By ALI MAZRUI
Almost exactly 50 fifty years ago, young Julius Kambarage Nyerere entered the gates of the University of Edinburgh as a student, following his education at Makerere University, Kampala. Edinburgh (as well as Makerere) prepared him for the title of Mwalimu. Young Nyerere entered Edinburgh in October 1949.

His Julius Kambarage Nyerere's radical thought was multifaceted. He began as an anti-colonial African nationalist on his return home, seeking the independence of Tanganyika, which was at the time a United Nations' trusteeship under British administration. In pursuit of self-government and independence, Nyerere helped to form the Tanganyika African National Union on July 7, 1954 (Saba Saba -- seventh day of seventh month). The movement had a three-prong strategy - to pressure the British government, to pressure the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations and to rally general African and international support for Tanganyika's independence. The country became independent on December 9, 1961, with him Julius Nyerere as Prime Minister. He Nyerere became President on December 9, 1962.

Linked to Nyerere's nationalism from quite early was his Pan-Africanism, a commitment to the pursuit of African unity and the adoption of the principle of African solidarity whenever possible. Sometimes he put his Pan-Africanism ahead of his nationalism, as when in 1960 he offered to delay Tanganyika's independence if this would help achieve the creation of an East African federation of Tanganyika, Kenya and Uganda. In the end there was not enough political will in the other two countries to achieve such a union.

Nevertheless, Tanganyika played host to other major Pan-African activities. It became a frontline state for the liberation of Southern Africa from Portuguese rule and from white minority governments. Politically, the colony hosted for a while the Pan-African Freedom Movement for Eastern, Central and Southern Africa (Pafmecsa). AFMECSA). Tanganyika subsequently established major training camps for Southern African Liberation fighters.

Nyerere's credentials as official host to liberation movements were put into question in 1964 when he was forced to invite British troops to put down a mutiny of his own army. The more radical African heads of state, like Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, regarded Nyerere's use of British troops as "neo-colonial" and unworthy of an official host to liberation movements elsewhere. Nyerere defended himself and continued his liberation role, successfully most of the time.

Domestically in Tanzania, he inaugurated three areas of reform - a political system based on the principle of the one-party state; an economic system based on an African approach to socialism (what he called Ujamaa, or familyhood); a cultural system based on the Swahili language.

The cultural policy based on Kiswahili was the earliest and the most durable. Tanganyika (and later Tanzania) became one of the few African countries to use an indigenous language in Parliament as well as use it also has the primary language of national business. Kiswahili was promoted increasingly in politics, administration, education and the media. It became a major instrument of nation-building; and nation-building became the most lasting of Nyerere's legacies.

The political experiment of the one-party state produced good political theory but bad political practice. The theory that the one-party state could be as democratic as the multi-party system and was more culturally suited to Africa was intellectually stimulating - but failed the test in practice. Tanzania became a multi-party state not long after Julius Nyerere left office. He himself accepted what seemed to be the inevitable.

The economic experiment of African socialism, or Ujamaa, which was launched dramatically by the Arusha Declaration on Socialism and Self-Reliance in 1967, captured the imagination of millions of reform-minded Africans all over the continent and elsewhere. It was also greatly admired by Western liberals, intellectuals and by governments like those of Sweden, Norway and Denmark. History gave the Arusha Declaration 20 years in which to deliver (1967-1987). By 1987 disenchantment was widespread and the end was near. Far from Tanzania being self-reliant, it was more dependent than ever. And Ujamaa had left the country poorer than it might otherwise have been. Liberalisation, privatisation and marketisation were not far behind.

Nyerere's regional East African legacy is also mixed. Although he was once committed to creating an East African Federation, his socialist ideals clashed with his East African ideals. As he struggled to create socialism in his own country, he had to create barriers against free movement of capital, labour and resources in and out of Kenya and Uganda. Socialist planning in one country proved to be incompatible with an open-door Pan-East-African policy.

On the other hand, Nyerere's Tanganyika did form a union with Zanzibar. This remains the only case in Africa of previously sovereign states uniting into a new country - and surviving as one entity for more than three decades. What used to be sovereign Tanganyika and Zanzibar became the United Republic of Tanzania in 1964.

He strengthened the union when he united the ruling party of Zanzibar (the Afro-Shirazi Party) with the ruling party of Tanganyika (TANU) to form the new Chama cha Mapinduzi (Party of the Revolution).

Has Nyerere's political behaviour sometimes reflected his upbringing as a Roman Catholic? There is a school of thought which explains his recognition of the secessionist Biafra in 1969 as a form of solidarity with fellow Catholics against a Federal Nigeria which was potentially dominated by Muslims. This was in the middle of the Nigerian civil war. The Igbo of Biafra were overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. Less convincing is the assertion that Nyerere's military intervention in Uganda in 1979 was motivated by a sectarian calculation to defend a mainly Christian Uganda from the Muslim dictator Idi Amin. In reality, Nyerere might have been motivated by a wider sense of humanitarianism and universal ethics. He was also defending Tanzania from Idi Amin's territorial appetites.

Most Western judges of Julius Nyerere have concentrated on his economic policies and their failures. Ujamaa and villagisation have been seen as forces of economic retardation which kept Tanzania backward for at least another decade.

Not enough commentators have paid attention to Nyerere's achievements in nation-building. He gave Tanzanians a sense of national consciousness and a spirit of national purpose. One of the poorest countries in the world found itself one of the major actors on the world scene.

Nyerere's policies of making Kiswahili the national language of Tanzania deepened this sense of Tanzania's national consciousness and cultural pride. Parliament in Dar es Salaam debated exclusively in Kiswahili. More and more of government business was conducted in Kiswahili. The mass media turned more and more away from English and into Kiswahili. Newspapers had not only letters to the editor but also poems to the editor - in Kiswahili. And the educational system was experiencing the stresses and strains of the competing claims of English and Kiswahili.

Nyerere's translation of two of Shakespeare's plays into Kiswahili was done not because he "loved Shakespeare less, but because he loved Kiswahili more". He translated Shakespeare into Kiswahili partly to demonstrate that the Swahili language was capable of carrying the complexities of a genius of another civilisation.

Above all, Nyerere as President was a combination of deep intellect and high integrity. Leopold Senghor's intellect was as deep as Nyerere's, but was Senghor's integrity as high as Nyerere's? Nelson Mandela's integrity was probably higher than Nyerere's, but was Mandela's intellect as deep as Nyerere's?

Among East African politicians Julius K. Nyerere was in a class by himself in the combination of ethical standards and intellectual power. In that combination, no other East African politician was in the same league. Some East African politicians might have been more intelligent than Nyerere. Others might have been more ethical than Nyerere. But none combined high thinking and high ethics in the way Nyerere did.

He and I deeply disagreed on the merits of Ujamaa. He and I once disagreed on East African federation. I thought his socialist policies harmed East African integration. He and I disagreed on the Nigerian civil war. He and I disagreed on the issue of Zanzibar. I thought Zanzibar was forced into a marriage which was not of its own choosing.

And yet Julius Nyerere and I were committed to the proposition that patriotic Africans could disagree and still be equally patriotic. I saw him in Abuja in Nigeria, just before the inauguration of President Olusegun Obasanjo late in May 1999. Julius Nyerere and I gossiped in Kiswahili. He looked well - deceptively well, considering his illness.

He and I were keynote speakers at a workshop to inaugurate Nigeria to a new era of democracy in 1999. We were voices from East Africa at a major West African event. We were voices of Pan-Africanism on the eve of the new millennium. Nyerere's voice is was one of the most eloquent voices of the 20th twentieth Century. It was a privilege for me to stand side-by-side with such a person to mark a momentous event in no less a country than our beloved Nigeria.

Born: March 1922 in Butiama, Musoma District, Tanganyika. Educated: Mwisenge Primary School, Musome (1934-36). Tabora Government Secondary School (1937-1942). Makerere University College, Kampala, Uganda (1943-1945). University of Edinburgh, Scotland (1949-1952).

Teaching Career: St Mary Roman Catholic College, Tabora (1946-1959). St. Francis' Roman Catholic College (1953-1955). This experience gave him the lifelong title of Mwalimu (Teacher or Mentor) even when he was President and long after.

Political Career: Founder, Tanganyika African National Union (Tanu) July 7, 1954. Member, Legislative Council, Tanganyika (1958-1960). Chief Minister (1960-1961). Prime Minister (1961-1962). President of Tanganyika (1962-1964). President of United Republic of Tanzania (1964-1985). President of Tanu (1954-1977). Chairman of Chama cha Mapinduzi (1977-1990). Chairman, Frontline States (1975-1985). Chairman, Nonaligned Movement Commission (1986). Chairman, Organisation of African Unity (1984-1985). Leader of the South Commission.

Publications: Ujamaa: Essays on Socialism (Oxford, 1968). Freedom and Unity: Uhuru na Umoja (Oxford, 1969). Freedom and Socialism: Uhuru na Ujamaa (Oxford, 1969). Freedom and Development: Uhuru na Maendeleo (Oxford, 1973). Swahili translations of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (1963) and The Merchant of Venice (1969).

Family: Married with eight children and with siblings.

Comments\Views about this article