Ujamaa

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Ujamaa is the Swahili term for "village community, family, sense of family and sense of community". It describes a model of society that was coined by the first president of Tanzania , Julius Nyerere , and which was used in Tanzania until 1985. Ujamaa is often equated with the term "African socialism ".

Ujamaa socialism

With the Arusha Declaration in 1967 Nyerere first presented his ideas of African socialism. Ujamaa and self-reliance (Swahili: kujitegemea , German for example: "self-responsibility, independence") were coined as two key words for this . While the idea of ​​Ujamaa remained nationally limited, the idea of self-reliance ( kujitegemea ) spread relatively quickly beyond the borders of Tanzania.

Nyerere, who grew up as the son of a chief , later studied and became a teacher, was very much shaped by his past. Even during his time as a teacher (around 1949 to 1952) he advocated eliminating social class differences.

For Nyerere, Ujamaa meant creating village communities . Few people or large families, who often live far away from each other, should come together to form large village communities. The following guidelines should be observed:

  • Respect for eachother
  • Common property
  • Obligation to work

This should have many advantages for the families, such as the expansion of technology in agriculture, division of labor and planning of production.

While in 1968 Nyerere still spoke of the fact that the transition should by no means take place by force or even violence, the reality was a different picture: Up until 1970, voluntary resettlement took place. 1970 to 1973 there was a so-called “frontal approach” (German: “frontal approach”). Since in 1973 only 15 percent, around two million, of the population lived in the Ujamaa villages after six years, eleven million people had been forced to move to the Ujamaa villages by 1977, some of them through military force. Many of them had to build the villages themselves and live under simple conditions for months or even years. As a result of the forced relocations, exports in the agricultural sector collapsed so severely that the administrative costs of some products exceeded the export revenues.

Other measures of Ujamaa socialism were the nationalization of the banks as well as education and land reforms .

There was initially great support for Ujamaa socialism from the Muslim population. However, as a result of the economic problems that Tanzania experienced in the 1970s and 1980s, they later became very disappointed with the policy and support for it declined.

In a 1979 work by the sociologist Michaela von Freyhold , the problems of the Ujamaa experiment are made clear:

“It showed young civil servants working on government orders to do jobs they didn't like, in villages they understood little about. The case studies show that many villagers were willing to engage in the ujamaa experiment, but that they were repeatedly disappointed by the unkind actions of government officials or by the kind of help they had not asked for and which was not a priority for them. "

Policy of Self-Reliance

Under the motto of self-reliance or Kujitegemea , Nyerere strived for an independent Tanzania, which should be largely autonomous and thus independent of economic and other aid from other countries.

While this program could be implemented in the education sector, it failed in the economic sector.

education

The adult literacy rate rose from 10 percent in 1960 to 79 percent in 1979. The primary school enrollment rate rose from 25 percent (1960) to about 94 percent (1979).

During the reign of Nyerere there were virtually no social class differences . The ideas of equality and community were accepted by the general public.

economy

The economic situation in Tanzania deteriorated continuously during the duration of the Ujamaa project. Finally, in 1985, there was a confrontation with the World Bank . Nyerere voluntarily retired from the presidency.

Development aid for Tanzania:

  • 1970: About $ 50 million
  • 1974: 200 million US dollars
  • 1975: $ 380 million
  • 1980: $ 680 million

This growing dependence of Tanzania on foreign aid stood in contrast to the idea of self-reliance . The 1978 Uganda-Tanzania War , which temporarily isolated Tanzania within the Organization for African Unity, was a particularly stressful factor .

literature

  • Paul Collier : Labor and Poverty in Rural Tanzania, Ujamaa and Rural Development in the United Republic of Tanzania . Oxford University Press, New York 1991, ISBN 0-198283156 .
  • Michaela von Freyhold : Ujamaa Villages in Tanzania: Analysis of a Social Experiment , Heinemann, London 1979.
  • David Westerlund: Ujamaa na dini: a study of some aspects of society and religion in Tanzania, 1961 - 1977. Stockholm 1980.

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ↑ The mirror . 16, 2007, p. 120.
  2. ↑ See Westerlund.
  3. ↑ See Abdin N. Chande: Islam, Ulamaa and Community Development in Tanzania. A Case Study of Religious Currents in East Africa. San Francisco (et al.): Austin & Winfield 1998. pp. 238-245.
  4. ↑ Obituaries: Michaela von Freyhold (translation from English)