Two years ago, Tanzania experienced a traumatic event. We transitioned abruptly when President John Pombe Magufuli died in office and Samia Suluhu Hassan took up leadership.
In its six decades of self-rule, Tanzania has enjoyed a level of stability and political predictability that is truly amazing if one examines it closely. We were unused to chaos, “unprepared” for such a high-level disruptive event. Things could have gone differently, perhaps. After all, Tanzania is an African country.
An African country which went from Magufuli — Rock, Builder, Bulldozer — to the care of Samia, Vice-President, Zanzibari, former NGO boss, occasional leisure fisherwoman. I soon realised that the two-year rule applies to Tanzanian presidents regardless of how they come into power, and I have refrained from writing too much about Mama Samia. With any regime, we all need time for the dust to settle so that we can see a little bit more clearly.
This week of the Ides of March, I am surprised to be writing about the Tanzanian polity and how we have grown and shifted during this period. We had a rough beginning. On a personal level, I have gone from unsafety, having a man yell in my face that I, a mere woman, could not speak to him like that during a political debate “because he is a Sukuma man!” to snide remarks about whether or not the new president was up to the task of leading a whole country, to spiteful comments about inflation being her fault, even though the entire globe is feeling the falling-out of the war in Ukraine to today, when my President has decided to spend International Women’s Day with the women’s wing of Chadema. It was never really the President who had to grow, was it? It was always us. It will always be us. As good or as bad as an incumbent may be, our welfare and fate will always boil down to us.
Opinionated citizen
I want you to know that it is safer now to be an opinionated citizen, a woman, who joins in public debates. The easing of the unconstitutional restrictions on opposition parties and on the rights to assembly, freedom of speech and information are rejuvenating our political lives and dialogue. Returning exiles are providing spicy discussions about location, patriotism, loyalty and service. Our ecosystem of diverse social organisations is budding again after the hellfire and brimstone and Covid-19 decimation of the preceding years.
The President has overwhelming powers, yes, and we need constitutional change. But the President has never been, and hopefully never will be, Tanzania itself. This is a hard-won reprieve that democracies struggle for, no matter how developed they believe themselves to be. The seduction of “benevolent” tyranny is a siren call that never sleeps. We almost messed up. Never forget.
Through cold wars and pandemics and the advent of AI, Tanzania survives when we cleave to our Utu-based social contract. We gained independence from the British once. We might just have gained independence by ourselves, for ourselves, from ourselves, for now. As good or as bad as an incumbent may be, our welfare and our fate will always, always boil down to us. We now have years to figure out Samia the Sixth.
Kazi iendelee.
Elsie Eyakuze is an independent consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report; Email [email protected]
