Newly independent Tanganyika (Tanzania): Role in the global community

The multi-racial first cabinet of newly independent Tanganyika. While this sort of thing was seen as strange in other newly independent African countries, for Nyerere this was a matter of course. People were appointed on merit, based on their ability and commitment to the cause. The issue of skin colour did not feature. Amir Jamal (far right, seated), the first of many Tanzanians of Asian origin to serve in Nyerere’s cabinet was a long-serving member, for many years holding the powerful portfolio of Finance Minister. He continued to hold high office beyond Nyerere’s own retirement, including a five year stint as Tanzania’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva from 1988 to 1993. His close working relationship with retired President Nyerere continued as he became his personal representative when Mwalimu Nyerere was Chairman of the South Commission and then on the South Centre, and the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation of Uppsala, Sweden. Amir Jamal was continually re-elected to Parliament by his Morogoro constituency with ever greater margins. This is despite the fact that members of his racial group comprised less than 1% of the population, testament to Mwalimu’s success in making his country a truly non-racial society. Mr Jamal died in March 1995 aged 74.

Mwalimu was a committed internationalist and a vocal advocate of liberation at a global level. He was also an enthusiastic and active supporter of the goal of African Unity as invoked by Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of Ghana (pictured together, above). Nkrumah was another icon of African nationalism .

In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, South Africa’s Nelson Mandela reminisced about his first visit to newly independent Tanganyika in 1962 as a fighter against apartheid in his homeland. He says in part: “We arrived in Dar es Salaam the next day and  I met Julius Nyerere, the newly independent country’s first President. We talked at his house, which was not at all grand, and I recall that he drove himself in a simple car, a little Austin. This impressed me, for it suggested that he was a man of the people”. (Page 345). Nelson Mandela’s ANC opened its first offices outside South Africa in four countries. Tanganyika, though newly independent and quite poor, was one of them, such was Nyerere’s influence and stature.

The respect and admiration that Nyerere commanded was not confined to Africa. In March 1963, Mwalimu Nyerere became the first independent African leader to grace the cover of Time Magazine (picture below). That same year, he was received by US President John F Kennedy at the White House on a State Visit.