Narratives of Ujamaa and the constitution of the Tanzanian nation through the verbal art of Euphrase Kezilahabi and Marijani Rajabu

Abstract

Euphrase Kezilahabi’s novel Dunia Uwanja wa Fujo (1976) carries on a debate with other Tanzanian texts about the forced migration and economic displacement being carried out at the time of its composition. Songs such as “Masudi” (n.d.) and “Mwana Mpotevu” (1978) by Marijani Rajabu, together with a host of others such as the song “Gezaulole” by Urafiki Jazz, participate in discussions, carried out across genres, demonstrating the ambiguous position Ujamaa then occupied within both intellectual and widespread sociocultural circles. These two works also serve to emphasize the centrality of this debate, in Swahili, regarding the formulation of Tanzanian society as an imaginary, postcolonial, and national space. A consideration of these texts alongside the rhetorical artistry of Tanzanian politicians allows us to formulate responses to the following: what are the ideas expressed in these works about the validity of the Ujamaa project as hyper-forced intranational migration and how did artists such as Kezilahabi and Rajabu formulate meaningful articulations of these situations?

Keywords:

• Cultural studies
• comparative literature
• Swahili
• Ujamaa
• forced migration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 All translations, unless otherwise noted are by the author.

2 This phrase is repeated over a dynamic rhythm reminiscent of the Sindimba rhythms of the Makonde from the south of Tanzania and the northern section of Mozambique, a migrant group whichhas formed a large and visible part of Dar es Salaam’s population since early in the city’s history. The incorporation of the colloquial phrase “utalungula” which uses the Makonde verb “kuungula” rather than the standard Swahili term “utaungua” (literally you will get burnt) to mean that the addressee will suffer the grave consequences of their misguided actions is a common practice that continues up to the present day (jamiiforums.com, 2012).

3 Such political strategies of preclusion are in many ways analogous to what I witnessed in 1991 while living in Kenya, when various groups were agitating for the introduction of multiparty politics. At that time the Kenya Africa National Union, under President Daniel Arap Moi, began circulating the idea that Kenya was nchi changa [a new/young nation] and therefore was not ready for the complexity of multiparty democracy.

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Aaron Louis Rosenberg

Aaron Rosenberg is Profesor Investigador Titular S1 (Full Professor) in the Centro de Estudios de Asia y África at El Colegio de México where he teaches African literature and Swahili language. He has published on African song and literature in Research in African Literatures, Wasafiri, The Journal of African Cultural Studies, The Journal of The African Literature Association and Estudios de Asia y África among other journals. The manuscript of the book-length work, Leaving My Parents´Homestead: Verbal Art Performing Gender in Tanzania and Beyond, is under review and his latest book, The Face of Infinity: Popular Representations of Death in Africa and Mexico, exploring “inherent” hypertextual links between narrative and visual art in Mexican and African contexts and their implications for the study of organic philosophy, is presently under draft preparation.