Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T15:55:23.853Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Tanganyikan Nationalism as ‘Women's Work’: Life Histories, Collective Biography and Changing Historiography*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Susan Geiger
Susan Geiger
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Although nationalism in Tanzania, as elsewhere in Africa, has been criticized for its shortcomings, and a ‘Dar es Salaam School’ has been charged with succumbing to its ideological biases, few historians have revisited or questioned Tanzania's dominant nationalist narrative – a narrative created over 25 years ago. Biographies written in aid of this narrative depict nationalism in the former Trust Territory of Tanganyika as primarily the work of a few good men, including ‘proto-nationalists’ whose anti-colonial actions set the stage and provided historical continuity for the later western-oriented ideological work of nationalist modernizers.

The life history narratives of women who became activists in the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) in the 1950s disrupt this view of progressive stages toward an emerging nationalist consciousness which reflected and borrowed heavily from western forms and ideals. They suggest that Tanganyikan nationalism was also and significantly the work of thousands of women, whose lives and associations reflected trans-tribal ties and affiliations, and whose work for TANU served to both construct and perform what nationalism came to signify for many Tanzanian women and men. Women activists did not simply respond to TANU's nationalist rhetoric; they shaped, informed and spread a nationalist consciousness for which TANU was the vehicle.

Neither ‘extraordinary’ individuals (the usual subjects of male biography) nor ‘representative’ of ‘ordinary people’ (often the subjects of life histories), TANU women activists' lives reveal the severe limitations of the dichotomous characterizations of traditional biographical forms. Together, their narratives constitute a collective biographical narrative of great significance for our understanding of nationalism and nationalist movement in the former Tanganyika.

Type
Biographies and Life Histories
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , November 1996 , pp. 465 - 478
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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

1 Denoon, D. and Kuper, A. A., ‘Nationalist historians in search of a nation: the “New Historiography” in Dar es Salaam’, Afr. Affairs, LIX (1970), 329–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Kimambo, I. N., Three Decades of Production of Historical Knowledge at Dar es Salaam (Dar es Salaam, 1994).Google Scholar

3 An exception to this generalization is Steven Feierman's thoughtful history of the changing discursive and practical relationships among and between peasant intellectuals and chiefs of Shambaai, colonial administrators and the leadership of the Tanganyika National African Union. Feierman, Steven, Peasant Intellectuals: Anthropology and History in Tanzania (Madison, 1990)Google Scholar. More recently, Thaddeus Sunseri has challenged the ‘nationalist’ interpretation of the Maji Maji Rebellion of 1905, which seeks and finds the origins of 1950s nationalism in this uprising in what was then German East Africa. Sunseri, Thaddeus, ‘Gender struggles, famine and the Majimaji war in Uzaramo’ (Paper presented to the African Studies Association Annual Meeting, Orlando, 11 1995).Google Scholar

4 Tanganyika receives mention on five pages, Julius Nyerere on four pages, in Davidson, Basil, The Black Man's Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State (New York, 1992)Google Scholar. In his review of the book, Pieter Boele van Hensbroek, calls it Davidson's magnum opus. See van Hensbroek, Pieter Boele, ‘Cursing the nation-state’, Transition, LXI (1993), 114–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 For a critique of the use of the prophet Kinjikitile as a nationalist hero, and for the search for male heroes more generally see Sunseri, , ‘Gender struggles’, 3–8.Google Scholar

6 Iliffe, John (ed.), Modern Tanzanians (Nairobi, 1973).Google Scholar

7 Said, Mohamed, ‘Founder of a political movement: Abdulwahid K. Sykes (1964–1968)’, Africa Events (09 1988)Google Scholar; and an unpublished manuscript, ‘Ally K. Sykes Remembers’.

8 For a survey of this work see Geiger, Susan, ‘Women and African nationalism’, Journal of Women's History, II (1990), 227–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 In Strategies of Slaves and Women: Life-Stories From East/Central Africa (New York, 1993)Google Scholar, Marcia Wright presents several previously published life history studies along with two new essays.

10 For a comprehensive review of scholarship on Yoruba women, which includes the studies of Nigerian women involved in nationalist politics, see Denzer, LaRay, ‘Yoruba women: a historiographical study’, Int. J. Afr. Hist. Studies, XXVII (1994), 1–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 There is a short pamphlet in Swahili of popular biographical sketches of TANU women and UWT activists; there is a life history volume, Ngaiza, Magdalene K. and Koda, Bertha (eds.), Unsung Heroines: Women's Life Histories from Tanzania (Dar es Salaam, 1991)Google Scholar; the journal Sauti ya siti frequently offers profiles or brief sketches, usually of ‘exceptional’ women; Fair's, Laura Ph.D. dissertation, ‘Pastimes and politics: a social history of Zanzibar's Ng'ambo community 1890–1950’, (University of Minnesota, 1994)Google Scholar has substantial biographical information on the famous Zanzibari taarab singer, Siti binti Saad; Marcia Wright's studies; and several biographical profiles in Swantz, Marja-Liisa, Women in Development: A Creative Role Denied? (New York, 1985)Google Scholar. Mukurasi's, LaeticiaPosi Abolished (New York, 1991)Google Scholar about her struggle against sex discrimination is, I believe, the first published autobiography written by a Tanzanian African woman.

12 Iliffe, John, A Modern History of Tanganyika (Cambridge, 1979), 572.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Kambona, to Fabian Society, 18 10 1955Google Scholar, Fabian Colonial Bureau (FCB) papers 121, Rhodes House (RH) Oxford.

14 At the first meeting of the TANU women's section held in Dar es Salaam on 8 July 1955, 400 women joined. See Mwaga, D. Z., Mrina, B. F. and Lyimo, E. F., Historia ya Chama cha TANU 1954 Hadi 1977 (Dar es Salaam, 1981), 113Google Scholar, and Kambona, to Fabian Society, 18 10 1955Google Scholar, FCB papers, 121, RH.

15 The question, ‘who are the Swahili?’ has long been debated and frequently racialized by interested scholars. For a useful analysis of this debate, see Amory, Deborah P., ‘Waswahili ni nani?: the politics of Swahili identity and culture’ (Paper presented to the African Studies Association Annual Meeting, Boston, 11 1990).Google Scholar

16 Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (London, 1991), 12.Google Scholar

17 Iliffe, , Modern History, 486.Google Scholar

18 Ibid. 486.

19 Somers, Margaret R., ‘Narrativity, narrative identity, and social action: rethinking English working-class formation’, Social Science History, XVI (1992), 591–629.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 Robinson, Pearl T., ‘Democratization: understanding the relationship between regime change and the culture of politics’, Afr. Studies Rev., XXXVII (1994), 40.Google Scholar

21 An exception to this generalization occurred in Bagamoyo in 1936, when antagonism between two opposing women's dance groups, one associated with Arabs and the other with Shomvi-Shirazi and African populations in the town became ‘so intense that the district officer restricted their public activities’. See Nimtz, August H., Islam and Politics in East Africa: The Sufi Order in Tanzania (Minneapolis, 1980), 98Google Scholar. Sheryl McCurdy also provides evidence of the role of women's dance groups in the 1932 conflict in Ujiji and administrative ignorance of the same in ‘Ngomas, court disputes, and the “war” of 1932: colonial ignorance of Ujiji women's social roles in urban organizations’ (Paper presented at the African Studies Association Annual Meeting, Toronto, Nov. 1994).

22 Early male dance societies were equally open. See Glassman, Jonathon, Feasts and Riot: Revelry, Rebellion, and Popular Consciousness on the Swahili Coast, 1856–1888 (Portsmouth NH, 1995), 76.Google Scholar

23 For details on Dar es Salaam, see Geiger, Susan, ‘Women in nationalist struggle: TANU activists in Dar es Salaam’, Int. J. Afr. Hist. Studies, XX (1987), 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 Ibid. 14–15.

25 Interview with Mohamed, Bibi Titi, Temeke, 09 1984.Google Scholar

26 Bienen, Henry, Tanzania, Party Transformation and Economic Development (Princeton, 1970), 43.Google Scholar

27 Amory, , ‘Waswahili ni nani?’, 22.Google Scholar

28 Interview with Kinondoni, Tatu Mzee, 10 1984, and many others.Google Scholar

29 Interview with Kinondoni, Tatu Mzee, 10 1984.Google Scholar

30 Nyerere, Julius, Freedom and Unity/Uhuru Na Umoja (Dar es Salaam, 1967)Google Scholar; Hansard, 10 12 1962Google Scholar, ‘President's inaugural address’, 180.Google Scholar

31 Interviews with Kinabo, Halima Selengia, Salim, Mwamvita, Hatibu, Zainabu, Gupta, Elizabeth, Mtenga, Kanasia, Moshi, , 10 1988Google Scholar; Juma, Pili, Msafiri, Mwajuma, Sahani, Agnes, Mwanza, , 11 1988.Google Scholar

32 Mwamvita Salim's narrative, Mwanza, , 10 1988.Google Scholar

33 Smith, R. W., D.C., Kigoma, to Dist. Sec., TANU, Ujiji, 20 03 1958Google Scholar, Ref. No. A6/5/32, Tanzania National Archives (TNA); Tanganyika African Association (TAA), Kigoma, citing Government Notice No. 20 on 11 Jan. 1957, ‘Political uniforms prohibition’, Sections 2 and 3, A6/5, TNA.

34 Interview with Hamisi, Halima, Dar es Salaam, 10 1984.Google Scholar

35 Iliffe, , Modern History, 532.Google Scholar

36 Smith, R. W., D.C., Kigoma, to Dist. See., TANU, Ujiji, 20 03 1958Google Scholar, Ref. No. A6/5/32, TNA; N. D. Morant, Commanding Officer, Police, Kigoma District, to R. H. Missozi, Branch Sec., TANU, Mwangongo, , 1 07 1958Google Scholar, Ref. No. A. 24/9/84, A6/5 Kigoma, TNA.

37 Asst. Superindent of Police, Kigoma District, to Dist. Chairman, TANU, Ujiji, 21 Nov. 1958, Ref. No. S/14, A6/5, Kigoma, TNA.

38 Commissioner of Police, Dar es Salaam, to President, TANU, Dar es Salaam, 19 Mar. 1958. Ref. No. S/15/3/185, A6/5 Kigoma, TNA.

39 Officer 1/C Police, Kigoma District, to Dist. Chairman, TANU, Ujiji, 5 Jan. 1959, Ref. No. S/14, A6/5, Kigoma, TNA.

40 S. G. Pierce to Kashindye, Dist. Sec., TANU, Ref. No. KIS/A.24/24/41, 25 June 1959, re TANU meeting to be held at Usagara ground, Ujiji, Kigoma District, 29 June 1959. A6/5 Kigoma, TNA.

41 Notes of a meeting wth TANU Committee, 9 Sept. 1959, A6/5, TNA.

42 Bowering, W. J., D.C., Kigoma, to Dist. Chairman, TANU, 23 09 1959Google Scholar, re 9 Sept. 1959 meeting and police officer's reply concerning Youth League songs, copy No. KIG/A/8/2. S. G. Pierce, Officer 1/C Police, Kigoma District, to D.C., Kigoma, 18 Sept. 1959, A6/5, TNA.

43 Nyerere, , Freedom and Unity, 186.Google Scholar

44 Ibid. 186.

45 For a recent exploration, see Jerman, Helena, ‘How I feel to be a Tanzanian’, Suomen Antropologi, 11 (1993), 31–41.Google Scholar

46 Halbwachs, Maurice, The Collective Memory (New York, 1980), 31.Google Scholar

47 Ibid. 31.

48 Werbner, Richard, Tears of the Dead: The Social Biography of an African Family (Washington DC, 1991), 4–5.Google Scholar

49 Ibid.

50 The formal associations generally followed western organizational models. As the immediate precursor to TANU, the most fully studied and described is the Tanganyika African Association; others include the Tanganyika African Welfare and Commercial Association and the African Commercial Employees Association. A variety of worker organizations, co-operative societies, and tribal unions are also identified for their (usually proto-nationalist) role.