It has been six years since Julius Nyerere retired from the political scene of his country, Tanzania, which he led for 30 years, starting with the struggle for independence. A rare example in Africa, he retired of his own volition without being forced out by a military coup or a revolution.

"The Tanzanians began wondering anxiously about what would happen when Mwalimu went", Julius Nyerere explained to us at El País during his visit to Madrid. "In such a case, it was no use saying wait until I die in order to find out!", he joked. "And so I handed the reins to my successors and said, 'let us take the risk together'."

A graduate of Edinburgh University and translator of Shakespeare into Kiswahili, the national language, he knew how to avoid the risks of tribalism by forging a nation state whose final form culminated in the Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar in 1964. A devout roman catholic, his dream was ujamaa, a form of socialism which rejects Western concepts of capitalism and Marxism, but has at its core a belief in the importance of the agrarian society (Tanzania, like the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, is overwhelmingly a peasant society) and of family solidarity.

For the last two years, he has dedicated himself to travelling the globe in order to speak of the conclusions of the Report of the South Commission, which he established in 1987.

ANA CAMACHO: Do you think that the current developments in Eastern Europe (after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet–Russian domination on that part of Europe) will lead to a reduction in Western aid to the countries of the South?

JULIUS NYERERE: There is a real feeling that we are going to be forgotten by the so-called First World. We need to have a re-think here and in the South Commission Report we say that the development of our own countries is above all our own responsibility. If the countries of the South want development, they will have to initiate it themselves by making clear political choices.

Accordingly, our first recommendation is that if African countries want to develop in freedom, they must put their own people, their own money and their own resources to maximum use. Another problem is that when our countries talk of external cooperation partnerships, they only think of the North. They never consider the possibility of South–South cooperation, say between Southern Africa and Latin America. Finally, in order to attract foreign investment to the South, it is first of all vital for the locals themselves to invest in their own countries instead of sending their capital abroad.

ANA CAMACHO: To what point can democracy be of help in African countries in their quest for development?

JULIUS NYERERE: Democracy can help to motivate our people when they are asked to tighten their belts so that they do not feel they are doing this for the benefit of the dictator of the day. But one should not confuse the sense of freedom with the issue of basic needs arising from hunger, the lack of schools, the insufficiency of transportation and electricity networks.

And to believe, with the advent of multiparty politics, that all causes of economic distress will vanish overnight can create a dangerous delusion and lead to military coups d'état.

ANA CAMACHO: The disorder and chaos facing Eastern Europe appear to have sounded the death-knell of socialism and the triumph of capitalism…

JULIUS NYERERE: Yes, now we see the birth of a new god, one called capitalism which supposedly has all the answers. But to conclude that socialism has failed because of what has happened in the Soviet Union is equivalent to saying Christianity has failed because 2000 years after Jesus Christ urged us to "turn the other cheek" or to "love your enemy as you love yourself", these recommendations have yet to be complied with.

Moreover, I have never considered the Soviets to be true socialists, exactly as they too do not believe that I am an authentic socialist. In Tanzania, we said this very clearly in the Arusha Declaration in 1967: there is no socialism without freedom. And of course, when I visited the USSR in 1969, I saw clearly that Soviet citizens were not free.

ANA CAMACHO: You will no doubt admit that you have yourself not succeeded in fulfilling your own socialist project…

JULIUS NYERERE: Yes, there have been mistakes, but in application. The idea still remains valid and if I had to start again, I would do the same things. What matters is that socialism be based on one's attitude; it cannot be imposed by force.

Socialism, as an idea of a just society, cannot die. I know that in these times, one is not supposed to say such things. But I belong to a dying breed which resists reneging on its ideals!

Some would say that it is no use believing in such things, but does it make more sense to believe in a society based on General Motors? I reject this. At present, we are living a moment of deception. But the conditions being created on the ground by this euphoria over capitalism give me reason to believe that in about 10 years or so, the ideal of socialism will return. And more forcefully than before.

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BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This interview was originally published by El País on 16 November 1991.
* Translated from the Spanish by Annar Cassam.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.