Julius Nyerere: To Them, I’m Just ‘African’!

Today marks 24 years since Julius Kambarage Nyerere joined the ancestors.

He was the president of Tanzania - not of Rwanda, Kenya, Cameroon or Zimbabwe. He was also an ardent Pan-Africanist. And yet, judging by this video, he was sufficiently irked by foreign leaders conflating all African nationalities into one, to complain about it - with characteristic wit.

His real target, of course, was the implicit racism - not the idea that Africans are one people artificially divided by imposed national borders. Nyerere strived hard to attain total African unity. He successfully fought to unify Tanganyika and Zanzibar, and insisted that Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda should unite to form a single state. When Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown by the CIA, Nyerere picked up the torch and became a leading figure in the struggle for total African unity.

During his time in power, Tanzania was a beacon of African liberation - providing material and ideological support to the armed liberation struggles waged across southern Africa. Dar es Salaam became a hub and a base for revolutionaries from Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia and South Africa.

Perhaps, in the end, Nyerere came to view himself as more than just a Tanzanian but as a champion and leader of a coming unified Africa. But no, that was no excuse for foreign leaders to assume he was omniscient about goings-on in every corner of his continent outside of Tanzania!

Rest in Power, comrade!