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ABSTRACT
This article uses the idea of a “tipping event” to help explain why the Government of Julius Nyerere called an abrupt end to the collective aspect of its policy of collective villagization. Perhaps the most striking feature of the program was its precipitous trajectory; intensive efforts at collectivization between 1970 and early 1973 gave way to an abrupt de-emphasis on the collective aspect of the program that may have begun to manifest itself as early as mid-1972. Of all the Tanzanian government's ambitious efforts to build a socialist economy, which included nationalization of the banking system, rental housing, and large industries as well as the creation of a state monopoly over the procurement, processing, and marketing of food staples, collective agriculture was the most short-lived. On Christmas Day 1971, an Ismani farmer, Saidi Abdallah Mwamwindi, shot and killed the Iringa Regional Commissioner, Dr. Wilbert Andrew Klerruu. As the murder trial proceeded during 1972, even the most ideologically inclined of Nyerere's allies became aware that their choice of agricultural policy was imposing deep political costs on the governing party in the form of declining rural support.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Edwards, Toxic Aid.
2 Lal, African Socialism in Postcolonial Tanzania.
3 The title Dr. Klerruu referred to the fact that he had received a doctorate in Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1962.
4 At the time, the Tanzanian Penal Code prescribed the death penalty for two offenses, murder and treason. The death penalty was a mandatory sentence for murder and at the discretion of the court for the crime of treason.
5 Coulson, Tanzania: A Political Economy, 286–8.
6 Barker, “The Debate on Rural Socialism,” 95.
7 Boesen, “Tanzania: From Ujamaa to Villagization,” 128–9.
8 Nindi, “Agricultural Change in Tanzania,” 109.
9 The full title is An Act to provide for the Registration of Villages, the Administration of registered villages and designation of Ujamaa Villages (1975).
10 Schneider, Government of Development, 133.
11 Hyden, Beyond Ujamaa in Tanzania, especially Chapter 5. See also: Scott, Seeing Like a State, especially Chapter 7.
12 Giblin, A History of the Excluded.
13 The most authoritative source on the trial is the lengthy and detailed court judgement. Tanzanian High Court, “Saidi Mwamwindi v. R.”
14 Kocher and Fleischer, A Bibliography on Rural Development in Tanzania.
15 The two documents are available in Cliffe, et al., ed., Rural Cooperation in Tanzania.
16 Von Freyhold, Ujamaa villages in Tanzania, 60.
17 Scott, Seeing Like a State, 235.
18 Von Freyhold, Ujamaa villages in Tanzania, 47–50.
19 Ingle, From Village to State in Tanzania, 253ff.
20 Peter, “Incarcerating the Innocent,”114.
21 Lal, African Socialism in Postcolonial Tanzania, 92–4.
22 The villagers’ rule was that each individual could retain possession of three acres to be privately cultivated. Inasmuch as Mwamwindi had three wives and several children, he and his family had an allocation of 18 acres.
23 Tanzanian High Court, “Saidi Mwamwindi v. R.,” 251.
24 James and Fimbo. Customary Land Law of Tanzania, 21. United Republic of Tanzania. Report of the Presidential Commission, 7–17.
25 The Government Proceedings Act of 1967 made any civil lawsuit against the government subject to ministerial consent.
26 Feldman, Ismani and the Rise of Capitalism, 5–12.
27 Lunan and Weir, “Maize growing at Ismani.”
28 Feldman, Ismani: Agricultural Change, 11.
29 Awiti, “Economic Differentiation in Ismani,” Table 1, 220.
30 Coulson, Tanzania: A Political Economy, 163.
31 Awiti, “Economic Differentiation in Ismani,” Table 5, 232.
32 Coulson, Tanzania: A Political Economy, 202.
33 Klerruu, The Nile Waters Question.
34 Ellis and Mdoe, “Livelihoods and Rural Poverty Reduction in Tanzania,” 1380.