Ujamaa Revisited: Indigenous and European Influences in Nyerere's Social and Political Thought

The debate over the indigenous versus the European roots of ‘African democracy’ has regained importance recently. Using the critical tools of cultural anthropology, the social and political thought of Julius K. Nyerere from Tanzania is examined for its African and European sources. The most recurrent themes in his writings are ‘traditional African values’ and the centrality of ‘the traditional African family’. They constitute the core element of Ujamaa. The aim of this article is to show that Nyerere’s statements on African socialism and on African democracy are not merely rhetorical devices employed by an aspiring politician. Nor are they the romantic appeal of a Westernised university graduate to a mythological or even ‘invented’ African past. Nyerere presented his own specific version of ‘traditional’ African values because he was socialised in a non-hierarchical ‘tribal’ society. He sought to synthesise these ‘traditional’ values with Western elements in order to create a Tanzanian identity that would cut across ethnic lines. In those cases when African and European value systems collided, however, Nyerere’s politics became problematic.