By ELSIE EYAKUZE

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The question comes up more often that I would like to admit: “Why in the land of Mwalimu, is there a palpable anti-intellectual sentiment?” Julius Kambarage Nyerere himself was a man of intellect who is much admired to this day both at home and beyond the borders of Tanzania.

The Tanzania he left behind that has grown into it’s 2021 iteration? Not so fond of the life of the mind. Why indeed? Language provides one hint. In Kiswahili we tend to use the term ‘msomi’ to mean intellectuals when it more directly translates to ‘learned one’ or ‘scholar.’ This term ‘msomi’ is a double-edged one: it can be used to compliment or to denigrate. But I think we can agree that education and intellect are not the same nor are they interchangeable concepts.

Anyone who spends quality time talking to children knows this. Whether or not they are in school, children are always brimming with curiosity, creativity and even engineering skills. They invent toys, compose songs, decorate your walls with art if you’re not vigilant, and for some reason always ask questions that are guaranteed to stump both you and Google if they feel like it.

This is why they advise people who are considered to be at the top of their field to test themselves: if you can explain your specialism to a child and they can understand you, then you’re pretty good at thinking and communicating clearly and effectively. Children are wonderful teachers, that is why I take deep exception to Kiswahili’s implication that intellectualism can be reduced to the formal school system’s standardised book learning.

Having said this, of course book learning is fantastic. This modernity we enjoy now cannot exist without the foundational skills it imparts of reading and writing and numeracy and everything else that is built upon them.

So, why in a country where our revered first president is referred to by his profession as a teacher? Do we manifest anti-intellectual sentiment? If human intellect is intrinsic, your population number is your cumulative intellectual potential isn’t it?

Everyone has something to offer, whether it is good or bad. Any Tanzanian can grow up to be the next Jeff Bezos: brilliant and an innovative economic asset. Maybe that is another hint: intellectual potential is scary stuff, especially for those who like things nice and orderly. Intellect, you see, fosters perception and questioning and independence: all of which are anathema to authoritarianism.

And what is more authoritarian than state paternalism? In 2021, it is easy to forget that Tanzania adopted Ujamaa in 1977 and that this was NOT a democratic process wherein an informed populace was polled about their political preference. We like to save those polls for whenever the East African Community asks if we’re ready to federate into a single East African state so that we can resoundingly say: “Nope. Miss me with that.”

Anyway, Ujamaa came with some baggage, y’all. Way too much to discuss here but suffice to say that plurality had to be controlled and governance managed so that our particular nation-building project would have a chance at success. Sacrifices were made: historical accuracy, journalistic freedom, artistic integrity and most importantly intellectual freedom were constrained.

People act like information control is a 21st century phenomenon: technology has only made easier what has always been there.

Education was a core focus of the government then, that’s how we achieved such a high adult literacy rate in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but education for what? All public education systems are systems of indoctrination that ultimately serve the state and this is across the board from liberal to conservative, from capitalism to communism. You design the system for the outcomes you want. You take young minds full of talents and potential…and then you do your best to mould them. Sounds nefarious when put that way doesn’t it?

So, if you are a benevolent authoritarian party that has to hold the line against potential civil unrest and forge a unified nation state out of a colonial hinterland and do so across 120 ethnicities, two major religions with a Cold War raging in the background: What kind of education system might you opt for? One that helps to standardise society as much as possible while making sure that dissent is gently but consistently discouraged? Or one where the chaos of civic freedoms may interfere with or even derail your masterplan on an economic and political basis? I have no pretensions about this choice: given half a chance at running a country my authoritarian streak would come rearing up with a vengeance.

However, Tanzania went too far. We went too far. It is one thing to try and standardise certain experiences such as education and the civil service, the military, suchlike. We tanked on the economic front, however, with that dreadful idea of Ujamaa villages and intruding too far into centrally-planned agriculture and other industries.

To this day, having learned bad habits, our government cannot help but interfere where it is not helpful. Cashewnut, anyone?

Anyway, this is a big topic so let’s pick it up next week. Stay safe from Covid-19, and stay woke.

Elsie Eyakuze is a consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report: E-mail: [email protected]