Independent consultant and blogger in Dar es Salaam
For the past six months or so, news of kidnappings has become a regular feature of the Tanzanian day. Young men who are outspoken, who are political, who are activists, who are human rights advocates, are being targeted to a shocking degree.
The local government elections we just held were preceded by the purging of opposition candidates from the ballot, guaranteeing the ruling party a landslide win that it did not earn.
And then a headmaster went and suspended several students, all of whose parents happened to be opposition party members. All of this was depressing me until I looked at the calendar and realised that Tanganyika is about to celebrate 63 years of independence.
History is therapy. Take the Roman Empire, for example. Having dedicated the youth part of my life to rejecting the imposed teaching of European history in school, I happily missed out on all the lessons offered there until Disney’s ‘The Lion King’ turned things around for me.
Innovative and chaotic
A talking cartoon lion committing regicide and usurping his brother’s throne suddenly made the boring political stories we had to read in school interesting and one thing led to another and next thing I know I am eyeball deep in Julius Ceasar- was he a good guy, was he a terrible guy, are dichotomies even accurate or useful?
There are themes and story arcs that crop up time and time again. Human civilisation is simultaneous predictable and innovative and chaotic.
People remain the same, even as circumstances change, and societies evolve over time- not always for the best. It is in the stories of the heroines and villains past that this present makes sense.
I wanted Tanzania to be exceptional, but she is not. But Tanzania remains special, with a history that is happening in real time.
We are currently experiencing an extended transition period created by the absence of a tyrant – let me pretend I am using it in its original Roman meaning – and uncertainty about the current leadership. Of course people are using this vacuum to make mischief and abusing power.
Undermine ourselves
In the case of the rural headmaster, it took the form of a misguided bid to impress the ruling party with his excessive zeal, probably in hopes of garnering resources or power or maybe a promotion to somewhere more promising.
The kind of thing a civil servant of yore might do to please a distant and disinterested Queen and her court...
Tanzania is 63 years old and meandering along the road of its own history, unique in her particular circumstances, chasing a bright future and also doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.
There is not much that is new under the sun, and this too shall pass. I only hope it passes quickly, that we may cease to undermine ourselves by stealing elections oppressing our youth — a losing strategy if ever there was one.
I also hope that occasionally the people in power read a history book, because the answer to all of the questions they are posing now are contained therein.
Elsie Eyakuze is an independent consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report.
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