Advertisement

Tanzania is effeminate, we won’t be muzzled

Monday June 18 2018
blogger

A woman using a smartphone and laptop. By design, the new Tanzanian online regulations do not protect the public from predation so much as protect the government from our civil liberties. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

By ELSIE EYAKUZE

This week’s offering is humbly dedicated to Anthony Bourdain. Like all who fell in love with your offer of friendship and joy, I followed you all over this world, Tony. I would gladly do so again one lakh lifetimes over.

I have only just come to realise how much nation building is done entirely through acts of dialogue.

For Tanzania 2.0 much of this dialogue has been through media, song and online. The new regulations governing the majority of Tanzania’s online activity has just come into effect.

By design, they do not protect the public from predation so much as protect the government from our civil liberties.

The immediate effect has been a vicious and sudden stripping of our vibrant and diverse online ecosystem. Most notably Jamii Forums – a veteran survivor of state discontent – is finally offline if only for now.

I understand the thinking behind all of this at a visceral level. Very old-school and African to treat your fellow countrymen like children and seek to discipline and control them. This is why we must not go around calling folks Mama or Baba no matter how much we love and respect them; we thus invite and encourage infantilisation.

Advertisement

Fortunately we do know that we are not children nor chattels for that matter. We are citizens of a Republic. It is not entirely possible to wrestle liberties away from people without their resisting.

Nape Nnauye, the CCM MP for Mpanda and one time minister for information rather unadvisedly expressed concern on Twitter about the Jamii Forums suspension. This made him the lightning rod for a barrage of angry commentary that has clearly been building up over time.

As I write this, I believe he is still being beaten online like the stray dogs we Tanzanians were recently called, in spite of the intercessions of such youth thought-leaders as Zitto Kabwe.

The collective never forgets. And there is a lot of anger to work through. I only raise Mr Nnauye’s plight because he accidentally made himself the channel through which folks are giving our public servants and elected officials a piece of their mind. What was intended to stifle dialogue has only created more of it. Oops.

Truth sets free

We needed this catharsis. An ominous quiet has reigned for some time now and I was getting worried. It was, I thought, a sign of social and political constipation. Now that we are taking an opportunity to clear the air, so to speak, we will go back to healthier and more indigenous ways of Utu-ing each other back to the national project.

So I want to express my gratitude to the architects of this watershed moment for enabling it. I think we have all told each other some important truths, and truths do set one free.

I also want to apologise to those for whom this has been an unsatisfying moment devoid of camera-friendly drama, especially on the side of the resistance. I understand, I also watch Christiane Amanpour and Marvel movies.

However: this is Tanzania. This. Is. Tanzania. Peace is not a destination – it is a practice. The collective never forgets. And we are still wonderfully effeminate in the very best sense of that glorious term. Wakanda forever.

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

Advertisement