Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T19:11:45.012Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Youth, the Tanu Youth League and Managed Vigilantism in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, 1925–73

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

James R. Brennan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the role of male youth in the political history of Dar es Salaam. ‘Youth’, as a category of opposition to elders, became important during the inter-war period as it was inhabited by educated African bureaucrats aspiring to representation in urban politics over the traditional claims of authority by local ethnic Zaramo and Shomvi elders. This group of bureaucrats grew in power through the popularization of racial-nationalist politics, and in the 1950s formed the Tanganyika African Nationalist Party (TANU), which instituted its own category of ‘youth’ with the creation of the TANU Youth League (TYL). Consisting mainly of young, under-employed men who failed to obtain sufficient educational qualifications, the Youth League challenged the late colonial state's theoretical monopoly over violence through voluntary and aggressive policing activities. After the work of independence was complete, there was practical way to demobilize this enormous, semi-autonomous police and intelligence-gathering force. The repeated reassertion of party control over its Youth League took many forms in the decade after independence – through the creation of a National Service and the militarization of development; frequent nationalist events and rituals where Youth League members controlled public space; and a war on urban morality led by Youth League shock troops. Control over youth also offered a potentially autonomous patrimony for ambitious TANU party members. The 1970s witnessed the beginning of the general failure of both state and party to generate sufficient resources to serve as a patron to patron-seeking youth, which has effectively decentralized youth violence and vigilantism ever since. A political history of ‘youth’, both as a social category and political institution, can shed further light on contemporary dilemmas of youth violence, meanings of citizenship, and hidden motors of party politics.

Résumé

Cet article examine le rôle de la jeunesse masculine dans l'histoire politique de Dar es Salaam. La ≫jeunesse≪, en tant que catégorie d'opposition aux anciens, a pris son importance pendant la période d'entre deux guerres, au cours de laquelle des bureaucrates africains instruits aspiraient à être représentés dans la politique urbaine face aux revendications d'autorité traditionnelles exercées par les anciens locaux des ethnies Zaramo et Shomvi. Ce groupe de bureaucrates a gagné en pouvoir à travers la popularisation d'une politique raciale nationaliste, et forma dans les années 1950 un nouveau parti baptisé Tanganyika African Nationalist Union (TANU), qui instituait sa propre catégorie de ≫jeunes≪ avec la création d'une ligue de la jeunesse, la TANU Youth League (TYL). Cette ligue de la jeunesse, constituée essentiellement d'hommes jeunes sousemployés sans qualifications suffisantes, remettait en cause le monopole théorique de l'ancien État colonial sur la violence à travers des activités de police volontaires et agressives. Une fois l'action d'indépendance achevée, les moyens pratiques de démobiliser cette énorme police semi-autonome et force de renseignements étaient limités. La réaffirmation répétée du contrôle du parti sur la TYL a pris diverses formes au cours de la décennie qui a suivi l'indépendance: création d'un Service national et militarisation du développement, manifestations nationalistes fréquentes et rituels dans lesquels les membres de la TYL contrôlaient l'espace public, guerre sur le thème de la moralité urbaine menée par des troupes de choc de la TYL. Le contrôle exercé sur ces jeunes offrait par ailleurs aux membres ambitieux de la TANU un patrimoine potentiellement autonome. Les années 1970 ont vu le début de l'incapacité générale, tant de la part de l'État que du parti, à générer des ressources suffisantes pour servir de patrons aux jeunes en quête de patron, ce qui a eu pour effet de décentraliser la violence des jeunes et le vigilantisme. Une histoire politique de la ≫jeunesse≪, en tant que catégorie sociale et institution politique, peut nous éclairer sur les dilemmes contemporains que sont la violence des jeunes, les significations de la citoyenneté et lesmoteurs cachés de la politique des partis.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 76 , Issue 2 , May 2006 , pp. 221 - 246
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aguilar, M. 1998. ‘Gerontocratic, aesthetic and political models of age’, in Mario, Aguilar (ed.), The Politics of Age and Gerontocracy in Africa.Trenton: Africa World Press.Google Scholar
Allman, J. 1993. The Quills ofthe Porcupine: Asante nationalism in an emergent Ghana. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Anthony, D. 1983. ‘Culture and Society in a Town in Transition: a people's history of Dar es Salaam, 1865–1939’. PhD dissertation, University of Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Bernardi, B. 1985. Age Class Systems: social institutions and polities based on age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bienen, H. 1970. Tanzania: party transformation and economic development. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Brennan, J. 2002. ‘Nation, Race and Urbanization in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania 1916–76’. PhD dissertation, Northwestern University.Google Scholar
Brennan, J. 2005. ‘The short history of political opposition and multi-party democracy in Tanganyika, 1958–64’, in Maddox, Gregory H. and Giblin, James L. (eds), In Search ofa Nation: histories of authority and dissidence in Tanzania.Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Burgess, T. 2001. ‘Youth and the Revolution: mobility and discipline in Zanzibar, 1950–80’. PhD dissertation, Indiana University.Google Scholar
Burgess, T. 2002. ‘Cinema, bell bottoms, and miniskirts: struggles over youth and citizenship in revolutionary Zanzibar’, International Journal of African Historical Studies 35 (2/3): 287–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burgess, T. 2005. ‘Introduction to youth and citizenship in East Africa’, Africa Today 51 (3): vii–xxiv.Google Scholar
Burgess, T. 2005. ‘The Young Pioneers and the rituals of citizenship in revolutionary Zanzibar’, Africa Today 51 (3): 3–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burgess, T. 2005. ‘An imagined generation: Umma youth in nationalist Zanzibar’, in Maddox, Gregory H. and Giblin, James L. (eds), In Search ofa Nation: histories ofauthority and dissidence in Tanzania. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Burton, A. 2001. ‘Urchins, loafers and the cult of the cowboy: urbanization and delinquency in Dar es Salaam, 1919–1961’, Journal of African History 42 (2): 199–216.Google Scholar
Burton, A. 2002. ‘Adjutants, agents, intermediaries: the Native Administration in Dares Salaam township, 1919–61’, in Burton, Andrew (ed.), The Urban Experience in Eastern Africa, c. 1750–2000. Nairobi: British Institute in Eastern Africa.Google Scholar
Burton, A. 2003. ‘“Brothers by day”: colonial policing in Dar es Salaam under British rule, 1919–61’, Urban History 30 (1): 63–91.Google Scholar
Burton, A. 2005. African Underclass: urbanisation, crime and colonial order in Dar es Salaam. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Cooper, F. 2002. Africa since 1940: the past of the present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
El-Kenz, Ali. 1996. ‘Youth and violence‘, in Ellis, Stephen (ed.), Africa Now: people, policies and institutions. London: James Currey.Google Scholar
Feierman, S. 1990. Peasant Intellectuals: anthropology and history in Tanzania. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Geiger, S. 1997. TANU Women: gender and culture in the making of Tanganyikan nationalism, 1955–1965. Portsmouth, NH and Oxford: Heinemann and James Currey.Google Scholar
Glaser, C. 2000. Bo-Tsotsi: the youth gangs of Soweto, 1935–1976. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Glassman, J. 1995. Feasts and Riot: revelry, rebellion and popular consciousness on the Swahili coast, 1859–1888. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Goodhew, D. 1993. ‘The people s police force: communal policing initiatives in the Western Areas of Johannesburg, c. 1930–62’, Journal of Southern African Studies 19 (3): 447–70.Google Scholar
Gore, C. and D. Pratten. 2003. ‘The politics of plunder: the rhetorics of order and disorder in Southern Nigeria’, African Affairs 102 (407): 211–40.Google Scholar
Heald, S. 1998. Controlling Anger: the anthropology of Gisu violence.Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Iliffe, J. 1979. A Modern History of Tanganyika. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ivaska, A. 2002. ‘“Anti-mini militants meet modern misses”: urban style, gender, and the politics of;“national culture;” in 1960s Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’, Gender and History 14 (3): 584–607.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ivaska, A. 2003. ‘Negotiating “Culture” in a Cosmopolitan Capital: urban style and the Tanzanian state in colonial and postcolonial Dar es Salaam. PhD dissertation, University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Ivaska, A. 2005. ‘Of students, “Nizers,” and a struggle over youth: Tanzania's 1966 National Service crisis’, Africa Today 51 (3): 83–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kees van Donge, J. and Liviga., A. 1986. ‘Tanzanian political culture and the Cabinet.’, Journal ofModern African Studies 24 (4): 619–39.Google Scholar
Kynoch, G. 2000. ‘Politics and violence in the ‘Russian Zone’: conflict in Newclare South, 1950–7’, Journal of African History 41 (2): 267–90.Google Scholar
Lamphear, J. 1998. ‘Brothers in arms: military aspects of East African age-class systems in historical perspective’, in Kurimoto, E. and Simonse, S., Conflict, Age and Power in North East Africa: Age Systems in Transition. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Leslie, J. 1963. A Survey of Dar es Salaam. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Liebenow, J. 1971. Colonial Rule and Political Development in Tanzania: the case of the Makonde. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Lindstrom, J. 1978. ‘Age and generation: a study of some African age- and generation-class systems’, Working Paper No. 16, Department of Social Anthropology, University of GothenburgGoogle Scholar
Longford, M. 2001. The Flags Changed at Midnight: Tanganyika's progress to independence. Leominster: Gracewing.Google Scholar
Lupogo, H. 2001. ‘Tanzania: civil-military relations and political stability’, African Security Review 10 (1) <www.iss.co.za/pubs/ASR/10No1/Lupogo. html>.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macguire, G. 1969. Towards ‘Uhuru’ in Tanzania: the politics of participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mazrui, A. 1969. Violence and Thought: essays on social tensions in Africa. London: Longmans.Google Scholar
Moyer, E. 2003. ‘In the Shadow of the Sheraton: imagining localities in global spaces in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’. PhD dissertation, Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Murphy, P. 2001. ‘Intelligence and decolonization: the life and death of the Federal Intelligence and Security Bureau, 1954–63’, Journal ofImperial and Commonwealth History 29 (2): 101–30.Google Scholar
Murphy, W. 2003. ‘Military patrimonialism and child soldier clientalism in the Liberian and Sierra Leonean Civil Wars’, African Studies Review 46 (2): 61–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Msekwa, P. 1977. Towards PartySupremacy. Arusha: East African Publications.Google Scholar
Nolte, I. 2004. ‘Identity and violence: the politics of youth in Ijebu-Remo, Nigeria’, Journal ofModern African Studies 42 (1): 61–89.Google Scholar
Parsons, T. 2003. The 1964 Army Mutinies and the Making ofModern East Africa. Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
Phiri, K. 2000. ‘A case of revolutionary change in contemporary Malawi: the Malawi Army and the disarming of the Malawi Young Pioneers’, Journal of Peace, Conflict and Military Studies 1 (1) <www.uz.ac.zw/units/cds/journals/volume1/number1/article3.html>.Google Scholar
Sadleir, R. 1999. Tanzania: Journeyto Republic. London: Radcliffe.Google Scholar
Schneider, L. 2003. ‘Developmentalismandits Failings: why rural development went wrong in 1960s and 1970s Tanzania’. PhD dissertation, New York: Columbia University.Google Scholar
Sherrington, R. 2005. ‘Developing Disparities: consumption and social differentiation in post-adjustment Dar es Salaam’. PhD dissertation, University of Manchester.Google Scholar
Stren, R. 1975. Urban Inequality and Housing Policy in Tanzania: the problem of squatting. Berkeley: Institute of International Studies.Google Scholar
Swift, C. 2002. Dar Days. Lanham: University Press of America.Google Scholar
TPDF (Tanzania People's Defence Forces). 1993. Tanganyika Rifles Mutiny January 1964. Dar es Salaam: Dar es Salaam University Press.Google Scholar
Tsuruta, T. 2003. ‘Popular music, sports, and politics: a development of urban cultural movements in Dar es Salaam, 1930s-1960s’, African Study Monographs 24 (3): 195–222.Google Scholar
Tungaraza, C. 1998. ‘The transformation of civil-military relations in Tanzania’, in Hutchful, Eboe and Bathily, Abdoulaye (eds), The Military and Militarism in Africa. Dakar: CODESRIA.Google Scholar
Westcott, N. 1982. ‘The Impact of the Second World War on Tanganyika, 1939–49’. PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar