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DUTIFUL SUBJECTS, PATRIOTIC CITIZENS, AND THE CONCEPT OF ‘GOOD CITIZENSHIP’ IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY TANZANIA*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2013

EMMA HUNTER
EMMA HUNTER*
Affiliation:
Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge
*
Gonville and Caius College, Trinity Street, Cambridge, CB2 1TAelh35@cam.ac.uk
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Abstract

The growing interest in citizenship among political theorists over the last two decades has encouraged historians of twentieth-century Africa to ask new questions of the colonial and early post-colonial period. These questions have, however, often focused on differential access to the rights associated with the legal status of citizenship, paying less attention to the ways in which conceptions of citizenship were developed, debated, and employed. This article proposes that tracing the entangled intellectual history of the concept of ‘good citizenship’ in twentieth-century Tanzania, in a British imperial context, has the potential to provide new insights into the development of one national political culture, while also offering wider lessons for our understanding of the global history of political society.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , March 2013 , pp. 257 - 277
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

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Footnotes

*

My thanks to Leigh Denault, Peter Mandler, Charles West, and participants at the conference ‘Languages of citizenship in translation: conversations across Africa and the Indian Ocean’ held in Cambridge on 16 and 17 Mar. 2012, as well as the two anonymous readers for comments on earlier drafts of this article.

References

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19 Editorial, ‘Kiini cha ustaarabu ni uraiya’, Mambo Leo, Aug. 1925, p. 171.

20 Juma bin Leo's name signifies ‘The present day’. Note also the absence of the honorific Mzee indicating his relative youth.

21 Rivers-Smith and Johnson, Uraia, p. 31.

22 Uday Singh Mehta has recently developed the argument that Gandhi's distinctiveness lay in his rejection of the assumption that politics should be built on a fear of death. See Mehta, U., ‘Gandhi on democracy, politics and the ethics of everyday life’, Modern Intellectual History, 7 (2010), pp. 355–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and U. Mehta, ‘Gandhi and the burden of civility’, Kingsley Martin Memorial Lecture, Cambridge, 26 Oct. 2011.

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30 Letter from Salimu bin Ismail and Musa Kinaogo, ‘Mji wa Ilala, Dar es Salaam, Kwetu, 14 Jan. 1938, p. 9; letter from M. M. B. Masawe, ‘Mateso ya Wachagga yatakwisha lini?’, Kwetu, 22 Feb. 1940, p. 5. On the history of Kwetu see Westcott, N., ‘An East African radical: the life of Erica Fiah’, Journal of African History, 22 (1981), pp. 85–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Letter from Msafiri, Kwetu, Mar. 1940, p. 5.

32 ‘A word of advice’, 21 Feb. 1939, Kwetu, p. 5. The article had previously been printed in the Tanganyika Standard.

33 ‘Habari za Kwetu’, Kwetu, 7 Dec. 1937, p. 5. This was a repeat of an article which appeared in Swahili the previous month, Kwetu, 18 Nov. 1937.

34 Letter from Abdallah Kiunga, ‘Kodi ya kichwa’, Kwetu, 14 Jan. 1939, p. 21.

35 Batten, T. R., Thoughts on African citizenship (Oxford, 1944), p. 1Google Scholar.

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37 Batten, Thoughts on African citizenship, p. 1.

38 Ryan, C. W. W. and Omari, D. A., Mazungumzo juu ya uraia/talks on citizenship (Dar es Salaam, 1954), p. 1Google Scholar. The book employs parallel English/Swahili texts.

39 Ryan and Omari, Mazungumzo ya uraia, p. 4.

40 He also regretted the fact that Batten's book was not available in Swahili. A. A. Oldaker, P. C. Mbeya, 13 Apr. 1948, minutes of Provincial Commissioners’ Conference, Appendix H, MSS Afr.s.637, fos. 59, 60.

41 Batten, Thoughts on African citizenship, p. 1.

42 Chief Kidaha Makwaia, Mambo Leo, Jan. 1949, p. 1.

43 Chief Kidaha Makwaia, Mambo Leo, Jan. 1950, p. 1.

44 The African Association, Lake Province, to wenyeji wote wa Mwanza, 5 June 1945, Tanzania National Archives (TNA), 571/AA/10, ff. 48–50.

45 Compare Peterson, D., ‘States of mind: political history and the Rwezururu kingdom in western Uganda’, in Peterson, D. and Macola, G., eds., Recasting the past: history writing and political work in modern Africa (Ohio, 2009), pp. 171–90Google Scholar.

46 KCCU, ‘Mipango ya kazi ndani ya menge ya Chama cha Umoja wa Raia’, TNA 5/584, fp. 56; letter, ‘Ustaarabu Kilimanjaro’, Komkya, 15 Mar. 1955, p. 3.

47 Petro Njau, ‘Desturi ya kuchukua kiapo Uchaggani’, 27 Oct. 1954, TNA 5/23/74, fo. 3. On Lutheran attitudes, see E. R. Danielson, ‘Tangazo la kanisa kwa Wakristo wote juu ya kiapo cha kuramba udongo’, 1 Aug. 1954, TNA 5/23/74, fo. 12.

48 District commissioner to provincial commissioner, 24 Mar. 1954, TNA 12844/4, fo. 545A; more generally see E. Hunter, ‘Languages of politics in twentieth-century Kilimanjaro’ (Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge, 2008), chs. 4 and 5.

49 ‘TANU man is jailed on sedition charge’, extract from Tanganyika Standard, 9 Jan. 1957, CO 822/1366; ‘Political: an assessment of the present political situation in Tanganyika’, 17 Apr. 1958, US National Archives, 778.00/4–1758, box 3697, 1955–9, p. 12.

50 Tanganyika became a republic in Dec. 1962.

51 Letter from Joseph P. M. Mwiru, ‘Neno raia’, Ngurumo, 20 Feb. 1965, p. 2.

52 TANU, ‘Tangazo’, 12 Jan. 1959, TNA 476/A6/4.

53 Solomon Eliufoo, ‘Kwa nini tupige kura?’, Komkya, 15 Aug. 1960, p. 2. See also Solomon Eliufoo, ‘Siri fulani za uhai wa democracy’, Komkya, 1 Mar. 1961, p. 4; ‘Democracy ni serikali ya waungwana’, Komkya, May 1961, p. 1.

54 Hilary Michael Ruanda, Raia na serikali yao (Tabora, 1963), p. 4.

55 Ibid., p. 4.

56 Ibid., p. 5.

57 Ibid., p. 31.

58 Ibid., p. 12.

59 Ibid., p. 42.

60 Letter from Bi. R. L. Ngowi, ‘Ni nini uraia?’, Komkya, 1 July 1960, p. 3.

61 Ibid., p. 3.

62 Letter from Ewaldi Mareye, ‘Kazi za kujenga taifa’, Kusare, 20 Apr. 1963, p. 3. Komkya had changed its name to Kusare in 1961.

63 Ibid., p. 3.

64 The term used for nation is taifa, which according to James Brennan in the 1960s implied racio-nation. J. R. Brennan, ‘Nation, race and urbanization in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 1916–1976’ (Ph.D. thesis, Northwestern, 2002), p. 249; letter from S. M. L. Urasa, ‘Elimu ni nini’, Kusare, 7 Dec. 1963, p. 3.

65 For Ivaska, the nation-building project must be understood as a cultural project, which sought to reshape moral codes and gender relations from the household to the public sphere. A. Ivaska, Cultured states: youth, gender and modern style in 1960s Dar es Salaam (Durham, NC, 2011), p. 17.

66 Brennan, ‘Nation, race and urbanization’, p. 340; Brennan, J. R., ‘The short history of political opposition and multi-party democracy in Tanganyika, 1958–1964’, in Maddox, G. and Giblin, J., eds., In search of a nation (Oxford, 2005), pp. 250–76Google Scholar; Aminzade, R., ‘The politics of race and nation: citizenship and Africanization in Tanganyika’, Political Power and Social Theory, 14 (2000), pp. 53–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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68 Cited in Scotton, ‘Some Swahili political words’, p. 530.

69 ‘Asiyelipa kodi atakiona’, Ngurumo, 1 Jan. 1965, p. 3.

70 Geschiere, P., The perils of belonging: autochthony, citizenship and exclusion in Africa and Europe (Chicago, IL, 2009), p. 24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nyamnjoh, F., Insiders and outsiders: citizenship and xenophobia in contemporary southern Africa (Dakar, 2006), pp. 228–30Google Scholar.

71 Letter from Hommisdad Mlowezi Kasomangila, Kiongozi, 1 Aug. 1964, p. 9.

72 Letter from Methusela s/o Nuwa, ‘Waumiao si wa Buhoro peke yao’, Kiongozi, 18 July 1964, p. 7.

73 Editorial, Kiongozi, 1 Aug. 1964, p. 8.

74 Editorial, Kiongozi, 15 Aug. 1964, p. 6.

75 Bogohe, ‘Siasa na kuchaguliwa’, p. 4, Historia ya TANU, CCM 5/686.