Any understanding of this statesman’s contribution to a new African ideology of reality and humanity in their political, economic and social doctrines has to be combined with an examination of the background from which he emerged.

Nyerere has been fortunate in inheriting problems which have not been as serious or restrictive of new policies as those experienced by the new presidents of Uganda and Kenya, even though there was the shared inheritance of colonialism, underdeveloped economies overwhelmingly agricultural and the shadows of a British style of administration too expensive for newly independent African states to maintain.

Tanzania’s historical background is remarkably free of the problems which continue to bedevil the politics of its neighbours. Tribal differences are minimal and mostly within the Bantu group so that the state has no inherited splits in its structure. There is the national language of kiSwahili, dating from before the colonial period and structured into the administration first by the Germans and then by the British; it is a real medium of communication centred on the towns and as such has associations with politics and progress which have increased its utility.

The capital at Dar-es-salaam on the coast is not dominated by one tribal group and the state had no semi-independent federated kingdoms to cope with; the progressive Haya and Chagga are too small in numbers and too far from the capital to be in any position to dominate national policies. The numerically superior Sukuma and Nyamwezi had neither the economy nor natural leaders to achieve the Kikuyu and Ganda ascendencies in their respective countries.