Julius Nyerere

Julius Nyerere

Julius Kambarage Nyerere (Swahili pronunciation: [ˈdʒuːlius kɑmˈbɑɾɑgɑ ɲɛˈɾɛɾɛ]; 13 April 1922 – 14 October 1999) was a Tanzanian anti-colonial activist, politician, and political theorist. He governed Tanganyika as Prime Minister from 1961 to 1962 and then as President from 1963 to 1964, after which he led its successor state, Tanzania, as President from 1964 to 1985. A founding member of the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) party—which in 1977 became the Chama Cha Mapinduzi party—he chaired it until 1990. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialist, he promoted a political philosophy known as Ujamaa.

Quotes

• We in Africa have no more need of being "converted" to socialism than we have of being "taught" democracy. Both are rooted in our past—in the traditional society which produced us.
  • Quoted in "Ujamaa" Revisited: Indigenous and European Influences in Nyerere's Social and Political Thought, Viktoria Stöger-Eising [1]

• Freedom to many means immediate betterment, as if by magic … Unless I can meet at least some of these aspirations, my support will wane and my head will roll just as surely as the tickbird follows the rhino.
  • When he became prime minister of Tanganyika, 1960-09-01 [2]

• Those who receive this privilege therefore, have a duty to repay the sacrifice which others have made. They are like the man who has been given all the food available in a starving village in order that he might have strength to bring supplies back from a distant place. If he takes this food and does not bring help to his brothers, he is a traitor. Similarly, if any of the young men and women who are given an education by the people of this republic adopt attitudes of superiority, or fail to use their knowledge to help the development of this country, then they are betraying our union.
  • On higher education, 1960s. UDSM Alumni Newletter, volume 7. No. 2, November 2007, ISSN 0856 - 8805

• Democracy is not a bottle of Coca-Cola which you can import. Democracy should develop according to that particular country. I never went to a country, saw many parties and assumed that it is democratic. You cannot define democracy purely in terms of multi-partist parties.
  • When asked about Single and Multi Party Democracy, June 1991 in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. ...Before Mandela there was Nyerere

• I have read and re-read the Arusha Declaration and found nothing wrong with it except perhaps replacing a few commas here and there... it was clear for some of us that it would only be a mad man who would stand up and defend the Arusha Declaration.
  • Defending the Arusha Declaration, 1995. Culture of submission killing Africa - Soyinka

Attributed

• Yes, we have one party here. But so does America. Except, with typical extravagance, they have two of them!
  • Quoted in Green, Mark J. (1982). Winning back America. Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-553-22630-0. 
    • Variant: The United States is also a one-party state, but with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.
    • Quoted by Radhika Desai, Social Scientist. v 29, no. 336-337 (May-June 2001) p. 33. University of Chicago and by Jeff Sharlet, The Family: Power, Politics and Fundamentalism's Shadow Elite. University of Queensland Press. 2008. p. 384. ISBN 978-0-7022-3694-5. 

• Education is not a way to escape poverty, it is a way of fighting it.
  • Various attributions online

• Small nations are like indecently dressed women. They tempt the evil-minded.
  • Various attributions online

Quotes about Julius Nyerere

• Here is a man who retired as a head of state and went back to his small village house to live a pension like any other public servant.
  • Professor Wole Soyinka, 2009-04-14 'Ujamaa' lives on, declares Soyinka
• Many Indian leaders were educated at British universities where socialist – often Marxist – economics was in vogue. This applied to other leaders of the Third World who had been educated in Britain such as Julius Nyerere, president of Tanzania from 1964 to 1985, who also implemented Fabian and African socialist ideas. He had read economics and history at the University of Edinburgh. He enforced collectivisation, and when peasants resisted, he burnt down villages. The result was economic decline, corruption and food shortages. When Tanzania tried market economics, it recorded impressive growth: gross domestic product (GDP) rose 40 per cent between 1998 and 2007.
  • Martin McCauley, The Cold War 1949-2016 (2017)