JOURNEY TO REPUBLIC. Randal Sadleir. Foreword by Julius Nyerere. The Radcliffe Press. 1999.384 pages. £24.50 (hardback).

Randal Sadleir’s book is neither history, nor politics, nor straight autobiography, although historical and political events and Randal Sadleir himself are the stuff of it. The author refers to it as his memoirs, but it is not spasmodic, nor solemn, nor about earth-shaking events -except perhaps at national or local events. It is really a story -and a narration of intertwined seriousness, hard work, and laughter, with the bulk of the book covering his work for twelve years before Tanganyika’s independence, and twelve years after.

The story is told by an Irish citizen with a deep love for the country where he was born and where his family had lived for 300 years, a loyal British Colonial Civil Servant who in practical terms ignores Tanganyika’s Trusteeship status, and a dependable public servant of Tanganyika after uhuru and later of the United Republic of Tanzania.

The early chapters, about Sadleir’s childhood and life before he began work in Tanzania, are not only interesting in themselves; they also do much to Illustrate his motivations and approach to the opportunities and challenges met in the following twenty-four years. In particular they depict how deeply imbued he was with the principle that ‘privilege entails responsibility’ -or, in army terms, that ‘the first duty of an Officer and a gentleman is concern for the welfare of his men’.

That saying carries shades of feudalism and of the class structured society from which he came, and indeed which he appears to take as natural. But the principle itself is surely valid everywhere; high office is always a privilege -and inevitably gives personal privileges too. Certainly it was valuable for the country when interpreted -as it was by Sadleir and many other District and Provincial Officers -to mean concern both for those working under his leadership and for the people generally.

The accounts of his life and work as a British Colonial Servant from the time he was posted as a ‘Cadet District Officer’ to Western Province are given in some detail in this book. The author clearly kept a precise diary of what he did, and the people met; this makes for easy reading most of the time, but some of the lists of names could, with benefit, have been edited out! There are, however, frequent little comments about the persons (both African and British) with whom he worked or came to know through work; these are never unkind, and often evocative and amusing.

It has to be understood that Sadleir tells the pre-and post­independence story through accounts of his personal experiences; little inaccuracies sometimes creep in when he talks of events in the background of what he was doing -as, for example, when he says that under the 1962 Republic Constitution “the President would rule for seven years”. His activities, however, often serve to explain in an interesting way the workings of the colonial system in practice; they give life to dry analyses of admin structures and political happenings.

Further, the comments in the book (especially around and after independence) show a degree of administrative and political understanding which was not shared by all colonial officers. These could even be helpful now in the face of some current political comments about Africa’s poverty and ‘inefficiency’. Yet some of Randal’s other comments are likely to grate on the sensitivities of those with different cultural backgrounds or ideological convictions!

Among these I would include the practice of almost always referring to the tribe of the Africans he met, and using descriptive words in a way which, in other hands, are the basis for cultural or racial stereotyping. For example, when he refers to someone being one of “the highly intelligent Nyakyusa people” my own reaction is to ask which is the ‘highly unintelligent people?’ something Sadleir is clearly too nice a person ever to say! There are also phrases like (when on the summit of Kilimanjaro) “We were aware of standing literally on the top of the great unknown continent itself’ which reminds my generation at least of being taught about the ‘discovery of the Victoria Falls’.

The kind of work done ‘up-country’ by Randal Sadleir was probably not untypical of the manifold serious responsibilities and challenges faced by the young District Officers and Commissioners all over the country ­and probably in other parts of the British Empire too. It explains much about how successful empires were governed throughout recorded history, and why they ultimately died. However, the chapters on the Handeni famine and an air crash in the Bush, as described here, were more unusual experiences for a young man. And the very personal accounts are compulsive reading.

Sadleir’s later posting to Dar es Salaam to be responsible for ‘Public Relations’ was also unusual, but I suspect not as much so as his decision that it required his attendance at great TANU rallies in the capital (where his excellent Swahili was an immense advantage) as well as visits to TANU HQ to meet Mwalimu Nyerere. It is clear that both enjoyed the acquaintance -and gained from it, although naturally neither converted the other! For the sake of accuracy, however, it is necessary to stress that Mwalimu was not educated in a Roman Catholic school; he attended a Local Authority primary school in Musoma, the Govermnent Tabora Boys Secondary School, Makerere College, and Edinburgh University. His conversion to Christianity arose through the accidental combination of a particular school friend and his own curiosity! After Makerere he did teach in Roman Catholic secondary schools.

After independence, Randal Sadleir was one of the British Colonial civil servants who agreed to continue working in Tanganyika. That required an acceptance of political direction from elected Africans -very few of whom had a formal education comparable to that of the British Officers, and some of whom had experience of racial discrimination under British rule. It is a tribute to both sides that Sadleir continued to work for the post-independence governments for twelve years -for it is clear from this book that he was always frank with his superiors, and never kow-towed to anyone.

He was given some very responsible and challenging as well as new tasks to do. He appears to be particularly proud of his contribution to the success of the Tanzanian pavilion at EXPO 70 in Japan. But most people would judge that, more important even than that, was his valuable role in helping and supporting the expansion of education and training for the Cooperative Movement, with particular reference to the Cooperative College set up in Moshi.

Randal Sadleir was also involved in the training of African Administrative Officers, including some of those scheduled to work overseas. But it is the manner in which he was given full control of dealing with the 1967 famine (mostly in Kilwa District as well as around Handeni) which most clearly indicates both the Government’s high opinion of, and its trust in, Sadleir. And incidentally, the book is one of the few on Tanzania which pays proper tribute to Rashidi Kawawa’s ability and services to the country.

There are many petty ways in which this book can be criticised, and there are sections (e.g. about his home leaves) which could have been severely cut. But it is easy as well as pleasant reading -and the author loves words! True, there are times when the author gets carried away and in his graphic descriptions of places, and slips into ‘fine writing’ which made this reader smile -such as talking of a stream in certain moods as ‘mossily murmuring’. But it is a good change to have a book which errs ­when it errs -on the side of grammatical but not pedantic English, and on a love of language.

For despite all justified criticisms, this book is of greater enjoyment, and is likely to be of wider interest, than the title suggests; titles are always liable to be a problem for books which do not fit easily into any routine classification. Therefore, although in the present publishing environment it might have been quite brave of O.U.P. to publish it, I hope they will follow through by advertising it intelligently so that it attracts buyers without special interest in Tanzania.

This book is basically a story, written by a sympathetic foreign participant, about the peaceful birth of an independent African country, about its early ambitions, and something of its endeavours. It does not replace any other book about the period, but it adds some flesh to bones and helps to emphasise that such political and economic events are by, for, and about People. Among those who were in Tanzania over the relevant period, it might well start some discussions; I can only suggest that it be read first. And in any case -it is a ‘Good Read’!
Joan E Wicken

LIVINGSTONE’S TRIBE: A JOURNEY FROM ZANZIBAR TO THE CAPE. Stephen Taylor. Harper Collins. 260 pages. £17.99.

Born in South Africa of English parentage the author left for Britain at the age of 22 ‘sickened by the malevolence of apartheid and the dour resentful racists and zenophobes.’ When he took his family to live in Harare for four years the idea of an African journey ‘in search of his own tribe’ was conceived. He located many of the few remaining white people still living in Britain’s former territories.

Recounted in a highly readable style with great sympathy and understanding of the strengths and frailties of human nature, his travels through Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia bring to life the history, as well as the beauties of the scenery and wildlife, especially the birds, of the countries through which he passes.

His comments are often challenging in their frankness. He considers, for instance that during colonial times Europeans, exhibiting ‘a vapid smugness’, tended to see Africa as ‘either Elysium or an abyss, bringing out extremes of idealism or cynicism.’ Horrified by the slave trade, he adds: ‘Far more damaging than the physical abuse suffered by Africans at the hands of the odd individual sadist was the system which created the borders of modem Africa’ as they carved it up ‘with set-squares and compasses. ‘

Despite everything Africa’s ‘resourcefulness and humanity’ had endured. Her people were ‘frontiersmen who had colonised an especially hostile region of the world on behalf of the human race’ and while outsiders thought of it as the most fragile continent a case could just as well be made out that it was the most resilient.

By means of the ‘Five-bar test’ he first learned about the Africans’ ‘awesome capacity for detachment’ in a Dar eating-house, after being driven crazy by a faulty CD system which kept slipping back after every five bars of ghetto-blasting music with no-one seeming to take any notice. With many petty irritations lying ahead he realised that ‘for enduring in Africa this was a starter.’ He also concluded that while the Western belief that we can control our destinies might be deluded in Africa acceptance of mortality ‘goes deeper than mere fortitude’ and that Aids may even have compounded the tendency to fatalism.

The courtesy of Tanzanians surprised him most. It was not only ‘the grace of the humble’ that was touching but the politeness and ‘an even rarer quality, kindness’. Many services were all the more unexpected for being offered without any hope of reward.

He met with several celebrated whites including Garfield Todd and his daughter Judith in Zimbabwe and Richard Leakey and Lord Delamere in Kenya and in a small white-washed cottage near Kunduchi beach in Dar es Salaam Daudi Ricardo, descendant of the owners of Gatcombe Park in Gloucestershire, now living in ‘genteel poverty’, who happily confessed to having learned ‘a new cultural language.’ A Tanzanian taxi­driver fervently referred to him as ‘a good man.’

During a whirlwind tour of Zanzibar on the back of Cannon David’s motorbike he learned about missionaries ‘of the old school’, including Marion Bartlet, a surgeon, who performed the relatively simple operation to release contracted leg tendons on children with polio so that many Tanzanians were only able to walk because of the skills of ‘a small, frail, shy and unassuming woman.’ Caroline Thackeray, East Africa’s first woman missionary and a cousin of William Makepeace Thackeray, went to Zanzibar to teach and stayed there for the rest of her life, while Frank Weston, another missionary, and a ‘lone voice’ recognised that for Africans to benefit from European influence and not be damaged by it, ‘the institutions of tribe, family and custom needed to be nurtured and not destroyed. ‘

Randal Sadleir, a former district officer, told the author how, in the Cosy Cafe in Dar, the youthful Nyerere had declared: “The most important thing in the lives of people in Dar is ‘witchcraft”, and an American pastor also stated: “Our biggest mistake is that we have failed to address the Africans’ terrible fear of being bewitched.”

What the author describes as ‘the worst bit of doggerel I can recall’ nevertheless seems to say something about the cheerfulness and optimism of the Tanzanian character:
Always remember to forget the things that made you sad
But never forget to remember the things that made you glad.

With several interesting photographs this book is a revealing and thoughtful account of contemporary African concerns, many of which readers of Tanzanian Affairs will recognise with nostalgic affection.
John Budge

KAMUSI YA VISAWE. SWAHILI DICTIONARY OF SYNONYMS. Mohamed A Mohamed and Saidi A Mohamed. Obtainable from African Books Collective (Tel: 01865 726686). 1998. 267 pages. £13.95.

The publication last year of the first ever Dictionary of Synonyms is an important milestone in the history of this rich and beautiful language with the finest poetry in Africa.

Great credit is due to the industry and scholarship of the two Zanzibar authors who state in their excellent introduction that ‘they worked day and night for five years to complete their task! Small wonder, since they listed some 14,000 words with 71,000 synonyms.

The dictionary well illustrates the variety and flexibility of Swahili and its constant reinforcement by modem words and expressions often borrowed from other languages.

In a foreword, former President Mwinyi, himself a Zanzibari, points out the great value of this novel dictionary not only to school­children but also to university students, teachers and Swahili scholars as well as to beginners and those who already speak it fluently but wish to broaden their knowledge of its growing vocabulary.

The book is a literary and linguistic delight. Old favourites are there like angalau on p-7 with synonyms walau, ijapokuwa, ingawa, japo, hata kama all roughly meaning ‘although’. SambaSamba on p-198 with no less than 23 synonyms including the magical TangaTanga ­translated in my local dictionary to ‘frig about like a goat’ was popular in the old KAR -yugayuga, chugachuga, hangaika, tapatapa, all meaning ‘screw up’ in the modem idiom. I’m not so keen on sensa = ‘census’ on p -200 and many like it such as sentensi, semina, setla on the same page but, after all, ‘imitation is the sincerest from of flattery!. However, takriban (p-216) an Arabic word, I had never heard before is glorious and means ‘nearly’ or ‘about’. Finally, I have no hesitation in recommending this work as an essential reference book for all lovers of Swahili.
Randal Sadleir

SELECTED CASES AND MATERIALS. Chris Maina Peter. Publisher: Rudiger Koppe Verlage, Cologne. 1997. 893 pages.

Quoting from Justice Roberts Kisanga’s foreword the Dar es Salaam Guardian describes this book as a serious study of the human rights situation in Tanzania and a meticulously written legal masterpiece. The book is said to ‘attack vitriolically’ the Court of Appeal as being insensitive to justice; it also criticises the Chief Justice for issuing a directive during the villagisation process stating that all cases involving ujamaa villages should be sent to him directly and for openly siding with the government on such cases. He writes that in matters of bail persons are treated differently for the same offences depending on the court to which they go. The author, who is Associate Professor of Law in the University of Dar es Salaam, is against the death penalty and corporal punishment considering them to be serious infringements of human rights.

TREVOR HUDDLESTON – A LIFE. Robin Denniston. Macrnillan £20.00

Without question .Trevor Huddleston was one of the great Christian influences on the twentieth century on events, on churchmanship and on people, particularly young people but this is a deeply disappointing book. True, the author inherited the project from Canon Eric James who had for some years painstakingly chronicled the life of Trevor Huddleston, spending regular Friday afternoons interviewing his subject. He had also visited South Africa, Tanzania and the Indian Ocean in search of the ‘real Trevor’ and had done some considerable work on the book before ill­health forced him to give up the project.

Robin Denniston, once an editor at Collins and responsible for the publication of Nought for your Comfort, went on to become one of the most distinguished figures in British publishing as publisher to Oxford University Press which makes the many inaccuracies in this book more curious. Scarcely 200 pages long, Denniston pads his work by a further hundred pages with Nicholas Stebbing’s account of Trevor’s last and unhappy days as an invalid back in Mirfield, and then, what seems to be a random collection of lectures and sermons given by Trevor on various occasions.

Of course the book is an account of Trevor’s life. There is Trevor the undergraduate, the novice, the priest, the activist. There are accounts of his work in South Africa and of his relations with the South African authorities, together with an account of the reasons for his recall to Mirfield. There is some account of his time at Masasi and of the period at Stepney with reference to the accusations of improper conduct, and an analysis of his affection for and relationship with good-looking boys. But the book makes no suggestion that such character assassination remained part of the South African Bureau Of State Security’s agenda until the fall of Apartheid and many honourable Christian and Muslim activists were discredited.

However the whole book is a fish-eye biography. It is as if everything is seen through the South African perspective and, while at one level this is understandable, with Trevor’s lifelong commitment to the fight against the injustice of the apartheid system, at another it is unforgivable. It gives an almost unhealthy perspective, reducing the rest of his life to second best. Trevor was in South Africa for only ten of his 85 years -from 1943 to 1953; he was in Masasi from 1960 to 1968, in Stepney from 1968 to 1978 and Bishop of Mauritius and Archbishop of the Seychelles from 1978 to 1983.

Without wishing to diminish Denniston’s analysis or evaluation of Trevor’s achievements, there are so many inaccuracies in the text which suggest some disturbing proof reading by the editor. The chapter about Trevor’s episcopate in Masasi is disfigured by distortions and inaccuracy.

One of Trevor’s concerns while there had been the so-called poaching of Anglicans by the more affluent Roman missions, but it must be acknowledged that there was, and to some extent still is, exchange between the two Churches. Ndanda, a German Benedictine centre close to Masasi, is described as being staffed by African monks. While there were a few African brothers there in the 1960s, by far the majority of resident brethren were expatriate Ottilian Benedictines, most of whom had been in the country for many years. Their constant generosity to the poorer brethren of UMCA was legendary and good relationships were enjoyed between Masasi and Ndanda despite the theological and social differences.

Denniston writes about ‘the arrival of the Newcastle team of doctors’ inspired by Trevor’s charisma; for the casual reader one could believe that there had been no medical work worth speaking of before their advent. Their expertise developed technologies but they had the pioneering work of C. Frances Taylor and Leader Sterling to build on. The Newcastle team were the first for whom special financial arrangements were made which ruffled the unquestioned acceptance of the traditional poverty by the former UMCA missionary staff! Trevor’s policy of never explaining or apologizing to his staff did nothing to help this.

There is reference to taking ten children to Lulindi for a swim -a somewhat unlikely excursion as Lulindi is a small inland town. Lindi is the seaport where the modest hotel sits on the beach opposite the Anglican church. Kilwara is mentioned up the coast. One assumes the author refers to Kilwa, one of the earliest centres of Swahili culture and the source for the Kilwa Chronicle, a seminal source of utenzi literature.

While the account of Trevor’s concern to reduce the expatriate representation in the church is made, there is no reference to the response to Trevor’s final synod address to the clergy at Mtandi, when at least one clergyman came up to him and told him it was improper of him to tell them there would never be another expatriate Bishop. It was, he was firmly told, the business of the diocese to propose names’ (Indeed Hilary Chisonga’s immediate successor was Richard Norgate, a UMCA missionary who had for years been chaplain at Mkomaindo, and, although a Tanzanian citizen, definitely an expatriate!)

Bishop Chisonga his successor as Bishop of Masasi is curiously mis-spelt twice in the earlier pages of the Masasi section as Kisonga. I worked for him for three years and saw the enormous care he exerted to heal the rift in the diocese caused by Trevor’s appointment of an Assistant Bishop in 1963, who assumed he would naturally succeed Trevor as the next Bishop. So divided was the diocese that when Bishop Hilary set out for confirmations in certain parts of the diocese he was sent death threats. There is little reference to the legacy Trevor bequeathed to his old diocese.

Such inaccuracies in one section undermine confidence in the rest of the text and this writer, at least, hopes that one day there may be a book which reveals the real man behind the various titles he had.
David Craig

Other publications

HARAKA, HARAKA…LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP. Magdalena Rwebangira & Rita Liljestrom. Nordiska Afrikainstitutet. 1998. 271 pages. £19.95. A compilation of nine studies from the Reproductive Health Study Group at the University of Dar es Salaam. They highlight the erosion of customary institutions that regulate procreation and express the meaning of gender and marriage. They show that without an understanding of the dynamics of local customs change initiated from without becomes ineffective and unsustainable.

SPREAD OF HIV INFECTION IN A RURAL AREA OF TANZANIA. (Boerrna/Urassa/SenkorolKlokke/Ng’weshemi). AIDS 1999 University of North Carolina. Vol13. No 10. 7 pages. This article is concerned with research assessing the spread of HIV in Kisesa, Mwanza using a ‘Demographic surveillance system’. Data was collected on mobility, bars and commercial sex through confidential interviews and blood tests on a range of individuals. The general conclusion was that HIV was found to be more prevalent around trading centres than in surrounding areas, sometimes 3-4 times higher than in the villages. Most of the article is concerned with explaining methods of data collection and listing data, which makes much of the reading laborious. However, the main point comes through that the trading centre is the major factor in the high levels of HIV in the district. The authors argue this is due to a number of factors including the high incidence of promiscuous sexual behaviour, prostitution, travelling workers and the high consumption of alcohol in ‘pombe’ bars. Furthermore they point out that HIV prevalence is underestimated as many tests are carried out at “Sentinel Antenatal clinics” ~ Roy Wilsoll.

BETWEEN THE STATE AND CIVIL SOCIETY: MEDICAL DISCIPLINE IN TANZANIA. John A Harrington. Journal of African Studies, 37, 2 (1999) pp 32. Cambridge University Press. Despite the drastic changes in the last decade which forced a broad shift in policy from the general provision of services by the state to a mixed system with private providers making up the increasing shortfall in public resources, doctors in Tanzania have maintained a relatively privileged position. The writer, a member of Warwick University’s Law School, discusses in some detail the origins and development of the medical profession, from ‘the capture of the state by African elites’ in the first two decades of independence to the reduction in the state’s size and functions under external pressure in the last 15 years. The colonial medical service, he writes, was by and large aimed at the European population and administered by medical officers and missionaries. With only 14 African doctors at independence the demand for ‘Africanisation’ began with the setting up of a medical faculty in 1963 at Dar es Salaam University. By 1991 the number of doctors had increased to 1,265, still only one per 21,423 people.

As part of the ‘bureaucratic bourgeoisie’ doctors were able to attract a disproportionate degree of overseas aid when compared with non-curative public health programmes aimed at improving the health of the rural majority. The current costs of urban hospitals and clinics are still a major drain upon the health budget and foreign currency reserves. Progress suffered a severe economic setback in the 1980′ s. When, in 1986, the government was forced to accept World Bank and IMF conditionalities on further aid, severe cutbacks led to a collapse in the morale of health care workers and a ‘brain drain’ of Tanzanian-trained physicians, of whom 26 per cent left the country. During the villagisation programme in the 1970’s peasants were urged to leave their existing settlements for ujamaa villages with the promise that improved medical facilities would be available there. According to the writer tIns indicated that ‘health care could be said to have been both an end and a means of development.’ Resources such as water and medicine were directed to ujamaa villages in preference to others ‘as a means of pressurising the population to comply’. One of the features of ujamaa was a more or less complete takeover of non-governmental institutions by TANU in the interests of development, but later, with the backing of international organisations, attempts were made to undo this process. ‘Democratisation’ and broad liberalisation were linked to aid so that sectional interest groups were given a role in the political bargaining process ‘often at the behest of international bodies and foreign NGOs’. Many doctors responded by entering into private practice, while others ‘attempted to position the profession within the notional sphere of a non-market civil society’.

The writer believes that commercialisation, with the introduction of private clinics and ‘the parallel economy of bribery’ undennine the status of medical practice and that the Medical Council of Tanganyika was ‘forced to shore up professional ethics in the face of structural alTangements which tended massively to undennine them’. The writer concludes: ‘If medicine becomes a commodity its producers are forced to compete with purveyors of other substitutable commodities, such as traditional African medicine and the practice of so-called ‘injection doctors.’ As well as professional autonomy all semblance of disinterested service would be lost’. And a leading doctor warned: ‘The imposition of structmal adjustment programmes is having a profound effect on the doctor/patient relationship at the same time as reducing the quality of health services and the access to them by the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups’ -John Budge.

INCORPORATING INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE INTO AFRICAN URBAN PLANNING: A CASE STUDY WITH CHINESE CONNECTIONS. Garth Myers. Hong Kong Papers in Design and Development. Voll 1998.9 pages. This paper is one of several by Garth Myers on the Kikwajuni neighbourhood of Zanzibar’s Ng’ambo area. East of Stone Town across the former tidal creek, this area (‘the Other Side’) began to be settled in the 1850s, largely by African and Swahili slaves, servants and peasants, on the land of their owners, employers and patrons. The land belonged to the Omani royal clan and its allies and rivals, or to Indian merchants. Most of Kikwajuni belonged to Abdullah bin Sallam al-Shaksi, a wealthy Omani trader and slave holder, and the settlers included both islanders and a number of mainland groups. Development and administration was left in the hands of overseers or locally chosen imams, and an indigenous urban form developed, based on the concepts of uwezo (power), imani (faith) and desturi (custom).

Residents lacked uwezi, in the form of either material wealth or land ownership -even in the 1960s the Shaksi clan controlled most of the land and it was subsequently nationalised. Occupants of the area were and still are almost all Sunni Shafi’i Muslims, a school of Islamic thought which emphasises consensus in religious and social affairs. Organised into areas around mosques, the imams helped to force a sense of belonging and consensus amongst the neighbourhood’s diverse African cultures. Much of the detailed spatial organisation was based on custom, for example, houses were arranged along pathways kept clear of buildings and clean by cooperation between neighbours, and social life focused on spaces where the area’s social cohesiveness was reproduced (maskani, small meeting places for men, and baraza, porches on the front of Swahili houses).

Amongst the many expatriates who produced plans for Zanzibar were planners from the Peoples Republic of China, who produced a Master Plan in 1982. Influenced by Chinese attempts of the time to develop a planning system suitable for the new push for economic growth, the group prepared a master plan (which completely neglected issues of finance and implementation) and detailed area plans, including one for the upgrading of Ng’ambo which entailed the superimposition of a grid road layout, considerable demolition and installation of waterborne sewerage.

Indigenous planners involved in implementation modified the proposals slightly, but still gave priority to improving roads, despite low vehicle ownership, relatively good access to existing houses, and local priorities for lighting along existing paths, drainage and improvements to latrines. The subtext, in the eyes of many residents, had to do with the state using road construction for security purposes. The upgrading plans provided for a few large private houses in each ward. In practice, these were the only physical aspect of the improvement schemes to be carried out and the plots were allocated to members of the CCM-allied political, bureaucratic and business elite, who continued to ignore the needs of most residents. Dependent on their own resources, only the better off house owners, especially those who can call on overseas funds, have been able to make the significant physical renovations the houses need. Collectively consumed goods, such as shared taps, schools and drainage, have continued to deteriorate. Moreover, the transition to multiparty rule has been marked by the politicization of community spaces. The resulting association of particular spaces with rival parties has reduced their function in conflict resolution and enhancing social cohesion. The parallel role of the mosques has also been undermined by increased religious conservatism, following competition between Saudi Arabian and Iranian assistance agencies.

Upgrading sensitive to indigenous physical and social organisation has, therefore, been undermined not only by Chinese planners who considered the area’s physical fabric poor quality and disorderly and provided no framework for dealing with conflictual planning decisions, but also by the technocratic approach and security concerns of the one-party state, the spoils-oriented politics of the Mwinyi regimes, and the political rivalry which has accompanied multiparty politics. Myers concludes that the opportunity for appropriate upgrading has been missed. He asserts, contrary to his own evidence, that the Chinese planners of the early 1980s “began to ‘hear’ the indigenous planning system, but not to listen to it”. He also suggests that the “team took no account of conflictual land rights that have been at the heart of the 1982 plan’s lack of success in implementation”, but does not adequately analyse this issue. Finally, his prognosis for upgrading based on dialogue with residents, managed through forms of social organisation which are able to produce consensus, and resulting in physical improvements appropriate for the poor majority of residents, is gloomy ~ Carole Rakodi

RURAL DEVELOPMENT AND WOMEN: WHAT ARE THE BEST APPROACHES TO COMMUNICATING INFORMATION? Joyce Otsyina & Diana Rosenberg. Gender and Development. Vol 7 No
2. July 1999. 11 pages. This article focuses on research in Shinyanga region from the ‘Hifadhi Ardhi Shinyanga’ project (HASH!) which was aimed at introducing new development ideas into a rural community. The authors cite the ‘lack of effective communication strategies and methods’ in bringing about these technological ideas to rural Tanzania. They suggest that the technologies are available but rather the problem lies with cultural factors preventing women from taking part in awareness of these new technologies. They claim that most development programmes meet with little success because these schemes often neglect the participation of women. For example, timetables for seminars and film shows are arranged at inconvenient times for many women. Cultural seclusion of women can also be another factor, which stops them from contact outside the community. However, many local women were also noted as being suspicious of outsiders such as the UWT (Umoja wa Wanawake wa Tanzania). Conclusions made by the authors include the lack of education among women of their rights, the importance of the initiative and control being in the hands of locals, the information gap between men and women in a community and the fact that women rely more on ‘informal information networks’ for knowledge of what is happening. No attempts have been made to challenge the crucial factor of gender division of labour -Roy Wilson.

BUDGETING WITH A GENDER FOCUS. Tanzania Gender Networking Programme (TGNP). 1999. 46pp. The TGNP is an NGO formed in 1993 to facilitate gender equality and women’s empowerment. This book reports on the results of research on macro-level budgetary processes in the ministries of Finance, Education and Health and in the Planning Commission and illustrates in clear and simple terms, with many imaginative drawings, photographs and charts, the theory and practice of budgeting and how it can contribute to the objectives of the NGO. (Thank you Strata Mosha for sending us a copy of this book ­Editor).

A GERMAN GUERILLA CHIEF IN AFRICA. David Rooney. History Today. November 1999. David Rooney has skilfully condensed the story of Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, commander of the German army in German East Africa during the 1914-1918 war, into seven pages, illustrated by a useful map and ten photographs. Von Lettow-Vorbeck realised that he had no chance of beating the British, with their command of the sea, and decided instead to tie down as many British troops as possible in order to prevent them from being used against Germany in other theatres of war. In this he was remarkably successful, and his small army (170 Germans and 1,400 African askaris) was still fighting for some days after the Armistice was signed in Europe on November 11 1918. Rooney gives a graphic account of the various phases of the campaign including his defeat of the British at Tanga and his brilliantly conducted retreat, first to the Rufiji valley, then to Masasi and Mozambique and finally to Northern Rhodesia. Readers will spot one error: C S Forester’s African Queen was not based on the scuttling of the German light cruiser Konigsberg in the Rufiji Delta but on the sinking of the Graf von Goetzen in Lake Tanganyika.
J.A.Sankey

DOORS OF ZANZIBAR A Mwalim Mwalim. 1998. 143 pp. 95 plates. £14.95. A photographic study of the famous decorative doors of Stone Town including a map of door locations and sepia photographs. Obtainable from African Books Centre. TeI: 0171 497 0309.

PASTORALISM, PATRIARCHY AND HISTORY: CHANGING GENDER RELATIONS AMONG MAASAI IN TANGANYIKA 1890 -1940. Dorothy L Hodgson. Rutgers State University of New Jersey. CUP. Journal of African History, 40 (1999). pp 24. This painstaking and careful analysis of the effect of German and British colonialism on the Maasai people, shows how the whole nature of the people’s pastoral life and culture was drastically transformed and well­nigh destroyed. A tolerant and tmly interdependent tribe became an intolerant patriarchal society, in which women were thought of as ‘property’ and ‘possessions’ owned and controlled by men. ‘Commodification’ of livestock, the monetisation of the economy and incorporation into the colonial system reinforced and enhanced male political authority and economic control shifting the contours of male­female power relations. Even after the Second World War the pace and zeal of these interventions only intensified as British and then Tanzanian governments tried to encourage, bribe or force the Maasai to sell their cattle and perceive them as commodities. Men usurped women’s role as traders. The article argues that the new forms of property relations had important consequences for gender relations. Taxation classified women as property to be paid for by men and the incorporation into the colonial state extended the formal political power of men in general and older men in particular. ‘Instead of mutual respect men and women scorn one another’ the writer says. She concludes: ‘Unlike Static a historical analysis of pastoral gender relations that posit women’s subordination as an inherent feature of pastoralism, thereby assuming that Western notions of private property and ownership are culturally and historically universal, my historical analysis demonstrates that patriarchy must be understood as a consequence not of cows but of history’ ­John Budge

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ABDULWAHID SYKES (1924-1968). THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE MUSLIM STRUGGLE AGAINST BRITISH COLONIALISM IN TANGANYIKA. Mohamed Said. Minerva Press. 1998. 358pp.

The key to this complex fascinating and at times infuriating book lies in the first paragraph of the author’s introduction.

‘This work is a product of my own experience and exposure to the memories and recollections of many people, and to events which took place in Dar es Salaam. Being born in Dar es Salaam where the modem politics of Tanganyika, as mainland Tanzania was then known, had its strongest bas~, I have many recollections of personalities and events which took place at that time. Word of mouth from people who saw events take place before their very eyes enriched my knowledge. When I was a student of Political Science at the University of Dar es Salaam where the research for this book actually began, I found out that what was taught about nationalist politics in Tanganyika did not tally with what I knew. Gradually I came to conclude that there was a deliberate attempt to down play the role of certain personalities in the nation’s political history.’

The ‘personalities’ referred to are revealed in the book to be the Muslim leaders in general, and his hero and subject Abdulwahid Sykes in particular. Note that the author, born in Dar es Salaam in 1952, was a two year old toddler when T ANU was formed, only 9 years old at the time of UHURU, and a 16 year old teenager when his subject died. He had perforce to rely largely on his father, his family and their friends for information, reinforced later by his own extensive and scholarly academic research.

His filial piety is to be commended as is his transparent loyalty to Islam which illuminates his book. The problem for the reader however is that the result of this blend of reminiscence repetition hearsay experience and scholarship is an extraordinary literary maze with paths leading in all directions through time and space, hundreds of characters appearing and re­appearing in bewildering succession, until one hardly knows which way to turn. Although I have the advantage of having known personally many of the leading figures, albeit some 40 years ago, including Abdulwahid Sykes himself and his brothers Ally and Abbas; Ally in particular having been a close friend. The illustrations include an enchanting photograph of the Sykes boys in the 1930s, the youngest Abbas clutching a bunch of flowers and Ally wearing a white pith-helmet! Their father Kleist, a legendary character, died in 1949 before I came to Dar es Salaam, but I knew his kinsman and fellow Zulu Machado Plantan, editor of ZUHRA, quite well. They brought the courage energy and intelligence of the Zulu to the drowsy denizens of Gerezani, ensuring for themselves a secure place in the Muslim elite so often referred to by the author.

Kleist Sykes enlisted in the German Army at the age of 12 and fought in World War I. His eldest son Abdulwahid was conscripted into the K.A.R. aged 17; inspired by this Ally ran away from home aged 15 to volunteer for the War. They served together in Ceylon and Burma, where on Christmas Eve 1945, they made a pact to found a political party after the War. Its’ name was to be ‘Tanganyika African National Union’ (TANU). Ally remembers that Abdulwahid wrote the name of the proposed party in his diary. Later Ally personally designed the TANU membership card (similar to his Tanganyika Legion Card) and chose the national colours. (Black for [text missing in original]

The reader is rewarded for his pains however when he finds some of the precious pearls which Mohamed Said has uncovered in the depths of his research, referred to in Dryden’s couplet at the start of the book:

‘Errors like straws, upon the surface flow.
He who would search for pearls must dive below.’

They include: a tribute to the liberal Governor Sir Donald Cameron who encouraged the founding of the African Association in New Street in 1930; the fact that the colours of the Young Africans’ Football Club, green and black, were the same as TANU’s and their supporters identified with the new party; the strange tale of the banishment by the British of Sheikh Abdallah, the Liwali of Mikindani, the centre of Islamic knowledge, after ‘declining to perform duties not conforming with his status, dignity and respect to Islam .. .’ What were they?! the revelation that there were only 630 registered voters in Muslim Bagamoyo District from a population of 89,000 in the 1958 election; and, in lighter vein, Trevor Griffith-Jones is referred to as the Chief Secretary on page l39 where the then Attorney-General, the late Sir Arthur Grattan-Bellew, is also delightfully described as Gratten Below! Finally, the author’s claim that Nyerere, having been supported for the leadership of TANU in 1954 by Abdulwahid Sykes, then Chairman of the Tanganyika African Association, and the Muslim elite on whose support he also initially relied to gain independence from the British, quietly chose to ‘forget them …’; he goes further still citing a catalogue of alleged arrests, detentions, vote rigging and even cooking the Census and bribery by the independent Government of Tanzania in order to ensure the downgrading of Islam.

Mohamed Said recalls the fact that Muslims had lived on the coast since the 8th Century, whilst the 19th Century Christian Missionaries were relatively recent arrivals in the wake of the Colonial rulers. Eight Christian Ministers of Education held office in succession until the appointment of Professor Kighoma Ali Malima as the first Muslim Minister in 1987. ‘In Islam politics and religion are inseparable … in 1955 we saw how Muslims managed to establish a secularist -nationalist ideology as a means of forging national unity. Separation of religion and politics was therefore one of the sacred and cherished ideals of TANU. It is from this background that we can now understand the contradictions which came to engulf Tanzanian politics soon after Independence.’

Here I must leave it to the readers to make up their own minds since I was not there after 1973. In any event the author, whilst striving to maintain academic detachment, has seen to it that the Muslim case has not gone by default.

I can only close by saying that throughout my own service in East Africa and Tanzania (1943-1973) I never noticed any anti-Muslim bias by the British or the Tanzanian Governments. If anything rather the reverse since the great local rulers revered by the British like the Sultan of Zanzibar, the Liwalis of the Coast, Chief Adam Sapi, Chief Abdallah Fundikira and the merchant princes H.H. The Aga Khan, Abdulkarim Karimjee and V.M. Nazerali were all Muslim. After all, Nyerere’s successor was a Muslim; ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating.’ CASE NOT PROVEN.
Randal Sadleir

IN QUEST OF LIVINGSTONE. A journey to the Four Fountains. Colum Wilson and Aisling Irwin. House of Lochar. 1999.242 pages. £13.99.

In this quite exceptional travel book a man and wife, each with distinctive reactions and intuitions, describe a cycling odyssey through south-western Tanzania, while endeavouring incidentally to inject some meaning into the three most fundamental influences on the lives of African people -colonisation, Christianity and the slave trade.

Considering the immensity of such a task it is unsurprising that the issues are not as comprehensively examined as they obviously need to be, but the findings and observations of the writers provide many fresh insights into them. Unusual also is the fact that sometimes contradictory interpretations of the same scenes and events are freely and candidly expressed by two accomplished writers with excellent powers of description.

Both, like Livingstone, are brave and determined. Whereas most travel writers tend to journey in comparative comfort and spend a lot of time on research and passive observation, Colum and Aisling are under constant attack from the elements and other natural obstacles such as mud and sand as well as occasionally suffering from the limitations of mechanical transport. While expressing astonishment at Livingstone’s stoical fortitude and endurance they unwittingly reveal their own steadfastness and courage, for they were not constantly accompanied, as he was, by a train of devoted servants. Aisling, it would appear, suffered more than her husband.

Explaining the choice of transport Aisling writes: ‘Authenticity is all­important … We had to be free to pass into the depths of the land, not knowing when we would return to a road. Bicycles were the answer; they would be our pack-animals.’
While Colum was intrigued by Livingstone’s exploratory obsession, Aisling was more interested in the seemingly irreconcilable aspects of his character, including the psychological effects of his upbringing in Blantyre, Scotland, as a child worker in a cotton mill, accentuated by his religious convictions and his ‘ascetism’. She writes: “In a sense he sought pain. His was a conscious and deliberate endurance. ”

She compared his impatience with his fellow whites with his sensitive and sympathetic attitude towards Africans, even understanding their resistance to Christianity. Livingstone wrote ‘Africans are not by any means unreasonable. I think unreasonableness is more a hereditary disease in Europe than in this land.’ This seems illogical when one considers Livingstone’s behaviour to his long-suffering wife who died on a previous Zambesi expedition, and his children, for which he later suffered remorse.

There are intriguing accounts of meetings with missionaries, including the White Fathers and the Benedictine monks at Mwimva. Simon and Celia, of the African Inland Mission, told them: “The life of an African fanner is very similar to the life described in the Bible. Their food, their clothes, their houses -it’s much closer to the Bible than our lives in the West. They understand spirituality here.”

On the question of cultural interference, Colum refers to ‘the cold intransigence’ of the missionary movements and believes that many African churches ‘became a vehicle for those attempting to realise a nationalist dream’, leading to the ‘African socialism’ of President Nyerere and the problems of ujamaa and villagisation, with which he deals sympathetically.

About another aspect of Tanzanian life Colum has this to say: ‘As I returned from the market the rain began. Fierce stuff, it thrummed on the dusty ground around me and formed rivulets down the road. I remembered that Livingstone’s equipment for dealing with the rain had included a small segmental boat and paddles. We were bringing nothing but waterproof groundsheets. To succeed in following Livingstone would depend on a long series of triumphs over broken bicycles, swollen rivers, pathless mountains and endless swamps. How could we possibly triumph over such odds?’

Succeed they did, and the story of their pilgrimage through many Tanzanian villages into Zambia, including a number of fascinating photographs, is a riveting one.

John Budge THE BOERS IN EAST AFRICA. ETHNICITY AND IDENTITY. Brian M. du Toit, University of Florida. Bergin and Garvey. 1998.209 pages.

This book provides a fascinating account of Boer Settlement in East Africa. My interests in the Afrikaner began when as a boy in Holland I was gripped by books about the Boer war detailing Boer victories. The book briefly discusses the scramble for Africa, the Boer war, and its aftermath and looks in greater detail into the role ethnicity played in the Boer settlement into East Africa and in its final demise in the early sixties.

The Boer defeat in the Anglo -Boer war in 1902 and the destruction, bitterness, and divisions which it caused among the Afrikaners was the root cause for the Boers arrival in East Africa. Today Field Marshall Lord Kitchener, the British War Hero and victor, would possibly sit in the cells of the International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague accused of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. After my own childhood years in Japanese concentration camps I fully understand Boer feelings. My mother cursed the Japanese until the day she died.

The period of active settlement in East Africa was short -1905 to 1908. Neither the British (in Kenya) nor the Germans (in Tanganyika) enjoyed or encouraged the arrival of the Afrikaners, a troublesome lot of suspect loyalty. Their story is one of adventure, hardship, suffering, tenacity, and a brief period of triumph and economic success after World War II, but in the final analysis, one of failure as the Afrikaner returned to his roots in the South and abandoned the land of which he had never become a part.

The scramble for Africa is a story of Europe’s unbridled audacity and arrogance during which it grabbed a continent much larger than itself. A couple of enterprising young Germans and a gunboat off Zanzibar yielded up Tanganyika. By 1913, 79 German officials supported by black Zulu, Sudanese and Somali mercenaries controlled 7.6 million Africans. There was resistance but it was quickly overcome at a time when the country suffered from disastrous rinderpest and an outbreak of smallpox; locust attacks inflicted famine. Afrikaners did not like the German administration in Tanganyika. It was strict and bureaucratic and Germans tended to think of African interests as being paramount. Many settlers soon moved on into the Belgian Congo or into British East Africa. They found life under the Germans too restrictive. One German woman married to an Afrikaner is quoted as having discouraged and warned the Afrikaners on the ship bound for German East Africa, that in German territory the unfettered lifestyle of the Boers would clash with strict German laws. The Afrikaner wanted space and solitude. He was not going to get it.

Du Toit traces Boer ethnicity back to factors, such as race, language, culture and especially to religion and education. I was fascinated to read that in 1873 an Afrikaner had argued that Afrikaners included people of Dutch, French, German, English, Danish, Portuguese, Mozambican and Hottentot extraction. The Afrikaner moved away from this broad concept of Afrikanerdom and turned to the ill-fated concept of pure white, protestant, Afrikaners.

Du Toit discusses what he describes as the Boers ‘trekgees’, a spiritual inability to remain long in one place and the ‘treklus’, the desire for novelty and adventure as part of the Boer spirit. Long before the Boer war, Boers had fanned out far into the African interior, but conditions after the Boer war, rather than “trekgees”, triggered off the exodus to East Africa. Boers moving to Kenya had often stood with the British and were regarded as traitors in the South. Those moving initially to German East Africa, were the so called “Bitter einders” who had fought the British to the bitter end. The journeys of the Boer settlers to East Africa, by ship from Lourenco Marques, to Tanga or Mombasa, from there by train and ox wagon into the interior, are rather sad stories of incredible tenacity, hardship and suffering. Both the British and the Germans found the Afrikaners stubborn, resenting and resisting assimilation, quarrelsome, and suspected them of disloyalty towards their colonial masters.

Du Toit talks about the grinding poverty of the Boer settlers, but at the same time he writes about them as chartering German ships to take them and their oxwagons to Tanga and Mombasa and of buying cattle from the natives, so there must have been some fairly wealthy men among them.

Boer settlement in German East Africa was a failure and by 1964 most Tanganyika Afrikaners had left.

Maintaining church and educational ties with the South the Boer settler never cut the umbilical cords with the fatherland. The enormous influence of Church leaders coming in from South Africa, according to Du Toit, reinforced the isolation of the Afrikaner in the larger community and, although they did much good they can also be largely blamed for the Afrikaner failure to assimilate into East Africa.

Boer -Black relations are briefly touched upon in the book, but I would have loved to see more about them. Du Toit’s statement that changes in attitude that occurred among most East African Afrikaners contrasted with their contemporaries who remained in South Africa, is not backed up with examples.
Willem Bakker

HEROES OF THE FAITH IN TANZANIA. Seven Witnesses from the Central African Mission 1880-1993. Dr Leader Dominic Sterling. Benedictine Publications, Ndanda, Peramiho. 1997. 33 pages. Copies available in UK @ £2.50 from Christine Lawrence, 26 Wordsworth Place, Southampton Road, London NW5 4HG (Tel: 0171 4822088).

Although only a very small book it is good to have this latest ‘story telling’ from Leader Stirling who, according to my calculations, has written it at age 90! His other books known to me: Bush Doctors (1947), Tanzanian Doctor (1977) and Africa My Surgery (1987) have all made compulsive and informative reading. The recent one is not autobiographical as the others are but written as a tribute to record details of the lives of certain UMCA/SPCK missionaries of whom he has some knowledge. He does point out that there were others equally zealous and dedicated but he has no personal knowledge of some and others have been written up elsewhere.

The important introduction is written with Stirling’s characteristic wry humour and I found it (perhaps being a Methodist) really delightful. I quote about the Central African Mission: ‘Born of the Oxford Movement in the Church of England, but brought to birth oddly enough by a dour Presbyterian, David Livingstone, it professed to be bringing the Catholic Faith to Africa, yet had definitely no connection with or submission to the Holy See of Rome. It just went its own unique way, with its own theology in which, admittedly, no major heresy could be demonstrated and in the end subsided rather lamely into the arms of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, where it quietly lost its identity and its own peculiar ecclesiastical position, but left an extensive African church based on the same’. Needless to say Stirling transferred to the Roman Catholic Church in 1949, after going to Tanganyika in 1935 under the CAM (UMCA).

The ‘Heroes’ he writes about are: William C Porter, Frederick W Stokes, Clara Munro, Edith Shelley, Donald Parsons, Robert Neil Russell and Robin Lamburn. All of them died and are buried in Tanzania. Two, at least, are ‘saints’; one a martyr and two pioneers in the treatment of leprosy. ‘Lived very simply and worked tirelessly’ can describe them all but their stories are individual and remarkable.

Stirling is known to us, of course, for his many, many achievements in the medical field in Tanzania from 1935 onwards. In 1958 he became an MP and from 1975-80 was Minister of Health. He was responsible for introducing Scouting to Southern Tanzania and became Chief Scout in 1962. All this can be read about in the books mentioned earlier. After retirement he continued with voluntary activities in the cause of health. But he says, at the end of his 1987 autobiography , You see I am still a missionary after all this’ and that, I guess, is why, ten years later, he has written the latest small valuable book.
Christine Lawrence

CHINESE AID AND AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT. Deborah Brautigam. St. Martins Press, New York. 1998.256 pages. $69.95.

EAST AFRICAN DOCTORS, A HISTORY OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION. John Iliffe.
Cambridge University Press. 1998. 336 pages. £40. 00 (hardback).
This book was rather critically reviewed by Eldryd Parry of the Tropical Health and Education Trust in ‘African Affairs’ Vo!. 98. No. 391. April 1999. Extracts from his review:
‘It is a ….. pity that in this absorbing and remarkably researched review of the rise of the medical profession in East Africa, whose pioneers endured cold injustice and antagonistic attitudes, the author should not give reasonable credit to those who were totally committed to training their students and colleagues with disinterested service, as did many of the staff at Makerere …. Professor Iliffe chronicles much that was wrong in the past and describes breathtaking white racial arrogance, notably in Kenya, but his pursuit of his theme, to concentrate solely on indigenous doctors, sometimes presents an unbalanced picture ……… .

As the author contributed so much to Tanzania, it must have been difficult for him to write, as he has certainly succeeded in doing, fairly and objectively, about that country and the impact of ‘villagisation’ on health care. The stampede of its rural dispossessed was catastrophic, so that all indicators of health in Dar es Salaam got worse and there was a sad decline in the medical profession. This alarmed the Minister of Health; he blamed their poor working conditions and salaries, intellectual laziness and a lack of leadership from senior doctors. As a result he could only reverse the socialist health policy; ujamaa was impracticable. He began to reform the service but did not last and was replaced on account of the unfettered corruption in his Ministry, for which he was responsible but to which he was not party.’

THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN IN TANZANIA. Robert V Makarimba. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. 1998. Printed by AMREF Tanzania.

This book, written by a law lecturer at Dar es Salaam University, critically examines the legal and constitutional rights of children in Tanzania and the administration of juvenile justice. The author finds much room for improvement in the laws affecting children, the lack of specialised juvenile courts and the child labour regulations and condemns the importation of child pornography.

CULTURE, TRANSNATIONALISM AND CIVIL SOCIETY: Aga Khan Social Service Initiatives in Tanzania. CT: Praeger. 1997. 152 pages. £43.95. COASTAL RESOURCES OF BAGAMOYO DISTRICT. Ed: M Howell and AK Semesi. Faculty of Science. University ofDar es Salaam. 156 pages.

‘What ails Bagamoyo?’ asks Emmanuel Mwera in reviewing this book in the Dar es Salaam ‘Sunday Observer’ on May 9. He points out that 100 years ago Bagamoyo was politically and commercially far superior to Dar es Salaam. The book lists Bagamoyo’s natural resources; the authors are critical about sea weed being a largely untapped source and the mangrove forests not being properly managed; they are concerned about dynamite fishing, and the inability of traditional fishermen to exploit areas away from the shore. They recommend much greater monitoring of the crustacean resource; management of sea cucumber and mollusc shells on a sustainable basis and better facilities for tourists. The book contains a wealth of well researched and well presented data.

GENDER, FAMILY AND WORK IN TANZANIA. Editors: C Creighton, and C K Omari. 1999.310 pages. £42.50.

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

POLITICAL ECOLOGY AND URBANISATION: ZANZIBAR’S CONTRUCTION INDUSTRY. Garth Myers (University of Kansas). Journal of Modern African Studies. 37. 1. 1999.25 pages.
Any comment or discussion on Zanzibar usually focuses on the political conflicts or the constitutional set-up for the isles within the United Republic. However this article gives readers an insight into some of the things that have been happening on the ground there in recent years.

The author covers particularly the period since the Revolution of 1964 and has studied the effects of the development of Zanzibar town, with consequent building of housing, and other projects. He says ‘the current intersection of neo-liberal economic growthmanship, political change, environmental sustainability discourse and the marginalised area of the city, are examined’ (p.94). He sees how this development has led, in particular, to substantial demands for supplies of building materials. He surveys the political background, and the local ecology, especially of Zanzibar island (Unguja). He notes that many of the materials needed for construction work must be imported, but shows how large amounts of local stone, gravel, and sand are now being procured from local sources, often very near the town. The suppliers of the materials are typically small-scale operators of the informal sector, most being immigrants to Unguja from the mainland or Pemba. He comments on the conflict of interest between, on the one hand, the suppliers and their customers, and, on the other hand, the national and local government officials and leaders and other elites who are often the customers too.

The reviewer finds the author’s understanding of the political and environmental situation in Unguja to be generally accurate and perceptive. The subject may seem to be obscure and technical, but if a reader can plough through the heavy academic language, he or she can learn much of interest about what has been really happening in Zanzibar since the Revolution.
Canon Paul R Hardy

POWER, SOVEREIGNTY, AND INTERNATIONAL ELECTION OBSERVERS. THE CASE OF ZANZIBAR. Paul J Kaiser. Africa Today. Vol 46. No i. 1999. 17 pages. This concise account of the controversial 1995 elections in Zanzibar will not be news to readers of ‘Tanzanian Affairs’ but it does place the matter in the context of the whole international observer process. The author examines the degree to which host nations are dependent on donor countries and hence the freedom which they feel they have to give to observers (something usually welcomed by opposition parties) even though there might be some infringement on their sovereignty.

POPULAR VERSUS LIBERAL DEMOCRACY IN NICARAGUA AND TANZANIA. Robin Luckham. Democratization. Vol5 No. 3. Autumn 1998. 34 pages -An interesting two part analysis -the first part ‘contrasting the narratives of popular and of liberal democracy’ and the second, described as a ‘requiem for the apparent failure of the popular democratic experiments’ ­Nyerere’s African Socialism and the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.

EAST AFRICAN EXPRESSIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. Thomas SPEAR and Isaria KIMAMBO Oxford: James Currey 1999. 340pp., ISBN 0-85255­758-2. £40.00 cloth; £14.95 paper.

‘From the perspective of the world system, Tanzania is poor, insignificant and marginal, a fact reinforced daily by the mass media.’ Yet in the eyes of Father Felician Nkwera of the Marian Faith Healing Ministry in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania is a ‘Chosen Nation’, dedicated to the Queen of Peace by Pope John XXIII (on Independence Day 1961, coinciding with the Feast of the Immaculate Conception), the ‘Star of Africa’ and the liberator of Southern Africa. So write Christopher Comoro and John Sivalon in this new volume of essays by academics, mainly historians and anthropologists.

Such evidence of spiritual revival, combined with a typically African concern for the physical as much as the spiritual, and for justice as much as piety, pervades this book. It accounts for the confidence of East African Christian leaders today and calls in question the Western secular habit of ignoring the phenomenal growth of Christianity on the African continent. ‘Christianity is no longer an exotic transplant, but is deeply embedded in everyday thoughts and expressions.’ Religion may be regarded as politically incorrect by many who offer their services sacrificially to help Africa, but this view is little understood by Africans.

The essays are divided into seven topical sections, each of which begins with a short analysis of the theses presented. Most essays conclude with a summary of their chief arguments. There is no attempt at a historical coverage, but the sharply localised foci of the essays are dramatic illustrations of the adoption and inculturation of the Christian message by East Africans over the last 120 years.

The most readable contributions come from the pens of Tanzanians. Anza Lema offers a fascinating account of Chaga traditional religion and the Chaga response to the early Lutheran missionaries who showed little interest in their deeply theistic religion. Bruno Gutmann was one of only a few exceptions -the story of his conflict with his colleagues would have made an interesting appendix -but make no mistake, African evangelists are the real heroes of the story, and of this book.

Cuthbert Omari traces the story of the very recent bitter and bloody conflict on Mount Meru within the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania -unedifying perhaps, but needing to be heeded by all the Churches if local sectarianism, now appearing disconcertingly often, is not to undermine the universal brotherhood of the gospel. Ecumenical brotherhood is much in evidence in Josiah Mhalagwa’s essay, focussed chiefly on Dar es Salaam, about the spiritual revivals which have been such an East African feature for at least sixty years. They continue today in garb more distinctively African than ever before, tending to be orthodox in doctrine and pentecostal in spirituality.

The growth of the Roman Catholic Church in Ugogo and their relations with CMS Anglicans are traced by Gregory Maddox. Many (but not all) missionaries, Catholic and Protestant alike, ‘did not trust Africans to be true Christians’ -a fault which the famous Anglican missiologist, Roland Allen, tirelessly exposed from 1910 until his death in 1947. The ultimate irony, however, is that those Africans ‘began earnestly to enquire into the Christian Scriptures they had been given to see where the missionaries had misunderstood the gospel … and in turn insisted that missionary attitudes should be scrutinized in its revealing light.’ They still do, as Lambeth and Vatican Conferences have recently shown. Lamin Sanneh, the West African theologian, is frequently quoted to show how throughout Africa it is the Christ of the Scriptures who is the test of faith and practice.

Other essays focus on the origins of Catholic and Lutheran congregations in Ufipa and Uzaramo. These local and particular studies of African reception and reinterpretation of the faith enable us better to appreciate broader, more systematic histories like that of Elizabeth Isichei (SPCK) -and also suggest that it may be high time for the direction of the old missionary traffic to be put into reverse in the interests of the re­evangelisation of Europe.
Roger Bowen

TANZANIA: PORTRAIT OF A NATION. Photographs by Paul Joynson­Hicks. Quiller Press. 1998. (Tel: 4996529) 304 pages. £28.00

This is a beauty. Hundreds of colour photographs from the camera of a 27-year old highly skilled British freelance photographer who spent two years on the job and travelled 25,000 miles throughout the country. This book is unlike other Tanzanian tourist travel books. It is Tanzania as a whole and Tanzania as it is now. The book does not devote itself largely to wildlife as most such books do although there are scores of beautiful pictures from the less well known game parks as well as from the Serengeti. Pictures of the Maasai are few; pictures of other Tanzanians are many. There is little on traditional musical instruments and traditional dancing. But, unlike other such books, this one has pictures from every region of the country. The author is interested in places and people and their way of life. Have you ever seen pictures of the miner in Chunya, Mbeya Region, still panning for gold after 50 years, or the spectacular Kalambo Falls in Rukwa Region, or the mobile music maker in Morogoro, or part of the 1.5 km-long diamond pipe at Mwadui near Shinyanga, or the stone age sites at Iringa, or the rarely visited Katavi Plains National Park in Rukwa or the depth of the dust in the main street of Mwanza or how coffee and cotton and tea and sisal are processed? It is all here in these pages.

The captions and the regional introductions do not quite live up to the high quality of the photographs but you will want to read every one of them. The introduction, which comprises a concise history of Tanzania, is excellent.
Christmas is a long way away but this book would make an ideal birthday present. Or, you could give yourself a treat that you will be able to enjoy over and over again. It can enrich your library or be placed on your coffee table for the benefit of visiting Tanzanophiles (as the late Bishop Huddleston used to call us) -DRB.

MATETEREKA: TANZANIA’S LAST UJAMAA VILLAGE. David Edwards. 1998. Occasional Paper No. 77. Centre of African Studies. Edinburgh University, £4.50 or $9.00.
This writing covers the period from 1960 when Julius Nyerere, soon to become President, with his ujamaa policy, was encouraging the formation of small farming socialist communities up until 1998.

The work is built around the history and development of one such ujamaa village. Matetereka, from its formation in 1962, through its time as a member village of the Ruvuma Development Association (RDA) until that organisation’s destruction in 1969; through its growth and struggles with the authorities following this; and to the problems and conflicts brought about by the influx of a large number of newcomers with the implementation of villagisation in 1975, conflicts which continue until this day. There was obviously, at the time of villagisation in 1975, the chance that the whole of the original Matetereka ujamaa group might have been forced to leave all their achievements and move their families elsewhere. This was a fact of life for several of the other RDA villages.

The story of Matetereka was gathered from the ujamaa group in the village where Edwards spent eleven days. It is therefore a story told from their angle. I feel sure that they will have appreciated a sympathetic visitor hearing their story and recording it for outsiders to read. I’m glad that the centre for African Studies at Edinburgh University saw fit to publish it as one of their Occasional Papers.

Together with the Matetereka story, Edwards joins the many writings on the relationship between peasant communities and their governments. In relation to this question in the Tanzania of President Nyerere, the fact that two of his informants, Ntimbanjayo Millinga and Lukas Mayemba were not only involved with the RDA villages but also in local and national politics has provided some interesting details on the lead up to and the banning of the RDA. These largely confirm what I have always believed, that the action of the TANU Central Committee in insisting on the banning of the RDA was in reality moving to put paid to President Nyerere’s concept of ujamaa villages as bodies who took their own decisions on their running and development.

It would be interesting to have the experience of Matetereka from those who were forced into the village through the villagisation programme. Where these newcomers arrived to a village where a group of people had already, through several years hard work, achieved a considerable amount of development, it is easy to see how they might hope to have a share of what was there. Having been uprooted and moved by a government decision, with no consultation, they could hardly be expected to be in co-operative mood. In spite of that it does seem that at Matetereka efforts of the original inhabitants to try and help the newcomers along a similar development road as that along which they had travelled did seem to have a degree of early success. Essential to obtaining the drive for development through communal working that was the hallmark of the RDA villages was the understanding of the members that they were working for their better future and that of their children.
Ralph Ibbott

LIMNOLOGY AND HYDROLGY OF LAKES TANGANYIKA AND MALAWI. Ruud C M Crul. UNESCO Publishing, Paris.

This book is listed as No. 54 in a series by UNESCO on Hydrology but, as its title indicates, it also covers limnology (the study of chemical, physical and biological aspects of freshwater habitats). The book is not intended for the general reader; there is frequent use of technical terms, without any glossary, but it forms a very useful source of a great range of information, published articles and books. There are good accounts of the geography, exploration and European discovery of the lakes, their early scientific investigation, geological and climatic history as well as details of changes in lake levels; the catchment areas are well mapped as are bathymetric details (mapping of the lake bottom). There are accounts of the lake sediments and of their biotic components, especially phytoplankton and zooplankton.

Water balance details show up the limited out flow (about 6% annually) of Lake Tanganyika compared with Lake Malawi (17.6%) ­enough to generate electricity from power stations on the Shire River.

There is a great deal of overlap in the references and a joint bibliography, rather than one for each lake, would have been better. In fact the whole book might have been condensed. It seems that UNESCO could have been a little more painstaking in its editing but, nevertheless it is a most useful publication.
Brian Harris

NOT DEAR TO THEMSELVES. Barbara Wolstenholme. Teamprint. 1994, reprinted 1998. Available from 10 Myrtle Drive, Preston, Lancs. PR4 2Z1 £10.00 incl. p&p. All proceeds to the Methodist Church.

This fascinating account of the severe trials faced by the first missionaries sent by the Methodist Church to East Africa (especially during the long voyage from England, the subject of a major part of the book) has been researched by the great-granddaughter of Rev. Thomas Wakefield who landed at Zanzibar and continued by dhow to Mombasa in 1862. At this time the coast from Lamu to Kilwa, at least, was controlled by the Sultan of Oman and Zanzibar; the British were busy chasing slave ships in the Indian Ocean, and had a Consul in Zanzibar; and, Livingstone had not yet started his last expedition into the interior. Thomas was accompanied by Dr Ludwig Krapf of the C.M.S. and was later joined by Rev. Charles New, the first Europeans to reach the snowline of Kilimanjaro.

I found this ‘look back’ at history extremely readable and even helpful in putting the present into perspective. It is astonishing that the church founded by Thomas Wakefield at Ribe in Kenya is still flourishing. His first wife and baby are buried there.

The book is attractively produced with many line drawings and would make a pleasing gift.
Christine Lawrence

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

WHO ARE TANZANIANS? COMPETING CONCEPTIONS OF TANZANIAN CITIZENSHIP IN THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY. Bruce Heilman. Africa Today. 45, 3-4 (1998) 19 pages.
This article examines the linkage between citizenship and access to political, economic and social opportunities in Tanzania from the colonial to the present time. Heilman rightly notes that during the colonial period, the country’s population was segregated between Europeans who had full access to economic and political opportunities, Asians who occupied an intermediate place with access to commerce and the professions but were essentially excluded from the political life of the country and Mricans who were marginalised in both economic and political spheres. In citizenship terms therefore, Europeans were full members of the society, Asians were a kind of semi-citizens while Africans were simply subjects.

After independence the government adopted a citizenship policy based on the principle of equal rights for all Tanganyikans irrespective of their race but also attempted to redress the under representation of Africans in the civil service, first through Africanisation and later localisation policies. In 1967 the government adopted the socialist path of development, and nationalised the major means of production. With the abolition of private accumulation of private capital and wealth, citizenship as a means of access to resources became largely irrelevant. The policy also created a de facto separation of economic spheres of influence as Africans pursued lucrative careers in the expanding public sector and Asians continued to engage in private sector activities.

The debate over citizenship re-emerged again in the 1990′ s when the transition from a one party socialist state to a multiparty market economy led to a shrinkage of both the civil service and the public economic sector thus undermining the power base of the African bureaucratic bourgeoisie while creating unprecedented opportunities for the Asian commercial bourgeoisie.

The author argues that economic liberalisation in Tanzania has stimulated economic growth, but it has also heightened private sector competition between Africans and Asians resulting in anti-Asian sentiments among African business people. To prove this point, the writer cites a high profile conflict between Reginald Mengi, an African owner of the Independent Television Network (ITV) and two Asians, AI Munir Karim and Shabir Dewji of Coastal Television Network (CTN) and Dar Television (DTV) respectively over the rights to broadcast the World Cup of 1994. As the dispute went on, Mengi claimed that he had received threats against his life and TV station and the two Asians and nine other persons were arrested. Eventually Mengi maintained exclusive rights to broadcast the soccer matches and the charges against the eleven arrested were withdrawn.

The second example is the incident which took place between 1993 and 1994 in which African street vendors attacked Asian owned shops in the Kariakoo area of Dar es Salaam and in Morogoro. These incidents, according to the writer, show that ‘increased economic competition not only created tensions between large-scale African and Asian business but, in some instances, also served as a catalyst for the expression of anti-Asian feelings among participants in the informal sector’. According to the author ‘the actions ofMengi, like those of the Morogoro street vendors, conveyed a similar message to the Asian community: despite their formal legal rights, Asians are still a special group whose status is somewhat like that of guests, their ability to live and prosper in Tanzania depending upon the goodwill of their African hosts’.

While agreeing with the historical review and conclusions on the citizenship debate in Tanzania up to 1990, this reviewer remains doubtful about the conclusion drawn from the two post 1990 episodes noted above. Whatever its prominence, a single incident of the dispute over the rights to broadcast the World Cup, is insufficient to support a general conclusion that there was conflict between large-scale African and Asian businesses. Indeed the author had noted earlier on that even in the post 1990 debates, not all African businessmen supported indigenisation of the economy.

With regard to the shop stoning incidents, it is worthy noting that virtually all the shops on the streets where the riots took place are owned by Asians. Accordingly, it is not entirely certain whether the shops were attacked because they were owned by Asians or simply because they were formal tax-paying businesses preferred by the government against non-tax paying street vendors. If the reason for stoning the shops was because they were owned by Asians, why didn’t this take place until the government sought to bar the petty traders from doing business in the same areas?

Also the reaction of the petty traders after their goods had been destroyed or confiscated is consistent with the response of any aggrieved group of people when the state handles them with strong arm tactics. The victims usually turn to destroying whatever is in their sight.

In my view, the incidents cited by Heilman were primarily economic/class wars between the losers and the gainers in the new economic dispensation and it just happened to be the case that the majority of the gainers were Asians while the losers were Africans. The principle lesson therefore is whether a liberal economic order which enables the few who are already wealthy to prosper even more at the expense of the economically marginalised majority is sustainable.
Bonaventure Rutinwa

DAKA WA DEVELOPMENT CENTRE: AN AFRICAN NATIONAL SETTLEMENT IN TANZANIA. 1982-1992. Sean Morrow. African Affairs. No 97. 1998.24 pages.

When apartheid South Africa banned the African National Congress CANC) in 1960 Tanzania was one of the fIfSt countries to offer asylum and succour to the growing number of refugees. After delving into records deposited in the Liberation Archives at the Fort Hare University, Sean Morrow has been able to present an extremely valuable account of an historic project, enabling him to conclude: ‘It is now possible to aspire to a more subtle and realistic picture of exile as a factor in the history of South Africa’

Now synonymous with the Art and Craft Community Centre in Grahamstown, the name of Dakawa is being preserved ‘to maintain symbolically the memory and spirit of the years of exile’.

The Soloman Mahlangu Freedom College, named after one of the martyrs of the struggle, set up in 1977 on an abandoned sisal estate at Mazimbu, near Morogoro, ultimately housed a population of around 3,500 South Africans and consisted of a large farm, hospital, primary and nursery schools, cultural and sports facilities, a furniture factory and extensive housing. There was however an urgent need for a place where newly-arrived young people might stay until they could be received at the college and the opportunity came in 1982 when the Tanzanian government donated a 2,800 hectare plot at Dakawa, about 55 kms away. The area was undeveloped, isolated, with no electricity or access to sweet water or building stone; it was flat and difficult for the installation of piped water or a sewage system. During the rainy season it turned into a sea of mud. The exiles were badly affected by malaria and other tropical diseases while the experience of exile caused some refugees to take refuge in alcohol and drug abuse.
Ideally, Dakawa was intended as a centre for the orientation of up to 5,000 youths -a model community for a future South Africa. There were plans for agriculture, water reticulation, roads and various welfare facilities. But in 1990 there were only about 1,200 South African workers there. Not all arrivals were students and there was a widespread perception by ANC cadres of Dakawa as a ‘dumping ground’ -the impression could not be avoided that the rehabilitation centre was virtually a penal settlement.

Attempts were made to develop the farm but the land was heavily overgrown with bush and there were drainage and irrigation problems ­three quarters of one sunflower crop was eaten by rats, while roaming Maasai stock, wild pigs and, on one occasion, elephants from the Mikumi Game Reserve devastated crops.

Another issue was the relationship between the ANC and Tanzanian workers. In the context of Tanzania the South Africans were comfortable, even privileged, by comparison with their generally impoverished hosts, on whom they relied for labour. The leadership complained that the South African labour force was ‘very unstable and unreliable’. There were numerous relationships between South African men and Tanzanian women and there are offspring of mixed parentage in the area today. There was also an alleged tendency (,vehemently rejected by the more socially and politically conscious’) for some South Africans to ‘look down’ on Tanzanians as being ‘less sophisticated and poorer than themselves’. As was to be expected amongst a population from a traumatised country, there was also social dislocation and personal maladjustment, leading at times to criminality and violence. Generally speaking the morale was low.

A vocational centre gave instruction in carpentry, plumbing, bricklaying and electrical installation; the leather factory made shoes, belts, and bags and there was a garment factory. Much help was received from Holland, Eastern Europe, the German Democratic Republic and Scandinavia with Western aid arriving much later.

According to Sean Morrow: ‘The spirit of Dakawa is embodied in individuals who moved to Grahamstown. The fact that it was a much wider endeavour than an arts centre alone is not well-known beyond the memories ofthose exiles who were based there.

Now, when the constant flow of refugees is a global reality, it is salutary to obtain an insight such as this into the consequences, so often tragic, of unjust and violent measures imposed by unscrupulous people in authority.

John Budge PROTECTING SCHOOLGIRLS AGAINST SEXUAL EXPLOITATION: A GUARDIAN PROGRAMME IN MWANZA, TANZANIA. Z Magla, D Schapink, J Ties Boerma. Reproductive Health Matters Vol. 6. No. 12. November 1998.11 pages.

This study, carried out in 1996, looked at a protection programme in primary schools in two districts of Mwanza, which had as its aim the protection of adolescent girls against sexual exploitation. The role of the Guardians (walezi), designated female teachers, is to help young women in cases of violence or sexual harassment, and to give advice about problems of sexual health, since the sexual exploitation of female pupils by schoolboys, young men and teachers is common. The programme of protection has already drawn a good deal of attention to this issue among the wider public. One ofits most important initial effects has been to lift the veil of secrecy which hides sexual violence; teachers, among others, have found it more difficult to conceal such abuses than in the past. Even so, the fact that the majority of Guardians and other teachers were opposed to all sexual activity among schoolgirls limited the possibilities of encouraging contraception, and teaching about the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV.
Pat Caplan

PAGAN PRACTICES AND THE DEATH OF CHILDREN: GERMAN COLONIAL MISSIONARIES AND CHILD HEALTH CARE IN SOUTH PARE, TANZANIA. N T Hakansson, Uppsala University. World Development. Vo126. No 9. 1998.9 pages. At the beginning of this century German Lutheran missionaries implemented a successful campaign to lower child mortality without the aid of modem medical technology but through their understanding of indigenous ideas, co-operation with indigenous healers and through co-operation and mutual learning. This paper quotes, from archives, case studies on infant feeding and birth procedures in South Pare 90 years ago.

ACCEPTABILITY AND USE OF CEREAL-BASED FOODS IN REFUGEE CAMPS; CASE STUDIES FROM NEPAL, ETHIOPIA AND TANZANIA. Catherine Mears with Helen Young. Oxfam. 1998. 135p. £12.95

ZANZIBAR AUJOURD’HUI. Jean-Louis Balans. In French. 1998. £25 Obtainable from Africa Book Centre. Tel: 01718363020.

KAULI YA MALALHOI (VOICE OIF THE WRETCHED OF THE WORLD). Mlenge Fanuel. Benediction Publications, Ndanda-Peramiho. 63 pages. 1998. The author of this Swahili book is very angry. He wrote the 25 essays which make up the book to vent his frustration against the establishment for the harsh punishment it meted out to students at the Ardhi Institute after they had been on strike. The East African says that the book has striking similarities to ‘Animal Farm’. It ridicules ‘the political establishment and politicians and their notorious greed and disregard for the public good’.

SWAHILI. ROUGH GUIDE PHRASEBOOK. 179p. 1998. £4.00. Obtainable from the Africa Book Centre.

FOREIGN AID AND ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE IN TANZANIA. Timothy S Nyoni. World Development. Vol 26. No 7. 5 pages. This highly technical paper uses cointegration technique and an error-correction model to examine the relationship between foreign aid inflows and the real exchange rate and assess the potential for aid-induced ‘Dutch disease’ (defined as the undesirable effects of aid). It found that aid inflows, increased openness of the economy and devaluation of the local currency caused real depreciation while increased government expenditure caused real appreciation. Foreign aid has not caused ‘Dutch disease’.

Readers will be shocked to hear that Michael Wise, our Reviews Editor, died suddenly and unexpectedly on November 11. He brought his considerable experience plus great enthusiasm to his task and his own reviews were always a delight to read. He was in the process of preparing this section of TA when he died but has left his files in good order and it has not been too difficult to complete the work for this issue. Reviewers whose work is not included in this issue can contact me although Michael had intended to hold over some reviews to a later date because of shortage of space. For this reason it has been necessary to abbreviate some of the material he did receive. I am sure that readers will support me in sending our deepest sympathy to his wife on her terrible loss – a loss which we also share – David Brewin.

LETHAL AID -THE ILLUSION OF SOCIALISM AND SELF­RELIANCE IN TANZANIA. Severine Rugumamu. Africa World Press, Trenton, New Jersey, 1999

It was the subtitle which grabbed my attention, but the first sections didn’t keep it -a stodgy literature review discussing concepts of the unequal power relationships between aid donors and recipients.

However, when the author starts writing about Tanzania in Chapter three, it’s much better. There’s an excellent historical survey, and a lot of very helpful economic statistics, not merely about foreign aid, but also about the whole economy. The author has also found a 1968 quote from Nyerere about foreign debt: “To burden the people with big loans, the repayment of which will be beyond their means, is not to help them but to make them suffer”.

He analyses the giving and receiving of aid-the interests of the donor state and those of the ruling class receiving it tend to outweigh “development”. In the longer term, aid has fostered dependence which “forces its victims to lose faith and confidence in their own abilities and paralyses their initiatives”, and has made a mockery of the old slogan of “Self-reliance”.

Tanzania did not have a policy framework for absorbing aid. Also, it was very difficult for Tanzanian civil servants to dispute aid-givers conclusions, however misinformed, or funds would disappear, so projects which any local could tell were misguided went ahead.

To illustrate his more general conclusions, he has three case studies ­a Norwegian fishing project “a classic example of a poorly conceived, designed and executed project”, Danish aid at Sokoine University (lecturers obtained higher degrees in Denmark and studied Danish veterinary issues) and Swedish aid at the bureau of statistics (successful in meeting its objectives, but also responsible for “notorious aid-dependence mentality”). He shows how inherent in much of the project design was the interests of the donors, while Tanzanian interests had to be fitted in as best as possible. Tanzanian institutional weakness also meant that they were often not even able to negotiate well.

In the last few pages the author suggests the solutions of better governance, so that the state acts in the interests of the whole country, and of genuine self-reliance-selective delinking from the world economy. But that would be another book.

It is easy to complain that the book minimises the successful impact of aid. Donors have done a lot of good with Tanzania’s roads and railways, for example, but his conclusion that much aid has not helped is incontrovertible, and his analysis as to why is very thought-provoking. It would have been interesting to compare how NGO aid fares compared with government aid ­this could perhaps have painted a slightly more encouraging picture.
Tim Idle

TANZANIA POLITICAL ECONOMY SERIES, 1 TRANSITIONAL ECONOMIC POLICY AND POLICY OPTIONS IN TANZANIA. Eds: Samuel Wangwe, Haji Semboja and Paula Tibendbage of the Economic and Social Research Foundation. Mkuki wa Nyota. Distributed by African Books Collective, The Jam factory, 27 Park End St. Oxford OXl lHU. 130 pages. £18.00.

Many friends of Tanzania, anxious to see its people prosper, have viewed with sadness the failure of many economic experiments of past decades and look forward eagerly to the success of the new policies of President Mkapa. To us this little book will be an encouragement; and to the powers that be it should be a valuable guide.

The book puts forward a set of economic policy options. They reflect current thinking on the role of the state as liberator of market forces, stimulator of private investment, creator of a competitive commercial environment and provider of efficient health, education and social services.

The book was published early last year yet most of the text appears to have been written 2 ‘is years ago; no statistic is given after the Spring of 1966 and frequently the writers indicate that they are putting forward their ideas at the outset of the ‘Third Phase Government’ whose remit runs from 1995 to 2000. I have just one other complaint. The book loses impact by being just a little too academic. The generalisations leave the reader uncertain at times what the authors really want their government to do in a given situation. Just a few comparisons are made with other developing countries; far more would have been helpful. Practical examples of theoretical arguments are rare. We learn of the beneficial privatisation of the Morogoro Shoe Company and the valuable effect on productivity of the Sasakawa Global 2000 Project, but that is about all. Some figures are quoted but the analysis lacks any graphs or charts to clarify movements in the country’s economy during the period under study.

The editors have been very ambitious. They had five objectives: to assess the tentative economic reforms initiated by the ‘Second Phase’ Government of President Mwinyi between 1985 and 1995; to draw lessons from the past; to set out the challenges facing the ‘Third Phase’ Government; to put forward policy options for it to consider when developing its plans; and, to set benchmarks from which future evaluations could be made.

Twenty senior academics and civil servants contributed to the text and the job of the editors cannot have been easy. They provided a good short introduction and a concise summary of the author’s views. In between, one by one, just about all relevant areas of public policy are discussed ­financial, industrial, agricultural, service, the environment, education, women, children, civil service reforms, water, health and so on as well as some ‘cross-cutting’ issues. Each one is reviewed under the headings: ‘current status’, ‘problems and challenges’, ‘short term’ and ‘long term’ policy options’. This rigorous demarcation does not always prevent duplication of ideas but it does help the reader through some fairly complex arguments.

The dryness of some of the text can be an advantage. It has enabled the authors to report the tragic deterioration of conditions in the country in the 70’s and 80’s without comment and without offence. The authors recognise the beginnings of a shift from state control to a more market­oriented economy after 1985, but see reform as far from complete. Their list of policy changes necessary to set Tanzania on the road to prosperity is very, very long.

All the authors are agreed that, the role of the government should be to provide public goods; improve the infrastructure; correct for ‘externalities’; increase the intensity of competition; create an environment suitable for private investment; and, tackle poverty by helping the poor to increase their productivity and incomes. The principle challenge facing the present government is to enhance its ability to manage development through a much stronger legal and institutional framework.

Looking at foreign aid, the authors record that the foreign debt due for repayment in 1995/96 was about 60% of Tanzania’s national debt and 50% of the recurrent budget. We are given three powerful reasons why it must be reduced by attracting private investment and using internal resources. It must come down, not merely to lesson the massive diversion of hard-won taxes, but also to enable the country to stand finally on its own two feet and to continue development from its own efforts when eventual ‘donor fatigue’ leads to the withdrawal of aid.

In sum, if the E&SR Foundation has not succeeded in all it undertook, at least the authors have made an important contribution to the national debate. The Foundation should pursue this exercise. Let them update the economic statistics with graphs to illuminate recent trends, accompany the up-date with a concise list of the policy options and conclude with a set of specific and quantified benchmarks, not merely of GDP, inflation and the like but also of production, productivity, literacy, health, educational attainment and so on. This would surely be helpful as a means of measuring the nation’s progress towards the stated objectives.
Dick Eberlie

TANU WOMEN: GENDER AND CULTURE IN THE MAKING OF TANGANYIKAN NATIONALISM, 1995-1965. Susan Geiger. James Currey, 1997. 217p. £15.95 (paperback) £40.00 (hardback).

This book provides an absorbing and detailed account of the part played by women activists in the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU). Their role in the nationalist movement which set out to secure independence for Tanganyika has previously gone mostly unacknowledged. Whilst Susan Geiger carried out her research from written sources both in the UK and Tanzania, much of her book is based on dictated and recorded accounts, the oral life histories, that the women themselves provided in the 1980s. These, whilst given individually, when combined emerge as a collective biography of a larger whole. Paramount place and space is given to Bibi Titi Mohammed, the most prominent women leader in the nationalist phase (1955-65), whose story provides the thread throughout the narrative.

The author sets the scene and describes the social and political conditions that prevailed in the ’50’s and motivated the women to get involved and play an active part. What stands out is that there was the tendency, at least in the early days, for these women to be drawn from the urban Muslim, Swahili coastal community with little formal or western education; often divorced with few or no children. (It was common practice for girls to marry young and divorce early). In contrast in Moshi the women were usually younger than their Dar es Salaam counterparts with more schooling, more children, fewer divorces and with greater religious diversity. It is their influence which has continued to a greater extent into the post-colonial period.

Regardless of the ethnic backgrounds from which they came, common to all these women was an over-riding belief not only in the right of Tanzanians to rule themselves but also in the equality of the sexes ie that their daughters should have the right to education and employment denied or still not widely open to themselves. Women’s then lack of standing in society and considered inferiority was a strong force and motivating factor in their call for change which they felt would only come with independence and its aftermath. This book therefore does not confine itself purely to the struggle for independence but also looks at the continuation of women’s political culture of nationalism in the post-colonial years and with it the disappointments and setbacks that have since been encountered.

Notwithstanding the fact that TANU Women is both a scholarly and methodically researched book aimed primarily at an academic audience it is also of broader appeal to those with a more general interest in Tanzania.
Pru Watts-Russell

THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE A LEADER. ESSAYS ON THE 1995 GENERAL ELECTION. Edited by C K Omari. Dar es Salaam University Press. 1996. 160 pages.
TANZANIA POLITICAL REFORM IN ECLIPSE. CRISES AND CLEAVAGES IN POLITICAL PARTIES. Max Mmuya. Freidrich Ebert Stiftung. PO Box 4472. Dar es Salaam. 1998. 192 pages.

The recent past, the present and, to some extent, the future of political development in Tanzania are covered competently in these two books.

Regular readers of TA will find little new in ‘The Right to Choose a Leader’ but to others, this is probably the most informative account of Tanzania’s 1995 elections yet produced. Editor Omari proved his credentials by accurately forecasting the results ahead of the elections. Factors he describes in detail which influenced the results include the importance of personality rather than policy in voter choice; the religious factor (the efforts of Muslim fundamentalists in Dar es Salaam backfired); ethnicity (still very important) and NGO involvement. Chapter 5, written by the young Dr Festus Limbu, describes politics at the grass roots and how he tried but failed to win the Magu (Mwanza) seat for the NCCR party. The final chapter on Zanzibar explains concisely the complicated historical background to what happened but steers clear, perhaps wisely, of expressing an opinion on whether the results represented the true will of the electorate.

Senior Lecturer in Government and Politics at Dar es Salaam University, Dr Max Mmuya, in his profound and original book, brings us up to date on the way in which the effort to introduce multipartyism to Tanzania has been pervaded by ‘crisis and cleavages’ and is now, in the view of most observers, in eclipse.

In describing the five main parties, the author, who is a member of the committee set up to propose revisions to Tanzania’s constitution, struggles hard to define CCM’s present policy (‘CCM -The Establishment United ­ From Ujamaa to Ruksa’) but states that recent research indicates that most rural poor people still prefer ujamaa to capitalism, something CCM has to take into account as it becomes more and more capitalist in its orientation.

CUF (Utajirisho -Enrichment) which, according to the author, was the only other party which originally had a vision of the kind of society it wanted (what about John Cheyo’s creation, the UDP, and its Margaret Thatcherism?) but, because its only real strength is now in Zanzibar, has had to ‘form into the same rigid ideology as the CCM on the Isles’.

In the heart of the book Mmuya points out that conflict is a necessary aspect of any political party and reveals in detail the internal conflicts in the CCM (eg: between the elders and the youth; between the mainland and Zanzibar parties) and how it has (so far) successfully coped with them. Mmuya wisely rejects the conspiracy theory that the collapse of the other parties has been instigated by CCM. He prefers such causes as their flouting of their own constitutions, personal ambition and ethnic affiliations.

In a fascinating discussion on how the new multiparty parliaments operate, the book reveals that if Tanzania had had proportional representation rather than the ‘first-past-the-post’ system, CCM would now have 137 seats (rather than the actual 186) and NCCR would have 50 compared with its existing 16.
There is an intellectual discussion in Chapter 6 on relations between parties and civil society organisations. He writes: ‘Unfortunately, as though colonialism was not atrocious, post-independence regimes have either attempted to control the single party or, as in the case of the current reform movement, the colonial laws and regulations have been invoked to drive a wedge in the natural and logical process of parties being founded in civil society organisations’. Case studies in Bariadi, Shinyanga (not very successful), and Dar es Salaam showed civil society to be weak and undeveloped. By contrast, in Zanzibar before the revolution, there were 48 registered organisations -religious, social, recreational and charitable.

Mmuya’s rather brief conclusions make sad reading. He writes, with much support from his own research, that Tanzania is ‘lacking in the appropriate infrastructure upon which to build a liberal democratic system ­a vision shared by all the parties …the cOlmtry cannot afford to pay for countrywide elections for local, parliamentary and presidential elections and leave enough funds for other important allocations’. But, as he says correctly, democracy will eventually triumph.

He concludes the book with these questions: ‘Where are the liberals and where is the liberal infrastructure for them?’ I conclude that this well­researched and well-written book is essential reading for anyone seriously interested in Tanzanian political development.
David Brewin

TREKKING IN EAST AFRICA. David Else. Lonely Planet Publications. New Edition 1998. 348p. £11.99.

This book is a comprehensive guide to mountain treks throughout the whole of East Africa, Malawi and Ethiopia. It includes the standard Lonely Planet advice about the countries covered, getting there and away, information about health and safety, including a section on mountain sickness and notes on tipping guides and porters.

Tanzania is covered in 69 pages and, as you would expect, Kilimanjaro is given a lot of space with good maps and six routes described. There are diagrams showing the steepness of ascent and there is a full list of trekking companies with appropriate warnings about rogue companies. There is a smaller but useful section on Mount Meru which, as the book says, is frequently overlooked by trekkers, but provides an excellent climb through varied landcapes, culminating in a scramble along an exposed crater rim to the summit. The book provides welcome sections on other mountain areas visited by few tourists which are the hidden jewels of the country. Tanzania’s Five Year Tourism Plan seeks to encourage tourists to spread out from the ‘Northern Circuit’ and Zanzibar and with the assistance of the Dutch aid project (SNV) villagers are being encouraged to provide tourist facilities in these areas.

The areas given good coverage in the book are the Crater Highlands, Mt Hanang and the Western Usambaras. I was particularly pleased to see Hanang included as this is a splendid 11,500 ft. isolated extinct volcano, providing an excellent two days trekking. Short sections devoted to the Monduli Mountains, the Pare Mountains, the Eastern Usambaras and the Southern Highlands centred on Mbeya do not do these areas justice and there is no mention at all of the Uluguru Mountains or of Udzungwa. The Southern Highlands in particular offer a vast range of attractions -high mountains, waterfalls, gorges, volcanic features, pleasant climate and excellent walking country.

This book is an essential guide to planning a trek in the region but Tanzania has enough natural treasures to justify a book for Tanzania alone. !
Tony Janes

A VET ABROAD. Stuart Wilson. The Book Guild, High St. Lewes, Sussex. BN7 2LU. TeI: 01723 472534. £15.95.

Books about travel; memoirs; animal stories; all may be of interest. But when you have a combination, you have a winner!
Stuart Wilson gave up a profitable vet practice in Lincolnshire to spend five years in Tanzania. Part of the time he was involved in research programmes and vet practice, but mostly he was training veterinary assistants to mn the animal health control services. He has either used extensive notes made at the time, or has a remarkable memory for detail and moves from animal stories (wild as well as domestic), descriptions of the country as it was some 30 years ago, amusing characters and incidents, many of them at his own expense, with a skill reminiscent of the vet stories in Yorkshire which have been so popular in book and on TV in the UK.

This book would be fun for anyone to read, but for those who knew some of the characters and who experienced Tanzania at the time, it is fascinating. Stuart spent part of his time at Mpapwa but most at the Ministry of Agriculture Training Institute at Tengeru near Arusha. His obvious enjoyment of the work, his involvement with cattle, sheep, horses and dogs both in the area and as far away as West Kilimanjaro and far into Masailand, illustrate that he was much more than just a teacher. His students obviously recognised this when they said in a speech prior to his departure “your teaching has always been systematic, simple and thought­provoking”. I have visited Tengeru several times recently and it is sad to see that the facilities which Stuart struggled so hard to build up have deteriorated disastrously. Further, the Government has not employed veterinary assistants since 1992, and as there are no job prospects, there are hardly any students. As Stuart was about to leave, Tengeru was to be handed over to the East African Community for a few years. At least it is now back to its earlier function and there is a prospect of major renovation. A further regret is that so many of the well established commercial farms to which the author refers have ceased to function.

There are some endearing features. Stuart starts off with a fairly colonial attitude, as one might expect so soon after the colonial era, but he visibly mellows over the five years and clearly gets on well with his students. He realises his own fiery nature (I should like to see if the door in which he hit a hole is still at Tengeru) and is able to joke about it. He jumps fully clothed into a pool when he sees his daughter apparently in trouble! He gets into trouble with lions, snakes, rabid animals, not to mention senior officers. A few minor criticisms should not detract from a warm recommendation. A Swahili speaking editor would have made many corrections to the spelling; in fact the editing in general leaves something to be desired. I wish he had put the full name of all his colleagues. But these are very small points in what is otherwise an entertaining, amusing and a fascinating story not to be missed.
David Gooday

MEMORY AND MAPS. An exhibition of paintings by Jonathan Kingdom at the Royal Geographical Society. October 16-22, 1998.

The paintings in this exhibition followed an expedition to Mkomazi, Southern Tanzania, in which the well-known naturalist and painter 10nathan Kingdom was involved in 1995/96. His oil paintings blend art, science and memories of a lifetime in East Africa (he was born and brought up in Tanzania). They have an immediacy which gives them vibrant life and his interpretation overlays these with topographical and historical knowledge. His intimate knowledge of the area enables him to paint locales invested with weather, temperature and a shifting light.

The wildlife is predominant in the pictures, the physical elements giving an impressionistic landscape but showing the paths and conditions along which the wildlife travels. Prey is watched by predators, the frail confront the elements, competition is played out. A few of the pictures can be seen as abstracts though the viewer can solve the patterns. They are not drawing room pictures; they need some explanation (which was provided in a booklet at the exhibition) but repay close attention.
Cherridah Coppard

Compiled by John Budge and Michael Wise

T.L. MALIYAMKONO, Tanzania on the move. Dar es Salaam: TEMA Publishers, 1997. xiv, 177p., ISBN 9987 25013 O. No price stated.

The book attempts to evaluate the significant events of 1996, in particular President Mkapa’s performance during the year in which he assumed his responsibilities. There is, understandably, little evidence of information taken from books and published reports, and the main sources of information used are the dailies and weeklies of that period.

The result is a fairly concise catalogue of issues and events, which are assessed by topic: the consolidation of democracy; Zanzibar; the economy; public revenue; foreign aid; corruption and the drug problem; regional integration and the problem of refugees. The book also looks at the choice of cabinet (overloaded with academics), the Temeke by-election and some reasons for the victory of Augustino Mrema, and the mushrooming proliferation of broadsheet and tabloid newspapers.

The author suggests that the economy is improving. However this means little to the mass of people, who endure continuing economic hardship, unemployment and less than adequate social services. Corruption and the illegal drug trade are seen as menacing the Mkapa administration. A few measures, like the Warioba Commission on Corruption were implemented, but its recommendations were not acted upon up to the time of writing, and the President expressed his disappointment over the pace of action against corruption. This raises the interesting supposition that corruption is installed even .in government circles Some issues of national importance, such as the Zanzibar political crisis are not thoroughly analysed. Perhaps a shift from over dependence on local dailies and weeklies, to other sources would have provided a more considered analysis of the issues considered here. Problems associated with religious groups or cults, which started to be apparent prior to Mkapa, and have subsequently grown in extent, are not trivial and should have been included. The book provides snapshots of some events of 1996, and there are a few tables and photographs which help to illuminate some of the issues under consideration. The book has its use for students and others more generally interested in the politics of Tanzania, because the issues covered have not gone away. Alii A.S. Mcharazo

Kevin PATIENCE, Konigsberg: a German East African raider. 118p.
Published by the author (1997), P.O. Box 669, Bahrain, £14 (UK); £16.50 (rest of the World)

The British naval operation against the Imperial German cruiser Konigsberg was the most complex, as well as the most memorable in the long East African campaign of the 1914-1918 War. It justified the view of the German military commander, Col. von Lettow-Vorbeck, that while the outcome of the war would be decided in Europe, he could have some influence on that theatre by drawing away British and Allied forces and inflicting losses on their manpower and resources. He succeeded brilliantly in that objective, causing the British and their allies to commit, by some estimates, about a quarter of a million men in all to chasing him for over four years, without ever capturing or defeating him.

The Konigsberg’s initial victorious actions at sea, first capturing and scuttling the merchant ship City of Winchester in the Gulf of Aden, and then sinking the cruiser HMS Pegasus in Zanzibar harbour, indicated the serious threat posed to British power in the Indian Ocean. The Admiralty ordered the captain of the cruiser HMS Chatham to “seek and destroy the Konigsberg at any cost.” Kevin Patience’s book gives a detailed account of all that followed, with the central focus being on the technical rather than the human aspects. The finding and eventual sinking this one German cruiser, lying in various locations up to 15 miles up-river, surrounded by mangrove swamps, took ten months. It involved more than twenty British naval and civilian vessels, including a battleship, seven cruisers, and three armoured monitors, eleven aircraft (including seven seaplanes) in four separate phases, plus supporting land forces based on Mafia. There was also the audacious personal reconnaissance by the famous South African hunter Pieter Pretorious, who boarded the Konigsberg in disguise to find out the state of the ship’s guns and torpedoes.

The Konigsberg was finally abandoned and scuttled by the Germans in July 1915, after being smashed by heavy British naval shelling, with the assistance of intrepid aircraft spotters. But that was not the end of the ship’s contribution to the German fighting ability, and the surviving crew members were a valuable reinforcement of the German land forces. Perhaps most importantly, the Konigsberg’s ten 4 inch guns were removed from the wreck, repaired, and used in action during the next two years, until all were eventually captured in different locations.

Kevin Patience meticulously records every stage of the campaign, together with full details of the ships and aircraft engaged on each side, giving specifications of their armaments and capabilities, and description of what eventually became of them. He quotes extensively from both British and German official records of the military engagements. There are numerous photographs, many of which I guess have not been published before, and they vividly illustrate the whole story. His account is a valuable complement to the more journalistic one contained in Charles Miller’s book Battle for the Bundu. It should appeal to anyone who has ever been near the Rufiji River, apart from having an interest in wartime history or in events that helped to shape Tanzania of today.
David le Breton

Zaline M. ROY-CAMPBELL, Language crisis in Tanzania: the myth of English versus education, by Zaline M. Roy-Campbell and Martha A.S. Qorro.
Dar es Salaam: Mkuti na Nyota Publishers, 1997. 182p., ISBN 9976 973 39X, £13.95; US$25.

Distributed in the UK by African Books Collective, 27 Park End Street, Oxford OXl 1HU.

This book delivers a damning verdict on the use of English as a medium of instruction in Tanzania’s secondary schools, showing not only that pupils are failing to attain adequate levels of English, but that their entire education is seriously affected by this, leading to the “denial of education to the majority of Tanzanian students, even though they are in school” (p.72). The authors point out the anomaly of continuing to promote a language in schools that has an ever decreasing role in Tanzanian society (with 90% of secondary leavers having no use for English in their jobs once they leave school). Government policy states that the purpose of secondary education in Tanzania is to prepare students to fulfil their role within Tanzanian society, in which Kiswahili has been actively promoted. By insisting on English-medium instruction, the status of Kiswahili is downgraded and the system acts to prepare “a nation of ‘servers’ and ‘waiters’ for the outside world” (p.91) rather than citizens capable of contributing to local and national development.

An estimated 95% of secondary school students in Tanzania lack the necessary skills in English to read and communicate effectively. The reasons for this include the poor command of English on the part of many teachers, lack of motivation for learning English, and the scarcity of suitable textbooks and other reading material. Teachers compensate for these problems by teaching largely through Kiswahili, even though this goes against government policy. Exams, however, are still set in English and, not surprisingly, students who have been taught through Kiswahili fail to perform well. For example, in the 1992 National Form Two exams, the results were so poor that the pass mark had to be reduced to 14%!

The perceived solution to this crisis has been to attempt to improve levels of competence in English, notably through the English Language Teaching Support Project (EL TSP) which was funded by the British government. The main condition of funding for this project was that English was to continue as the medium of instruction. However, the evidence suggests that EL TSP has failed to improve competence in English sufficiently to make any real difference to educational standards. Rather than continue with this policy, the authors suggest switching to Kiswahili-medium instruction and teaching English as a foreign language. They argue that not only would educational standards as a whole improve, but that the standards of written Kiswahili and of English would also rise, with better targeting of resources and specialist knowledge. The authors claim that the need for Kiswahili teaching materials which their proposals would require should be viewed as an opportunity rather than a problem. They point out that most of the English books available at present are inappropriate and have to be explained to pupils in Kiswahili anyway, and that, in the long term, there will be economic benefits because low-cost Kiswahili text-books can be produced locally, whereas the ELTSP project is tied in with exclusive deals with U.K. publishers (p.123). One minor criticism would be that the authors use arguments in favour of ‘mother tongue’ education to support the use of Kiswahili, while glossing over the fact that 10% of the population do not speak Kiswahili and many of the remaining 90% do not speak it as their mother tongue.

Many of the claims made in this thoroughly readable book are not new, neither is the major piece of research into secondary school students’ reading competence in English, presented in chapters 2 to 4. However, the fact that the situation regarding language policy in secondary schools has yet to change, indicates the need for this book to be read by policy makers in Tanzania and Britain.
Alison Nicolle

TANGANYIKA rifles mutiny, .January 1964, by N.N. Luanda and others. Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Peoples Defence Forces/ Dar es Salaam University Press, 1993 (but actually published 1997). 177p., Tsh 5,000.

Most people are said to be able to remember where they were when President Kennedy died. In January 1964 army mutinies in Africa were not as commonplace as they became later and I (and many others) remember exactly where I was when the newly created Tanganyika Rifles (formerly King’s African Rifles) suddenly rose up against authority. I had placed my car in a garage for servicing in Mwanza, and gone to do some shopping. Suddenly the shops closed and people rushed home. Rumour said that troops based in Tabora were ‘marching’ (that was the word used) on Mwanza. I rushed back to collect my car, with thoughts of a quick exit towards Uganda – but then the Ugandan army also mutinied.

This book succeeds admirably in answering almost all the questions that came up at the time, and later. Was it a mutiny or a coup? Was it just a workers’ strike? Who were the real instigators? Who ruled Tanganyika during that turbulent week? Where did President Nyerere go? Who called in the British commandos, and how was the mutiny quelled so quickly? In finding answers the authors, from the Directorate of History, Research and the Museum of the Army and the University of Dar es Salaam have done some solid research and have managed to contact most of the key players. The result is a fine piece of investigative journalism, to which is added more than a touch of controversial academic analysis.

Chapter 1 gives a detailed outline of the army’s history. It is critical of the slowness in Africanisation of the officer cadre in the early 60’s, but observes that most of the manpower of the army came from tribes who lagged behind in education. It explains how the newly elected T ANU Party had treated the army with ‘benign neglect’ since independence, while attending to other priorities. Confident in the leadership of the army by Brigadier Sholto Douglas, his position must have been made uncomfortable by the country’s increasing involvement, by late 1963, in the African Liberation Movement. On January 12 1964 there had been a revolution in Zanzibar. The Dar es Salaam police force had been depleted by the need to support the new government of Zanzibar. The Tanganyika mutiny followed eight days later, that of Uganda on January 23, and in Kenya the next day. Those governments called for British help immediately and the mutinies were quickly negated, but in Tanganyika it took almost a week before a very reluctant Julius Nyerere felt that he had to call for help to his country’s fanner rulers.

In chapter 2, M.L. Baregu tries, but fails, to find any linkage between the three mutinies. In a well argued analysis, however, he comes to the controversial conclusion that, because of the tense situation in Zanzibar and the radical policy pursued by Nyerere at that time ‘Tanganyika had to be taught a lesson’, and that it was the British, through various actions they had taken beforehand, who ‘may not have instigated the mutiny but did precipitate it’.

In chapters 3 and 4, Professor Luanda describes the sequence of events from the moment shortly after midnight on January 19, when the duty officer was woken by three soldiers who ordered him to keep quiet under pain of death by strangulation, until the close of the eventful week when the British Royal Marine Band, in ceremonial uniform was playing to crowds celebrating the termination of the mutiny in the centre of Dar es Salaam.

The story is full of drama and features widely differing personalities who give their version of aspects of events. These include David Kimble, then at the University, who thought that it was a coup d’etat rather than a mutiny; the late Oscar Kambona, described by some as the ‘strong man who saved Nyerere’s government from collapse’ and by others as an ‘obstinate blunderer’; Sergeant Francis Hingo Ilogi, an ambitious young man who played a key role in planning the mutiny, and became for a very short time a Lieutenant Colonel; Captain S.M.A. Kashmir who was told he would be packed off to Bombay if he didn’t behave, and was later seriously wounded; the Brigadier, who escaped from the barracks on the night the mutiny began and took charge, with the then High Commissioner, of the British troop operation, the Yugoslav Ambassador, who rashly brandished a revolver at the mutineers and received a severe blow from a rifle butt; Mikidadi Mdoe, Director of the Tanganyika Broadcasting corporation, who flaty refused to broadcast a statement that the government had asked Britain to send in troops; and President Nyerere who refused to sign the request and got vice-president Kawawa to do it instead.

The mutineers’ objectives had been relatively limited – to get rid of their British officers and to get more pay. The ringleaders were imprisoned and most of the soldiers dismissed from the Army. The president began to create a new politicised army starting with the members of the TANU Youth League, under the control of African officers of the former Tanganyika Rifles – many of whom had been detained by the mutineers. He was successful. The new army proved to be up to the mark in the war with Uganda and has never since any serious trouble.

Where was President Nyerere for the first two days of the Mutiny ? Read the book and you will find out on page 117.

David Brewin

Articles in Journals

Malongo R.S. MLOZI, Urban agriculture: ethnicity, cattle raiSing and some environmental implications in the city of Dar es Salaam. African studies review, 40 (3) December 1997, p.1-28.

The oil crisis, political strife, economic mismanagement, drought, increased population, distorted industrialisation and the lack of job creation. These are, without doubt, some of the main reasons for the worsening of Third World economies, and in this interesting study, Malongo Mlozi blames them for “the attrition of civil servants’ efficiency, a decline in real incomes, increased balance of payment problems and low productivity”, all of which encouraged African governments, including Tanzania’s, to “involve the labour force in informal sector economic activities such as urban agriculture”. He also stresses, however, the extent to which this has led to “widespread environmental degradation.”

The practice of raising cattle among members of the 33 ethnic groups in the city is no longer the exclusive preserve of the poor. It is the second largest source of employment, after petty trade and labour, and 74 per cent of urban farmers, many of them quite wealthy, keep livestock.

The author describes quite dramatically the degrading effect on the environment. Animal dung acts as a breeding ground for harmful bacteria, flies and the mosquito, causing malaria, yellow fever, tetanus and elephantiasis, and giving great concern to a city council already struggling with the impact of poor refuse collection facilities and malfunctioning drainage systems. The resultant poor air quality causes breathing difficulties for the elderly, the very young and asthma sufferers. Add to these the risks of water pollution, especially of shallow wells, while nitrates in water are especially harmful to babies. Antibiotics used in the unsupervised treatment of cows can cause disease in humans, because of bacteria resistance, and people may drink contaminated milk because of the absence of testing procedures. Milk from these sources is sold to schools, hospitals, bars, restaurants and army barracks. “The economic propensity to get money from milk sales takes precedence over the need to heed and cater adequately for the health and safety of customers”, says the author.

Livestock in the city destroy ornamental plants, roads, lawns, water channels, telephone lines, parks, fences and traffic signs. They obstruct pedestrians and motorists alike, and sometimes cause accidents, as well adding to soil erosion and damage to buildings, contributing to “urban desertification.”

From 900 inhabitants in 1891, the city now has an estimated population of 2.2 million, with more than 18,000 cattle. Evidence suggests that the wealthier residents, able to buy cows more easily, raise them in “islands of affluence”, where they have considerable administrative, economic and economic power.

The author believes that Tanzania’s “inability to adequately remunerate the elite, bureaucrats and other workers” lies in part on its past dependence on the main export crops – coffee, cotton, tea and sisal – and its subsequent decline. They started to raise cattle to solve their money problems and were encouraged by a government faced with a poor economic outlook and “a particular culture of status and rewards among senior officials, public institutions, the ruling party and private companies” who had political clout and enjoyed privileges which could be used in furtherance of their cattle-raising.

Educational attainment also accounted for the predominance of the elite. In colonial times, for instance, the Chagga group, who raised 40 per cent of the cattle in the city, were quick to show interest in western education, primarily as a way to strengthen their own political and economic well-being. It occurs to me, however, that in the course of this admirable sturdy, Mr. Mlozi may have overlooked a very useful source of research material – the essential involvement of the women, and especially the Chaggas, renowned for their enterprise culture, and self-help for themselves and their families.
JB

TROPHY hunting as a sustainable use of Wildlife resources in southern and eastern Africa Journal of sustainable tourism, 5 (4) 1997.

Tanzania had three National Parks at Independence; today, to its credit, there are thirteen. In June 1997 Newsweek reported that a World Bank representative said of Tanzania’s National Parks, “To my mind the tourism is the best in Africa. Nothing touches it. Nothing.”

Tourism in Tanzania, from a base of $10 million in 1987, brought in $300 million in 1996. The next year visitors increased by 59,000 to 359,000, while Kenya’s increase that year was only 11,000. Tanzania expects half a million visitors by the year 2000, who will bring in $500 million.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature warned in October 1996 that one quarter of the world’s mammals are faced with extinction. The Journal of sustainable tourism states that “Preserving wildlife in a pristine state on a large scale is no longer feasible in view of continued human population increases, economic development”, etc. But the Serengeti Park, and others in the country might, at the present time, qualify for large scale pristine state status.

Indigenous people are an integral part of the ecosystem. In Nyaminyami, Zimbabwe, there was a typical African cattle overgrazing problem. The game had, as a result, left the area. When it was proposed the cattle should be fenced off from the spoiled, wild bush, but that the local people would benefit, they set to and built the fences themselves. In time the land recovered, the game returned, overseas hunters were admitted to the area, and fees paid to the local people, who at the same time could keep meat and skins, or sell them, as an efficient mobile processing plant followed the hunt to maximise these products quickly. Game farming the bush, for income, with wildlife numbers carefully monitored and the cattle controlled, paid off, and the people of Nyaminyami saw this as something worth preserving for themselves.

Sustainable hunting must he based on quotas, but quotas can rarely be set on sustainable levels as population estimates are known to be unreliable. But it is argued that hunting is less ecologically damaging than tourism, and that it needs fewer services, and also that it takes place in areas tourism could not easily access. Hunting revenue may amount to each hunter paying $1,000 a day, which may amount to $30,000 per person for a safari, with government charges for each animal killed rising, in the case of elephant, to $7.500.

Tourism in Tanzania looks set to boom, so long as the tourist enjoys vast wilderness with magnificent scenery, and packed with wildlife. In 1967 the Serengeti boasted 180,000 zebra, 700,000 gazelle and 340,000 wildebeeste – all attended by several hundred lion. Today the wildebeeste total 1.8 million. But what might happen if the Serengeti borders were extensively hunted?

Is it possible that so many lions might be shot just outside the Park, that the populations of zebra, gazelle and wildebeeste could rise uncontrolled into chaos and self-destruction from overgrazing? How many National Parks are bordered by hunting areas? Is there a risk that ‘fast buck’ hunting fees and inaccurate quotas may start to bite at the stuff that tourism is made of? Government officials in tourism, an industry set fair for many years to come, might be well advised to watch over their colleagues responsible for hunting whose golden goose may become caught in the crossfire of overhunting. For unless quotas are scientifically sound, ‘controlled’ hunting may become, in fact, the end of the game, and indeed, theirs.
Grahame Dangerfield

Publications Noted

Abdin CHANDE, Islam, ulamaa and community development. Austin & Winfield, 1997. 277p., ISBN 1-57292-016-5, £41.50 (paperback)
Distributed in the u.K. by Eurospan, 3 Henrietta Street, London WC2E 8LU. A study, based on a small Muslim village in Tanzania, of the conflicting impact of Islam and secular western social influences.

FOREIGN aid in Africa: learning from country experiences; edited by J. Carlsson, G. Somolekae and N. van de Walle. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1998. 224p., ISBN 91-7106-415-X, SEK200; £18.95.
The East African content is two chapters dealing with Kenya and Tanzania. That on Tanzania is entitled: Aid effectiveness in Tanzania with special reference to Danish aid.

Deepa NARA YAN, Voices of the poor: poverty and social capital in Tanzania. Washington, D.e.: World Bank, 1997. 96p., ISBN 0-8213-4061-1, price uncertain. (Environmentally and socially sustainable development studies and monographs series; no.20)

Moving Image and Performance

AFRICA close-up; produced by Joseph Towle. 1997. Videocasstte, 28 minutes. Distributed by Maryknoll World Productions, P.O. Box 308, Maryknoll, NY 10545-0308, U.SA US$16.95. (Children of the Earth series)

This two part video introduces school-age children to their counterparts in two different African settings: the inner city of Cairo, and the town of Bariadi in rural northern Tanzania.

The first part looks at the life of a 15 year old girl, Samah Ibrahim, whose father is an immigrant worker in Kuwait, and has spent seventeen years there, leaving the close-knit family to oversee the upbringing of his children in a public housing settlement.

The second 14 minute segment focuses on 15 year old Bernard Bulemela and his family in a rural settlement in Shinyanga Province. Environmental problems and the struggles of day-to-day existence in a resource-poor region are at the heart of this short study. The video illustrates the hardships that rural families face in acquiring the everyday necessities of water and firewood, and also shows what achievements are being made in environmental conservation and sustainable development.

Each section shows children coping with challenges that are far removed from those of a typical western oriented viewer. But the video doesn’t dwell on deprivations, and to its credit it highlights the strength and resourcefulness of each child and their families, while suggesting the road out of poverty that can lie before them.

The closing image of the Tanzanian section captures this spirit: Bernard’s father gathers his family around the radio each night to listen to the BBC World News, so that they will be knowledgeable about world events. Extracted from World Views Oct.-Dec.- 1997

Hukwe ZAWOSE, one of Tanzania’s leading traditional musicians enchanted a capacity audience at London’s famous Globe Theatre on June 19. Dressed in the traditional costume of his Wagogo people, he played a variety of instruments, sang and danced, accompanied by a young assistant. With deft humour and subtle variations of pace and word and without the aid of a microphone, Hukwe established an immediate rapport with his audience.

This performance was part of a WOMAD concert which included musicians from Madagascar, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. Among all these very gifted artists he shone as the evening’s star. David Somers

Compiled by John Budge and Michael Wzse

Helena JERMAN, Between Jive lines: the development of ethnicity in Tanzania, with special reference to the western Bagamoyo District Uppsala: Finnish Anthropological Society; Nordic Africa Institute, 1997. 360p. (Transactions of the Finnish Anthropological Society; no.38) ISBN 952-9573- 16-2, SEK 110.

This study is based on the area that lies inland from Bagamoyo. It forms the section of the greater Bagamoyo district that, more than the sea coast town itself, was subjected to and influenced by, the passage of representatives of differing cultures through the centuries. Not all of the slavers, propagators of religious belief, traders, and politicians merely passed through, leaving a detritus of ideas and physical tokens of their passage. Some, for whatever reason, tarried or settled, administered from distant urban centres; all had some significant impact. It is their successive impacts that are the subject of this interesting book.

It originated as the author’s thesis for her doctorate, and was based on oral as well as documentary evidence. The investigation dates from more than twenty years ago, and as such is to some extent a valuable historical record, pictorially and in the interviews with old people, of a society that has subsequently undergone further radical change; such has been the impact of the late twentieth century even on rural communities.

The five lines of the title were drawn in the sand by an elder in the course of describing his country’s development though many centuries. They symbolised, for him, the peoples who have confronted each other in the region. The author’s text is divided into sections that consider the pre-colonial period, which included most notably the islamisation of the coast, the development of the Waswahili ethnic identity, and powerful invasions such as the Ngoni and the Kamba. Then came the German period, and the widespread repercussions of the Maji Maji movement. The British period included the emergence of political associations, while the post-independence era has seen attempts at the integration of a national culture and controversial attitudes regarding the positiveness or otherwise of ethnic/tribal thinking.

The author’s list of sources used, or consulted in personal contacts is impressive. This is the outcome of systematic investigation over a period of years, and deserves consideration. It is also very readable.

MW

John MILLARD, Never a dull moment: the autobiography of John Millard -administrator, soldier and farmer. Silent Books [1997?] 226p., ISBN 1 85183 096 0, 217.50. Obtainable from: Philippa Millard, 29 Gorst Road, London SW1l 6JB. U.K.

This is an apt title for the story of an all-rounder who enjoyed life to the full. A more sententious critic might categorise the book as a smug saga, but although a degree of self-satisfaction does emerge in its pages (as happens with many autobiographies) this would be far too harsh a verdict to make in this case.

The author writes from experience in many fields and countries and he must have taken great pains over the years to chronicle the incidents that provide the material for his narrative. In doing this he has achieved his aim of portraying both the highs and lows in various situations and careers. He describes these lucidly and entertainingly and with an easy style in which, inter alia, he makes light of adversity.

John’s account compares favourably, in my view, with several others I have read written by persons who served and farmed in the colonies, and he certainly captures the atmosphere of Africa. Although not a scholarly dissertation, he writes expansively and diversely, not confined only to African matters. His encounters during World War I1 in many theatres receive due comment and are interesting, as also his amusing description of his time in Whitehall at the Colonial Office, where he worked with the late Sir Ralph Furse (the renowned Director of Recruitment) on the selection of key personnel for the Post-war Colonial Service. Never a dull moment is not penned in official Government-type language nor is it weighed down by numerous appendices. Another plus, and so essential in a non-fiction book, is the efficient index of names and places.

Affection for his family is apparent throughout, and this is well illustrated by his sensitive handling of the effects of the serious and tragic riding accident sustained by his wife; Corinne. His love of the countryside, and for South Africa (where he was born), the United Kingdom and especially his wife’s homeland, Ireland, all figure prominently in his thoughts. His final philosophical words, written no doubt from his contented retirement base in Kenya state: “I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday, and I love today”.

N. O. Durdant Hollamby

Aili Maria TRIPP, Changing the rules: the politics of liberalisation and the urban informal economy in Tanzania. Berkeley: University of California Press, Berkeley, 1997. 289p., ISBN 0-520-20278-3, £13.95; US$ 18 (paperback)

It is the early 1980s. Forty passengers board a privately operated bus leaving Dar es Salaam. A police officer stops the bus because, although public transport is woefully inadequate, only government-owned buses are legal. The passengers, strangers to one-another, spontaneously become one big happy family, singing and ululating as though on the way to a wedding. The police give up; they cannot charge the driver of a wedding party.

That is but one of the many examples Aili Maria Tripp offers to convince the reader that the civil society – persons pursuing livelihood outside wage employment – strongly influenced government policies. Tripp’s approach is refreshing because the ordinary citizen is often seen as victim of inept or immoral government and/or international banking policies. The tale is too seldom told of collective survival skills -families getting roofs over their heads, beans on the table and shoes on the children.

The author of this book, the daughter of Lloyd and Marja-Liisa Swantz, did her schooling in Tanzania (1960-1974) and often accompanied her mother on research interviews. Between 1987 and 1994 she and a Tanzanian research assistant interviewed (in Kiswahili) nearly 300 residents of Manzese and Buguruni districts of Dar who were engaged in informal sector activities. They also interviewed ten-house cell leaders, party secretaries and chairmen and legal counsellors. The objective of the study was ‘to document the growth of new dimensions in Tanzania’s urban and informal economy in response to the economic crisis of the late 1970s and 1980’.

Tripp traces the employment-related history of Dar es Salaam, including the split between CCM and government in the mid-1980s. In 1970 just 4 per cent of wives living there were self-employed, but by the end of the 1980s, 69 per cent of women were self-employed. Because real wages fell by 83 per cent between 1974 and 1988, more than 90 per cent of household income came from the informal sector of the economy, where women, children and the elderly dominated. Most of them operated from their homes, a fact that leads Tripp to a strong condemnation of the oversight of the household economy in national accounts that intensifies the formidable nature of market restraints for the poor.

The survival strategies of women, children and the elderly form an innovative array. They sell maandazi and other pastries, fish, cassava, soup, rice, beer and soft drinks; they are tailors, and the better educated export horticultural products and organise secretarial services; they own shipping and receiving companies, private schools, flour mills. In Zanzibar alone, since the late 1980s, an estimated 10,000 women produce seaweed as a cash crop.

Some husbands -but not many -fear that their wives ‘will do well and leave me’, others simply say that their wives ‘make a few cents’ with their projects. But most men keep quiet after providing starting capital for their wives. Indeed! The average monthly income from making maandazi is 4.5 times the minimum salary in Dar.

Women have a good deal of autonomy today, and at least half of those interviewed by Tripp participate in savings societies (upato). Whether barely getting by or earning high incomes, they save money to pay for their children’s education, clothe them and build family houses. They are central to the family economy. In the words of the author: ‘People have drawn on their own resources and have come up with creative, flexible and viable solutions to the problem of survival under extreme duress’. In the process, they have often quietly defied the law, and government gradually gave in – often quietly as well – by easing restrictions and legalising informal economic activities.
Margaret Snyder

Articles in Journals

Rita ABRAHAMSEN, The victory of popular forces or passive revolution7 A neo-Gramscian perspective on democratisation. Journal of modern African studies, 35 (1) 1997, p. 129-152.

Most scholars acknowledge the connection between the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe and the subsequent “democratic wave” in sub- Saharan Africa. This paper, by a journalist and PhD. candidate in the Department of Politics at the University of Swansea, is primarily a perceptive study of overseas aid and its ramifications.

Aid policy during the Cold War was shaped by strategic-political considerations, and African leaders did not hesitate to play the two sides off against each other in order to attract foreign support. When it ended there was a substantive reduction of aid to Africa, especially for authoritarian regimes -as witnessed most recently in Zaire. The end of the cold war has been portrayed as a ‘moral release’ for the West because it allowed for the formulation of policies along more principled ethical lines, and resulted in the emergence of the ‘good governance’ agenda, and political conditionality.

While former communist states became successful competitors for Western aid, presenting new and lucrative investment opportunities, Africa’s share of economic assistance declined. At the same time the idea of one-pasty states was discredited and democratic thinking was encouraged – even Julius Nyerere was said to have conceded that Africa could learn “a lesson or two” from Eastern Europe.

Africa’s prolonged economic crisis also undermined the developmental ideology which underpinned the one-party state, as the capacity of states to meet the welfare needs of their citizens steadily deteriorated or collapsed altogether. At the same time corruption, mismanagement and human rights abuses persisted in what have been called ‘states without citizens’ – which exist only for themselves and their own beneficiaries, excluding the vast majority of the population. Popular protests became common among wide sections of the population, especially urban workers, trade unions and the middle classes, including students, teachers and civil servants.

Maintaining that countries do not exist in isolation, the author sees that in a world increasingly dominated by a global capitalist system, more and more decisions lie outside the control of the individual state. African regimes, increasingly reliant on overseas aid, consequent on poor credit ratings, had no alternative to dealing with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, described as “a de fact receiver to African governments”, and the effective governance of Africa was “gradually transferred from its official political leaders and former political organs to international financial institutions”.

Structural Adjustment policies, with their emphasis on privatisation, market efficiency, proper pricing policies, and so on, invariably lead to a dismantling or radical reduction of the economic and welfare role of the state. But so far, the author continues, “the miracle of the market” has failed to materialise, while the negative effects continue to mount. “Those few countries which have achieved some macro-economic stability have done so at the expense of growth, investment and human welfare”.

The emergence of pro-democracy movements could not be explained without reference to the widespread feeling of disillusionment and discontent arising from externally imposed austerity measures.

The author expresses the view that a liberal market democracy merely becomes complementary and supportive of goals aimed at expansion of the capitalist world economy. Some gains are achieved in terms of civil and human rights, “but the same elites are still in power and the same socio-economic arrangements persist”.

She concludes: “For those committed to change the message is perhaps that, in order to succeed, counter-hegemonic struggles must take place, not only at the national but also at the international level.”

JB

Stein Sundstol ERIKSEN, Between a rock and a hardplace? Development planning in Tanzanian local governments. Third world planning review, 19(3) August 1997.

Laura FAIR, Clothing, class and gender in post-abolition Zanzibar. Journal of African history, 39, 1998, p.68-94.

From the dawn of civilisation – if not before – what people wore and how they wore it has been significant for the identification of class, status and power. In this interesting and detailed study Laura Fair shows that in Africa, and especially in Zanzibar, this subject is particularly meaningful because of the legacy of slavery and of the area’s specific geography.

She observes that with the abolition of slavery in 1897, former slaves began a “protracted multi-generational process of redefining their positions”. In the early part of this century they accounted for roughly three-fourths of the island’s population, and began identifying themselves as freeborn coastal Swahilis. “They had spent the greater part of their adult lives there, built their homes, planted their farms and watched both their children and their trees grow to maturity on Zanzibar’s rich soil.”

They abandoned clothing associated with their mainland heritage and adopted fashions which identified them first as Swahili and later as Zanzibar-is. As smallholders they became the main producers of the island’s two main exports -cloves and coconuts. Their increasing economic advance often came at the expense of the Omani aristocracy.

Clothing fashions and styles, as well as class and ethnic identities were dramatically remade. Freeborn children began adopting elements of free dress, particularly head coverings and shoes, which they had formerly been forbidden to wear, as well as creating new forms of dress. New markets for imported cloth were opened up, especially in towns, as consumerism was seized upon by former slaves “as a means of articulating their aspirations of upwards social mobility.” The makers and sellers of kangas were making a fortune from women who were said by many to be busily transforming their identities from those of slaves into “slaves of fashion”!

The adoption of Arab clothing was a common strategy, for the association of veiling and purdah with status and property was widespread in pre-colonial Muslim Africa.. After the First World War, women who covered themselves from head to foot with a buibui were publicly demonstrating that they were worthy of respect. Asked why women began to wear the buibui instead of a kanga, a respondent suggested : “It covered you completely, rather than simply covering your head, and was therefore a sign of respect for yourself, your parents and Islam.” It signified that they were “women of dignity and rank and more worthy of respect.”

The author adds significantly: “While the buibui reflected a growing ideology of spiritual equality among East African Muslims, it nonetheless allowed Zanzibari women a freedom to express and debate hierarchicies rooted in more material bases.”

She concludes: “Throughout history and across the globe, men and women have consciously manipulated their material world in order to fabricate their identities physically, and differentiate themselves from others… Covering their heads and bodies was one of the first public demonstrations that formerly servile men and women made of their freedom.” Intrigued by the power of drawings and photographs to act as historical sources, the author effectively utilises such evidence as an integral part of the discussion and text.

JB

Susan GEIGER, Tanganyika nationalism as ‘Women’s Work’; life histories, collective biography and changing historiography. Journal of African history, 37(3) 1996, p.465-479.

Outstanding and exceptional personalities, almost invariably male, are all too often assumed to be the prime instigators and leaders of revolutionary and anti-colonial movements.

After independence, for example, Nyerere was known as “Father of the People”, and the inspiration provided by the masses was generally ignored by historians. These unchronicled individuals were generally presumed to be men, but in this study Susan Geiger, of the University of Missesota, claims that nationalism in Tanzania was largely the creation of women.

Bibi Titi Mohammed, the only TANU leader besides Nyerere whose name was known throughout the country at the time of independence, went from being the lead singer in a popular Dar es Salaam group called ‘Bomba’ to being head of the women’s section of TANU in 1955, and was responsible for enrolling 5,000 women members in a period of three months.

Susan Geiger suggests that the women activists, who constituted a substantial majority of TANU’s card-carrying members, did not learn nationalism from Nyerere or TANU; rather they brought to TANU and to political party activism an ethos of nationalism already present as a “trans- ethnic trans-tribal social and cultural identity”, expressed collectively in their dance and other organisations, and reflected in their families of origin as well as in marriages that frequently crossed ethnic lines. They “evoked, created and performed the nationalism that Nyerere needed to make TANU a credible and successful nationalist movement.”

Open to all who wished to join them, urban women’s dance groups provided newcomers to urban life with entry into “a social and cultural world in which Swahili was the language of song and conversation.”

TANU also benefited from the appeal of uniformed members of the party’s women’s section and of the choirs and youth league, with their many women members, chiefly constituting the party faithful. “Performance and signification produced nationalism in Tanzania as surely as Nyerere’s speeches.”

The writer concludes that nationalism was significantly the work of thousands of women whose lives and associations reflected trans-tribal ties and affiliations, and who thought of Nyerere not so much as father of the people as the son of the people!

JB

Bruce HEILMAN, A social movement for African capitalism? A comparison of business associations in two African cities, by Bruce Heilman and John Lucas. African studies review 40 (2) September 1997, p. 141-17 1.

A comparative study of Kano, in Northern Nigeria, and Dar es Salaam.

Publications Noted

FAREWELL to farms: de-agrarianisation and employment in Africa; edited by Deborah Fahy Bryceson and Vali Jamal. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 1997. 277p., ISBN 18014 193 X, 516.50.

This collection of essays by various authors is a continent wide survey, which considers the topic of whether Africa’s future is necessarily rooted in peasant agriculture. The term ‘de-agrarianisation’ embraces the actuality of urban migration, and the expansion into rural areas of non-agricultural activities which provide income for those who live there; thus accelerating a move away from reliance on agriculture by rural people.

The name Bryceson is familiar to many Tanzania-philes, and the book includes a study of the rural informal sector in Tanzania, as well as several chapters of general scope, such as rural industries, and labour diversification in rural areas, which take into consideration the Tanzanian factor,

K. GUILANPOUR, A systematic review of Tanzanian environmental impact statements, by K. Guilanpour and W.R. Sheate. Project apppraisal, 12 (3) September 1997, p. 138-150.

Daniel KOBB, Measuring informal sector incomes in Tanzania: some constraints to cost-benefit analysis. Small enterprise development, 8 (4) December 1997, p.40-48.

LAND degradation in Tanzania: perception from the village, by Alemneh Dejene and others. Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1997. 92p. (World Bank Technical paper; no.370) ISBN 0-8213-3993-1) US$20.

Charles LANE, Tanzania – uncertain future for the Maasai of Ngorongoro. Indigenous affairs, no.314, July-December 1997, p.4-7.
Garth MYERS, Localising Agenda 21: environmental sustainability and Zanzibari urbanisation, by Garth A. Myers and Makarne A.H. Muhajir. Third world planning review, 19 (4) 1997, p.367-384.

P.K.G.M. NDYETABULA, The use of soil information in Tanzania. PhD.
thesis, University of East Anglia, 1995.
Stephen J. NORTH, Europeans in British administered East Africa: a provisional list 1889 to 1903. Wantage: The Author (22 Belmont, Wantage, OX12 9AS, U.K.), 1995. ISBN 0-9524754-0-5, £37.

A loose-leaf compilation of information which the author has already supplemented, and intends to continue as more information comes to light. This useful and unusual handbook follows work previously undertaken by Donald Simpson at the Royal Commonwealth Society, Mary Gillet of Kenya, and others. The informative entries aim to provide for each individual: full name, dates of birth and death, date of arrival in East Africa, nationality, profession, and chronological account of the person’s career in East Africa.

Robert PINKNEY, Democracy and dictatorship in Ghana and Tanzania. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997. 240p., ISBN 0-333-63 175-7, £40.

In examination of the evolution of democracy in the two countries, the author looks at the balance of forces between governments and campaigners for pluralist democracy, and at the outcomes that emerged.

Severine M. RUGUMANU, Lethal aid: the illusion of socialism and self- reliance in Tanzania. Lawrenceville, N.J.: Red Sea Press, [1997?] 256p., ISBN 0-86543-513-8, US$21.95 (paperback)

Peter R. SCHMIDT, Iron technology in East Africa: symbolism, science and archaeology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, [1997?] 400p. US$19.95.

Peter R. Schmidt, The tree of iron. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
[1997?] US$39.95

A 60 minute video. Has been welcomed for being one of the few films which document archaeological work in sub-Saharan Africa. In dealing with African iron smelting it presents convincing evidence of early indigenous technologies far more sophisticated than anyone had previously suspected. The video is described as being skilfully crafted and often beautiful to watch.

SUPPORTING women groups in Tanzania through credit: is this a strategy for empowerment? By Dorthe von Bulow and others. Copenhagen: Centre for Development Research, 1995. 14p. (CDR working paper; no.95.10)
Corinne Natalie Cox WHITAKER, The Impact of women’s participation in an income-generation program in south-western Tanzania. PhD. thesis, Johns Hopkins University (USA), 1996.

Editor’s Recommendation

In issue no.58, September -December 1997 we published an enthusiastic review of Laura Sykes’ attractive guide, Dar es Salaam: a dozen drives around the city. It went with us when I revisited Dar with my wife earlier this year. As former residents we felt it would probably be useful in locating areas and buildings of interest after an interval of almost thirty years. We used it as a point of reference as we moved around once familiar districts, and explored new sectors of the huge conurbation that has developed since we lived there. This is a strong commendation of the work of Mrs. Sykes and her co-author, Uma Waide. They have produced a guide that need not be followed faithfully, but can add a great deal to any visitor’s enjoyment of Dar, which is such an interesting, lively and relaxing city -by contrast to the rough hustle into which Nairobi has descended.

From time to time we publish reviews of more general guides. Let me recommend, for the same reason of having actually used it, Michael HODD, East Africa handbook, with Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia. 4th ed. Bath: Footprint Handbooks, 1997. 864p., TSBN l 900949 06 7, 214.99. It provides, as far as we needed, accurate and up to date information about what the average traveller requires: what to see, where to stay and eat; how to move around each locality; and most important, provides unexpected sections of relevant and very interesting background information when appropriate. We travelled very happily, following our own instincts and with reference when necessary to this guidebook, through Eritrea, Kenya, Tanzania and Zanzibar. Full marks to Footprint!

MW

Compiled by John Budge and Michael Wise

Readers who do not have the good fortune to live near a specialist African studies library are reminded that many items reviewed may be obtainable through the national interlibrary loan service. Please enquire at your local public library.

Pat CAPLAN, African voices, African lives: personal narratives from a Swahili village. London: Routledge, 1997. 267p., ISBN 0-415-13724- 1. No price stated.

Caplan’s book is in the form of a personal narrative and is based on thirty years of fieldwork in a village in Mafia Island. We hear the story of Mohammed’s life, both through his own words, those of his wife, Mwahadia and daughter, Subira as well as Caplan’s own observations of him over this period. His life is revealed in conversations between Caplan and Mohammed, as well as excerpts from the diary he kept for her. These document personal matters as well as village gossip and other daily events of “Minazini” village. The author sees the work as a humanistic enterprise and aims to “explore the universal human condition, and in so doing cross, or bridge the gap between oneself as ethnographer and the subject of the life history”.

The book is divided into four main sections, each with an introduction by Caplan. It is interspersed with photographs which help to give the flavour of daily life in the village. The first section focuses on Mohammed’s life history and the second contains excerpts from his diary describing marriages, divorces, quarrels, ways of making a living by farming or fishing – all concerns which had touched closely on his own life. In the third section we hear other voices as well – those of Mwahadia and Subira. We see how their lives changed from 1965-1985 and how they suffered from increasing poverty and hardship. “The Search for Knowledge” is the final section, which deals with explanation for the afflictions which affect all the characters’ lives, such as witchcraft and spirits.

Caplan is concerned to break with the anthropological tradition of focusing on difference and “otherness” and instead shows how Mohammed’s and his family’s struggle to make sense of daily events has wider relevance. She has succeeded in her aim of producing a text to interest both anthropologists and non-anthropologists. It offers a fascinating glimpse of life in Mafia, and into the lives of three people who have concerns shared by us all.
Bethan Rees Jones

Tijs GOLDSCHMIDT, Darwin’s dreampond: drama in Lake Victoria. London: MIT Press, 1996. 274p., ISBN 0 262 07178 9, £17.50.

This is really several books within one. Firstly we have an account of the fish of Lake Victoria, especially those known to scientists as cichlids (species of Haplochromis) and to local fishermen as furu. The story begins in 1985 when fishing nets came up almost empty; where were all the small fish (furu) that usually filled the nets? Recently the fishermen’s gill nets had been full of big holes due to a predatory (carnivorous) fish – the Nile Perch (lates nilotica) or sangara, known elsewhere as ‘Elephant of the water’, that can weigh more than 70 kilos. Where had this fish come from? Why was it never caught by fishermen when the author first came to Mwanza in 1981? The answers are all here – they make fascinating reading.

In the late ’70s there was a project of the Tanzanian and Dutch governments to set up a fish-processing factory near Mwanza, which would process 60 tons of furu a day into fish-meal. Could Lake Victoria provide that much fish for an indefinite period? Scientists from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands set up a team (H.E.S.T. – the Haplochromis Ecology Survey Team) to study the ecosystem of the Mwanza Gulf and to identify the species of cichlid involved. As time went by, the nature of the diet of 302 species of cichlid became evident – with more than twelve different types of food ranging from detritus (mud), snails, smaller fish, to insects. These furu show a great range of morphology, especially in their jaw structure, which is related to their diet. No need for powerful jaws for eating mud! The big question is – were all the juru derived from one single riverine ancestor?

Secondly, there is frequent reference to Darwin and his theory of natural selection, and speciation, to aspects of camouflage, and selection pressure, to reproduction strategies, extinction … all part of the discussion of how species originate and change, not just in fish, but in birds, insects, and mammals. Throughout the book (originally written in Dutch and beautifully translated by Sherry Mm-Macdonald), there is an interesting use of words and language: the wanderers (Swahili mzungu), a kiss on the hand (from a female chimp), the battlefield (the lake, between Lates and furu), the savior (Sw. sangara), the Nile Perch, which has enriched some fishermen and traders), masabethi (aluminium dishes) … and so on.

Thirdly, there is an in-depth description of DNA and its variation, and its application to the identification of fish species and their origins. Fourthly, there are plenty of comments on social conditions, and life among the local residents; plus a six page glossary, 168 references, and a very complete index. What more could one want?
Brian J. Harris

Julie JARMAN, WAMMA: empowerment in practice, by Julie Jarman and Catherine Johnson. London: WATERAID (27-29 Albert Embankment, SE1 7UB), 1997. 20p.

WATERAID have produced an attractive 20 page booklet about their water development programme in four districts of the Dodoma Region between 1991 and 1996. WAMMA derives its acronym from the partnership between WATERAID and the Ministries of Maji (Water), Maendeleo ya Jamii (Community Development) and Afia (Health), but a key feature is the full involvement of the local community from the outset. Villagers have to establish a water fund, open a bank account and make a one-off contribution before implementation starts. They must also gather any local materials required, such as rocks, sand and gravel. The village Water Committee sets the price for water and encourages participation in a hygiene education programme.

The report suggests six preconditions for a successful programme of the WAMMA type: the right policy climate (a national water policy); the willingness of government to make suitable fieldworkers available; the continuous backing and support of a senior official (e.g. the Regional Development Director); readiness of the donor (in this case WATERAID) to sustain the partnership over a long period and at an adequate level; high priority for village-level participation at all stages; and above all, patience, flexibility and being prepared NOT to push for quick results.
John Sankey

Omar R. MAPURI, Zanzibar, the 1964 revolution achievements und prospects. Dar es Salaam: TEMA (P.O. Box 63 115, DSM), 1996. 120p No price stated.

This book represents a disturbing, even tragic sign of the times. Mr. Mapuri is a minister in the CCM government of Zanzibar, and his book is a call for the intensification of racial politics.

The author starts by identifying the ‘Arabs’ as oppressors who were overthrown by the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution. Now, he says, they have edged back into positions of power. It is a situation where ‘Zanzibari Africans’ – (not all Zanzibaris) must unite. But unite against what or whom? The answer is powerfully implicit throughout the book.

Mr. Mapuri bends over backwards to see everything in purely racial terms. For example, the Union of Zanzibar and Tanganyika, which was engineered by the United States, happened according to him simply as the logical conclusion of the close relationship between African Associations in Zanzibar and Tanganyika – and to say anything else is somehow anti-African. The suggestion that the Umma Party, which had African, Arab and Asian members, had any role to play in the 1964 revolution is seen as an attempt to belittle Africans – since it detracts from what the author regards as purely African ‘achievement’.

What makes all this particularly strange, of course, is the fact that most Zanzibaris are not pure Arab or even pure African but a mixture of many different groups. Even stranger to anyone who has been to Zanzibar in recent years is Mr. Rampuri’s assertion that the last 33 years have been a continuation of the Glorious Revolution which brought justice and prosperity to the people.

One of the aims of the books seems to be to glorify the Afro-Shirazi Party, ASP (which was a key player in the 1964 revolution) and through it the CCM Zanzibar, which is seen as its successor with the same interests and support base. With this in mind the author praises the ‘Committee of Fourteen’, who were considered by many to have been responsible, in the period after the revolution, for the deaths of hundreds of innocent Zanzibaris. These included well-known progressive leaders of the ASP itself, including Abdala Kassim Hanga, Abdul Aziz Twala and Saleh Saadala.

The Civic United Front (CUF) is attacked as a representative of Arab interests, and a successor in this and other ways, of the Zanzibar National Party (ZNP) of 1964. It is also regarded by the author as the villain of the 1995 election. In a Kafkaesque scenario, it is declared that CUF rigged the elections, intimidated voters and manipulated the (African) people of Pemba to turn against the Africans of Unguja. He sees the international and national observers as stooges of the CUF – did they not, after all, complain that it was the CCM which had been engaged in rigging; that they were biased in favour of the CUF because the Arabs always had western support!

What then is the solution to Zanzibar’s problems? What does the author have to say to the youth for whom he declares he has written this book? The answer seems to be out and out confrontation – he urges ‘Zanzibari Africans’ and particularly the youth to save the gains of the Great Revolution.

Reading this book will bring for many of us a sense of deja vu and disappointment. Less than two years ago, in April 1996, the late Abdulrahman Babu predicted just such a polarisation and suggested a solution. In his last pamphlet Wanted: a Third Force In Zanzibar politics, written soon after the 1995 elections he wrote:
the ruling party has ‘won’ the election but not the country The country is at a standstill waiting for a political solution …’ The balance of political power has hardly altered since the 1950s struggle for independence which led to the 1964 Revolution. The political rivalry that has followed the advent of the multi-party electoral process has exacerbated rather than healed the great political divisions of the pre-independence era. And the political leadership cannot … find a way out of this deadlock.

What then is the way forward? In Babu’s view (which has been proved right), a government of national unity is not possible because the conflict now is primarily between leaders with past grudges, and not between parties. He advocated the creation of an independent Third Force in Zanzibar politics, whose task would be to alert the country to the reality of the current state of affairs. If this did not happen soon, he declared, there was a very real danger of fragmentation in Zanzibari society. Unfortunately, if Rampuri’s book is any indicator, the leaders are pushing Zanzibar towards just such a fragmentation.
Amrit Wilson

Thomas SPEAR, Mountain Farmers: moral economies of land & agricultural development in Arusha & Meru. Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota; Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press; Oxford: James Currey, 1997. X, 262p., ISRN 0-85255-737-X, £14.9533.

This study traces the history of the Meru and Arusha peoples during the closing decades of the nineteenth century and the fist half of the twentieth; the period when they found themselves, and their economic and social systems in conflict with incomers, whose interests were varied, and by and large became focused upon making use, in various ways, of their productive lands. The limited extent of these lands, and population increase led to strong resistance against incoming governments, settlers and religious bodies.

The Meru and Arusha peoples endured more than a customary share of tribulation during the period under consideration. Their traumas have included epidemic diseases, civil war, drought and famine. All these posed severe threats to the established social order, and more or less coincided with the arrival of Christian missionaries, who were killed in accordance with customary practise directed at individuals seen as introducing undesirable witchcraft, and undermining social order. The establishment of foreign rule, first by the Germans and later the British, bore especially heavily on the area under consideration in this book, by reason of the attractions of the lands for European farmers.

This situation was recognised, and criticised by administrators from the early years of British administration after the first World War. The two tribes were relatively small units when the German Government entered their lives … secure from molestation by other tribes. They occupied land almost unexampled by its fertility … Immense plains were at the disposal of their cattle and there was an abundance of agricultural land available for further expansion. These fair prospects were quickly brought to nought by the German Government. An extensive system of land alienation to non-natives was inaugurated and proceeded in the most reckless manner. Two large mission stations … and two small farms were alienated in the heart of the native area and a belt of farms was carried right around the mountain.. .and entailed the expropriation of many.. . when British officers took over the district they found the Arusha and Meru cramped within an area which was barely adequate for their immediate needs and practically incapable of extension to meet future requirements In every quarter, normal tribal expansion … had been hopelessly compromised.

The author’s prolonged investigation of source materials, ranging from verbal information to archives in Tanzania, Europe and North America, traces the attempts of the peoples concerned and their British administrators on the spot, to check the continued degradation of their society by incomers. This culminated, for the purpose of the book, in the internationally renowned Meru Land case, whose disputants went to the United Nations Trusteeship Council.

It is a record, not only of dispute about possession, but also about the actual use of land and resources by the people concerned, who rapidly, and fairly successfully adapted their methods in order to continue to produce and survive economically within a reduced allocation of land. Professor Spear has provided a highly readable, balanced and most informative history of a segment of Tanzanian society in the earlier twentieth century.

MW

TUKI English-Swahili dictionary. Kamusi ya Kiingereza-Kiswahili. Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota for Institute of Kiswahili Research, University of Dar es Salaam, 1996. xx, 883p. ISBN 9976 911 29 7. Distributed in the U.K. by African Books Collective, 27 Park End Street, Oxford OX1 IIIU. Price £60; US$108.

The TUKI English-Swahili dictionary is the culmination of fourteen years’ work by the Institute of Kiswahili Research at the University of Dar es Salaam. Given the difficult conditions under which the TUKI staff worked (at which the Foreword only hints) and the quality of the final product, this dictionary is a remarkable achievement. There is no doubting the need for a new English-Swahili dictionary; the English language has outgrown Johnson’s dictionary of 1939, and none of the more recent dictionaries provides such comprehensive coverage. This one contains over 50,000 entries, including many new words and meanings, along with lexicographic information such as word class, alternative spellings, status (whether formal, slang, vulgar, etc.) and collocations. The most significant drawback, given the erratic nature of English spelling, is the lack of a pronunciation guide. This omission is attributed to technical reasons.

The dictionary begins with a series of diagrams explaining the various types of information included in a dictionary entry, followed by instructions (in English only) on how to use the dictionary. Both these sections are clear and informative, but should perhaps be given in Swahili also. The quality of entries is high; words and their derivatives arc easy to find, and the translations and accompanying information are generally accurate. Many colloquial and figurative expressions arc also included, as are a number of illustrative examples.

The work is not without its problems, of course. A significant problem is a lack of consistency within and between entries. Information about the status of a word or its regional variations appears sometimes before and sometimes after the word, which occasionally causes confusion. Such information can also be inconsistent between entries. Thus, the entry for bell includes the following illustrative example: (colloq) ring a – kumbusha. Under ring, the same expression is treated as a ‘run on’ (a sub-headword, in bold type) but without the information that this is a colloquial usage. – a bell leta kumbukumbu kwa mbali. Some inconsistency is also found in the regional information; although the dictionary indicates usage specific to Britain, America, Australia/New Zealand and Scotland, at times British usage is used as a default. For example, the entry for mad does not indicate that ‘angry’ is the most common American usage of this word; similarly, although the sub-heading of sidewalk gets the label (US) the sub-heading pavement is unmarked, and neither of these entries is cross-referenced to the other. There are also a few mistakes, but these arc rare.

Aside from these minor problems, I found this authoritative dictionary informative and easy to use. It will, I am sure, soon become established as a standard reference work. Steve Nicolle

Articles in Journals

Thadeus SUNSERI, Famine and wild pigs: gender struggles and the outbreak of the Majimaji war in Uzaramo Journal of African History, 38, 1997, p.235-259

Catherin BAROIN, Religious conflict in 1990-93 among the Rwa: secession in a Lutheran diocese in Northern Tanzania. African affairs: the journal of the Royal African Society, 95 (381) Oct 1996, p.529-554

There may not appear to be much connection between wild pigs and banana beer, but these apparently irrelevant details sparked off two rebellions, harking back directly and indirectly to the period of German rule in Tanganyika at the beginning of the century. These two admirable and interesting studies show how religious beliefs and practices become linked to radical social change and how authoritarian obstinacy can tear societies apart.

Sunseri, maintaining that the prevailing conception of the Majimaji war needs to be re-examined, acknowledges that a good deal of historical research was directed to this end at the University of Dar es Salaam in the 1970s.

The Germans, attempting to regiment Tanzanian peasants, succeeded only in destroying the historic structure of rural society – the delicate balance between the distinctive practices of men and women essential to social cohesion, health and the well-being of the soil and the environment. They forbade bush-burning, hunting, the felling of forest trees and forced men to work on communal cotton farms and railway construction. Men, robbed of their traditional tasks, were forced to leave their homes for long periods with the result that women had to assume their roles, ushering in vital “shifts in gendered spheres of power”. The 1905 revolt, Sunseri claims, was not so much a fight for independence as a ‘symptom of household struggles’ to overcome these problems. Headmen lost authority and when severe famine struck women practised ritual pagan remedies by using dawa (medicine) based on maji (water) to protect crops, and appealed to agricultural deities.

Sunseri claims that these rituals were appropriated by nationalist historians and ‘transformed into a proto-nationalist ideology of resistance’ which became established as the Majimaji tradition. In fact, he says, it was a subtle protest against the assault by the colonial power on the peasant economy and their ‘loss of environmental control’. The wild pigs became a symbol of the policy, exacerbated by the increasing number of Moslems with their aversion to eating pig flesh. Women became hunters – the protectors of the fields.

Whereas Sunseri shows how authoritarianism directly created social problems, Catherine Baroin demonstrates how social conditions drove a religious organisation into an ideological corner. Ever since Tanganyika fell under German domination in 1886, as a result of an agreement between Germany and Britain, the supreme cultural and social influence in the Kilimanjaro region has remained that of the Lutheran Church, which controls nearly all the infrastructure of social life, owning churches, fields, coffee plantations, schools and hospitals, and drawing upon external aid that enables it to finance development programmes.

The Rwa, who occupy the slopes of Mount Meru, are Bantu-speaking farmers, numbering about 150,000, working the rich volcanic soil of the rain-soaked mountain, which is favourable to intensive farming, mainly of coffee and bananas. The Kilimanjaro Chaga outnumber the Rwa nine times over and are “reputed for their business sense and on average more cosmopolitan, more educated and richer”.

Baroin claims that the ‘inferiority complex’ of the Rwa was one cause of conflict, although a large majority are practising Lutherans who read, write and speak Swahili. The 18 patriarchal clans are modelled on the Masai system, divided into ‘generations’, but they accused the Chaga (Northern) branch of the church of discriminating against them, especially in the financing of health and education.

The issue was exacerbated by the uncompromising attitude of many of the clergy and even the Bishop, who blamed the main instigator of the rebellion, Jackson Kaaya, describing him as “an agitator thirsty for power”. Aged over 70, he gained notoriety during the Meru Land Case, when the Rwa eventually took their case to the United Nations, in defiance of Britain, and their action was a prelude to founding the Tanganyika African National Union. A sore point with the church was the Rwan habit of indulging in long drinking sessions of banana beer, while other conflicts arose from their practice of polygamy and the generation system.

When the situation became tense the government strove to maintain order, eventually calling in the army. The rebels tried to take over church institutions in their area, the leaders were imprisoned, and after further serious rioting the Rwa eventually sought a compromise, as a result of which the hegemony of the church was ended. It is noted that bitterness still persists, especially between the Meru Educational and Social Development organisation (MESODET) and the church. As coffee producers the Rwa rely mainly on coffee sales for development funds, and the control of coffee co-operatives is a key issue. In Rwan consciousness, economics and politics are inextricably linked.
JB

Publications Noted

Hector BLACKHURST, East and Northeast Africa bibliography.. Lanham, Md.; London: Scarecrow Press, 1996. xiv, 299p. (Scarecrow area bibliographies; no.7) ISBN 0-8108-3090-6, US$62.50.

Compiled by the founder editor of the well known and much regarded Africa bibliography, this is a handy and very immediately usable gathering of references to books about the area published from 1960 to date. That alone is a form of recommendation, because of the greater likelihood of being able to find items in libraries, and even still in print and available for purchase.

Very precise subject headings allow immediate access to, or indication of non-existence of the user’s chosen approach Thus, more general items in our selected area of interest can be traced under Tanzania – Handicrafts; – Health and Medicine; – History and so on. Quite specifically, Chaga; Dar es Salaam; Olduvai Gorge; Zinza, etc. This is one of the most usable bibliographies I have come across for some time. Not exhaustive, but highly recommended for the sensible selection of entries included.

Erik 0. GILBERT, The Zanzibar dho [dhow?] trade: an informal economy of the East African coast, 1860-1963. Ph.D. thesis, Boston University, 1997. Obtainable from University Microfilms International, PO Box 1346, Ann Arbor, M1 48106-1346, U.S.A. quoting order number 9713661.

Abacleti K. KASHULIZA, Determinants of bank credit access for smallholder farmers in Tanzania: a discriminant anlysis appreciation, by Anacleti K Kashiliza and Jonathan G. Kydd. Savings and development, no.3, 1996, p.285-304

Nasor MALIK, Extension of Kiswahili during the German colonial administration in continental Tanzania (former Tanganyika), 1885-1917

Originally published in Swahili forum III, Sept., 1996, p. 155- 160, this article of approximately 2,000 words has been revised by the author, and a copy of the typescript can be seen by contacting the editor of Tanzanian affairs.

Fenella MUKANGARA, Women and gender studies in Tanzania: an annotated bibliography(1982-94). Dar es Salaam: The University Press, 1995. 245p., ISBN 967 6602 782. Distributed in the U.K. by African Books Collective, 27 Park End Street, Oxford OX1 IHU, Pricc 514.95, US$27.

Roger PFISTER, Bibliography of Swiss doctoral dissertations on sub-Saharan Africa, 1897-1996 Bern SWISS Society of African Studies,( P 0 Box 8212, CH- 3001 Bern), 1997 76p No price stated

A useful list, which draws upon diverse sources to present a comprehensive and well indexed list of Swiss dissertations on African topics. The high degree of interest in Tanzania over the period is shown by the proportion which concentrate on the country (almost ten percent out of some 400). The bibliography includes helpful advice on how to obtain copies of dissertations listed.

PLUNDERING Africa’s past; edited by Peter R. Schmidt & Roderick J. Mclntosh. Oxford: James Currey Publishers, 1996. 296p., ISBN 0 85255 738 8, 514.95.

Described by the publisher as being a frank indictment of African contributions to the problem, and discussion of specific steps that could halt the disappearance of Africa’s art. In addition to several overview chapters looking at aspects of art theft continent-wide, there are two chapters devoted to aspects of the destruction and looting of archaeological sites in Tanzania, another on Kenya, and one on the East African coast.

Detlef H. SCHMIDT, Measuring participation: its use as a managerial tool for district health planners based on a case study in Tanzania, by Detlef H Schmidt and Susan B Refkin International Journal of health planning and management, 11, 1996, p.245-358

E.H. SILAYO, Cadastral surveying practice In Tanzania. Dar es Salaam: The University Press, 1997. 163p.

A discourse on why cadastral surveying “is much more than merely solving boundary disputes between neighbours”.

The reviews editors thank contributors for their reviews, especially those that come unsolicited and often draw attention to publications that might have been overlooked. Anyone offering a review should please contact Michael Wise.

Compiled by Michael Wise and John Budge

ADULT education in Tanzania: Swedish contributions in perspective, edited by Gunnar Rydstrom. Lonkoping Centre for Adult Education 1996 171p (Centre for Adult Education serles, 10) ISBN 91-7871-839-2, SEK 160 Obtainable from Vuxenutbildarcentrum, Lonkopings universitet S-58 L 83 Linkoping, Sweden

This is an anthology, based on the involvement and interaction of four Swedes, five Tanzanians, and two other expatriates in the adult education movement. The fist of the three main sections provides the “background to Sweden’s commitment to international aid in general and to adult education in Tanzania in particular”. Rolfe Sunden, in his article “How it all began” traces the history of Swedish involvement in adult education and folk development colleges in Tanzania. The author discusses the emergence and significance of the Social Democratic Party in Sweden and its belief, in the 1960s, that it could have “something to contribute to the new states, those just declared independent or those struggling for independence”. It is also emphasised that Sweden was particularly sympathetic to President Nyerere’s philosophy of Uhuru, Maendeleo, Demokrasi.

The second part provides four lengthy essays narrating personal experiences of Swedish participants. Folke Albinson discusses, amongst other things, his involvement in training adult education personnel: differences between the Swedish environment and that of Tanzania in terms of awareness of colleagues, teaching methods, economic circumstances and so forth. The example of his typist, Hamis, made him aware of the fact that “living conditions for almost all of the Tanzanian staff’ were more or less the same”. Perhaps Gunnar Rydstrom had the most challenging task. He was presented with a “short list of urgent requests: to get some kind of adult education journal or magazine going, to produce a handbook for adult educators, specifically geared to Tanzanian needs, and study materials to be used in evening classes and other courses”.

The third section presents contributions from Tanzanians. namely Yusuf Kassam. Nicholas Kuhanga. Paul Mhaiki and Shaaban Msuya, narrating their experience of participating In the Swedish input to adult education Most of them write as administrators. and it would perhaps have been appropriate for the beneficiaries to have been given an opportunity to air their views a: this point. Apart from narration of the various authors’ personal experiences in Tanzania, the book also shows some common points of agreement that the success of adult education in the country is attributed to, inter alia, personal commitment of President Nyerere at the time, favourable policies, commitment and dedication of administrators, favourable economic conditions and a warm Sweden-Tanzania relationship. The book presents such a picture of positive Swedish contribution that it would have been equally interesting to know why Sweden had to withdraw its support

Ali A.S Mcharazo

CHELEWA, chelewa: the dilemma of teenage girls, edited by Zubeida Tumbo-Masabo and Rita Lijestrom Uppsala Scandanavian Institute of African Studies. 1994 218p. ISBN 91-7106-354-4, distributed by Almqvist & Wiksell International, Stocknolm $15.95p

This interesting volume comes out of work by a team at the University of Dar es Salaam funded by the Swedish Agency for Research Co-operation with Developing Countries. The authors focus on a series of problems faced by young women. There are the health hazards faced by girls as young as thirteen due to pregnancy following on early marriage and casual sex. There is their low representation relative to boys beyond primary education. There are state laws that target those who commit abortions or infanticide and stipulate expulsion from school for pregnancy, whilst doing little to support girls who bear children and thereby jeopardise their education, job and marriage prospects. Exploited by men; disregarded by fathers, even their mothers may withdraw, blamed by their husbands for the disgrace the girl may bring to the family. Older women mock them in the pain of labour: -‘You thought it was ice-cream. Taste the sweetness of it now!’. (p. 181)

One of the challenging questions raised by the studies in this book relates to changes in the way young women learn about sex. There has always been a powerful taboo on discussion of such matters within the family; in the past it was the responsibility of the whole community to socialise young people through initiation ceremonies In some areas these collective rituals survive, but in many ways they are fading. given the onslaught of urbanisation, labour migration Islam, Christianity and ‘modern’ education systems. So too is the wider influence of kinsfolk and community in nuclear family affairs, whilst parents, schools and clinics have been unable successfully to fill the gap.

Hence Ntukulu’s call here for the revival of collective initiation ceremonies. On the other side of the argument, Shuma points out that in Lindi, where such ceremonies are still prevalent, there is a high level of teenage pregnancies as well as of maternal and child mortality in childbirth.

Two issues are raised here. The first is the value of continuing community concern for young women and the expression of this through collective means, whilst the second concerns the substance as well as the style of the teaching in initiation ceremonies. Shuma notes that in Lindi the matrilineal system of kinship does not stigmatise girls for becoming pregnant before marriage as responsibility is taken by their mother’s brothers to whose lineage children are affiliated. High rates of mortality have more to do with levels of poverty than with ignorance. In other areas there is a contradiction between teaching about sex and then expecting young people to abstain for many years. Tumbo-Masabo also argues that the teaching in such settings was always didactic, with girls unable to ask questions for fear of seeming too forward. It is also evident that girls’ initiation rites entailed learning subservience to the power of men, rather than the gender equality which ‘Tumbo-Masabo sees as essential to improving the lives of young women. This is a book that puts young people on the research agenda and raises issues of sexuality age and gender in a way that is relevant not only to other parts of Africa but also more widely Janet Bujra

CUSTODIANS of the land: ecology und culture in the history of Tanzania edited by Gregory Maddox, James Giblin and Isaria N Kimambo. London James Currey. Dar es Salaam Mkuki na Nyota. l996 xiv, 271p , £12.95p ISBN 0-8214-1134-9

This interesting collection brings together nine papers written by historians which consider interactions between local agricultural systems, human development and the environment in various different regions of Tanzania during different historical periods. The great strength of the collection is the detailed evidence provided, from excellent scholarly research amongst archival material as well as more easily available publications, of the diverse nature of agriculture and population dynamics of this huge country – material which will be of great use to Africanist students and scholars from a range of disciplines.

The book is presented in four sections. each considering a different aspect of environmental interrelationships. The first focuses on demographic issues and the first demographic paper, by Koponen provides some fascinating insights into Tanzanian population dynamics during the colonial period. The material on fertility rates and of truly terrifying levels of infant mortality I found particularly compelling. The other in this section provides a case study of environment and population growth during the colonial period in Ugogo. central Tanzania.

Part two focuses on the relationship between environmental change and human history in the northern highlands. Kimambo’s paper on precolonial development in Usambara, the Pare Mountains and on Kilimanjaro examines the significance of trade as a stimulant to economic innovation (presented here as a challenge to the idea that precolonial societies were inherently unable to respond to market opportunities). The discussion is enlivened by the author’s own background of being brought up on Kilimanjaro, and he brings personal experience to his examination of aspects of local agricultural systems. The second paper, by Conte, deals with the Usambara Mountains and the Impact of settlement by Wambugu pastoralists on the high forests

The third section on politics and environmental change contains two chapters examining environmental and agricultural issues in eastern Tanzania at different times: Handeni District in the nineteenth and early twentieth century and the Uluguru Mountains of Morogoro in the 1940s and 1950s. Both draw attention to the way in which political organisation can affect the environment – for example settled, organised and stable populations were able to create environments more suited to human occupation and development than the ‘natural’ vegetation and flora (e.g. ticks and tsetse flies) would allow.. Thus weakening the political structures easily leads to increased human vulnerability as the environment becomes ‘degraded’ – not in the usual sense utilised in the ecological literature, where human intervention is the cause of degradation, but in the more people-friendly sense that the environment is less productive for human needs because there is too little human intervention.

The fourth section, entitled Environmental and Morality, provides detailed case studies of agricultural and environmental issues in precolonial Buha, western Tanzania; early colonial times in the Kilombero Valley, and the 1950s in Mount Meru. In each case compelling evidence is presented of the existence of institutionalised concepts of ‘proper’ resource use amongst local communities, which was tied in not only to the exercise of indigenous political authority, but also to much more individual or very locally-based moral economies.

As a non-historian it is possible to feel that some of the authors might have found their positions easier to develop had they looked at more of the literature from outside their discipline – particularly geographical and contemporary demographic studies. Overall this is a valuable contribution to the literature on African environmental history. It should be of interest to any student of Tanzanian affairs in general, and provide valuable case study material for readers from a wide variety of disciplines, including geography, environmental studies and demography as well as history.
Deborah Potts

Jeffrey MEEKER, The Precarious socio-economic position of women in rural Africa the case of the Kaguru of Tanzania. Jeffrey Meeker and Dominique Meekers African studies review 40 (1) April 1997, p 35-58

There seems to be a common belief that while men in rural African societies ‘enjoy life’, often succumbing to the alleged ‘delights’ of drunkenness, laziness and debauchery, their women folk struggle valiantly against great odds to maintain a reasonable standard of living for their children and, incidentally, for their good-for-nothing- husbands. Although this is a dangerous general assumption, the authors found when interviewing a large number of representative women that they seemed to confirm that, sadly, it is not a complete misconception.

While then women are typically engaged in agricultural, household and income-earning work, they do not experience equal access to educational and economic resources because they are restrained by family relationships, land-holding customs, household power structures and other financial and social realities.

The Kaguru who occupy a hilly area in the Morogoro region, are cultivators mainly of millet, sorghum and maize, and keep chickens, goats and sheep. The land is relatively fertile but recurrent droughts, floods and rodent infestations often destroy the harvest, sometimes resulting in severe famine.

While attempting to secure universal primary school enrolment, various African countries find it impossible to achieve the same result in secondary education. particularly in rural areas where parents are too poor to afford fees. The writers suggest that the implementation of World Bark Structural Adjustment Programmes tends to decrease government spending, causing more difficulty for parents, especially of girls, who are in any case traditionally expected to remain at home, or be solely wives and mothers. One woman declared, “Yes. I went to school. In those days there was only up to Standard Four. If you pass, you proceed. I actually passed but my Father wanted me to get married so that he received bridewealth.”

Women suffered by the introduction of cash crops that altered the customary household division of labour, with men becoming increasingly involved their production, while women continued to grow food for the family, from decreased allocation of arable land. The revenue from cash crops generally goes to the men, and women have only limited access to credit services. They also suffer most in cases of divorce, separation or widowhood. They most usually generate income through non agricultural activities such as bee-keeping, pottery making, baskets and mats, charcoal and beer-brewing, most especially during times of general economic hardship; when their income generation is often needed for the household’s survival.

It is reported as being not uncommon for women and children to have no shoes or adequate clothing, although the husband and father may be relatively wealthy. “My husband doesn’t care for the children … I have to pay the school fees and buy the uniforms.” Some men seem to believe that extra-curricular activities by their wives might undermine their authority.

The authors observe that since the early 1980s economic growth has stagnated, making the future prospect ‘grim’. Women would receive substantial help by the provision of more wells and grain mills, and from switching to alternative fuel, such as propane, instead of having to search for wood. This study provided valuable evidence of the social deficiencies that hold back economic advance and human wellbeing in many areas of sub-Saharan Africa.
JB

Thomas P. OFCANSKY. Historical Dictionary of Tanzania,2nd ed by Thomas P. Ofcansky and Rodger Yeager Lanham Md. London Scarecrow Press, 1997 xxxi, 291p (African historical dictionaries no 72) ISBN 0-8108-3244-5, $US 69

How very difficult is the task of compiling a dictionary that will encapsulate, through short entries, the recorded history of a country. This one, which is the seventy second (and now revised, which shows the continuing demand for the record provided), follows the publisher’s established pattern of providing short entries, almost never more than two pages long, which give concise information about personalities, institutions and bodies, and outstanding movements and events significant in the history of Tanzania. It ends with a classified bibliography. around 100 pages long, of publications considered important in studying the history of the country

Thus, dipping almost at random there are consecutive entries for Chuma, James (one of Livingstone’s companions), Church Missionary Society, City States (Kilwa, Pemba, and so on), Clarke. Edward A. (Consul General in Zanzibar early in this century), Closer Union (a proposal in the 1920s); Clove Growers’ Association: Cloves; Coal; Coconuts; Coffee; Colonial Development and Welfare Act, Common Market of East and South African States; Consolata Fathers: Constitutions, Cooperative Societies And so it proceeds. This is far more than a mere collection of names of individuals who have helped to shape Tanzania, but they are there too; all kept in proportion by the publisher’s evident insistence on keeping the resultant dictionary within manageable and economic proportions. So even Nyerere, Julius K. gets only a page and a half, as does his successor. This treatment of the subjects does, however, risk becoming pedestrian, because of the constraint on recounting much detail of controversial matters, or outlining telling aspects of personal character. Such is the nature of dictionary compilation.

As with most of the other dictionaries in this series, it is a most welcome and useful addition to general/ specialist information on Tanzania. Yes, every attentive user will discover omissions, but would they have achieved such formidable coverage as Ofcansky and Yeager have done? They deserve whole-hearted commendation for this excellent revised dictionary. The bibliography is unusually fine, even for this series, and must surely leave the Clio Press, publishers of the World Bibliographical series on most countries in the world concerned about their own impact. The bibliography at the end of this work, with some 2.000 references, admittedly presented without any annotations, is considerably longer than the content of the average Clio bibliographical guide.
MW

Francis G. Smith, Three cells of honeycomb. Privately printed, 1994 by Dr F G Smith 36 Vincent Street/ Nedlands WA 6009 Australia xii, 248p, ISBN 0 9587538 5 7 $AUS 25 inc p&p in Australia, £15 p&p to UK by air

This is the autobiography of Francis Smith, who has used the metaphor of honeycomb cells to represent three periods of his life, in Britain, Tanzania and Australia. He worked in Tanzania from 1949 until independence in 1962. and was responsible for introducing many improvements in honey and beeswax production. If you are not interested in beekeeping don’t however give this book a miss. It gives an interesting insight as to what it was like being a government officer at that time, and is written most entertainingly.

For example, after describing problems encountered when locating nests of stingless bees: “There was a story that a team of British army surveyors, working under these difficult conditions, received complaints about the condition of their field notebooks, which they sent periodically to the mapping branch in England. In reply, between the pages of the next set of field notebooks, they included hairs of the buffalo beans (which cause considerable irritation). Complaints ceased.”

On arrival in Tanzania Dr Smith was confronted with a problem of ‘sticky wax’ which was useless and polluted true beeswax, but whose origin was unknown. In a few months he started on the trail of the culprit and the whodunit nature of the text would go well in a TV soap, but probably be rather more original and entertaining. Obviously Francis Smith’s time in Tanganyika was great fun and this comes through. It makes a good read.
David Gooday

Laura SYKES. Dar es Salaam: a dozen drives around the city, by Laura Sykes and Uma Waide. Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota Publishers, 1997 154p., ISBN 9976 973 357. Distributed by African Books Collective Ltd. 27 Park End Street. Oxford OXJ LW, U.K.

As the authors state in their introduction, this is not merely a straightforward tourist guide to the main sights of Dar es Salaam. In its detail it makes up for the casual attention paid to the city by the majority of guidebooks to Tanzania, which assume that the capital will be merely a staging post for the greater excitements of parks, coasts and mountains. This delightful accumulation of information about Dar arises from the enthusiastic recognition, by two expatriates. that they had the good luck to have come to live in a city with a long and interesting history, of which a remarkable amount survives in buildings that are still extant.

The outcome of their investigations is arranged as twelve systematic routes by car; for the obvious reason that the climate is likely to make much consecutive walking an endurance test. It is, however, easy to use the book as a sampler for information by anyone who looks about them as they go around the entire metropolitan area. The excellent index facilitates this, and the photographs whet the appetite to get out and about. The text is one to dip into, and almost any casual flip of the pages brings up facts. quotations, historical references, which illuminate so much better than the average encapsulated hard facts of where to stay and eat and catch a bus, which are the mainstay of many comprehensive’ guidebooks for travellers with limited time. Not that this overlooks those essentials of daily life for the traveller and resident alike.

To take one example of the care taken by the authors to draw an interested stranger into a feeling of place. Their description of the important commercial sector, Kariakoo, occupies, together with the itinerary for going there and coming array again, nine pages of concisely presented description and background information. Compare such treatment of the main market area of a large city with that given in an average guide book.

I had the good luck along with my wife to be infected by Mrs Sykes enthusiasm for Calcutta a few years ago. This latest jointly authored outcome of her interest in another city of great character is highly recommended. For the curious traveller who wishes to know more than an average guidebook has space to tell.
MW

The UNSUNG heroines: women’s life histories from Tanzania; edited by Magdelene Ngaiza and Bertha Koda Uar es Salaam WRDP Publications 1991 232p ISBN 9987 8820 l l, no price stated

This book takes seven ordinary Tanzanian women who are used as a basis for interpretation of issues confronting women in contempora9 Tanzania. It’s review here, some six years after publication, indicates our opinion that it still has validity as a useful documentary record. Their life histories are told by themselves, and theoretical analyses and interpretations are provided by women scholars. The articles have the same structure, starting with narration of the subject’s life history, and proceeding to interpretations and conclusions about the impact of social and political factors on each of the women. Among them are ‘Life history of Bibi a woman in urban Tanga”, by Bibi with P Mbughuni. “My life is a life of struggles: the life history of a young barmaid’ by Anna X with Alice Nkoma- Wamunza; “A migrant peasant woman in the city” by Eve with A. Nkebukwa; and “The life history of a housewife”, by Mama Koku with M. Ygaiza;

The interpretations are, for instance, that Bibi’s history, like that of many Tanzanian women of her generation, is dominated by the struggle against colonialism and also male domination, while the story of Anna X shows how it “takes a woman of extreme courage to work as a barmaid”. Anna, the narrator states however that she does not believe that all barmaids are necessarily prostitutes, nor that all customers are looking for sex. Her life history is taken by the commentator to show how factors such as Employment Ordinance; job security; lack of credit facilities; are some of the instruments that have been used to perpetuate the subordination of women in society.

Rural-urban migration, bride price, the institution of marriage and household economy are also discussed in the context of the fundamentals of democracy. The book addresses an extremely important area which has not been sufficiently investigated. Since the experience of Tanzanian women is more or less similar to that of women elsewhere in the developing world it can also be useful in other countries.
Alli A. S. Mcharazo

Three from New Holland (Publishers) Ltd.
Lisa ASCH, Traveller’s guide to Tanzania, by Lisa Asch and Peter Blackwell 1997. 192p. £14-99
GLOBETROTTER travel map – Tanzania 1996 £4-99
Graham MERCER, (Globetrotter travel guide – Tanzania 1996 128p , E6-99

New Holland Publishers is a truly International company, using Far Eastern printing sources and East African authors and photographers to produce their exciting new trilogy of Tanzanian travel.

The folding travel map in particular is excellent and good value. More than just a map of the county, it includes detailed street plans of Dar es Salaam and other major cities, as well as large scale projections of popular tourist destinations such as national parks. Mount Kilimanjiro and the Great Lakes.

The larger of the two guidebooks contains a wealth of superb photographs and detailed, often scholarly and erudite information on many aspects of Tanzania – from archaeology, geology and pre-history to anthropology, agriculture, forestry, history and politics, in addition to the expectable tourist data on wildlife, parks, beaches, Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar.

The smaller of the two books is a true gu1debook also well illustrated and ideal for a short-stay visitor

Both books are ideal for young (in heart) adventurous travellers and arc spiced with an earthy sense of humour. The smaller volume starts “Tanzania is among the World’s poorest countries and at times among its most exasperating. For visitors it can often be expensive, hot, unsophisticated and exhausting. But there can be few, if any countries in the World which are more exciting.” The longer book has an awesome photo of what might well be a dry river bed, with the laconic caption “The road between Dodoma and Arusha will challenge the skills of all drivers ”
I enjoyed the whole set and learnt a lot, not least that Mount Kilimanjaro is apparently popularly known nowadays as ‘Kily’!
Randal Sadlier

Publications Noted

Jacob L. KIMARYO, Urban design and space use: a study of Dar es Salaam City Centre. Lund: University of Lund, 1996. (School of Architecture, Department of Building Function Analysis; report 1 : 1996). No price stated. (Dissertation)

Vesa-Matti LOISKEb, The Village that vanished: the roots of erosion in a Tanzanian village Stockholm University of Stockholm, 1995 (Meddelanden kin Kulturgeograiiska institutionen , no B9.1) No price stated (Dissertation)

Roger PFISTER, Internet for Africanists and others interested in Africa: an introduction to the Internet and a comprehensive complilation of relevant addresses. Bern: Swiss Society of African Studies (SAG-SSE.1): Basel- Basler rZfrika Bibliographien (B.-). 1996 140p.. ISBN 3-905 141-67-1. 20CHF.

This is possibly the most comprehensive and helpful directory of Africanist Internet locations that has appeared to date. It provides an introduction to Internet connection and search techniques that appears to be designed for those (in Africa?) who require such assistance and encouragement, which is followed by the substance of the guide. This consists of country codes and lists of African and Africana Internet sites arranged broadly by topics and by types, mailing lists and news groups.

There are, of course many more websites of Afrcanist content outside than in the continent, and they grow apace. It is worth noting here the recent arrival of Electronic Journal of Africana Bibliography, whose web site address is http:///www.lib.uiowa.edu/proj/ejab/index.html and of Peter Limb’s A-Z of African Studies on the Internet, with web site address www.library.uwa.edu.au/sublibs/sch/sc_ml_afr.html must hope that Roger Pfister’s very useful guide will be updated to take account of the increasing number of sites becoming available, and it deserves wide publicity.

Joan I. SMITH. Heart of Africa. Privately printed, 1992 by Dr. F.G Smith 36
Vincent Street Nedlands WA 6009 Austra1ia.u. 202p.., ISBNO 9587538 4 9, $AUS 20 inc p.&p in Australia. f15 p&p to UK by air
. A Patch of Africa. Privately printed, 1996 by Dr F.G. Smith; 36 Vincent Street, Nedlands WA 6009 Australia vii. 232p.., ISBK 0 9587538 1 4, $&US 20 inc p.&p.in Australia; £15 p.&p. to UK by air.
Two collections of stories and reminiscences about an absorbing and affectionately remembered expatriate family life in Tanganyika during the 1950s

75 Years, Baldegg Sisters, Capuchin Brothers in Tanzania; editor: Marita Haller- Dirr. Lucerne: Swiss Capuchin Province; Dar es Salaam: Tanzanian Capuchin Province, 1997., 1 SSp., no price stated. (Obtainable from Capuchii Friary Office, P.O. Box 9174, Dar es Salaam).

An unusually impressive commemorative volume. Well illustrated and with articles in German, Swahili or English it conveys the sense of purpose that has been followed by the order during its period of work in Tanzania.

Compiled by Michael Wise and John Budge

Paul J. KAISER, structural adjustment and the fragile nation; the demise of social unity in Tanzania, and, Sayre P. Schatz, The World Bank’s fundamental misconception in Africa. Two articles in Journal of Modern African studies, 34 (2), 1996.

The most powerful economic institutions in the world, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have been, and continue to be guilty of serious errors of judgement and practice, in the opinion of two American investigators. In the opinion of Paul Kaiser, of Mississippi state University, their structural adjustment policies as applied to the Third World, especially Africa, are largely responsible for the destruction of the essential virtue of social cohesion. Any visitor to Tanzania since the two institutions’ loan conditions were reluctantly accepted will probably agree with him that, in one of the few African countries to have remained relatively calm ever since independence, “a long history of ethnic, racial and religious cohesion has begun to fray”. He believes too, that the terms imposed and the burgeoning debt crisis may represent a “new dependency” for many African countries unable to acquire capital from other sources.

He points to religious and racial tensions directly related to the process of economic liberalisation, a matter which was argued between President and World Bank for almost six years. For example, when parastatals were being sold off, it was not long before racially motivated questions began to be asked about who should be allowed to move into the rapidly expanding private sector. At the same time the quality of life of the majority of Tanzanians was declining, as incomes became devalued and the costs of necessities of life escalated.

The welfare state, built up over 30 years witnessed a partial demise, with the people, especially urban workers, being called upon to share the costs of education and health at a time when their incomes were inadequate even to meet food costs.

Although Nyerere’s policies may not have entirely achieved some of the intended goals, Kaiser comments: “A potentially divisive array of social groups achieved a degree of cohesion that surpassed each and every neighbouring country” .

In the second article, Sayre Schatz of Columbia University reinforces this by reproducing data showing that the World Bank’s attempts to demonstrate the policy’s efficacy “not only failed to support its conclusions but actually bolstered the contrary thesis, namely that its implementation most often caused poorer economic performances”. He attributed this to the “objective difficulty of promoting development in Sub-Saharan Africa, a formidable and obdurate problem”, but also to the “mistaken view that the basic cause of Africa’s economic stagnation was poor government performance”.

He concludes: “The only way to generate a satisfactory rate of growth in Africa’s least developed economies is through government intervention to nurture investments. We should also remember that governmental activism has been associated with economic success in many developing countries”.

This promotes in this reviewer the horrifying thought that perhaps IMF/World Bank policies may have played a part in undermining the social cohesion of Rwanda and Burundi, and thus contributed to the recent escalation of conflict, which in turn has cost Tanzania heavily as a host neighbour to refugees.
JB

A. Charles LANE, Pastures lost: Barabaig economy, resource tenure, and the alienation of mainland Tanzania. Nairobi: Initiatives Publishers (P.O. Box 69313, Nairobi), 1996. 216p., US$18.

Charles Lane cannot be other than highly commended for his very detailed study of the Barabaig of Hanang District, Tanzania. It is also a most useful contribution to the cause of pastoralists generally in East Africa.

Lane’s detailed research was carried out in 1986-88 and he continued after this to work closely with the Barabaig, particularly on their land campaign. The method used was “participatory research”, that is to say he lived in a traditional Barabaig community for about 18 months and involved them in actual research. This says much for his skill and dedication, as well as, I am sure, ingenuity. It seems he had to learn much Tataga language, to the extent of the names of many species of grass, herbs and trees. I am glad he had help from the East African Herbarium for this. The result is a comprehensive socio-economic and historical account of the Barabaig people, and it reveals a national customary order of life to cope with the circumstances of nomadic pastoralism contradicting some misconceptions generally held. Lane describes their social rank formation and wealth control system; their land tenure methods and customary tenure; care of their cattle; grain production; food consumption; levels of income; their beliefs, culture and other social details.

The book is however, much more than a social study. Lane contends throughout that policy-makers from colonial times have misunderstood pastoralism. The last three chapters deal with the present considerable problems and developments, which have arisen since the appropriation of 100,000 acres of their land in the 1970s by NAFCO for the Canadian Wheat Project. New Tanzanian Government policies on land tenure are discussed. Lane concludes:

Ways need to be found to integrate traditional Barabaig leaders and institutions with state structures. For this to be achieved, government administrators will have to view this representation (i.e. the Barabaig’s) as a complement to effective government and not a threat to their authority, and traditional leaders will need to be convinced of the benefits from such integration.

I do recommend this book and hope it can be made freely available where it is most needed.
Christine Lawrence

Emmanuel J. E. MAKAIDI, EMMA’S encyclopaedia tanzaniana of national records 1497-1995. Dar es Salaam: Sunrise Publishers (P.O. Box 352), 1995. 279p. Tshs 7,500

The first entries in this strictly chronological and rather intriguing record of events in Tanzania over a period of 498 years give some flavour of the style of the book and the presentation of the events recorded:

1497: On April 15 Tanganyika is for the first time infiltrated with white men. This was the occasion of the arrival of portuguese, purportedly on business exploits.

1498: On June 2, leading a large group of Portuguese, Vasco da Gama arrives in Tanganyika. It was largely due to Vasco da Gama’s greed and influence, that led to the establishment of Portuguese settlements on the coast of Tanganyika and later, the initiation of their rule in the country.

1500: On July 16 Kilwa residents wake-up only to find themselves under alien rule. The first Tanganyikans to be colonised by white men …

There are only five more entries before we jump to 1843 when, on September 29, The British national flag is hoisted high in Zanzibar, amidst colonial pomp and pageantry.

As we proceed further, particularly after 1980, the entries become fuller and more comprehensive and thus begin to fulfil the stated objectives of the book – to be a student’s companion, a researcher’s pathfinder, a teacher’s reference, a politician I s compass and a diplomat’s guide. The final entry dated December 31, 1995 records part of President Mkapa’s new year message to the nation.
DRB

Ali A. MAZRUI and Alamin M. Mazrui, Swahili state and society: the political economy of an African language. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers; London: James Currey, 1995. 171p., ISBN 0-85255-729-9, £11.95.

The focus of this book is the relation between Kiswahili and economic, political and social conditions in East Africa. This is a two-way relation: the development and spread of Kiswahili has been and continues to be dependent on social, political, and above all economic factors, whilst at the same time helping to shape (to various degrees) the social, political and economic characters of Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Zaire. The book consists of three sections and two appendices, each of which can be read in isolation (there is in fact a considerable overlap between the three sections) . The first and third sections of the book cover the same topics, but from different perspectives. Kiswahili is discussed in relation to detribalization (not eradication of ethnic identity, which remains strong, but the overlaying of ethnic loyalties with national, political, class and religious identity), class formation, popular political participation, secularization, and science and technology. The first section provides a concise but comprehensive account of Kiswahili’s role as an agent of change in East Africa, from the perspective of economic history (for example, the role of Kiswahili as a ‘proletarianizing’ force is traced back to the facilitation of dockers’ strikes in Mombasa (1939, 1947, 1955, 1957) and Dar es Salaam (1947). The third section is more of a manifesto, sketching the contemporary socio-linguistic scene and proposals for the ‘decolonization’ of Africa, in which the promotion of Kiswahili should play a prominent role. The second section (‘The History’) also concludes with suggestions for pan-East African co-operation in the development of Kiswahili, but focuses on the historical spread of the language, starting with the Maji Maji rebellion in Tanzania. Section 2.3 provides a fine account of Tanzania’s educational language policy.

The two appendices are: ‘Social engineering and language policy in East Africa’, by Ali A. Mazrui, and ‘African languages in the African-American experience’ by Alamin M. Mazrui. Each of these is reprinted from previously published sources.
Steve Nicolle

Magdalena K. RWEBANGIRA, The Legal status of women and poverty. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1996, 58p. (Research report; no.100), ISBN 91-7106-391-9, £5.95 (SEK60). Distributed by Almqvist & Wiksell International, Stockholm.,

This book provides a review of existing laws relevant to the title, with legal developments of the last twenty years being dealt with separately. The principle laws that are considered in depth are the Law of Marriage Act, 1971; inheritance laws, and land laws. The issues concerned are described clearly, accessible to those without any knowledge of the Tanzanian legal systems. The section on significant changes to relevant laws in the last twenty years is interesting, not only as a review of the actual legal developments, but also because reference is made to legal changes which did not address gender issues in areas where this could have been productive.

The ‘poverty and the Legal status of Women’ section, although not mentioned in the introduction, briefly mentions some of the wider social influences which reduce the effectiveness of the legal systems in terms of gender equality. A ‘Women’s Law approach’ is mentioned but not elaborated on (worthy of several volumes as a debate topic in its own right). This section, and others on background and conclusions, highlight the need to view the role of the legal system in a realistic and holistic way, rather than assuming that the simple process of a law will ensure that its purpose is fulfilled. Social issues affecting the effectiveness of the legal system are mentioned, including the ever important areas of education and media.

The presentation of the report may be found to be misleading in some respects. For example, although the objectives are described clearly in the ‘Executive Summary’, they are lacking in the ‘Background and Objectives’ section. In this, and elsewhere in the text, a stricter proof reading might have improved the ‘flow’ of the report.

For anyone with little knowledge of the subject area, this book introduces some of the issues involved in a largely accessible way, and puts forward recommendations on ways to improve women’s legal status. Its size, dictated that only selected issues and legislation could be discussed in any significant detail.
Kenneth Dawe

Nancy SPALDING, The Tanzanian peasant and Ujamaa: a study in contradictions. Third world quarterly, 17 (I), 1996, p.89-108.

The writer of this article pays tribute to Nyerere for his, unusual among African leaders, integrity and devotion to his people, but notes how his policies were failures, leaving the country still “desperately poor despite high levels of aid” .

Asking the question; “How much can or should political agendas and rhetoric be measured against historical reality?”, she employs a ‘culture theory’ from anthropology, constructed by Mary Douglas and based on African social ritual and religion.

This led to the conclusion that the essential characteristics of Tanzanian society are non-centralisation, with the family as the unit of decision, high levels of interaction between communities, especially in trade, and pronounced individualistic cultural tendencies. She believes this culture was “incompatible with Ujamaa and Tanzanian socialism” . However, Nyerere in his essays and speeches never concealed that he had few illusions about the individualism of Tanzanian peasants.

On the one hand, in this article, Spalding asserts that “natural change in response to significant contextual shifts” is different from “engineered change, which is notoriously difficult” and feels that further research on this is necessary. Nyerere, on the other hand, could quite justly respond that changes in human nature and culture, “engineered!’ through the progressive reform of human institutions, has been chiefly responsible for the advancement of civilisation over the course of history. However, such engineering can only succeed when the time and conditions are ripe.
JB

Werner VOIGT, 60 years in Africa: the life of a settler 1926-1986. Published by the Author, 1995. Obtainable from General store Publishing House, 1 Main Street, Burnstown, Ontario, Canada KOJ IGO. CAN$24. 95, plus $10 for shipping and handling.

This book is a rare gem. For anyone with the slightest pang of nostalgia for the Tanganyika of the old days, and even for those who cannot be nostalgic but have a trace of curiosity about what life was really like then in an expatriate community, this book is not to be missed. It is the adventure-packed, gentle and moving personal story of the 60 years the author (who is now 92 and lives in Canada) spent in Africa most of them in Tanganyika/ Tanzania. A short review cannot do justice to the richness of this tale. Werner Voigt grew up in Leipzig and studied tropical agriculture. He went to Tanganyika in 1926 and started work on a coconut/ cotton plantation near Bagamoyo. He nearly died of malaria; one year his crops were totally destroyed by locusts; he panned for gold in the Lupa goldfields; he eventually got his own farm at Mufindi and took his bride on a 1,000 km foot safari for her honeymoon; he became a skilled builder and constructed houses for the groundnut scheme; he imported a lifeboat for his fishing expeditions at Bagamoyo and then converted it into a cabin cruiser. He remembers all the extraordinary stories he heard about exotic personalities he met and recounts them with humour and an original but highly readable and rather elegant writing style. There are a lot of references to ‘the war’ but it is the 1914-1918 war he is writing about Werner Voigt must be good natured. There is hardly a word of criticism of anyone in the book except his neighbours who became rabid Nazis in the 1930’s. His relations with Africans seem to have been excellent. Even the British colonial administration is never attacked – something very unusual among settlers in fact the British are hardly mentioned at all in the first part of the book, as the Germans seemed to be a self-contained group.

During and after the second world war Voigt was interned for eight years. When he tried to buy back his farm which had been taken from him, many of his British neighbours were resentful but later, when he was growing tea at Mufindi, he seems to have become part of a largely British community. The final chapter entitled “The Dream Fades” is sad but very brief. The eightyodd snapshots which illustrate the text are remarkably clear considering that most of them were taken fifty years ago. I am grateful to reader Michael Carr for letting me know that this book exists. Do not start reading it when you are expecting visitors – you might resent their intrusion. Do not start reading it late at night (as I did) – you will miss a night’s sleep! And watch out for the film which will surely follow.
DRB

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Tyler BIGGS and Pradeep Srivastava, structural aspects of manufacturing in Sub-Saharan Africa: findings from a seven country enterprise. Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1996, ix, 67p. (World Bank discussion paper; no.346; Africa Technical Department series), ISBN 0-8213-3807-2.

Assesses the result of a survey of firms in seven countries, Burundi, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, and deals with issues of entrepreneurship, labour markets, technological capabilities, financial markets, infrastructure, regulation, and conflict resolution mechanisms.

COTTON, colonialism, and social history in sub-Saharan Africa; edited by AlIen Isaacman & Richard Roberts. London: James Currey, 1995. xi, 314p., ISBN 0-85255-619-5, £14.94 Includes several chapters dealing specifically with German East Africa/ Tanganyika.

Colin CREIGHTON and C.K. Omari, Gender, family and household in Tanzania. London: Avebury, 1995. 327p., £39.90 Peter J. DAVIS, East African: an airline story. Thirty years of the international airline of Africa. 2nd ed. Egham:
Runnymeade Malthouse Publishing, 1996. 485p., ISBN 0 9523047 08 £20

L.G. “Bill” DENNIS, The Lake steamers of Egham: Runnymeade Malthouse Publishing, 1996,
9523047 1 6, £16 40 East 280p. , Africa. ISBN 0

KONIGSBERG – A German East African Raider by Kevin Patience
This new book of 100 pages and 150 illustrations, many never before published, is the result of 25 years of research and tells the complete story from 1906 to the present day of the German cruiser Konigsberg. This ship destroyed the British cruiser HMS Pegasus at Zanzibar in 1914 before seeking shelter, pursued by the Royal Navy, in the Rufiji Delta. Special pre-publication offer to readers of Tanzanian Affairs – £14 inc. p&p Obtainable from the author at P 0 Box 669 Bahrain.

Also obtainable:
Zanzibar and the Shortest War in History: A narrative of events leading up to the destruction of the Sultan’s Palace at Zanzibar on 27th August 1896. 32pp illustrated. £4 inc. p&p. Zanzibar and the Bububu Railway: A history of the two railway systems built on the island in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 32pp. Illustrated. £4 inc. p&p.

Zanzibar and the Loss of H.M.S. Pegasus. The story behind the destruction of the British cruiser sunk at Zanzibar by the German raider Konigsberg on 20th September 1914. 48pp. Illust. £5 inc. p&p. Steam in East Africa: A pictorial history of the construction and development of railways and lake services in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Zanzibar from 1893 to 1976. 140pp.hb. £15 inc. p&p. Steam Twilight. A nostalgic look back at the last years of steam on Kenya Railways. 64pp. Illustrated. £8 inc. p&p.

Alex DIANG’A, Where native fish face extinction September 21, 1996. Daily News,

A study of Lake Victoria, carried out by World Watch Institute, has shown that as a result of the introduction of exotic, i.e. non-native fish and the commercialisation of fishing activities, 60 per cent of the native fish species are extinct, and the remaining 40 per cent are at risk. From time immemorial the native fish of the lake were harvested by artisan fishermen and processed for local consumption. The harvesting of fish by large, open water vessels, with destructive gear, prior to large scale commercial processing operations for the export. market, has brought about this change.

China has experienced the virtual extinction of fishing on the Yangtze River in 40 years since the 1950s. The World Watch report considers that a major cop-operative effort between the three East African countries could still restore Lake victoria, as well as preserve the less degraded other lakes, Malawi and Tanganyika. will anything effective be actually put into action?
MW

Peter DUMBAYA, Tanganyika under International mandate, 1919- 1946. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1995. no price stated.

Klaus FIEDLER, Christianity and African culture: conservative German Protestant missionaries in Tanzania, 1900-1940 .. Leiden: Brill, 1996. 250p. (Journal of religion in -Africa supplements; 14). NLG125.

The FUTURE of Tanzania. Conference report; deliberations and recommendations, ESAURP (Eastern and Southern African Universities Research Programme), December 1995. Dar es Salaam: Tema Publishers Co., 1996, 81p., ISBN 9987 25 010 6, no price stated.

Includes the summary of a paper by Dr. M. Hodd, a member of Britain-Tanzania society and occasional contributor of reviews.

Seyoum Y. HAMESO, Ethnicity in Africa: towards a positive approach. London: TSC Publications (P.D. Box 12879, London W13 8WS), 1997. viii, 120p., ISBN 0 9530204 0 I, £11. The author’s preface draws attention to the tendency of historians and nationalists, during the first half of this century, to concentrate on state nationalism, and to bypass the significance of more localised expressions of ethnicity in the African continent. This short study includes quite lengthy case studies of selected studies, including Tanzania and its neighbours.

C. George KAHAMA, The Twelve tasks. Dar es Salaam: Tema Publishers Co., [1995?]. 12p., no price stated. Described by the author as being derived from his book, Tanzania into the 21st century, this short statement on his view of the way ahead ends with a punchy acrostic of twelve points for development into the next century. They read: Government: Education: Overseas visitors: Rates of currency exchange; Guidance for the private sector; Exports; Karibu visitors: Alleviation of poverty: Health: Accumulation of savings; Management; Asset restructuring.

Juhani KOPONEN, Development for exploitation: German policies in mainland Tanzania 1884-1914, [Helsinki]: Finnish Historical society, 1995. 49), ISBN 951 710 005 1, £19.95.. 741p., (Studia Historica; Has been described as being the first major survey of the period since the works of John Iliffe and Rainer Tetzlaff twenty five years ago.

Gwynneth LATHAM and Michael Latham,Kilimanjaro tales: the saga of a medical family in Africa. 1995, ix, 220p. London: Radcliffe Press,

A double narrative (Mother and son) about two generations of a medical family in Tanzania, from the 1920s to the 1960s. The larger part of the book is made up of a narrative by Michael Latham, based on his Mother’s journal up to the end of the 1940s.

LIBERALIZED development in Tanzania.; edited by Peter Gibbon. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1995.

Georges LOIRE, Sea people in Dar es Salaam. Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House, [1996?]. 170p. Tshs 7,000.

This is an account, by Fr. Georges Loire of to Seamen, of his attempts to organise help return home of “fishermen”, and other sea stowaways who have become stranded far from during the 1980s. the Missions towards the people or home shores

M.H. MULOKOZI, The last of the bards: the story of Habibu Selemani of Tanzania, c.1929-93. Included in Research in African literatures, Spring 1997, published by the Journals Division of Indiana University Press.

Compiled by Michael Wise and John Budge

Astier M. ALMEDON, Recent developments in hygiene behaviour research. Tropical Medicine and International Health, 1 (2) 1996,p.171-182.

This discussion of research in Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia aims at the preparation of a handbook for field personnel in water supply, sanitation and health/hygiene education projects. Trials were conducted in the Dodoma region and Kondoa districts in collaboration with water Aid UK. The villages of Asanje and Kwayondu were selected on the grounds that they represented parts of the region which suffered most from serious water shortages; nevertheless one cannot help being surprised, even in this conscientious study, by the naivete and glibness of experts, who, sitting in a room in London, with no doubt an adjoining fully-equipped toilet, discuss the importance of teaching African children to wash their hands thoroughly in clean water before meals and after defecation.
JB

Lene BUCHERT, Education in the development of Tanzania 1919- 1990. London: James Currey, 1994, 192p. (East African studies), ISBN 0-85255-704-3, £14.95 (paperback); £35 (hardback)

Lene Buchert’s book, which originates from her Ph.D. work, attempts to provide an account of education in the development of Tanzania and to relate the function of education to wider social, economic and political development from 1919 to 1990. Using mainly official, unofficial and semi-official primary sources, as well as secondary source material, the author discusses policies and their practices for specific periods during the British colonial era, and after independence.

The book examines the indirect rule system and relates the application of the government’s education for adaption policy to the actual provision of education during the colonial period. This is done well in showing that the aim of education, as stated by the report Higher education in East Africa in 1937 was to “render the individual more efficient in his or her condition of life … to promote the advancement of the community as a whole through the improvement of agriculture, the development of native industries, the improvement of health, the training of the people in the management of their own affairs, and the inculcation of true ideals of citizenship and service … ” The analysis concludes that factors such as the colonial government’s emphasis on its staffing needs, rather than provision of agricultural education for Africans; emphasis on provision of education for men; failure to provide education above elementary level, and so on made education a form of social control. A case study of Nyakato Agricultural Training Centre is used to demonstrate discrepancies between declared policies and the outcome of their implementation.

The years 1962 to 1981 were the period of education for socialism, self-reliance and social commitment, especially after the declaration of policies of socialism and selfreliance in 1967. Education was seen as a crucial instrument in achieving the goals and strategy for national development, and to redress the inequality inherited at independence. Chief among these were mass education, which was characterized by the establishment of adult education and universal primary education programmes; Africanisation of the curriculum; abolition of educational systems which were based on racial distinctions, and so on. These were all geared towards fulfilling the objective of making education a means to “liberate the African from the mentality of slavery and colonialism by making him aware of himself as an equal member of the human race, with the rights and duties of his humanity” as Julius Nyerere would have maintained.

The study indicates varying degrees of success out of these policies and practices, and highlights several drawbacks, especially in its focus on the community school movement, between 1971 and 1982. The movement’s purpose was to “contribute to village development by breaking down the barrier between the school and the surrounding society, and between academic and manual skills … ” Case studies of Kwamsisi community school as the prototype for the experiment, and Kwalukonge as a replicated experiment; also adult literacy programmes in Mvumi Makulu, Bahi and Dabalo villages in Dodoma region, are used to analyse discrepancies between policies and implementation.

Much has changed since the early 1980s. The retirement of Julius Nyerere and the succession of Ali H. Mwinyi, and subsequently Benjamin Mkapa; trade liberalisation; relaxation of policies of socialism and self-reliance; introduction of the multi-party system, all call for a further study which would help to assess their impact on education and the future direction of development in Tanzania. Do these factors explain why, for instance, some primary school children are studying without desks?

This book is another contribution to understanding educational issues in the nation’s development.It is highly useful and recommended to academics and tertiary level students interested in education, history and development in Tanzania.
Alii A.S. Mcharazo

Andre MAGNIN and Jacques Soulillou, contemporary art of Africa. London: Thames & Hudson, 1996, 192p., 317 illus. ISBN 0-500-01713-1,£45.

This significant book presents, in many good quality colour reproductions, the work of sixty artists from Africa south of the Sahara. About two thirds of the works represented are in the contemporary African Art Collection of Jean Pigozzi, the world’s foremost collector of this kind of work, for which the volume serves as a catalogue. The artists hail from eighteen countries, inclusive of Tanzania.

There are spreads of several pages: photos, texts (by Magnin) and reproductions for two artists: Makondi sculptor John Fundi (1939-1991) and painter George Lilanga di Nyama (b.1944). Lilanga paints in a modified ‘Tinga Tinga’ style; his imagery has more density and is usually related to a proverb. Some of his works were exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery in 1992. The reference section lists note four additional artists, all resident in Dar es Salaam: painter Jaffary Aussi and three sculptors: Martin Dastani, Kashmiri, and Christine Madanguo. The glossary has three entries related to Tanzania, to explain the sources of styles: shetani, ujamaa and Tinga Tinga. It is a treat to see even this amount of attention given to Tanzanian visual arts.
Elsbeth Court

NYAKYUSA-English-Swahili and English-Nyakyusa dictionary; compiled by Knut Felberg. Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota Publishers, 1995, ISBN 9976 973 32 2, £19.95; $US 35. Distributed by African Books Collective, 27 Park End Street, Oxford OX1 1HU.

This dictionary arises out of an expatriate teacher’s sense of frustration, partly his own and partly his pupils’, because of the difficulty of observing the official policy of using English as the medium• of instruction in secondary schools in Tanzania. It was his (and the pupils’ experience) that bewilderment was created by insisting on what was effectively a third language at that stage of education. The approximately 1,000,000 Nyakusa are a sizeable and coherent cultural cluster, whose language essentially is their corporate personality. Swahili serves fairly well as the general lingua franca for communication with the wider world in the region. The understandable expectation by government, of using English in secondary and higher education often slows up the process of comprehension in the earlier stage of its compulsory introduction.

The author recognised that the first language had been picked up rather than taught, and this dictionary is an outcome of his attempt to provide a better grounding in the structure and vocabulary of Nyakusa. It provides an outline of Nyakusa grammar, usage and sounds, and the major part consists parallel word lists, Nyakusa-English-Swahili, and EnglishNyakusa. It is by no means a traditional vocabulary either, ranging from airmail to zip code and zoom lens. It is to be hoped that this lively and well produced dictionary will sell well enough to repay production costs, and set an example for others to follow where similar difficulties are encountered in other large language groups. By such means it may yet be possible for many of the approximately one thousand surviving African languages to remain alive and viable. Without support it is certain that many will disappear under the pressure imposed by stronger cultural influences and the languages in which they are propagated.
MW

Gregory PERRIER and Brian E. Norton, Administration of pastoral development: lessons from three projects in Africa. Public Administration and Development [Utah state University], vol.16, 1996, p.73-90.

It is salutary when somebody reveals that some western aid donors got it wrong – even after 30 years. This frank report on development projects conducted by the us Agency for International Development in Tanzania, Somalia and Lesotho does just that.

When the countries of sub-Saharan Africa achieved independence they were targeted for rapid development, both to generate export trade and strengthen their domestic economies. Many aid organisations, for instance, provided massive assistance for livestock development. The report asserts that despite the investment of hundreds of millions of dollars the projects “failed to achieve their goals … Projects designed by western specialists and funded by western donors have been based on faulty assumptions, inadequate information and distortions created by cultural bias, and have been implemented in an inappropriate manner”

As an example, ten million dollars were spent over a 10- year period on a project designed to increase livestock production, and improve the quality of life of the Masai people in Tanzania. visiting the area in 1989 the two researchers found “no evidence that the project had led to sustained improvements in the production system.” Whereas the Tanzanian government had been advised to establish “ranching associations” and to adopt rotational grazing practices, the investigators felt that the AID design team had ignored vital cultural aspects of Masai life; such as the need for subsistence milk production and capital savings, and the fact of their preference to sell small ruminants for their cash requirement. Instead, the advisers focused entirely on beef production and cattle marketing.

By the time when conflicts in strategy between ranching associations and the government’s villagisation policy were finally being resolved the project was abruptly terminated. Expatriate technical specialists “operated relatively independently of one another, each pursuing his own technical assignment … Project activities got out of sequence as staff applied themselves to personal professional interests.” Local administrators and politicians, pre-occupied with the implementation of ujamaa, also created confusion. “Inappropriate strategies”, such as introducing ranch-style rotational grazing to a people whose traditional grazing practices already included seasonal rest, or attempting to increase cattle off-take in a society where cattle are the primary measure of wealth, or transferring a project design to another region without taking into consideration local factors. These and other failures in understanding were “the result of false assumptions or the adoption of a western stereotypic model.”

The researchers come to what might seem the obvious conclusion that “producer participation is a necessity for project success”, and that the secret of success for the future must be adherence to three golden rules – flexibility, simplicity and appropriateness. Better late than never.
JB

Joan RUSSELL, Teach yourself Swahili. London: Rodder & Stoughton, 1996, 324p. (Teach yourself books) ISBN 0-340- 62094-3, £8.99 (book only); £18.99 (book and cassette)

With the new Teach yourself Swahili (replacing the previous book published in 1950), Dr. Joan Russell has written a new course for beginners which is both comprehensive and very accessible. It contains 18 units, each of which is based around a dialogue which serves as a vehicle for the introduction of vocabulary, grammar and cultural information. The situations described in the dialogues are typical of those which visitors to East Africa might encounter: booking into a hotel, buying gifts, asking directions, travelling, even climbing Kilimanjaro. Many, however, go beyond mere tourism and involve visitors in discussions with their Tanzanian and Kenyan friends on matters such as arranging meetings and travel plans, cooking the evening meal, and language learning. The dialogues are read by native Swahili speakers on the accompanying cassette, which begins with a pronunciation guide.

Although the approach is basically ‘communicative’, in that Swahili is introduced through the use of realistic dialogues, grammar is addressed throughout. Noun classes are introduced one at a time in the early units (beginning with the most commonly used classes) along with noun and verb agreement. other areas of Swahili grammar – tenses, suffixes, pronouns, and so on – are covered methodically and in some detail, but in terms accessible to any learner. In each unit, readers are encouraged to check their understanding and practise what they have learnt through various exercises. A brief ‘How to study’ section at the start of the book provides useful advice on getting the most out of each unit.

The book itself is compact enough to be easily portable (say, on a trip to Tanzania) and is attractively laid out, incorporating Swahili adverts, press cuttings and a few black and white photographs. At the end of the book are a key to the exercises, a summary of the main grammar points and a very useful Swahili-English/ English-Swahili dictionary.

Although described as “a complete course in spoken and written Swahili”, part 1 (the first of six units) can be used on its own as a course in ‘survival’ Swahili for beginners. I expect that complete beginners in Swahili will find that it presents a very steep learning curve; there is a lot packed into each unit! However, by the end of the course any reader who has taken the time to learn the vocabulary and tackle the exercises should be equipped with the Swahili language skills to cope with most everyday situations in East Africa.

Its communicative approach and attention to grammatical and cultural detail makes Joan Russell’s book ideal for people who may have picked up Swahili informally whilst in East Africa, and who wish to build on this and develop their competence in the language. In short, I wholeheartedly recommend the new Teach yourself Swahili to any member of BTS wishing to learn or brush up their Swahili.
Steve Nicolle

SERVICE provision under stress in East Africa: the state & voluntary organizations in Kenya, Tanzania & Uganda; edited by Joseph Semboja & Ole Therkildsen. London: James Currey in association with Centre for Development Research, Copenhagen; EAEP, Nairobi; Mukuki na Nyota, Dar es Salaam; Fountain Publishers, Kampala, 1995, ISBN 0-85255-389-7, £12.95 (paper); £35 (cloth)

This powerful book is poorly titled. It is about the historical roles of the voluntary sector and the state in providing education, health and legal services and changes that came about in the wake of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs). Out of fourteen chapters, two discuss the subject generally, and four are about Tanzania.

The editors hold that the rush toward privatisation of services that accompanied SAPs disregards the need for collective action by governments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and ‘people’s organisations’ – the latter often called ‘community based organisations’ or CBOs. They assert that privatisation, as practiced, overlooks the increasing interdependence between voluntary sector and state, and the growing reliance of NGOs on foreign aid. To justify drastic cuts in government investment in services, proponents of privatisation often overestimate poor people’s ability to pay directly for the health and education services they need, with the result that social services are slashed more than other expenditures. To transform such situations., governments that rely on foreign assistance must risk defying IMF/WB prescriptions. For example, Official Development Assistance (ODA) accounted for 37% of Tanzania’s GDP in the early 1990s.

A further complication for governments is that donor aid is increasingly targeted to NGOs (2/3rds of it through donors’ own NGOs operating overseas, and the other third directly to East African NGOs). One author in the book argues that it is not NGO performance, but western donors’ efforts “to reduce the role of African states” that is functioning here. Several authors question the received wisdom that NGOs are more ‘poverty-oriented’ than governments. The truth may never out on this subject, however, because only an estimated 15% of donor aid is ever evaluated – a frightening fact when one considers how much possibly baseless conditionality is imposed on recipient countries and the NGOs by donors.

Chapter 8, by Gaspar Munishi, discusses the relationship between political development strategies and NGO participation in Tanzania. The author traces the history of public and private education from colonial times. In 1958, for example, 45% of African pupils went to government schools and 55% to NGO owned ones; the latter received grants-in-aid from government. Munishi’s views on the rationale behind increased government involvement after independence and the later resurgence of private, NGO provision of services are succinct; the desire to democratise education that the Arusha Declaration highlighted in the 1960s and the economic crunch and donor-driven support of NGOs rather than governments when aiding the service sector in the 1990s.

In chapter 9, Abel G.M. Ishumi focuses on secondary education. He concludes that nationalisation and monopolisation of social delivery systems stifle creative energles and lead to institutional stagnancy, and public apathy and disaffection. Self-help school projects succeed, he says, when a community links education with progress, and when there are strong economies and community-based management and leadership capacity.

Julius T. Mwaikus writes about maintaining law and order in Tanzania in chapter 10. using ‘Sungusungu’, the traditional defense and self-help groups among Sukuma youth, as his case study, he concludes that Sungusungu will survive as an ad-hoc people’s organisation only if its units know the basics of what the law requires or allows them to do.

The Catholic Church and the state in Tanzania are the subject of John Sivalon’s chapter 11, which challenges the conventional wisdom that Church and state have been ‘passive partners’, and that church-state relations became very tense after the Arusha Declaration. However, the recent Mtanzania Mpya’ programme of Christian professionals seeking to build the ‘new Tanzania’ by associating bureaucrats with NGOs disturbs the author, because Islamic communities perceive this church-state linkage as a threat to Islam.

The only chapter this reviewer found ominous is that by Goran Hyden, who proposes the creation of ‘trust funds’ as ‘intermediaries between foreign donor agencies and local recipients’. These funds would be “independent of government and any other actors” and they would support requests “from any agency, whether governmental, private or voluntary”. I see that proposal as creating a kind of parallel government – a powerful donor-driven institution that is responsible neither to the people nor to the government. Who, we must ask, will call the tune?
Margaret Snyder

Thaddeus SUNSERI, Labour migration in colonial Tanzania and the hegemony of South African historiography. African Affairs, 95 (381), 1996, p.581-598.

The author sets out to show how the history of labour migration in Africa has been unduly influenced by the assumption by historians and sociologists, that the migrations which provided the very large labour forces required by South African mining, industrial and agricultural activity, from the early years of this century, set the pattern elsewhere in the continent. He focuses on the record of German labour initiatives in Tanzania up to the time of the First World War, and shows how the Tanzanian inherited instinct to maintain something akin to traditional social life meant that the commonly held perception (by labour historians) of ‘kraal to compound’ African migrant labour was never applicable to the Tanzanian situation.

The Maji Maji rising of 1905-07 was sparked by German forced labour and production policies in the southern part of the country. There had been a systematic imposition of forced settlers, and railway construction which facilitated settler rather than peasant production.

Ever increasing development of the settler economy after 1907 meant that the demand for labour rose steadily, but government then faced the facts and gave some consideration to the reaction of the people. A middle way, between a ‘coolie policy’ and a policy of protection in favour of ‘Africa for the Africans’. Peasant production, allied to wage labour incentives, was recognised as the compromise way forward. The author points out that this gave leeway for the migration of families, rather than men only, to areas of settler developed production; that in more favourable circumstances (for there were great variations in treatment of labour and conditions of service and living), village society transferred for the period of a contract to new locations. By no means all the labour was at work at any time, and the people attended to their own crops in the locality as well as working for wages. People knew their rights, and were willing and able to use the judicial system to guarantee them. Thus, in one year 34 unscrupulous labour recruiters, Germans, Greeks and Africans were convicted of various infractions of the labour ordinances. Plantations were therefore vulnerable to the economic behaviour of their wage labourers, who were the major expense and whose response to work conditions determined the success or failure of a venture.
MW

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

M. BAREGU, Political culture and the party-state in Tanzania. Southern Africa Political & Economic Monthly [POB MP 111, Mount Pleasant, Harare], 9 (1) Oct. 1995, p.31-34.

BUILDING a vision: President Benjamin W. Mkapa of Tanzania Zimbabwe: Southern African Research & Documentation Centre (SARDC), 1996. 26p., £3.75; SUS 6.95 Distributed by African Books Collective Ltd., 27 Park End Street, Oxford OX1 1HU.

The text of an interview by David Martin, a Director of SARDC, with Benjamin Mkapa, conducted in Dar es Salaam on 11 and 12 November 1995, when elections had not been completed, but Mkapa was virtually president-elect at that time. Immediately after his formal declaration as Tanzania’s President the interview was published in Tanzania in three Swahili and two English newspapers. It concentrates therefore on the major aspects of his election campaign, and the matters of greatest concern to the country at that time. It is a useful and forthright record of answers to questions put by a practised interviewer.

G. FRAME, Serengeti cheetahs. Swara [E.A. wild Life Society, POB 20110, Nairobi], 16 (5) 1993, p.14-17.

R. HEYWORTH, The Last Rhinos of Northern Tanzania, Ngorongoro. Swara [E.A. wildlife Society, POB 20110, Nairobi], 18 (6) Nov.-Dec. 1995, p.18-21.

B. JACOBS and Z.A. Berege, Attitudes and beliefs about blood donation among adults in Mwanza region, Tanzania. East African Medical Journal [P.O. Box 41362, Nairobi], 72 (6) June 1995, p.345-348.

L. JANSSENS DE BISTHOVEN, A Safari in northern Tanzania Swarai [E.A. Wildlife society, POB 20110, Nairobi], 16 (2) Mar./Apr. 1993, p.15-19.

S.F.N. KIWIA, Management of work schedules in an educational institution: a case study. Business Management Review [University of Dar es Salaam], 3 (2) July-Dec. 1994, p.64-73.

L. RUTASHOBYA, The Role and performance of women’s retail cooperatives. Business Management Review, [University of Dar es Salaam], 3 (2) Jul-Dec., 1994, p.74-87.

Eve SARAKIKYA, Tanzania cook book. Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House, 1996, 165p., ISBN 9976-101-25-2, $3.95; SUS 7.50. Distributed by African Books Collective, 27 Park End Street, Oxford OX1 1HU.

This is a reprint of the earlier edition of 1978, and therefore may be familiar to some readers. Its virtues as a guide to the rich variety of Tanzanian foods, and their use in the country’s cuisine, which uses a wealth of local spices, a great range of fruits and vegetables, staple grains and roots, as well as sea and fresh water fish, have kept it in use and appear to justify a reprint. It gives many recipes which strike the balance between meals that merely taste good, and those with nutritional value. All who live in London or any of a number of other large cities in the U.K. will feel confident of finding many of the ingredients required to reproduce tropical cooking in Britain’s cold climate.

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This list includes a certain number of articles published in African journals. We hope that those among our readers in the U.K. who may not have access to specialist academic libraries, will be able to use their local public library to obtain copies from the British Lending Library, which is richly endowed with journals from all over the world, and provides a lending or photocopy service at modest cost.