Julius Nyerere
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Julius Kambarage Nyerere (born April 13, 1922 in Butiama (near the east bank of Lake Victoria ); died October 14, 1999 in London ) headed the socialist- oriented Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) from 1919 to 1961 under British sovereignty standing East African mandate or (from 1946) trust territory Tanganyika into state independence . Because of this fact, he is known in Tanzania to the present day as a “teacher” ( Swahili : Mwalimu ) and “father of the nation” (Swahili: Baba wa Taifa ).
From May 1961, Nyerere was the first Prime Minister of the country, which was initially provided with a statute of autonomy , and was elected President and Head of Government of the “Republic of Tanganyika”, which was composed as a presidential democracy , after gaining full independence in 1962 . After the merger with the then People's Republic of Zanzibar and Pemba in 1964, he remained President of the now United Republic of Tanzania until his resignation in 1985 .
At the international level, Nyerere was chairman of the Organization for African Unity (OAU), the predecessor organization of today's African Union, in his last year in government, 1984/85 . Tanzania joined the Non-Aligned Movement under his presidency . Until his death, the practicing Catholic Nyerere was recognized as a peace- broker on the African continent and was honored with corresponding supranational awards.
Life
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Nyerere was born the son of a chief of the Zanaki , a small people in the Mara region . He was a Catholic . From 1949 to 1952 he was the first Tanganyican to study in Great Britain at the University of Edinburgh . He became a teacher and in 1954 founded the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) as a national mass party.
In 1960 he became Prime Minister and on December 9, 1961 led his country to independence from Great Britain. In 1962 he was first elected President of Tanganyika; He was re-elected in 1965, 1970, 1975 and 1980. In April 1964 Nyerere was able to merge his country with Zanzibar to form the United Republic of Tanzania . In 1967 he gave his socialist convictions in the " Declaration of Arusha " political content. Nyerere nationalized the banks and other commercial enterprises, called for the establishment of socialist village communities ( Ujamaa ) and a reform of the school system. From 1977 he granted political support to the South African ANC for its school in exile, the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College , and generously made the land and some former farm buildings available at Morogoro .
In 1971 and 1978 Uganda's dictator Idi Amin attacked Tanzania. In the second war , Tanzania captured the Ugandan capital Kampala and forced Idi Amin to flee.
Nyerere supported a 1977 coup in the Seychelles against the democratically elected government of James Mancham .
In 1985 he resigned as president, but remained chairman of the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM; from Swahili : "Party of the Revolution") until 1990 , which was founded in 1977 on the initiative of Nyereres from the merger of the TANU with the Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP) Zanzibar had emerged.
Until his death in 1999, Nyerere was a peace broker in Africa.
Others
Nyerere was friends with Bernhard Grzimek . He was also friends with the two years younger President of Zambia , Kenneth Kaunda , who viewed Nyerere as a political role model. When Kaunda was arrested by the new Zambian government on fabricated charges in the 1990s, Nyerere demonstratively visited him in prison and together with Nelson Mandela obtained Kaunda's release.
Awards
In 1983 Nyerere was awarded the Nansen Refugee Prize. In 1992, UNESCO recognized him with the award of the Simón Bolívar Prize as a “great humanist whose values have influenced several generations”. In 1995 he was the first recipient of the Gandhi Peace Prize of the Government of India.
In September 2009, Nyerere was posthumously awarded the title “World Hero of Social Justice” on behalf of the United Nations General Assembly at a ceremony in the Presidential Palace in La Paz , Bolivia .
In Tanzania, numerous streets, squares and other public buildings / facilities are named after Julius Nyerere, including the country's most important airport, the Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam .
Beatification process
Nyerere was a devout Catholic who went to mass every day during his public service and fasted frequently. The diocese of Musoma initiated the diocesan beatification process in January 2005 .
Orders and decorations
On March 21, 2010, Nyerere was posthumously awarded the highest order of the Republic of Namibia as part of the 20th anniversary of Namibia's independence day. His wife accepted the Welwitschia Mirabilis Order, 1st class.
Quotes
"While poor nations like Tanzania fight for those structural changes in the world economic system, without which our own development efforts would be nullified, we find that American economic power is on the other side, that is, on the side of our ongoing exploitation."
“Poor countries are told that they have to work hard, produce more, and then be able to overcome their poverty. […] Take the case of sisal - once Tanzania's most important export item - and relate it to the price of tractors. In 1965 I was able to buy a tractor for 17.25 tons of sisal; in 1972 the same tractor cost as much as 47 tons of sisal. [...] The rich countries get richer because their economic strength gives them economic power; the poor countries remain poor because their economic weakness makes them puppets in the power play of others. "
Writings by Julius Nyerere
- Freedom and Unity. A Selection from Writings and Speeches 1952-65. Dar es Salaam 1966.
- Freedom and Socialism. A Selection from Writings and Speeches 1965-1967. Dar es Salaam 1968.
- Ujamaa. Essays on Socialism. Dar es Salaam 1968.
- Freedom and Development. A Selection from Writings and Speeches. Dar es Salaam, 1968–1973 (German in excerpts Freedom and Development ; Services in Übersee, Stuttgart 1975).
- Education and Liberation. Texts on the Church Development Service 14, Frankfurt am Main 1977.
literature
- Victor Munnik: Julius Nyerere - That Rare Phenomenon, a Sincere Politician with Integrity. In: Africa Insight 16 (2), 1986; Pp. 83-85.
- Knud Erik Svendsen: Development Strategy and Crisis Management. In: Colin Legum, Geoffrey Mmari (eds.): Mwalimu - The Influence of Nyerere. London 1995.
- Asit Datta (Ed.): Julius Nyerere. Speeches and writings from three decades. Horlemann, Bad Honnef 2001, ISBN 3-89502-130-X .
- Frank Bliss, Florian Schlichting: Julius Nyerere (1922–1999). Ideals of a village socialism. In: D + C Development and Cooperation , No. 12, December 1999, pp. 345–347 (historical article about Nyerere and the socialist era of Tanzania)
Web links
- Literature by and about Julius Nyerere in the catalog of the German National Library
- Dossier with articles on Julius Nyerere on Spiegel online
- Obituary for Julius Nyerere in Südwind Magazin 11/1999
Individual evidence
- ↑ Raymond F. Hopkins: Political Roles in a New State: Tanzania's First Decade ; Yale University Press 1971. p. 204
- ↑ He was also known as Mwalimu (= Swahili for teacher)
- ^ Gavin Cawthra, André du Pisani, Abillah Omari: Security and Democracy in Southern Africa . Wits University Press, Ottawa, Johannesburg, 2007, p. 143 ISBN 978-1-86814-453-2
- ↑ Official Ceremony for the Award of the 1992 International Simón Bolívar Prize (PDF; 1.3 MB), last accessed: February 15, 2012
- ↑ Morales Named “World Hero of Mother Earth” by UN General Assembly. In: Latin American Herald Tribune. September 2, 2009
- ↑ Dirk Heinrich: Great reunion at the state banquet in Windhoek ; Allgemeine Zeitung (Windhoek), March 24, 2010
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Nyerere, Julius |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Nyerere, Julius Kambarage |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Tanzanian politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 13, 1922 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Butiama (on the east bank of Lake Victoria ) |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 14, 1999 |
| Place of death | London |