Under large headline ‘Forex (Foreign Exctange) Scandal Unfolds’ the ,Sunday News (July 10, 1988) wrote that ‘With four domestic servants (US$ 40 per month), lunch for four people at US$ 20, a fully furnished four bedroom bungalow at US$500 per month and a combined water and power bill of US$ 10, Tanzania has become a paradise for expatriates and diplomats.

The country is also a favourite station for airline crews who act as couriers of smuggled trophies and precious minerals .. , .. at least five embassies also do so as an unofficial, institutionalised practice … these missions also deal in gold, diamonds, rubies, trophies, drugs and hard currency.

The diplomats change their currency using street corner, hotel bar hangers-on or even innocent looking cigarette vendors ….

An official of the Foreign Branch of the National Bank of Commerce said that withdrawal of money from foreign accounts had dwindled over the past few years and he wondered how foreign clients were meeting their expenses.

This is the sad story of all our developing countries and the culprits are from the left and the right, said one African diplomat with the UN Office in Dar ES Salaam’.

On July 17th, again on the front page, the Sunday News headlined ‘More … and More Revealed in Forex Scandal’. “The US dollar is fast becoming the unofficial medium of exchange within Tanzania. … the exercise has turned a sizeable number of sharp- minded’ Tanzanians into millionaires literally overnight … some people have as many as five houses – all in low density areas and rented out for dollars …

The high crime rate in Dar es Salaam has made dog keeping a necessity for many foreigners. Some ‘sharp minded’ people have therefore started selling puppies in dollars….”

This question has often been asked about broadcasting in mainland Tanzania. In part, the answer lies in the establishment of radio in the last decade of colonial Tanganyika, and in the sequence of events, pressures, conflicts and personalities in the immediate run-up to independence and very shortly afterwards.

Regular broadcasting from Dar es Salaam began in 1951; it had few listeners, temporary equipment and was acutely short of African staff to be trained for operational duties. Help came with money from the Colonial Development and Welfare Fund and with engineering staff seconded from the BBC. By 1955 transmitter coverage was practically nationwide in 1956 legislation was enacted to establish the Tanganyika Broadcasting Corporation – the TBC.

The dynamism to build up the new organisation came from Tom Chalmers, also from the BBC, who was experienced in both radio and television. Earlier he had been the first Director of Broadcasting in Nigeria. There he had nurtured national broadcasting from a tiny operation serving the capital, Lagos, into a nationwide service with national and regional programmes. His task in Tanganyika, was perhaps more daunting there was less money available from the colonial coffers and getting that money released from the Treasury was excruciatingly slow; there was a very limited number of Africans with the educational background appropriate for training as producers, engineers and administrators. In February 1961 he could write to former colleagues in the BBC ‘last year there were only 64 African graduates in the whole country – and I have three!

Chalmers was in a hurry. He was sensitive to the gathering speed of political change in Africa. He wanted more than one national service to cover the country and to have regional stations outside Dar es Salaam as well as school broadcasting. In Nigeria he had been instrumental in putting political broadcasts on the air; it was not long before Dar es Salaam was broadcasting (in English and Swahili) reports on the day’s business in the Legislative Council.

In his annual report for 1959 Chalmers recorded that Julius Nyerere had broadcast on several occasions, especially in December; political leaders had been interviewed and had taken part in discussion programmes, and it was hoped that TBC would be able in 1961 to establish responsible political broadcasting in all its various forms.

Throughout the annual reports at the time there is recurrent reference to shortages of money. One of the reports, now in BBC Written Archives, was sent with a note of apology for the format – ‘We are too poor to print it’. The sub-title is ‘How to run a broadcasting service without spending any money’.

The speed of final political advancement presented acute problems. Chalmers was anxious that he should hand over to an African with some experience and professional training in broadcasting.

Let us turn now to January 1962 – one month after Independence. TBC was under sharp attack in the Swah11i press – not least for the BBC’s influence over it. Clearly Chalmers had to give way to an African. He moved swiftly. He obtained approval for Mr. M Mdoe, the Director of Programmes, to succeed him; Chalmers would stay as Technical Adviser.

One of Mdoe’s first acts was to circulate a memorandum to all staff calling for a change in mental attitudes and the Africanisation of all the programme output NOW. That implied much more than dropping the relay of BBC programmes; it meant Africanising the content of programmes. “We are now able to stand on our own feet; let us do so and take some bold steps forward” Mdoe wrote.

As Technical Adviser Chalmers could detach himself from day to day operations and think strategically. He had kept in touch with Nigeria. He had first-hand information about the television service – ‘First in Africa’ – that the Action Group Government in the Western Region had rushed through with the help of expatriate contractors as a political ploy in 1959; the transmitter outside Lagos would come on the air in time for the Federal elections. This venture triggered off a chain reaction in Nigeria – the other regional governments were thinking how they could counter this – and in Ghana too. That such a service would be almost entirely dependent on a diet of imported films with many Westerns and ‘cops and robbers’ was entirely alien to the concept of building an African broadcasting service for Africans. Chalmers was also fully aware of the technical problems: the need for a reliable and non-fluctuating electricity supply; the likely restriction of television coverage to Dar es Salaam when radio stations were still required for many provincial centres: the problem of servicing television sets; (it was difficult enough in the early 60’s to get a radio repaired); and, above all, the cost.

At that time the newly-independent African countries were being wooed by travelling television salesmen offering package deals to put up a TV station and operate it in its early years. Usually the offer included little local material and much imported film. Just, it was said by facetious critics, two men and a boy with film and lantern slides.

The Government in Dar es Salaam was to be no exception. It too came under massive pressure. In May 1962 Chalmers was able to write ‘we have got some at least of the most influential Ministers and Party officials to see reason’. Government rejected all the offers. Broadcasting was to concentrate on radio and that was to be made an effective instrument for Government – and for the people.
Charles Armour

Mr. CHARLES ARMOUR retired from the BBC in 1981 as Head of School Radio. He was Controller, Western region and Director of Programmes, Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation from 1956 to 1962. He is grateful to the BBC’c Written Archives Centre for documentation he has been able to study.

THE CASE OF THE ELEPHANT TUSKS – THE VERDICT
The Bulletin described in its last issue a court case in which the Songea Urban Member of Parliament, Ali Yusufu Abdurabi (41) had been accused of being in possession of 105 elephant tusks in his official Landrover.

Thousands of people from Songea town and its outskirts thronged the courtroom and overflowed into the courtyard and later lined the road to catch a glimpse of the MP. Justice Maina said, in giving judgement, that the case was unique since it involved a Member of Parliament who knew the laws of the land which he took part in legislating. The MP, the Judge said, was more aware than anyone else about the importance of conserving trophies and wildlife. To discourage other people from committing similar crimes the offence required a maximum sentence of 15 years, the Judge said.

Later, when the Defence Council pleaded ill health of the accused, the Judge decided to reduce the sentence to nine years.

THE OBSERVER APOLOGISES
Britain’s Observer newspaper has apologised and paid substantial damages to Minister for Energy and Minerals Al-Noor Kassum and the Managing Director of the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation, Sylvestor Barongo following a libel case in the Tanzanian High Court. The Observer had alleged, in articles published in 1983, that the two men had received secret commissions on fuel shipments from South Africa to Tanzania – Daily News.

ANOTHER PARASTATAL?
Adam Lusekelo who amuses readers of the Sunday News each weekend has been complaining about the Government’s discrimination against a certain kind of animal.

‘Take the cow for instance. It has two public corporations (parastatals) looking after it. And while walking round town the other day I noticed that even the chicken has a fully fledged parastatal to look after its interests – the National Poultry Company NAPOCO. Which of course means another General Manager, secretaries and sundry others … The kuku will have to pay for the upkeep of the GM, the perfume of the secretaries and the temptations of the gentlemen in the Accounts Department – no wonder the Kuku’s in Dar are not the cheapest in Africa.

But if the kukus and the cows are lucky enough to have entire public corporations formed for them I must speak up for the downtrodden. It is the duty of any self-respecting journalist in the Third World to speak for the downtrodden…
Take the goat for example. We should have a National Goat Corporation… the goat is very resilient animal you know. It doesn’t die during drought, it eats anything from dust to shoe polish to money. One goat ate my twenty bob note – but its meat was damn good to eat. Another thing about the goat is that it multiplies very fast.

Which is why the Government should be very careful in the selection of the GM of the Goat Corporation. The relationship between the GM and the female staff of this corporation should be thoroughly checked …. the idea is to warn the staff of this Corporation that we want the goats to multiply, not the staff.

Rabbits too. A National Rabbit Corporation should be set up soonest. The major qualification of the GM should be to have his ears wide open …… .

TANZANIAN GOATS POPULAR IN UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
The United Arab Emirates used to import sheep from Australia but they had to stop according to Mr. Abdalah Jarafu, Managing Director of the International Export Company because of the high fat content of the mutton. Now, he said, Tanzanian goats are proving popular with customers. The whole animal is exported so that customers can see it being slaughtered. The price is the equivalent of US$ 30 per goat.

TANZANIA SECOND IN BIRD EXPORTS
Tanzania is the second largets exporter of birds in Africa, a reputation we shold not be proud of, says a report in Miombo, a newsletter of the Wildlife Conservation Society of Tanzania (WCST). The report says there is an alarming rise in the number of birds being exported which include Fischer’s lovebirds (Agapornis fischeri) an endemic species found only in Tanzania. Miombo reports that some 39,000 of these birds have been received by major importing countries – Japan, Belgium, West Germany, The Netherlands, UK and USA. The habitat of fischers lovebirds is suffering from deforestation and only Tanzania has the power to prevent its extinction, adds the report.

Meanwhile, the number of Indian House crows in Dar es Salaam has greatly increased causing damage and discomfort to residents – Sunday News

BUNGE OFFICES MOVE TO DODOMA
The Office of the Speaker of the National Assembly has moved to the new capital, Dodoma. This is the first government institution to complete its move. Five ministries are due to move there during the next five years – Daily News.

1,000 TANZANIAN YOUTHS LOOKING FOR SHIPS
1,000 Tanzanian youths have left the country illegally in search of jobs on ships in Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Having failed to get jobs many resort to criminal acts and all sorts of evils. Forty-nine youths were repatriated from abroad in the first three months of this year. Some have been fined while others have their cases pending in court – Daily News.

CONDOLENCES
President Mwinyi sent a condolence message to Mrs Thatcher following the explosion at the Piper Alpha Oil Plant in the North Sea – Daily News.

The World Travel Fair, held in London from December 1st to 6th 1987, has become a dynamic force for the development of international tourism and no country which wants visitors can afford to neglect it. It was therefore a sign of positive progress to see a Tanzanian stand at the Fair. Previously, the other countries of Eastern and Southern Africa have had it all their own way. But, at last, Tanzania joined them, with a stand on the upper floor at Olympia, very near the stands of Zimbabwe, Botswana and Kenya.

The Manager of the Tanzanian exhibition was Mr. Amant Macha, the Director of Marketing of the Tanzania Tourist Corporation and I spoke to him about the principal aims of Tanzania’s tourist effort. First of all, he made it perfectly clear that Tanzania had neglected tourism for far too long and had now set itself very definite targets for the years ahead. Although tourist development was still in its infancy, Mr. Macha thought it possible that the number of tourists could increase to over 200,000 by the early 1990’s.

The second priority for Tanzanian tourism is obviously the construction of far more hotels and motels, catering for a wide range of tastes and income brackets. In the short and medium term Mr. Macha thought that the country must aim at what is usually called the upper middle class of the market. Visiting Tanzania for a fortnight or three weeks and viewing the safari parks is not going to be cheap and any thought of mass tourism packages 1s not being considered at present. Mr. Macha’s final theme was that Tanzania needed to concentrate on two main areas, firstly, wildlife and secondly, Kilimanjaro.

Judged by these aims the Tanzanian stand had done moderately well. It had displayed well designed and photographed wall posters concentrating mainly on the game parks and mountains. There were also two British tour managers on hand to explain Special Interest holidays to visitors.

But there is clearly a great deal more to be done before tourism is launched on a wide scale. Several questions remained unanswered. How ‘international’ are the hotels already in existence? Do they offer a wide ranging cuisine? Can they give a distinguished and reliable service? Even more important, is there a good car-hire service and is there a decent network of roads and sufficient travel information for a visitor to take his family on their own tour through the country?

There was a great deal spoken by all the officials on the stand about the beauty of Tanzania’s wildlife. But what of the coast? The discerning visitor wants to see mountains, wildlife, beaches and, not least important, he wants to meet the people. Tanzania has to realise that other countries very near it have a huge head-start in the organisation of their tourist industries, and the competition is not only keen, but getting tougher all the time. Clearly, much good work has been done in the past year and the participation in this Travel Fair will have done much to strengthen the links which have just been forged with some of the world’s leading tour operators. But it is absolutely essential to open up the whole country to international visitors and to provide as free and friendly a holiday visit as possible if Tanzanian tourism is to thrive. State tours are really no substitute for freedom of choice.

But the potential is huge. Tanzania is arguably the most beautiful and varied country in the African continent and the coloured posters at the back of the stand took me back twenty-five years to my first visit to that truly enchanted land. Wild buck leapt from darkness to light and then back into the semi-shadows; rivers gleamed and flashed in the early morning sun; Makonde carvings displayed in abundance, spoke of a rich cultural heritage which no discerning visitor could ignore. And, overall, Mount Kilimanjaro shone radiant, with white snowy flanks. It seemed irresistible. One visitor to the stand summed it up exactly. “It all looks so marvellous and so new. I didn’t know until today that you could really visit Tanzania”. That, perhaps, is the strongest card that Tanzania can possibly play in the tourism game. Its new. The great novelty of going there and seeing something absolutely fresh is undoubtedly the best weapon in the armoury of the Tanzania Tourist Corporation. It will be interesting to see how skillfully it plays it in the years that lie ahead.
Noel K. Thomas

(Extracts from a paper presented at the International Conference organised by the University of Par es Salaam on the Arusha Declaration)

One of Tanzania’s most important political landmarks, at least on paper, was the publication of the 1967 Arusha Declaration. The Arusha current manifested its far reaching waves in works of literature and the arts. Some artists laid all their hopes in the Declaration and, thus, sang or wrote its praises. Others had the ‘let’s wait and see attitude’ and, therefore were left as bystanders watching by the roadside. Yet others were sceptically critical from the very beginning and did not agree to swallow wholly the words of politicians.

These groups did not emerge only in poetry as some erroneous views seem to suggest. Tanzania, which had been regarded as the driest patch in what Taaban Lo Liyong had termed in the sixties ‘the East African literary desert’ was emerging as a gigantic and very important oasis of a written, indigenous African language literature. Many works poured out in prose, poetry and drama. Obviously, Taaban’s was an artificially created barrenness as it ignored completely the rich and abundant oral literature of hundreds of ethnic groups in East Africa and over-worshipped written literature.

Theoretically, largely due to the Declaration, Tanzanian literature was now overloaded with the call to go back to the village. A theme that had been initiated antedatedly in Shaaban Robert’s novel ‘Utobora Mkulima’, (Utobora the Farmer) got new blood in such works as Penina Muhando’s play ‘Hatia’ (Guilt), Ndyanao Balisidya’s novel ‘Shida’ (Hardships), in Kathias Nyampala’s ‘Ngonjera’ poems and in hundreds of poems written in Tanzania’s dailies and weeklies and on Radio Tanzania. Different music bands, choir groups and such prominent fine artists as Sam Ntiro increased the impetus of the theme by s pecialising in it.

Thus the period immediately after Arusha up to the mid-seventies is full of works of art and literature that are mainly concerned with content. It is at this time that one finds the artistic level of the written works at its shallowest. Even such a fine work as Muhando’s ‘Hatia’ is marred, as its creator gives us a very contrived solution to her heroine’s predicament – to go and join the villagers in the newly formed Majogo village. Ironically, it is also at this time that the concept of the village, the Ujamaa village especially, is portrayed as a conglomeration of, among others, all those ‘thugs’ and whores who have been failed by town life.

The artistic failure of the works in this trend keep on surfacing in literary pieces whose creators are led by the nose by political and ideological ideals at the expense of appropriate artistic standards. Perhaps the most glaring examples here are J. K. Kiimbila’ s ‘Ubeberu Utashindwa’ (Imperialism will be Vanquished) and F.E.M.K. Senkoro’s ‘Mzalendo’ (Patriot). These two novels deal with the liberation struggle in such a manner that the reader feels that he has been reading political treatises rather than works of art. K.K. Kahigi’s and Ngemera’s play ‘Mwanzo wa Tufani’ (The Storm’s Beginning) and Mohamed Seif Khatib’s epic poem ‘Utenzi wa Ukombozi wa Zanzibar’ (a poem on the liberation of Zanzibar) are two other works worth mentioning here. While the former emulated the Arusha and Ujamaa sloganeering, the latter was, in earnest, just a description of important successive events in the history of Zanzibar.

Following suit are the novels of Shafi Adam Shafi ‘Kasri ya Mwinyi Fuad’ (the Luxurious Palace of Fuad, a Feudal Lord) and ‘Kull’ (Coolie). The latter, though, has one merit in that it was the first major literary work in Kiswahili that did not advise the worker to leave the city and go back to the village.

The first ever collection of poems in English written by young Tanzanian poets ‘Summons: Poems from Tanzania’ has an introduction that quotes, among others, Mao Tse Tung on the importance of high artistic quality that matches progressive ideas in literary works. However, a closer look at most of the poems in this anthology, shows, with all due respect, a very poor artistic standard. Obviously, this was an aftermath of Arusha, for as we are told in the introduction, this is a new generation of poets who ‘started primary education after Uhuru, secondary education after Arusha’.

Lastly and perhaps the most typical of all in terms of sloganeering and parroting, was the anthology of poems that dealt with the Arusha Declaration and ten years after: ‘Mashairi ya Azimio la Arusha Baada ya Miaka Kumi’. In this anthology representative poets like Shaki, for example, claim that everyone in Tanzania, thanks to the Declaration, is extremely healthy due to having too much to eat!

Tanzanian literature has grown in various phases out of the process of negation. (This concept is not in the strictly Hegelian sense but rather loosely implies the process under which one type of literature emerges and takes the place of the type before it). Thus, as an indirect protest against, and negation of, the above trend of artistic bankruptcy, there were a number of developments in the literature. Three major groups can be randomly identified. The ‘popular’ cluster, the satirical clique and the free verse poets. Tanzania’s ‘popular’ Swahili literature was the most attractive and consisted mainly of potboilers, cheap books, junktales and sexploitation. This, in direct opposition to the content-oriented works, aimed at the audiences glands, fascinating their minds and exciting their flesh through the sensational and sentimental rather than the intellect. Popular variants of magazines such as Sani, Fahari, Ulatati and even the Party weekly Mzalendo became the major outlets for such ‘popular’ authors as John Rutayisingwa, G. Twarindwa, Mbunda Msokile and others. Love thrillers like J. Simbamwene’s novelettes ‘Mwisho wa Mapenzi’ (the End of Love) and ‘Kwa Sababu ya Pesa’ (Because of Money) emerged as short lived best sellers. In these ‘popular’ pieces, and through them, one noticed a distortion of social reality. How fair is it to take these works as ‘popular literature’ when, by all standards, they are just cheap potboilers? Popular literature should suggest contemporary literary tastes and the needs of the masses in terms of improving their standard of living and making them understand their environment better so that they can change it.

The works cited above do not fulfil the above noble task. Rather, they continue leaving the masses in the prison of their predicaments. The ‘popular’ trend was part and parcel of ‘mass production’ which, by its nature, turned everything into a commodity ready for sale in the capitalist market. The trend was a direct consequence of the preceding one; it was an immediate negation of a former, content-oriented literary movement.

The second major group that emerged with quite a force was that of the satirical artists. These filled Kiswahili literature with biting satirical voices which, in a way, portrayed the hypocrisy of those in power who were pretending to be serving the Declaration, and thus, the masses.

Examples in which satire appears in combination with other literary modes can be seen in Harrison Mwakyembe’s novel ‘Pepo ya Mabwege’ (Fools Paradise) and in C. G. Mumg’ong’o’s ‘Njozi Iliyopotea’ (A Lost Dream). These novels portray the gluttonous corruption of the ruling clique who are busy swindling even the little that the poor man is supposed to have. Yet the works show how, ultimately, these greedy skunks are merely enjoying a fools’ paradise which is very short lived. One discovers in these novels ‘exposure by ridicule’.

In short stories like those of G. Ruhumbika in his two works, ‘Parapanda: Wali wa Ndevu na Hadithi Zingine’ (Horn: Rice from the Beards and Other Stories) and the hilarious and most successful one both artistically and in content, ‘Uwike Usiwike Kutakucha’ (Whether You Crow Or Not It Will Dawn) one finds whole piercing satirical pieces which mock at the out-moded culture of society’s gluttonous leaders.

As in the case of the ‘popular’ literature , the satirical literature seems to have emerged as a negation of the content -oriented sloganeering literature discussed above. There was a need to have a more lively form to make the social and political measures interesting to the audience. There was, for example, a need to make the audience laugh at themselves and, in the process, prescribe some kind of panacea. There was no better medium here than the satiric voice.

Satire is peculiarly one of the arts that presupposes a body of settled social and political standards which shall serve as sanction for its rebuke and, at the same time, a certain security and tolerance in the application of the standards. The Arusha Declaration set those standards and artists were keen in following the implementation of the Declaration’s objectives.

Almost immediately after the Declaration’s proclamation some greedy leaders began going against the standards set by the blueprint. This is clearly and hilariously shown in the play by Penina Muhando and Amandina Lihamba ‘Harakati za Ukombozi’ (Liberation Struggle). In this play one discovers humorous ridicule and rebuke containing a demand for correction from those who have betrayed the Declaration.

Edward Rosenheim insists somewhere that satire can be identified partly by its concern with historic particulars. If we find no such particulars then, insists Rosenheim, a work is NOT satire. In other words satire must ask historic whys and, if possible, answer them.

Isack Mruma in his novelette Nguzo ya Uhondo (Pillar of Luxury) rather than ask the whys portrays the historic hows. In this work we meet the major character Lord Madengu, already dead from the very first chapter. The humorous ridicule comes out clearly in the commotion that follows the death of this Minister who, incidentally, and against the spirit of Arusha, is also Director and shareholder in various capitalist enterprises. The radio stops its normal broadcasts and plays soft, mournful army tunes bracketed by eulogical outbursts about the late son of the nation who died while building the nation. There is further hurly-burly among university students, some of whom are for and others against the late leader. There is tumult among the peasants and even amidst drunkards, the latter openly declaring that the death does not affect them so long as they are left alone with their illegally brewed gin. Meanwhile eulogies continue pouring out from the radio. The truth of the matter, however, and this is the satiric point that the author wants to drive home, is that the Honourable Minister died just when he was completing his eighteenth beer in the Mlimani Hotel!

Following suit are Penina Muhando’s play ‘Lina Ubani’ (There is a Panacea) and E. Kezilahabi’s play ‘Kaputula la Marx’. The former portrays the traditional enmity between politicians and experts. The latter shows the plight of the intelligencia in a corruption ridden society. The whole play takes place in a prison cell where the prisoners, locked up after trying to stir up some unrest in the country somehow drill a hole in the wall and are able to perceive what is going on outside.

The above works show how angry the artist’s sensitive pens have grown towards people, ideas and institutions that have betrayed the Arusha Declaration. The pens’ assaults and attacks have been directed to persuading the audience to view, and if possible, act unfavourably towards those satiric objects.
F. E. M. Semkoro

(We hope to include further extracts from this paper in the next issue of the Bulletin – Editor)