capitalism can be beneficial for our nation. But give me captains of industry, not these agents, bent on making us other people’s vassals!” (to quote loosely).

On several occasions during his presidency, Nyerere sent his armed forces abroad, either to expel and topple an invader (Uganda under Idi Amin), to stabilise a friend (Seychelles under threat from Pretoria), or to shore up another friend (Mozambique, threatened by Renamo).

Yet he, the unapologetic martial mind, was the man seen as the most fit to initiate the Burundi peace talks that eventually ended the longstanding civil war in that country.

Then consider that he, long after his retirement, was at the centre of plans to topple Mobutu Sese Seko and install Laurent Kabila in Kinshasa in 1996, working conspiratorially with leaders in Kampala and Kigali, when we know that Kabila was not necessarily his cup of tea, the two having fallen out in the late 1970s over the activities of Kabila’s goons in Tanzania.

But then, having made sure that Kabila was in Kinshasa and Mobutu headed for the netherworld, Nyerere found time to travel to New York to call for a meeting of the UN Security Council to tell the West to cut Kabila some slack over the holding of early elections, before heading to Kinshasa to tell Kabila and his government to stop behaving like Mobutuists.

If you think the fabric is complete, it may be because one needs pause, but a little colour could add to the sometimes-confusing persona of the man under scrutiny.

For instance, was he involved in the attempted Moi ouster in 1982?