Between Socialism & Neo-Liberalism: Mafia Island, Tanzania, 1965-2004

Abstract

This article considers local perceptions of changes which have taken place on Mafia Island, Coast Region, Tanzania over a period of 40 years during which the state has moved from a policy of socialism to one of neo-liberalism. It begins by examining the apparent paradox that, while Tanzania has won plaudits from multilateral agencies for its economic policies, many ordinary people on Mafia consider that their well-being has actually worsened. The paper examines people's perceptions of equality, inequality and poverty, with particular emphasis on the comparisons made between previous eras and the present, and between themselves and various others, as well as their views of their entitlements both as citizens and human beings.

Notes

1. For a more nuanced view see Heggenhougen et al. 1987; Kahama, Malyamkono and Wells 1986 Mwansasu and Pratt 1979; Othman 1980; Resnick 1981; Ruhumbika 1974; Uchendu and Anthony 1974. See also Swantz and Tripp, 1996.

2. A good example is the speech given by James Adams, Vice-President of the World Bank, on hisdeparture from Tanzania. See BTS Newsletter 4, 2:1, ‘The Mkapa legacy: economic reform, growth and poverty reduction.’ See also www.youngafrican.com/oldforum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=1438 and Kilasara 2006.

3. Quoted in Odile Racine-Issa 2000, p. 37 from a communication of ATTAC (Association pourune taxation des transactions financiers pour l'aide aux citoyens). There were many academic defenders of ujamaa (African socialism): see for example Saul, 1979; Tandon, 1982; Von Freyhold, 1979; Rweyemamu 1973.

4. This paper was originally written for the conference on ‘Equality and Inequality in Tanzania’,June 2006, Cambridge. It was also presented at the University of Stockholm, 22 May 2006. I am grateful to participants in both events for their comments and questions and also to Lionel Caplan, Janet Bujra and two anonymous ROAPE referees for reading this paper and making useful suggestions.

5. I arrived on Mafia Island in September 1965 as a young Ph.D. student and stayed there for 18months, conducting fieldwork in three northern and one of the central villages of the island. My major interests were kinship and descent, including land tenure, and spirit possession. I have returned once each decade (for several months in 1976, 1985 and 1994) to focus largely on issues of gender, including food, health and fertility issues, and have been twice in the new millennium (in 2002, 2004) to study local perceptions of modernity.

6. For more information on Mafia, see BBC 1977, Caplan 1978, and the website www.mafia-island-tanzania.gold.ac.uk

7. Even President Mkapa, quoted in the aforementioned New York Times article as having led the country into post-socialist, economic progress, stated: ‘We are caught between a rock and a hard place in terms of managing IMF requirements and then dealing with the demands of our electorate’. Cited in Hertz, 2004, p. 131

8. Primary school fees were abolished again in 2002 and the school population rose rapidly, butwith no concomitant rise in teachers or classrooms. Re health fees, see article ‘Killer Bills’ in BTS Newsletter 4, 4, Jan. 2006 based on a report by Save the Children.

9. For example, the students at the new University of Dar es Salaam went on strike because theywere told that they would have to perform some kind of national service after their studies. Nyerere was furious and closed the university temporarily (see Shivji 1993).

10. On 12 January 1964 a rebellion overthrew the Sultan and led to the proclamation of Zanzibar asa republic. Three months later Zanzibar united with Tanganyika to form Tanzania.

11. Government policy was that all Tanzanians should live in nucleated villages so that they couldmore easily be provided with services such as schools and clinics. Kusogeza (‘Moving over’) which took place in 1976, resulted in millions of people moving to new house sites. On Mafia, and other areas of the coast where villages had traditionally been centralised, people were bitter when they were forced to move in an apparently arbitrary way and their houses were demolished (see Coulson, 1979).

12. The Ugandan President Idi Amin invaded Tanzanian territory and formally annexed a sectionacross the Kagera River boundary on 1 November 1978. In 1979, Tanzania declared war on Uganda and not only expelled Ugandan forces from Tanzania, but also invaded Uganda itself. On 11 April 1979, Idi Amin was forced to quit the capital, Kampala. The Tanzanian army took the city with the help of the Ugandan and Rwandan guerrillas and Amin fled into exile. Although the war was short, it was estimated to have cost the Tanzanian economy one million dollars a day.

13. One hotel on Chole Island made a point of employing local people.

14. In 2002, the secondary school had 242 boys and 173 girls. At this level, proportionately moregirls drop out of school, either because they are pregnant, or to get married or because parents are less willing to pay the fees than they are for boys, whereas at primary levels, more girls complete than boys, who are also much more likely to truant than girls.

15. It might be expected that younger people would view developments more optimistically, but infact, in the interviews carried out with young people, this was rarely the case.

16. Women played an important role in the nationalist struggle for independence (see Geiger, 1997),and there were a few important women in the post-independence government (e.g. Bibi Titi Mohamed). Furthermore, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere was among the first to recognise the oppression of women, especially rural women, in Tanzania. Nonetheless gender relations and the position of women were not allocated high priority in political planning, either by TANU or the CCM.

17. In 1985, I went to carry out research on food, health and fertility. This involved not onlyinterviews and participant observation, but also surveys at the MCH clinic to collect pregnancy histories and data on children's well-being, as well as statistics on morbidity.

18. One of the very few educated north Mafians told me: ‘A few of us Mafians got together in Dar – we knew that things didn't have to be the way they are. We have seen developments in other partsof the country, so we formed an association to fight for Mafia's development.’ But this local NGO had no resources and was forced to apply to foreign donors for funding, which meant that, depending on the agenda of the donors, they constantly shifted projects (from environment, to income generation to HIV/AIDs training).

19. In 2002, Tanzania bought a multi-million pound air defence system from Britain. This wasopposed by the then Secretary for International Development, Clare Short, and much criticised in the media. The same year, the President, Benjamin Mkapa, requested the purchase of a second presidential plane.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pat Caplan

She has carried out research on Mafia Island Tanzania since 1965, and has published extensively on kinship and descent, land tenure, state-village relations, gender, food and health, personal narratives and perceptions of modernity. Her books on the area include Choice and Constraint in a Swahili Community (IAI/OUP 1975), African Voices, African Lives (Routledge, 1997) and Swahili Modernities: Culture, Politics and Identity on the East Coast of Africa (edited with Farouk Topan; Africa World Press 2004). Her other recent books include The Ethics of Anthropology: Debates and Dilemmas (Routledge, 2003) and Risk Revisited (Pluto Press, 2000). She has also worked for many years in Chennai-Madras, south India on issues of gender and food and has done research in Britain, again on food and health. She is currently writing on local concepts of modernity on Mafia Island and food changes in India.