Letter from Mwanza - No4

Sunday 8am – or in Swahili time, ‘saa mbili’ (two o’clock), the sun is up in the blue sky, a slight breeze, chickens in full cry, the crunch of feet passing by on the road, and a swishing sound of someone sweeping next door. Sweeping with the tied together reeds is done for hours as the red/orange dust gets everywhere. In fact in town it is a constant job for many women to try to keep the dust and litter off the tarmac roads. On the whole they do a remarkable job, avoiding the tooting cars, having to breath in not only the car fumes, but also the dust, and often working with their hands and cardboard to move the dust into wheel barrows to be put on a pile which will blow away to start the whole process again.

Talking of roads – friends of Jenny & Joey, Rafael and Mike together with J & J have put together a great easy to read map of Mwanza. Rafael is an interesting chap as not only is he a wiz at charades; but he also does work for the Lonely Planet. Next week he is off to Egypt for 5 weeks to put together part of a new guide for the Middle East. Seemingly these guys get a retainer and expenses and then chug around various places taking photos and writing about the current places of interest. Sounds like one of those dream jobs; but is probably very hard work and needs a very special sort of person to do it.

Back to the Mwanza map, or as I call it the ‘Mappa Mwanza Mondi’. What is interesting is that very few roads have names. For example, if you need to ask a taxi to get you to a specific house, say number 34, The Street, it would most likely make little sense. What you need to do is find the nearest land- mark to describe where you want to go. Getting to Jenny’s place is therefore ‘the place next to the police mess’ (Their club, not a mess that they have created!)

Of course, there are street names and it is these names that interest me. Thinking back to my Kampala days in the early 70’s, I clearly recollect how after Idi Amin came to power the names of the main roads were changed. The main one was changed to ‘25th January 1971 Street’ – remembered by Jane as it was her 21st birthday! That is when he gained power over Milton Obote. It seems that whatever the current name is it gives a clue to the current historical thinking. So, Tanzanian towns and cities are no doubt full of Uhuru and Nyerere Roads. Freedom, and the name of the man still revered as the first President of the country to whom history is still painting in a very much better light than many other first ‘leaders’ is fully understandable. However, what about, Nasser Drive, Lumbumba Rd, Nkhruma Rd and Kenyatta Rd? The logic is clear, they were all men (my open university studies, where the gender questions always has to be asked, begs the question, when and where will there be the first woman president of an African state!) and all were first Presidents of their countries who were in position at the time of the end the hegemony of colonialist or monarchical rule. Do they merit a street/road named after them now? If they don’t then who should they be replaced with, or would it be better if people were not used at all!

Not only were these four men first presidents, they were also hugely charismatic figures. All of them, for some time at least, gave real hope and optimism to people not only in their countries, but to others as well. Nasser was a man who saw himself as a champion of Arab unity and African liberation intent on ridding the area of foreign domination. Lumumba, an articulate intelligent and energetic man started the ‘Movement National Congolais’ in it struggle to gain liberation from Belgium which it did in 1960. Kwame Nkrumah, like many future leaders, had been imprisoned by his former colonialist masters, also launched a political party ‘The Conventions People’s Party’ which took the Gold Coast/Ghana into independence. This time in 1957. Even at such a tender age, I still sensed the excitement of this proud black man adorned on vividly bright stamps who was going to be a man of the future. As he stood next to the Queen at the Commonwealth Conference in June 1957 a new world order seemed to be possible. Jomo Kenyatta, another graduate of a British gaol, was to take Kenya independent in 1963, and be an ever-present feature of political Africa for many years, with his pin-stripped suits, colourful hat and fly whip.

Do they merit to still be close to the consciousness of people passing by their name today? Perhaps I really need to stand next to these signs and ask people passing by what they feel? Of course they, and others still alive and in charge today like Robert Mugabe and Muammar Gaddafi, should be remembered for their important contribution to the move away from political colonialism. At this point in history most people agree that this was a good thing. However, and it is a big however, it seems most were ill prepared or unwilling to start a political system which really benefited the majority of the population. How quickly some of the noble words of independence moved towards graft, corruption and nepotism! I would not like to comment on whose fault that is – certainly the fact that political colonialism was replaced by foreign economic colonialism and self-interest, in many cases, didn’t help. There are many opinions on this subject. I will just leave this blog with my own divisions of leaders who I believe have made a positive and long lasting difference to the majority population.

In the first division, I would put Nelson Mandela, Samora Machel and Julius Nyerere. Perhaps you have your own thoughts on you would have in your top division, who you would have in the other divisions, and who you would like to be thrown out completely!!

Kwa heri for now.
Donald