---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (femi)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nigeria,soc.culture.african
Subject: Ujamaa: Essays on Socialism
Date: 21 Sep 1994 15:37:29 GMT
Organization: XS4ALL, networking for the masses
Fellow Africans,
In the quest for what useful things we can salvage from our heritage, I
bring to you this quotation from 'Ujamaa: Essays on Socialism,' by the
Nwalimu, Julius Nyerere. I think our political scientists can analyze it
critically for us, and try to find out why it 'FAILED.'
Our traditional systems are less expensive, less competitive and less
destructive than the abstract nonsense the Europeans are forcing down our
throats through their mass-media and financial institutions.
Again, I urge that we let our past be our guide in our quest for
development. The Asians are making progress without becoming Europeans,
why can't we?
brotherly greetings,
Femi Akomolafe
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"European socialism was born of the Agrarian Revolution and the Industrial
Revolution which followed it. The former created the 'landed' and the
'landless' classes in society; the latter produced the modern capitalist
and the industrial proletariat.
These two revolutions planted the seeds of conflict within society, and
not only was European socialism born of that conflict, but its apostles
sanctified the conflict itself into a philosophy. Civil war was no longer
looked upon as something evil, or something unfortunate, but as something
good and necessary. As prayer is to Christianity or to Islam, so civil war
(which they call 'class war') is to European version of socialism - a
means inseparable from the end. Each becomes the basis of a whole way of
life. The European socialist cannot think of his socialism without its
father - capitalism!
Brought up in tribal socialism, I must say I find this contradiction quite
intolerable. It gives capitalism a philosophical status which capitalism
neither claims nor deserves. For it virtually says, 'Without capitalism,
and the conflict which capitalism creates within society, there can be no
socialism'! This glorification of capitalism by doctrinaire European
socialists, I repeat, I find intolerable.
African socialism, on the other hand, did not have the 'benefit' of the
Agrarian Revolution or the Industrial Revolution. It did not start from
the existence of conflicting 'classes' in society. Indeed I doubt if the
equivalent for the word 'class' exists in any indigenous African language;
for a language describes the ideas of those who speak it, and the idea of
'class' or 'caste' was non-existent in African society.
The foundation, and the objective, of African socialism is the extended
family. The true African socialist does not look on one class of men as
his brethren and another as his natural enemies. He does not form alliance
with the 'brethren' for the extermination of the 'non-brethren'.
He rather regards all men as his brethren - as members of his ever
extending family. That is why the first article of TANU's Creed is:
'Binadamu wote ni ndugu zangu, na Afrika ni moja'. If this had been
originally put in English, it could have been: 'I believe in Human
Brotherhood and the Unity of Africa'.
'Ujamaa', then, or 'familyhood', describes our socialism. It is opposed to
capitalism, which seeks to build a happy society on the basis of the
exploitation of man by man; and it is equally opposed to doctrinaire
socialism which seeks to build its happy society on a philosophy of
inevitable conflict between man and man.
We, in Africa, have no more need of being 'converted' to socialism that we
have of being taught 'democracy. Both are rooted in our past - in the
traditional society which produced us. Modern African socialism can draw
from its traditional heritage the recognition of 'society' as an extension
of the basic family unit. But it can no longer confine the idea of the
social family within the limits of tribe, nor, indeed, of the nation. For
no true African socialist can look at a line drawn on a map and say, 'The
people on this side of that line are my brothers, but those who happen to
live on the other side of it can have no claim on me'; every individual on
this continent is his brother.
It was in the struggle to break the grip of colonialism that we learnt the
need for unity. We came to recognize that the same socialist attitude of
mind which, in tribal days, gave to every individual the security that
comes of belonging to a widely extended family, must be preserved within
the still wider society of the nation. But we should not stop there.
Our recognition of the family to which we belong must extended yet further
- beyond the tribe, the community, the nation, or even the continent - to
embrace the whole society of mankind. This is the only logical conclusion
for true socialism."
Julius Nyerere, 'UJAMAA, Essays on socialism,'
Oxford University Press, pp-11-12.
