You could see it in their eyes, that strong urge to prove something wrong, to show that ‘yes, we can’ be successful Tanzanians. Surely Tanzania can be a success story.

As I listened attentively to them my mind drifted away. It went as far as Europe and America. I wondered how many times Africans or Tanzanians have to prove themselves to the world.

There were three of them. Each came to tell her story in our workshop on ‘Women as producers of knowledge’ at the recent Gender Festival. A ‘herstory’ that will re-centre women.

The first one, Mwandale Mwanyekwa, spoke of how it is possible to be a successful woman sculptor in a domain dominated by men. Then Modesta Mahiga showed how it is possible for a young woman to manage her own successful company. Finally Belinda Mlingo talked of possibilities to successfully compete globally in the not-so-free market of fashion and design.

As a man I could only indirectly relate to how proud they feel to be women, Tanzanian women for that matter. But as a ‘Tanzanian African’ I could directly relate to how it feels to be Tanzanian. What I sensed is that common, persistent feeling of bruised African pride.

This is the feeling that haunted Frantz Fanon when he lamented why we should only derive our basic purpose from the African past. It is what troubled Mwalimu Julius Nyerere when he warned us about being the ‘permanent source of the hewers of wood and drawers of water for the educated of this world’ if we don’t enter ‘the honourable competition for knowledge’.

Since that tragic encounter between Africa and the West, which keeps repeating itself in many ways, ‘the Africans’ have never ceased to attempt to prove themselves. As this encounter is rehearsed time and again, they are asked over and over again to question their pride as an African. ‘What do you have to show to the world?’ ‘What have you contributed to civilisation?’

In the case of post-Ujamaa Tanzania, I think our wounded African pride is sorely festering. Why? Because of what the late Seithy L. Chachage referred to as our ‘collective imbecilisation’.

Note, for instance, the following anecdote from Modesta Mahiga: ‘It saddens me therefore that when a foreigner speaks to a confident and well-presented Tanzanian they immediately ask where that person is from because they couldn’t possible be Tanzanian.’

‘Unfortunately,’ she concludes, ‘we are not associated with excellence. I will never forget that during training overseas a former CEO I served under said “Putting the words ‘Tanzanian’ and ‘excellence’ together would be an oxymoron." Even when convinced that you are indeed a Tanzanian they attribute your confidence and drive to foreign exposure. I find this insulting.’

If you can’t identify with that anecdote then try recalling something similar to what Belinda Mlingo’s hears during her numerous attempts to explain to the European–American mindset where the heck Tanzania is: ‘Ooh Kilimanjaro’; ‘Aah Zanzibar’; ‘Yeah Nyerere’; ‘Wow Serengeti’!

It is these encounters coupled with ‘our collective imbecilisation’ in the areas of grand corruption (Ufisadi), contradictory policies (Sera Ndumilakuwili) and what a runaway Tanzanian refers to as the ‘celebration of mediocrity’ that sometimes make us wish we were not Tanzanian.

As the Kiswahili saying goes ‘lisemwalo lipo kama halipo linakuja’, that is, ‘what is said is there and if not then it is coming.’ Due to certain historical circumstances, there is a lot that is said about us that is ‘really’ true. But, even if it is not true, it is coming because of our own making.

Surely we don’t have to make history work against us. After all we have claimed these times to be the times of the ‘African Renaissance’. We have proclaimed that today it feels good to be African.

It is about time now that we make our own history and herstory. As Mwandale Mwanyekwa alerts us, ‘Africa has already awakened!’ Why then, should Tanzania remain in slumber?

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Chambi Chachage is an independent researcher, newspaper columnist and policy analyst based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
* Chambi Chachage © 2009.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.