Scented affluence in the midst of stinking poverty

Last week the Chairman of the ruling party Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) Council of Trustees, Peter Kisumo, must have felt short of saying old leaders must not seek re-election this year because they have failed to deliver desired development needs. He instead cited age as a main reason for not seeking re-election.

The kind of development outlined in Julius Nyerere’s 1968 book “Freedom and Socialism” disqualifies most politicians from the top to bottom most as few seem to have pursued the development path during their term in leadership.

The Father of the Nation wrote: “A country, village, or community cannot be developed, it can only develop itself. For real development means growth of people….If real development is to take place the people have to be involved…..Knowledge does not only come out of books….We would be fools if we allowed the development or our economies to destroy the human and social values, which African societies have built up over centuries.”

Tanzania’s development has not happened as Nyerere had ideally formulated. Those who Kisumo call “old” and “aging” can be said to be responsible for the failure; they have been in position to spearhead delivery of the desired development but could not achieve! In practice, the technical and political development under their leadership denied people agency and recognition of their voices and rationality.

Most of these leaders have fought for modern technological and economic development, yet these two aspects, here in Tanzania as elsewhere, have governed people with arrogance. Instead of having the sense that they are included in the planning and in implementation, they have become objects or they are conceived only as labour or as customers.

Even if we recognize that economic and technological development is today the pre-condition for a country to be called developed, true development must relate to intended and planned social change.

There may be visible signs of technological development, for example, with high rise buildings but the wealth accrues unevenly to upper sectors of society. Social and human development does not accompany the signs of wealth; the new breed of politicians must put special efforts to overcome the impersonal, asocial and anti-community forces in development.

Despite Tanzania’s registered peak record of seven per cent GDP growth, life has become more unbearable for most Tanzanians than it was in the early years of independence. Today some 10 out of every 100 rural people plan to move to the urban centres within the next one year in search of better lives, says Evarist Elimwera of the Institute of Resources Assessment in his report on the impact of poverty on rural migration.

The new breed of politicians must be able to part from the ways of the “old” politicians by mobilizing public efforts to bridge the emerging social gaps. One such gaps contrasting development trends is the increasing number of children in the streets instead of attending schools at a time when there are more primary and secondary schools built even in rural areas.

As long as preventable diseases lead as the cause of death, the statistical economic records and increasing modern technological innovations may not mean much to the lives of voters seeking for a genuine social change. Unless economics and technology reduce the burdens of the poor, the works of our politicians will remain bleak in the development history.

According to Elimwera, the gap between the desired social change and development practice could be harmonized by building on existing local knowledge and skills. He argues that the development course taken in Tanzania have not only sidelined but also disregard indigenous knowledge which citizens have confidence in. In other words, we have taken and pursued western development concepts that do not match our cultures.

The test for the hopeful new politicians is great as many of them may not have a clear background on the appropriate cultural pathways to harmonize the development gap. Moreover, most of them shall have been oriented in western concept of development, leaving them with distaste for what is originally Tanzanian or rather African as Nyerere would have called it.

What is seen as development in the Western concept could actually be the factor for underdevelopment in Tanzania and African cultures. Unless our leaders begin to promote our own concept of development, the West shall continue to under develop us in the familiar way Walter Rodney wrote in his book “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.”

Many Tanzanians debating on the development factor seem to agree that a “turn around” is needed in our education system to allow the re-writing of our history and to give preference to what values, practices, traditions and leadership codes we consider ours.

It is, however, indeed not an exaggeration to say that "development" is an elusive concept most debated, and in all its varieties the costliest political programme most applied in modern history. Should we take it on the real or from the dream?