Tanzania turned 40 last Monday. It was on April 26, 1964 that Presidents Julius Nyerere of Tanganyika and Abeid Amani Karume of the People's Republic of Zanzibar signed the Articles that brought Tanzania into being. 

As usual, the occasion was marked nationally. President Benjamin Mkapa addressed the nation from Amaan Stadium in Zanzibar. He vowed the Union would never break. Acknowledging that there are problems, President Mkapa said they would be looked into by the relevant organs. 

Elsewhere, the Civic Education Teachers' Association (CETA) held a one-day workshop. By and large, the workshop reaffirmed the need for the preservation of the Union. On specific issues, the opinions of participants tended to be rather more extreme. There were Union romanticists who saw no problems with it whatsoever. To them, everything had worked out fine under the circumstances and whoever pointed out problems was essentially a troublemaker. 

At the other extreme were those who felt the Union was inherently problematic. To them, Zanzibar is favoured. A Zanzibari may own land on the mainland while a mainlander cannot do the same in Zanzibar. 

Zanzibaris interviewed by local TV stations had their own disenchantment to express. Many thought the danger of being swallowed up by the mainland was quite real. Zanzibaris number something close to one million against 35 million mainlanders. 

To assess the Union as good or bad, necessary or otherwise is to fail to grasp the essence of society. One cannot conduct experiments with society as though they were being conducted in a laboratory. It is true pilot projects can be carried out in the use of, say pesticides or condoms, limited to a locality. Anything involving the whole nation is no longer an experiment because, on that scale, there is no reverse gear. 

Tanzanians have to get used to the idea that they are stuck with one another for better or worse. What remains is how to improve the situation, which is the reality of any other nation anyway. That is where the romanticists need to abandon their stance. By pretending there are no problems, they are pushing the disgruntled against the wall. That is why there have been sporadic explosions in the past. 

In 1984, Aboud Jumbe had to "resign" as President of Zanzibar because he wanted the Articles of the Union revisited. In 1988, Seif Shariff Hamad, currently secretary general and strongman of the Civic United Front (CUF) had to bow out as Zanzibar Chief Minister over the effects of Union policies on the economy of Zanzibar. In 1993, it was the mainlanders turn to grumble when 55 MPs tabled a motion calling for the resurrection of Tanganyika to counterbalance Zanzibar, which was "behaving like a spoilt brat." 

Having acknowledged that problems exist, the government should have set up a mechanism for addressing them instead of tackling them on an ad hoc basis. 

Even if there were no problems, a periodic review is still necessary. It is not enough for the Union to do well. It must do better with each passing day. Tanzania is the only living example of the unity that the veterans of the independence struggles in Africa dreamed about. They saw Africa as one entity divided by artificial boundaries. 

With independence, the boundaries concretised and the trappings of power tore the leaders apart. Tanzania was lucky enough to seal the deal before the leaders had begun to feel too comfortable on their new thrones. 

Michael Okema is a political scientist based in Dar es Salaam. E-mail: mikeokema@yahoo.com 
 

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