By ELSIE EYAKUZE

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On the occasion of Nelson Mandela 100th birthday, Barack Obama was invited to give the annual Nelson Mandela Memorial Lecture in Johannesburg. And Barack being Barack, he killed it.

I have only been labouring for several consecutive articles trying to pursue some way of thinking about and discussing Neo Utu and an African Renaissance and he comes along to give a speech that covers everything. I mean everything. It is an instant classic piece of our global intellectual heritage.

To co-opt him for a minute, Barack somehow managed to channel the warm and personable humour and wisdom of Nyerere. He should definitely visit more often if he catches some Julius spirit when in town. So let me jump off the wisdom of his incarnation of Mwalimu and bring home three of the hardest hitting points with regards to my own polity.

“History shows the lasting hold of greed and the desire to dominate others in the minds of men. Especially men.”

Let us speak to the erosion of gender parity and women’s rights Tanzania has undergone lately.

Our public rhetoric is poisoned by untoward pronouncements about women reproducing willy nilly through hatefulness towards pregnant students culminating in a shocking “joke” about beating people’s aunts for their nephews’ political insubordination. Yoh!

While I am glad to report the result in Bongoland has been the elevation of the title of Auntie to an honorific for women who are seen to be public defenders and activists, Barack has made the point. We need to talk about men. Feminism will roll on fine, it always does. But we need to have that long overdue talk about men.

As for the rise of authoritarianism and the rather distressing emergence of the no-term-limit trend: “...no single individual possesses a monopoly on wisdom...if you can do whatever you want and everyone’s too afraid to tell you when you’re making a mistake. No one is immune from the dangers of that.”

I mean, coming from a former president of the United States, we should probably give this piece of common wisdom its due respect. What I really hear him saying to the dissenters and free thinkers and critics and media in Tanzania is: Don’t give up. It is our patriotic duty to diverge, discuss and thus elevate the overall quality of our democracy and our economy, especially when they are under threat.

Which segues nicely into my favourite point, one that Obama made and that I won’t quote because then you dear reader will give me a failing grade for copy-pasting. He said we should rely on youth.

It isn’t a thought unique to him, great leaders of every generation have recognised this as the best way to drive societies forward. But it is especially pertinent in a world that, as he pointed out, is being disrupted by technology at a pace that is unprecedented.

Relying on the section of the population most able to handle this reality isn’t idealism, it is pragmatic. And to be honest, I want to live in the Tanzania that my fellow youth envision, discuss and create in the spaces that we are given to do so.

From the arts to entrepreneurship and most especially technology and innovation, younger citizens are giving a taste of what things could be like if we just unleashed all that potential.

The coming reality will not be kind to those who hold youth back. To hear Barack validate this sentiment was empowering. Thanks, man.

Elsie Eyakuze is a consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report. Email: [email protected]