In America

From Godfrey Mwakikagile, Relations Between Africans and African Americans: Misconceptions, Myths and Realities, Third Edition, New Africa Press, 2007:

Acknowledgments

AFRICANS on both sides of the Atlantic, that is Africans in Africa and African Americans who as a people of African descent are also Africans, equally inspired this study. So did African immigrants and students in the United States. I myself went to school in the United States and have lived and interacted with African Americans for more than 30 years.

Although African Americans are also Africans in the genealogical sense, I have used the term Africans in the book almost exclusively to mean those born in the motherland for identification purposes to distinguish them from African Americans in my study of relations between the two. Professor Ali Mazrui, a Kenyan who has taught at universities in the United States since the early seventies, has coined a term to identify African immigrants in America and calls them American Africans as opposed to African Americans.

The idea for this book has been in my mind for quite some time, although I cannot say for sure exactly when I first thought about writing it. It probably goes back to the eighties when I was in my thirties, although my interest in the subject goes back further than that, at least to the early seventies when I was a student in Detroit, Michigan, and wrote an article in a student newspaper about relations between Africans and African Americans.

I wrote the article in 1973 and it was published in Open Door, a student newspaper of Wayne County Community College which I briefly attended before transferring to Wayne State University in the same city where I graduated in 1975. Part of my article was reproduced in The Michigan Chronicle, a black weekly newspaper published in Detroit, and the state's largest black newspaper and one of the most influential black papers in the country for years.

I remember the editor of the school newspaper asked me to write an article on the subject.

One factor that played a role in his decision to ask me to write the article was my background. He knew that I once was a news reporter in Tanzania.

He was a black student from Detroit, a city with a long history of black activism, also known as the birthplace of black nationalist organizations such as the Nation of Islam founded in the early thirties; the Shrine of Black Madonna (Black Christian Nationalism), in 1967 by Reverend Albert Cleage; the Republic of New Afrika in 1968; and the Pan-African Congress-USA, founded in 1970, and which sponsored me as a student. It is also a city to which Malcolm X had strong ties, personal and family. Many people who knew him or about him or followed his political career also remember him by his nickname, "Detroit Red."

When I wrote the article in the student newspaper, Open Door, I was free to address the subject the way I wanted to.

But the focus of my article was undoubtedly influenced and dictated by my interest in attempting to answer one perennial question Africans from Africa are often asked by black people in the United States: "Is it true that they don't want us over there?" Or something along those lines.

And later on, towards the end of 2004 when I started writing this book, I stumbled upon an article by a Nigerian student at the University of North Carolina in the student newspaper addressing the same subject, although from a perspective different from mine in this inquiry.

There were, however, no fundamental differences, if any, between what he said in his article and what I say in this book in terms of the nature of relations between Africans and African Americans, and on why there are some misunderstandings between the two groups. The difference may have been on the focus.

And I am sure others have tackled the same subject from different angles and perspectives, agreeing and disagreeing on a number of issues critical to an understanding of what is at the heart of some of this misunderstanding between Africans and African Americans, and what binds us together.

Therefore, in a very direct way, it is African Americans who have had a profound impact on my decision to write this book probably more than Africans from the motherland have. And I am grateful to them for being the source of such inspiration.

It is African Americans, at least from my experience and I am sure of many others, who have shown great interest in the relations between the two groups probably more than Africans have. It is they who ask questions about Africa, whether or not it is true that they are not welcome over there.

And it is they who see all of us, black people in Africa and in the United States, as one people, although there are also many among them who don't want to have anything to do with Africa because they are ashamed of their African heritage rooted in a "backward, primitive" continent.

But even they, the hostile ones, helped to inspire this study, focusing my attention on some of the myths propagated in the United States and elsewhere about Africa, the so-called Dark Continent.

Many of our white conquerors believe that because we have a dark skin, our continent is also dark, living in darkness, and we also have a dark mind. And some of our people are ashamed of their African roots, and of themselves, because of this. It is a myth that has inspired me to write this book as much as positive attributes of Africa have.

Therefore, in acknowledging the interest of African Americans in Africa as an inspiration in my pursuit of this study, I must also admit that our detractors have been an equally powerful motivation in my decision to undertake the project even if such motivation has sometimes been out of anger because of the way many people look at us as the most backward, and most primitive human beings, in the world.

Fellow Africans born and raised in Africa like I was, also inspired me in a very special way to write this book. I am a part of them as much as they are a part of me in terms of common experience as a people born and brought up in Africa. Therefore we share common perspectives on a number of issues.

They are also the focus of this study as much as African Americans are. Many of them are also genuinely interested in the subject and in the well-being of our brethren, African Americans. And probably just as many are equally interested in the improvement of relations between the two, a subject that continues to be of paramount importance to both groups, especially to those individuals who sincerely believe that we all have one destiny as children of Africa.

Introduction

THIS work looks at relations between Africans and African Americans from the perspective of an African, and of shared perceptions on both sides of the Atlantic.

Incorporated into the analysis are stories of individuals who have interacted, worked and lived with members of both groups in Africa and in the United States, including myself.

Stereotypes and misunderstandings of each other constitute an integral part of this study, explained from both perspectives, African and African-American.

As a former journalist in Tanzania, I have drawn upon my experience as a news reporter to write this book, with fairness and a passion for truth even if some of the things I say may offend some people. But my interest is not please anyone.

I am interested in only one thing: to tell the truth as I know it. And having lived in the United States, mostly in the black community, for more than 30 years, I have first-hand knowledge of African Americans I have used to complement my analysis.

I also articulate my position from the vantage point of someone who has lived on both sides of the Atlantic, focusing on a subject that has generated a lot of interest among Africans and African Americans through the years. And it continues to be one of great misunderstanding between the two sides, in spite of increased contacts and communication between Africa and Black America, and between individual Africans and African Americans in the United States and in Africa.

Although some people such as Professor Harold Cruse of the University of Michigan in contemporary times, and others such as Professor E. Franklin Frazier of Howard University in the past, contend that after more than 300 years of physical separation since the slave trade, virtually all cultural ties between Africa and black America have been severed, I believe that there are still some elements in African-American culture which can be traced back to Africa.

You find that in music, foods, and life styles; and may be even in linguistic patterns of African Americans as Professor Geneva Smitherman at Michigan State University – formerly Wayne State University when I was a student there - and others argue. Therefore, it was more than just hair braids that survived the middle passage across the Atlantic.

Other people have made the same arguments in the past. One of them was Kwame Nkrumah when he was a student in the United States.

He once debated Professor Frazier at Howard University on this subject, contending that there were still vestiges of African culture among African Americans, proving that slavery and centuries of physical separation had not erased all cultural ties to Africa.

Nkrumah won the debate, partly because of his oratorical skills which served him well years later when he became a leader of the African independence movement and president of Ghana, but mainly because of his factual presentation. However, Frazier maintained his position and the two agreed to disagree.

Many Africans and African Americans may also disagree with me and others who contend that some elements of African culture survived slavery. And probably just as many will agree with this position. But whatever the case, it is one of the subjects I address in this book but in a much wider context with an emphasis on the ties that have existed between Africa and black America for centuries.

I have also included in the book some information about African immigrants in the United States because, together with foreign students from Africa, they constitute the largest number of continental Africans who interact with African Americans on daily basis.

A number of other subjects are also covered in this book. The image of Africa among Americans of all races, the attitude of Africans and African Americans towards each other, misunderstandings, myths and realities which characterize their relationship, and the role African Americans played in the liberation struggle in Africa are some of those subjects.

And their role in this struggle cannot be underestimated, especially by some Africans who may be inclined to minimize the contribution of our brethren in the United States.

Because of their strategic position within the United States as American citizens, African Americans kept the struggle in the spotlight with marches, demonstrations and contributions, with the support of other Americans and remained a constant reminder to the American government and racist forces supporting the apartheid regime in South Africa and other white racist governments on the African continent that nothing was going to stop them from supporting the independence struggle in Africa until the white minority regimes were swept out of power.

Black people in the United States also pushed economic sanctions against the apartheid regime and exposed the hypocritical nature of the American leaders who supported white minority regimes in Africa while professing democracy at home and abroad.

There is no question that African Americans played a bigger role in supporting the liberation struggle in Africa than Africans did in supporting the civil rights movement. But it was also for understandable reasons. African countries were still under colonial rule or had just won independence and could not have supported the civil rights struggle in the United States through international forums as much as they would have liked to.

Other subjects I have covered in the book include the treatment of African Americans by Africans in Africa, especially those who have returned to the motherland after centuries of separation, seeing Africa for the first time.

Have they been well-received? Do they have any regrets? Do they wish they had never gone back to Africa? These are some of the questions I try to answer, citing disgruntled and satisfied African Americans who have lived in Africa as the primary source of information.

Some of them lived in my home country, Tanzania. There were those who stayed, and there were those who left. Some of those who stayed include a well-known Black Panther leader, Pete O'Neal, who has lived in Tanzania since the early seventies and whose life became the subject of a documentary film shown in the United States, Tanzania and other countries. His life in Tanzania and as a former Black Panther leader is one of the subjects I also address in this book.

He was later joined in Tanzania by Geronimo Pratt, former deputy defense minister of the Black Panther Party under Huey P. Newton. Pratt served 27 years in prison, on death row, after he was falsely accused and convicted of killing a white woman hundreds of miles away from where he actually was.

A former FBI agent later admitted Pratt was framed. He won his freedom with the help of Johnnie Cochran, the famous African American lawyer, and later went to live in Tanzania where he and his wife built a house next to Pete O'Neal's, as we will learn more about that later on in the book.

I have also addressed the treatment of African Americans by the white majority in the United States, and how Africans see the United States especially in terms of her relations with Africa and as a predominantly white nation in whose bosom are millions of people of African descent who ended up where they are by "accident."

It was this "accident" of history that has also been a subject of utmost importance in trying to understand what the United States is all about, as nation that portrayed itself to the whole world as the embodiment of the ideals of liberty and equality while at the same time upholding the institution of slavery.

Even today, the subject of slavery inflames passions across the racial divide. And the demand for reparations by African Americans, which I also discuss in the book, has only fueled intense debate on the legacy and relevance of slavery in contemporary America.

Coincidentally, it is a subject on which many Africans and African Americans agree, even if they disagree on other things, because people in Africa are also demanding reparations from the European powers who played the biggest role in the enslavement of Africans. They also also colonized us, which is another case for reparations. As Ed Vaughn, one of the leaders of the Detroit-based Pan-African Congress-USA who later served as assistant to Detroit Mayor Coleman Young and as a state representative in the Michigan state legislature, said about reparations: they have paid everybody else except us.

And as Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian writer, also said, others have been paid reparations. So why not African Americans? He also supports the claim for reparations by African countries but has made it clear that if we are going to demand that from Europeans, we should also claim reparations from the Arabs who also enslaved us.

But that is a subject that is beyond the scope of this work in terms of comprehensive analysis. I have restricted myself to the case for reparations presented by African Americans in the American context. And even here I may not have done justice to the subject, although I have tried my best to do so.

I have concluded my study on an optimistic note in the quest for greater cooperation and understanding between our two peoples who have always been one in spite of centuries of physical separation resulting from slavery whose devastating impact is still felt across Africa and Black America today

It is also encouraging to note that in acknowledgment of our common ties, the African diaspora which includes Black America is represented in the African Union (AU) as an integral part of Africa and the African world.

My Life with African Americans

MY INTEREST in black America goes back to my teens when I was in secondary school in Tanzania in the sixties. In fact, the first American school I applied to when I was in secondary school was Lincoln University, a black academic institution in Pennsylvania. I decided to apply to this school after I read Kwame Nkrumah's autobiography in 1966. Nkrumah himself attended Lincoln University, and that is how I first came to know about the school.

But I never went to Lincoln University. Instead, I ended up elsewhere in the United States. But that is another story, as I explain in this chapter.

My first contact, or encounter, with an African American was in 1965. I was 15 years old attending Songea Secondary School in Ruvuma Region on the Tanzanian-Mozambican border; the other Tanzanian administrative region bordering Mozambique is Mtwara, east of Ruvuma. And River Ruvuma is the boundary between the two countries.

I also remember the bombings by the Portuguese in these two regions, especially Mtwara Region, during the Mozambican struggle for independence in the sixties and early seventies. Our country provided sanctuary to the Mozambican freedom fighters (FRELIMO) and refugees, and thus incurred the wrath of the Portuguese. Fortunately, our school and many other parts of southern Tanzania escaped the bombings mainly because of the defense provided by our armed forces.

I was in standard 9, what Americans call grade 9, in 1965 when I first "met" a black American for the first time. It was not a direct personal meeting but a group encounter, together with other students. But I had met other Americans before. They were my teachers and all were white.

Earlier, when I was a student at Mpuguso Middle School (from standard 5 to standard 8) from 1961 to 1964 in my home district, Rungwe, in the Southern Highlands of southwestern Tanzania close to the border with Malawi, I had been taught by two American Peace Corp teachers in my last year, 1964, the only American teachers we had. One of them, Leonard Levitt, wrote a book, African Season, about his experiences at our school and in Tanzania in general, and later ended up as a news reporter at Newsday, Long Island, New York, where he was still working when I was writing this book.

 I vividly remember what he said when he first introduced himself to our class one morning: "My name is Leonard Levitt. I am a Jew from New York City." He taught English and math. The other teacher was named Wayne. But I don't remember his other name, if we ever knew it; we simply called him Mr. Wayne. I think he came from Colorado.

End of a Journey: Death of a

Pan-African Congress leader

In the last chapter, I mentioned some leaders of the Pan-African Congress-USA, an African American organisation which sponsored me as a student in Detroit, Michigan.

Some of them immigrated to Ghana in the early 1990s. And one of them died in 2008.

He was one of the people who played an important role in my life when I was a student in Detroit because he was an integral part of the collective leadership of an organisation which sponsored me and other African students in that city. His name was Kwadwo Akpan. We simply called him Kwadwo.

Kwadwo died in Togo and was buried in Ghana in the land of his ancestors: Africa. May his soul rest in peace.

I have included in this book some information about his life and death which is not in the third edition of my book, Relations Between Africans and Africans, because it was published before he died.

The articles about his death, reprinted below, were written by some of the people who knew him best. One of them is Herb Boyd who taught at Wayne State University in Detroit when I was a student there in the early and mid-seventies.

Boyd later became a prominent author and nationally-renowned. One of his acclaimed works is on James Baldwin, an African American or black American author, who is acknowledged by many people – not just blacks – as one of the greatest writers in American history. He has also written about Malcolm X among many other subjects.

This is what Herb Boyd had to say about Kwadwo Akpan in his article published in The Black World Today (TBWT):

Noted Pan-Africanist, Kwadwo Oluwale Akpan, Makes His Transition

By Herb Boyd, Managing Editor, TBWT

Last updated Tuesday, 01 July 2008

The Black World Today

Randallstown, Maryland, USA

Wayne State University in the late sixties and the earl seventies was a hotbed of political, cultural and economic activism. Such organizations as Uhuru, the Shrine of the Black Madonna, the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (later part of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers), the Republic of New Afrika, the Black Workers Congress, and Facing Reality owe their development to students and faculty at this urban-based college.

Kwadwo Oluwale Akpan, then Gerald Simmons, Jr., was part of this ferment, and lent his skills and consciousness to several political formations that emerged during this period, particularly the Pan-African Congress, where Ed Vaughn was such a pivotal figure.

Rarely was Kwadwo – and he adopted this name before he left Wayne State – without his camera and when a coterie of students, including Ozell Bonds, Bruce Williams, Lonnie Peek, Cathy Gamble, et al, formed the Association of Black Students, Kwadwo was among the group’s leadership. Very few were as informed about the developments in Africa as he was, and it was only a matter of time before he began to venture to the continent, establishing ties in the business and political realm.

On May 30, Kwadwo, 63, made his transition in Lome, Togo, though for the past 13 years he lived in Ghana where was the founder of FIHANKRA International and was enstooled as Chief Ye Fa Ogyamu in the historical township near Akosombo.

As an activist and community leader, he worked tirelessly for most of his life for the advancement of Africans throughout the Diaspora. Burial will be in Akosombo, Ghana. He leaves to mourn, his courageous wife, Majewa Akpan, loving parents; Gerald L. Simmons and Theresa S. Simmons, 8 children, 4 grandchildren, 2 brothers, and 2 sisters.

The photographic and political legacy

of Nana Kwadwo O. Akpan

By Paul Lee

Special to The Michigan Citizen, Detroit, Michigan, USA

[In last week’s issue of The Michigan Citizen, dated July 6th-July 12, 2008, we inadvertently published the first, uncorrected draft of the obituary of Nana Kwadwo O. Akpan by historical features writer Paul Lee. Because we believe that Nana Akpan’s life and legacy are worthy of being remembered, we are presenting below the corrected, much fuller version of his obituary, along with a poem by Nana Akpan and an exclusive gallery of his photographs. — Ed.]

Nana Kwadwo Oluwale Akpan, formerly Gerald L. Simmons, Jr., 63, died of complications of a stroke on May 30, 2008, in Lomé, Togo, West Africa, where he was visiting for business and pleasure.

Although his name would be unfamiliar to young persons in Detroit and Michigan today, Nana Akpan, who was born in Memphis, Tenn., on Aug. 10, 1944, was a well-known and respected photographer, filmmaker and social activist during the civil-rights, Black Power and pan-African movements of the 1960s and ’70s.

“There was a time in Detroit when we had a leader who was completely and totally dedicated to the liberation of black people, at home and abroad,” is how his friend Mwalimu Edward Vaughn, president of the Alabama NAACP conference, suggested Nana Akpan be remembered.

While few who knew Nana Akpan would question the depth of his pan-African commitment, some would beg to differ with this assessment – if only in private, out of respect for the departed, his family and friends.

Nana Akpan, they would contend, could be aloof, stubborn and seemingly self-interested.

This merely underlines the fact that his life, like all lives, was complex, but it was also one of great consequence — enough to provoke strong passions from divergent, though not necessarily contradictory, perspectives.

Photographer

During the period that has been called the U. S.’s second Reconstruction, and particularly in the wake of the July 21-27, 1967, Detroit Rebellion, Nana Akpan was a popular photographer, visually documenting the fast-evolving black rights movement.

“Black photographer -/Man, is that camera loaded with Tri-X and bullets?” Nana Akpan asked in a 1968 poem, “TRI-X and BULLETS,” the former referring to Kodak’s classic high-speed black and white photographic film.

His camera, the poem continued, was a “weapon in my arsenal/to shoot/to expose … to kill./And in reality.” (See sidebar for the complete poem.)

Among his many subjects was Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman, then known as the Rev. Albert B. Cleage, Jr., founder of the Shrines of the Black Madonna of the Pan African Orthodox Christian Church (PAOCC), who was Detroit’s most prominent “black militant” during the 1960s.

Nana Akpan had a long and varied relationship with the Shrine.

In April 1970, Jaramogi Agyeman hired him to photograph “New Directions For the Black Church,” the historic First Annual Convention of the Black Christian Nationalist Movement, which codified the magnetic Detroit minister’s revolutionary new Africa-centered creed, known as BCN.

(In 1978, the movement evolved into the PAOCC, a new black denomination.)

It appears that Nana Akpan’s portrait of Jaramogi Agyeman, which appeared in last week’s draft version of Nana Akpan’s obituary, was taken at the 1970 BCN convention.

Photos by Nana Akpan also graced the cover of the BCN Second Biennial Convention booklet.

 Nana Akpan also photographed the young Kwame Turé, then known as Stokely Carmichael, who in 1966 popularized the call for Black Power, a modern variant of black nationalism, which both reflected and helped accelerate the transformation of a wing of the modern civil-rights movement from one seeking racial integration to one that worked for black self-determination.

However, Nana Akpan also photographically chronicled Detroit’s and the nation’s booming musical scene. “He took photos of every group that came to Detroit,” remembers Vaughn. He even went on the road with the popular Earth, Wind and Fire.

Nana Akpan’s photographs appeared in Black Consciousness, a poetry journal; the popular Johnson Publications Ebony and Jet; The Journal of Black Poetry; The Michigan Chronicle; and Muhammad Speaks, the organ of Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam.

He also published several collections of his photographs, including “Ex-posures In Black” (Detroit: ULOZI Photographics, 1968), which featured street scenes of everyday black life in Detroit, Harlem, Philadelphia and other cities.

It also included arresting images of several local and national literary, musical and political figures, including:

- Detroit poet Slick Campbell (later Abdul Jalil).

- Militant Pontiac attorney (and later Rev.) Milton R. Henry, also known as Abiodun Gaidi, who was called “The Black Defender” (see gallery).

He was photographed at a “Malcolm X Day” rally at Central United Church of Christ, the Shrine of the Black Madonna, on Feb. 21, 1968, the third anniversary of the Muslim and nationalist leader’s assassination.

In the photo, the lower portion of the church’s famous 18-foot Black Madonna and child chancel mural could be seen; at right, a painting of Malcolm X based on a photo by Henry’s brother Laurence.

- Harlem reparations advocate Queen Mother (Audley) Moore (see gallery).

- Jazz pianist and composer Horace Silver.

- Jazz singer Nina Simone, the stage name of Eunice Kathleen Waymon, who was noted for her heartfelt, sometimes acid protest songs, including “Mississippi Goddam” and “To Be Young, Gifted and Black,” the latter written in memory of her late friend playwright Lorraine Hansberry.

- Venerable Detroit Garveyite Henry (Papa) Wells, also known as Anwar Pasha, who was a student of Master W. D. Fard, the mystical founder of the Nation of Islam (NOI) (see gallery).

Nana Akpan had a large three-feet by four-feet photograph on Detroit’s famed “Wall of Dignity,” a montage of black heroines and heroes on an exterior wall of Grace Episcopal Church on Rosa Parks Boulevard (formerly 12th Street) at Virginia Park.

Filmmaker

In 1969, Detroit activist, actor and black film archivist James E. Wheeler and a friend sold Nana Akpan a rare French Beaulieu 16mm motion picture camera.

“The most important thing for Black people is to develop means to communicate effectively with each other,” Nana Akpan wrote in “Ex-posures In Black.” “It is essential that our efforts become as deliberate as possible, and I think that film is one of the most effective means we have to communicate.”

 In 1972, it appears that Nana Akpan again memorialized Jaramogi Agyeman and the Shrines of the Black Madonna, this time on film.

He is credited, along with James Jewell, with filming an in-depth profile on “Black Christian Nationalism” for “Black Journal,” the pioneering PBS black affairs series hosted by former Detroiter Tony Brown, which was broadcast on Nov. 28, 1972.

James Wheeler thinks that Nana Akpan might have used the movie camera that he sold him to film “Kwacha,” Nana Akpan’s pioneering 1975 documentary on the guerilla struggle to liberate the south-central African nation of Angola from five centuries of colonial domination by Portugal.

The film graphically exposed Portuguese atrocities committed against black Angolans. In highlighting the liberation struggle, the documentary united Nana Akpan’s belief in cameras and bullets.

“At that time,” says Wheeler, the founder-director of Concept East II and the Black Cinema Gallery, “black filmmakers really weren’t doing films like the ones that he did on Africa, which I think were very important,” particularly in terms of the “revolutionary struggles.”

Recalls Vaughn: “He was in the bush” with the guerilla fighters. “It didn’t even faze him that he was in danger.”

Angolan chameleon

However, Nana Akpan’s support of the União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, or UNITA), one of three ideologically and ethnically diverse Angolan guerilla movements, would create enduring suspicions.

UNITA, which was originally supported by the People’s Republic of China, was led by the charismatic Jonas Savimbi.

Charles Simmons, who visited UNITA guerilla camps in 1973 as a reporter for Muhammad Speaks, observes, “Savimbi was a chameleon of a character who would say different things to different audiences and was able to capture lots of support within the African American community [among those] who did not have access to international perspectives.”

For example, Simmons notes, “Savimbi was sophisticated enough to understand what African Americans wanted to hear. He was friends with Ché, he was friends with Malcolm,” the Angolan leader claimed in exaggeration.

Savimbi was referring to Ernesto (Ché) Guevara, the legendary Argentine-Cuban guerilla leader, who Savimbi met during Guevara’s 1964-65 African tour, and Malcolm X, who Savimbi might have met when both attended an Organization of African Unity (OAU) summit in Cairo, Egypt, in July 1964.

 “That was heaven” to some U. S. pan-Africanists, Simmons noted. Many of them “were intelligent and committed and thought that [Savimbi] was clean.”

Ed Vaughn, who also supported Savimbi, recalls: “We were convinced that any Africa leader who exposed the concept of pan-Africanism was our friend.”

Cloud

However, some of Savimbi’s Western admirers felt compelled to reevaluate their race-based enthusiasm for him after evidence emerged that he had begun to receive financial and military backing from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the then white-minority-ruled government of apartheid South Africa.

Tanzanian President Julius K. Nyerere and Zanzibari revolutionary leader Abdulrahman Mohamed Babu (who had actually been a close friend of Malcolm X) told Simmons that they were “certain that Savimbi was getting support from South African apartheid and U. S. intelligence agencies.”

Despite this, Nana Akpan continued to support UNITA, perhaps, as Vaughn suggests, on the basis of British statesman Lord Palmerston’s famous political dictum: “Nations [and peoples] have no permanent friends and no permanent enemies. Only permanent interests.”

During the Reagan administration in the 1980s, Nana Akpan headed the Angola Peace Fund, which, according to Vaughn, was a UNITA front.

Nana Akpan’s steadfast, mostly uncritical – if entirely sincere – association with UNITA would strain and, in some cases, completely rupture old political relationships and haunt his reputation for the balance of his life.

 Nevertheless, he continued to be productive. He produced “Liberia – 1980 – After the Coup,” a 30-minute documentary on the bloody overthrow of the corrupt traditional Americo-Liberian government. It was based on films made by Nana Akpan during a visit to the West African nation that was founded by former U. S. slaves.

In assessing Nana Akpan’s contributions as a pan-Africanist filmmaker, James Wheeler says that it is significant that he “was working in the media to create positive images of black people” and made a “conscious effort” to refashion the bonds of brother- and sisterhood between peoples of African descent.

Activist

As an activist and community leader, Nana Akpan worked tirelessly for the advancement of Africans throughout the Diaspora. And he did so in style. “He was always neat to the bone,” recalls Vaughn.

Nana Akpan was an original member of Forum 65 and Forum 66, a black nationalist discussion group that began at the famous Vaughn’s Book Store at 12135 Dexter Ave. at Monterey in 1965. The forums later sponsored the historic first and second annual black arts conferences in 1966 and 1967.

These conclaves, held at Jaramogi Agyeman’s Central United Church of Christ, later renamed the Shrine of the Black Madonna, featured a wide variety of local and national black artists and leaders.

These included Turé, his quotable successor as chairman of the militant Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), H. Rap Brown (later known as Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin), and playwright LeRoi Jones (who would soon be known as Imamu Amiri Baraka).

Portraits of all three were later featured in “Ex-posures In Black” (see gallery for Brown and Jones photos).

Nana Akpan was also involved in local efforts to reform racist educational institutions. “Kwadwo was with us at Wayne State University during the struggle to develop Black Studies there,” recalls friend Herb Boyd, managing editor of The Black World Today Web site.

Nana Akpan was the minister of communications for the Association of Black Students (ABS).

‘Oh, my God!’

According to Vaughn, Nana Akpan’s activism could be brave to the point of recklessness.

On Saturday, July 22, 1967, Nana Akpan, Vaughn, Kwame Atta (then known as Arthur Smith, or “Smitty,” who worked at a Detroit post office branch with Vaughn) and Ken Hamlin (later a conservative radio talk show host who styles himself “The Black Avenger”) were detained by police in a suburb outside of Newark, N. J.

They were on their way home from picking up a load of books for Vaughn’s bookstore at “Professer” Louis H. Michaux’s famous National Memorial African Book Store at black Harlem’s most celebrated intersection, Seventh Avenue and 125th Street.

“Jersey City went up that same night,” recalls Vaughn, referring to the uprising of that city’s black community, “and we could see the smoke and flames rising over the hills.”

This was only a week after the much larger rebellion in Newark, where African Americans finally rebelled against police brutality, political exclusion, urban renewal, inadequate housing and other injustices.

In fact, before stopping off in Harlem, Nana Akpan and the others had attended the First National Conference on Black Power, which was held in Newark from July 20-23.

(It was here that Nana Akpan met his first wife, Yoliswa, called “Yola.” He featured her on the cover of “Ex-posures In Black” the following year.)

With Jersey City alight in the distance, the chief of a suburban police department, “with about 15 burly cops with riot guns trained on us,” stopped the Detroit group, recalls Vaughn.

Searching the trunk, the chief pulled out the Yusuf Ali translation of the Qur’an, the Muslim holy book. “Are you boys Muslims?” he asked.

“No, sir, I’m a Christian,” Vaughn replied, conscious of the fact that encounters with the police often proved fatal to African Americans.

The chief was next intrigued by Color Me Brown by Lucille H. Giles, one of the first black children’s coloring books, put out by Johnson Publications.

The chief said that he would like it for his daughter. “Naw, you’re not either,” Vaughn vividly recalls Nana Akpan replying. “You’ll have to pay for it.”

“Oh, my God!” Vaughn thought, but the chief dutifully returned it to the trunk. “Kwadwo was so stern when he told him,” Vaughn recalls with an amazed chuckle.

The next day, a Sunday, Detroit erupted in a rebellion that dwarfed all others, and wouldn’t be surpassed until African Americans in Los Angeles exploded a quarter-century later, in 1992.

Pan-Africanist

In the 1970s, Nana Akpan was a member of the central committee of the Detroit-based Pan African Congress, U. S. A. (PAC), which sought the unification of Africans worldwide.

The PAC was organized in 1969 by Vaughn and Kwame Atta in the original Inner City Sub Center on Mack Avenue on Detroit’s east side. “[Nana Akpan] didn’t join at first,” recalls Vaughn. “He was always inquisitive about stuff” and only joined the PAC “after investigating it.”

Nana Akpan edited many of the PAC’s publications, including The Pan African Congress U. S. A. pamphlet, which featured a Sankofa bird, an Akan symbol from Ghana, on its cover.

“He was always very technical and wanted to make sure that we didn’t put out anything that wasn’t first class,” remembers Vaughn. Because of this, “we didn’t put out anything that wasn’t professional.”

Nana Akpan was also well versed in the ideologies of pan-African thinkers such as Kwame Nkrumah, the visionary independence father and first president of the West African nation of Ghana; Ahmed Sékou Touré, the regal trades-union-leader-turned-president of Guinea, also in West Africa; and Julius Nyerere.

“[Nana Akpan] was the guiding force in terms of the ideology” of the PAC, says Vaughn.

Homeland

In 1995, the pan-Africanist Nana Akpan resettled in Ghana, where he was a co-founder of Fihankra International, a community of African Americans who were granted land by the Ghanaian government.

Fihankra, located in eastern Ghana near the banks of the Volta River between Accra, the capital, and Tema, the main seaport, describes itself as a “Bridge to Land, Tradition and Opportunity.” As a sign of respect, Nana Akpan was enstooled as chief of Ye Fa Ogyamu, the historical township near Akosombo.

Vaughn credits him as the “prime mover” behind the Ghanaian government’s granting of dual citizenship to African Americans.

Although the law felt short of some African American’s hopes, granting limited rights instead of full citizenship, Nana Akpan hailed its potential.

“…each step forward moves us closer to our goal of re-integrating Africa with its Diaspora,” he said. “Toward that objective, this law is a most significant step ahead while there will be continued dialogue to further improve relations between Diasporans and the government of Ghana.”

He traveled often to the U. S. to promote better pan-African relations. In June of last year, he addressed the 1st Annual NAACP Alabama State Conference Economic Development Summit On Africa, arranged by Vaughn and Dr. John Alford in Montgomery and Dothan, Ala.

Burial will be in Akosombo. Nana Akpan leaves to mourn him his courageous wife, Majewa Akpan; eight children, Ewunike, Samwimbila, Adwoa, Osakwe, Aziza, Afriyie, Osonose and Isiko Akpan; two foster sons, Richard and Narciss Miller; four grandchildren, Maia, Nkosi, Nala Akpan, and Anthony Flowers; two brothers, Phillip and Stephen Simmons; his loving parents, Gerald L. Simmons, Sr., and Theresa S. Simmons; two sisters, Sharon Simmons-Lofton and Valerie (Simmons) Tyler; many nieces and nephews; and a host of friends and admirers throughout the pan-African world.

Memorial service to be held at a later date.

Herb Boyd and Paul Lee who wrote about Kwadwo Akpan and his death were just some of the many people from all walks of life who knew him.

One of the most prominent African scholars, Professor Ali Mazrui, also briefly wrote about Kwadwo Akpan in connection with a conference both attended in Washington D.C., in 1989. It had to do with Angola. As he stated in his Mazrui Newsletter, Eve of 1990:

“The Angola Peace Fund, based in Washington, D.C. invited me (in 1989) to a one-day symposium on "Reconciliation in Angola: Perspectives on Africa's Future".

Guess how may people were scheduled to speak? Yes, five in all.

Andre Franco de Sousa, one of the founders of MPLA (now the ruling party of Angola), made a moving case for genuine reconciliation.

Ambassador Herman Cohen, the United States Assistant Secretary of State for African affairs, tried to explain the Bush Administration's approach to the problems of Southern Africa.

Kwadwo O. Akpan spoke as the Executive Director of the Angola Peace Fund, a private organization, led by African-Americans. The Fund is committed to the search for reconciliation in Angola.

Jonas Savimbi (leader of UNITA) was expected to turn up at the symposium, and was in the programme as one of the five speakers. Strict security precautions were taken towards the time of his scheduled arrival.

At the very last minute he sent his apologies. He was indeed in Washington, D.C. - but the pressure of official business kept him from our symposium. The participants and journalists at the symposium were of course most disappointed.

My own speech to the symposium included a sub-section on 'Heroic Villains in Recent African History.'

I compared the late Moise Tshombe of Zaire with Jonas Savimbi of Angola.

Perhaps it was just as well that Dr. Savimbi was not present to listen to what I had to say! There might have been an explosion!

On the other hand I did try to be fair and even-handed in my analysis.”

An Interview

From Godfrey Mwakikagile, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, Third Edition, New Africa Press, 2006:

Godfrey Mwakikagile interviewed in February 2003 by an American journalist, Jeremy Swanson, who worked in Tanzania for the Kenyan weekly newspaper, The East African, and Recollections by Andrew Nyerere

What inspired you to write a book about Julius Nyerere and his pan-African policies? Has it been a long-term goal of yours to write such a book?

When did you start writing it? Is this your first book specifically about Tanzania?

I think you mentioned that you are working on a second edition. Is this true? Is the book targeted at both a general and more academic audience?

What inspired me to write this book about President Julius Nyerere was his pan-African commitment. He was one of the few African leaders who sincerely believed that Africans are one people, and that Africa is one organic entity, regardless of the ethnic and racial differences we have across the continent, and the national borders we inherited at independence from our European conquerors who divided the continent among themselves as if we did not even exist. As he said in Accra, Ghana, on the 40th anniversary of Ghana's independence in March 1997: "We are all Africans trying very hard to be Ghanaians or Tanzanians."

I was also inspired to write about Mwalimu Nyerere and his pan-African policies because of his achievements in a pan-African context. He was the most successful African leader in that area. No other African leader can match his record.

For decades, he was the strongest supporter of the African liberation movements which ended white minority rule on the continent. Without Nyerere and Tanzania, the countries in southern Africa would not have achieved freedom when they did. One of the strongest advocates of African unity like Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Nyerere was also the first African leader to achieve this goal when he united Tanganyika and Zanzibar in 1964 to form Tanzania.

This is the only union of two independent countries ever formed on the continent. The rest have not even attempted to unite; the confederation of Senegal and Gambia named Senegambia was more symbolic than functional, as was the Ghana-Guinea-Mali union, and the Ghana-Congo union formed by Nkrumah and Lumumba during the Congo crisis and which many people don't know about.

The Ghana-Congo union agreement was signed in secrecy by Nkrumah and Lumumba in Accra, Ghana, on August 8, 1960. The union was supposed to have a federal government responsible for foreign affairs, defence, establishment of a common currency, and common policies for economic development.

It was also agreed that there would be no customs barriers between any parts of the federation; there would be a federal parliament and a federal head of state; and the capital of the union would be Leopoldville, of what would then be the former Congo after the federation was formed. And any other African country would be free to join the union. Ghana would also quit the Commonwealth.

But the union agreement was never implemented. However, it demonstrated a commitment of the two leaders to unite Africa; a goal that was achieved in East Africa by Nyerere only a few years later.

Nyerere was the first East African leader to call for federation of the countries in the region, and even offered to delay independence for Tanganyika to achieve this goal. And he was the most successful African leader to unite different tribes and races to achieve national unity.

No other African country is as united as Tanzania, in spite of the large number of tribes and racial minorities we have in the country, one of the largest in Africa. Only Nigeria with more than 250, the Democratic Republic of Congo with more than 200, and Cameroon with 150, have more ethnic groups than Tanzania. And they all have been rocked by ethnic conflicts, except Tanzania.

It was because of Nyerere, and his unsurpassed skills in nation-building, that Tanzania was spared this agony.

I seriously doubt the country's 126 tribes and racial minorities would have been as united as they are today, and formed a cohesive entity we call Tanzania, without Nyerere or another leader of his calibre.

So, Nyerere's pan-African commitment and his achievements inspired me to write this book. I was also very much impressed by his formidable intellect.

But it had not been a long-term goal of mine to write such a book. All that changed when Nyerere died. His death shocked me. It had a very big impact on me because of the profound respect and admiration I had for him as a leader and as an intellectual. I grew up under Nyerere. A man of impeccable logic, I listened to his speeches and read his writings and interviews for decades, and they sparkle with brilliance, combined with his uncompromising commitment to the poor and Africa's - not just Tanzania's - wellbeing and that of the entire Third World.

Before I started writing this book about Nyerere and his pan-African policies, I had thought about writing a book about Nyerere and Nkrumah, another leader I have also always admired since my student days in secondary school in the sixties; tragically, the same decade in which he was overthrown in February 1966 in a coup supported by the CIA. In fact, it was partly because of Nkrumah that I was inspired to go to school in the United States after I read his autobiography in 1967. And the first school to which I applied when I was still in high school was Lincoln University, a predominantly black academic institution in Pennsylvania, which Nkrumah first attended. But I ended up elsewhere in the United States.

So, in a significant way, Nkrumah also inspired me to write this book about Nyerere because of the pan-African commitment of both leaders.

And I have an entire chapter devoted to the two leaders in the book. And I still intend to write a book about them.

I started writing the book about Nyerere towards the end of 2001 and it took me about seven months to write it. It is also the first book I have written about Tanzania; except for the chapters I have written in two of my other books. I have written one chapter on Tanzania in Economic Development in Africa published in 1999; and one in Africa and the West published in 2000.

All my published works are about Africa from a continental perspective; including this one about Nyerere, although I have covered Tanzania in this book more than I have in any of my other books.

I am also working on an expanded edition of the book about Nyerere. Like the first edition, it is intended for a general audience, and for members of the academic community who use my books as college textbooks.

As much as your book is about Julius Nyerere and his vision, it is also about African liberation movements. Is there a reason why you chose to focus on this history for the book? Briefly, how would you describe Nyerere's life in terms of liberation and support for African liberation movements?

I also chose to focus on the African liberation movements because this is the area in which President Julius Nyerere made his biggest and lasting contribution in a pan-African context and foreign policy in general.

No other African leader, besides Dr. Nkrumah who did not last long in power to support the liberation struggle as long as he would have, did as much as Nyerere did to further the cause of African liberation. And no other African leader was as committed to this cause as he was.

And he demonstrated his commitment, by words and deeds, a fact conceded by the leaders of the liberation movements themselves who are in power today in the countries of southern Africa: Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, and South Africa itself, the citadel of white supremacy on the continent but whose walls came tumbling down under a sustained campaign largely spearheaded by Nyerere whom rebel Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith described as "the evil genius" behind the liberation wars in Rhodesia and southern Africa in general.

Nyerere's support for the liberation movements started even before he led Tanganyika to independence. He was the first African leader, together with Father Trevor Huddleston, to launch the anti-apartheid movement in London in 1959 in order to mobilize international support for the liberation struggle and boycott of the racist regime of South Africa.

And when Tanganyika won independence from Britain in December 1961, Nyerere opened the doors and invited the leaders of the liberation movements to Tanganyika and provided sanctuary for others fleeing from persecution in their home countries still under white minority rule. For example, it was Nyerere who encouraged Dr. Eduardo Mondlane to come to Tanganyika and unite the Mozambican nationalist organizations to form a united front against the Portuguese colonial rulers, leading to the establishment of FRELIMO in Dar es Salaam, our capital city, in June 1962.

It was also in the same year that Nelson Mandela came to Tanganyika and met Nyerere, the first leader of an independent African country in the region to win independence, providing inspiration and material and diplomatic support to the liberation movements in southern Africa.

In short, during his tenure, Nyerere was the embodiment of the African independence struggle, and of the aspirations of hundreds of millions of Africans, the downtrodden masses and other victims of injustice across the continent, and rightfully earned the title, "The Conscience of Africa."

Throughout the book, you praise Nyerere's great achievements of bringing unity to Tanganyika, forging the union with Zanzibar, promoting Swahili and education, supporting liberation movements, etc. You also contend that Western academics often overlook Nyerere's nation-building achievements in ridicule of his failed economic policies. For East African readers, who have often heard both the praises and the criticisms, perhaps you could better explain how Nyerere is perceived in the West with those people who know something about his life. How did this perception influence you as you wrote the book?

In the West, where I have lived for many years, Nyerere is highly regarded among academic intellectuals, who are mostly liberal as he was. I remember one of my economics professors, Kenneth Marin who worked for the Tanzanian government in Dar es Salaam in the late sixties and early seventies, telling our class at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1976, that "Nyerere is one of the best world leaders we have today." He called him a world leader, not just an African leader and had great respect for him. He even read Nyerere's writings during some of his lectures.

Even conservative critics, for example The Wall Street Journal which strongly supports conservative Republican policies, acknowledge his ability as a skillful nation builder who formed a cohesive political entity, while at the same time severely criticizing him for what they describe as his disastrous economic policies. But they ignore or conveniently overlook the egalitarian ideals which inspired Nyerere's ujamaa policies: commitment to equality and the desire to help and uplift the poor masses who consitute the vast majority of the population of Tanzania. Liberal academic intellectuals on the other hand, in colleges and universities, and liberal papers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, acknowledge both, his successes as well as his failures, and the noble ideals which inspired his failed socialist policies.

But while many Western academics acknowledge the nobility of his ideals and his genuine commitment to the masses and sometimes even consider him to be one of them because he espoused and implemented the same liberal ideals they cherish, and also because he was Western-educated, in colonial Tanganyika and Uganda in the Western intellectual tradition and finally in Britain itself; they definitely overlook his achievements as a nation builder who left behind a country that stands out on the continent in terms of peace, unity and stability.

Few mention these attributes, without which a country is nothing, however rich. Just look at Tanzania's neighbour, Congo, a rich country pulverized from within, reduced to ashes because of rotten leadership.

Here is a leader who inherited one of the poorest countries in the world, with one of the highest illiteracy rates, and one of the largest numbers of tribes in Africa, yet managed to provide free education and free medical service to everybody, as well as other social services including clean water; and reduced the level of illiteracy to the point where Tanzania had the highest literacy rate in Africa, over 90 percent, even higher than that of India, a country which has one of the largest numbers of educated people in the world and the third largest number of scientists after the United States and the former Soviet Union.

This does not mean that Nyerere's economic policies were not a failure in many areas. He himself admitted that much, as much as I do, although I have been accused by some critics such as Professor George Ayittey, a Ghanaian professor of economics at The American University in Washington, D.C., of glossing over these facts. I have even reviewed on Amazon.com one of his books, Africa in Chaos, partly in response to such unwarranted criticism of my work, not only by him but by others as well.

Anyway, the mere fact that Tanzania has not been wracked by civil wars like many other African countries have been, should be enough to convince even some of Nyerere's harshest and most ardent critics that he built and left behind a stable, unified and peaceful country without parallel on this turbulent continent. So is the fact that tribalism and racism have never been major problems in Tanzania because of Nyerere. No other African country can claim this distinction.

It was this deliberate distortion or oversight among Western intellectuals critical of Nyerere, which partly dictated my focus on life under Nyerere from a personal perspective; an analysis which constitutes one of the longest chapters in the book, the last chapter.

I still would have written the same kind of book even if there had been no such unjustified criticism of Nyerere's policies and deliberate oversight of his achievements. But the fact that many of his critics have chosen to ignore or overlook his achievements in nation-building, in providing free education and free medical service, in vigorously promoting Kiswahili as our national language, and in combating tribalism and racism more than any other African leader, definitely served as a catalyst and influenced me when I wrote the book.

More than three years after his death, why do you think Mwalimu continues to inspire both older and younger Africans? Is his legacy, especially that of unity in Tanzania, in danger of eroding today? Why or why not? Do you have anything else to add about the new era of politics in Africa? I am thinking specifically about the movement toward democracy and economic liberalization in Tanzania and the recent electoral triumph of the opposition in Kenya.

More than three years after his death, millions of people across Africa and beyond continue to draw inspiration from Nyerere because of his high moral integrity and selfless devotion to the poor and to the victims of injustice regardless of their social and economic status, and to the well-being of others on the basis of equality to all. He had saintly devotion and inspired admiration reserved for saints because of his selflessness, humility and simplicity unheard of among leaders. And he died poor. Even his worst enemies acknowledge that much even if they don't always say so or as much as they should. Actions speak louder than words. They have not been able to expose any hidden bank accounts of Nyerere. That's because none exist. He didn't steal anything.

And his exemplary leadership will always serve as an inspiration to millions of people. He admitted his mistakes like no other leader, and was not afraid to criticize fellow African leaders when they were wrong; unlike other leaders across the continent who kept quiet or simply looked the other way, and even quietly applauded Idi Amin. And people noticed that about Nyerere. That's why he was called "The Conscience of Africa." And as Biafran leader Odumegwu Ojukwu said about Nyerere when he died, "he was the greatest teacher of our time." He also deserved to be called "Saint Julius" as I state in my book, because of his unswerving devotion to the masses. He was their patron saint, a phenomenal role I witnessed him play when I was a new reporter in Tanzania, and just as a Tanzanian myself even before I became a reporter at the Standard, the Daily News, and an information officer at the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in Dar es Salaam.

Unfortunately, his legacy may not be able to sustain Tanzania as a peaceful and united country if the leaders who came after him ignore the poor and victims of injustice, and don't work hard to build consensus across the nation as a basis for government. Why should 50 or 60 or even 70 or 80 percent of the people, the party which won the election and that many votes, provided the election was not rigged, have 100 percent of the power? Minorities, or those who lose elections, must also be represented in the government to avoid conflict and marginalization of some groups and individuals. And that can be done only by forming a government of national unity, coalition government.

The union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar survived and thrived as Tanzania under Nyerere because of his extraordinary ability in consensus building to accommodate the interests and allay fears of Zanzibaris who felt that they had been "swallowed up" by Tanganyika and were no more than junior partners in the union. Nyerere reassured them that they were equal partners and even allowed them to have their own government in order to rule themselves under a unique form of federalism under a unitary state; an achievement unheard of. Find one functional federal entity under a unitary state anywhere in the world, and a unitary state with such extensive devolution of power. There is none except Tanzania, because of Nyerere.

If resentment against the union continues to build up in Zanzibar, and nothing is done to defuse tension and vent this frustration, the future of Tanzania as a stable, united entity cannot be guaranteed; although Tanganyika can very easily do without Zanzibar, a former island nation of about one million people today in a country of about 35 million. Most Tanzanians live on the mainland. Zanzibaris fed up with the union, of course, also feel the same way: they can do without Tanganyika as they did before the union in 1964.

But the union can and should be maintained and even restructured to accommodate conflicting interests by re-writing the constitution to address grievances of Zanzibaris.

Also one way to rob secessionists of momentum is through extensive devolution of power, but without unconditional accommodation of secessionist sentiments and tendencies in the former island nation. But there is still an imperative need to address their grievances on consensus basis if the union is to survive. Coercion will not work. Ask the Ethiopians about Eritrea, or the Russians about Chechnya.

Regarding the country's new economic direction away from its socialist past, I would say economic liberalization is proceeding in the right direction under President Benjamin Mkapa (1995 - 2005). But its benefits have yet to trickle down to the masses wallowing in the fetid swamp of misery, poverty and disease, prompting many people to call for a return to the status quo ante as life was under Nyerere when he implemented the Arusha Declaration. And let's face it, it is a brilliant document.

Some of the people who are so critical of Nyerere today are the very same ones who benefited immensely from his egalitarian policies of free education and free medical service. And they wouldn't be where they are today had it not been for the free education - from primary school all the way to university - they got under Nyerere.

Many of them would also have died had they not been provided with free medical service. They are also some of the harshest critics of his failed socialist policies. Yet they were the very same people who were in office, busy stealing and sabotaging the economy, and raiding the national treasury, and were therefore directly responsible for the failure of the policies they now criticize so much. That is the kind of gratitude he gets from them, now that he is gone.

In this era of globalization and free market policies, there is an imperative need for government intervention to protect the poor from ruthless market forces because of the predatory nature of capitalism. Who is going to protect them? They are left at the mercy of greedy people who couldn't care less if they all starved to death.

So, while commendable efforts have been made to liberalize the economy in this era of globalization, which is dictated by the rich nations to the detriment of the poor, not much has been done to protect the masses from the devastating impact of capitalism and structural adjustment programmes imposed on poor countries by the rich ones through the IMF and other multilateral institutions dominated by the industrial West. This government, under Mkapa, and others after it can provide free education and free medical service the way Nyerere did. Good economic policy must translate into good social policy, which is anathema to capitalism. The people come first.

Another major problem Tanzania may face is the resurgence of tribalism and racism, twin evils which were effectively contained and in many cases even neutralized under Nyerere because of his strong moral leadership.

Unfortunately, Tanzania today does not have a leader of the moral stature Nyerere had as the founding father of the nation; who also, by sheer force of intellect, inspired awe and admiration across the spectrum.

President Mkapa has won accolades as a just leader, and untainted by corruption. But he does not have the kind of stature Nyerere had as the father of the nation to exercise formidable influence across the spectrum. And he does not have the kind of political base Nyerere built for years and which helped to sustain his leadership.

So, in spite of Mkapa's high intellectual calibre - I know him, he was my editor at the Daily News - the Zanzibar crisis may not be resolved under his leadership or that of his successor the way it would have been under Nyerere because he does not have the kind of influence Nyerere had, on the mainland and in the former island nation, as the founding father of Tanzania.

A major concession by the opposition in Zanzibar, most of whose members are opposed to the union, may come if Dr. Salim Ahmed Salim is elected the next president of Tanzania. He is a formidable political personality who is also internationally renowned and comes from Pemba island, a hotbed of political activism in the opposition camp. The strongest opposition to the union also comes from Pemba. But it may be muted or neutralized if the union opponents feel that one of their own has been elected president of the United Republic.

Otherwise the secessionist movement is going to gain momentum. As the main opposition leader of the Civic United Front (UCF) Seif Shariff Hamad bluntly stated in October 2000 just before the Tanzania general election in an interview with Time:

"If we win I see no reason to stay in the Union. Zanzibaris have not benefited from it one bit. I would go to the mainland and start talks on a programme to move toward full independence."

Zanzibar's outspoken former Attorney-General and later Chief Justice Wolfgang Dourado who once was detained for more than 100 days for criticizing the union and calling for a three-government federation during Nyerere's presidency, articulated similar sentiments, echoed by many Zanzibaris, when he was also interviewed in October 2000 by Time:

"The millions and billions of aid and development money that comes into Tanzania, do your research into how much of it comes here. Nothing. We try to talk to them but it's a dialogue with the deaf and dumb."

Tanzania's former first vice president who was also the president of Zanzibar, Aboud Jumbe, was just as blunt about his disenchantment with the union. He resigned in 1984 because of his opposition to the structural arrangements of the union and wanted Tanzania to have three governments, instead of two as is the case today.

There is a union government for the united republic and a separate government for Zanzibar.

Aboud Jumbe wanted three governments: one for the union, one for Zanzibar, and one for Tanganyika; a move that was strongly opposed by President Nyerere who said this would lead to the break-up of the union.

Jumbe even wrote a book about this problem. The title of his book is The Partnership: Tanganyika-Zanzibar Union: 30 Turbulent Years, published in 1994, ten years after he resigned, in which he contends that Zanzibar has not benefited from the union since it was formed in 1964. As he stated at a press conference in Dar es Salaam in January 1998 on the 34th anniversary of the Zanzibar revolution, he did not understand why the government continued to maintain the rigid structure of the union and refused to have three governments in spite of the desire for such change among many people in the country. As he stated:

"I don't understand why the government should cling to this stand, but I suspect it is for the same reasons that my book, The Partnership, has been ignored since the era of the single party system."

On whether the union was beneficial, and if it had in any way benefited Tanzania mainland since he said it had not benefited Zanzibar, he bluntly stated:

"Ask Nyerere, because he is the one who went to Zanzibar. He is the one who wanted the union. He must have had goals. Has he achieved them? I cannot speak for mainlanders on the achievement of the union."

He also went on to say that he believed the shortcomings of the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar had played a major role in delaying the establishment of an East African federation.

Therefore, there are serious problems. And I don't believe that if a referendum were held today, the majority of the people of Zanzibar would vote in favour of the union as it is now.

It should be restructured to accommodate their interests and ventilate their grievances. That is why the ruling party CCM is not very popular in Zanzibar.

The union can and should be saved. The question is how. Continue to talk to the people of Zanzibar. Listen to their grievances. Give them meaningful concessions. Otherwise we are going to have an eruption which could threaten and even destroy the union.

But Zanzibaris - not all of them - are not the only people who are not satisfied with the union. Many people on the mainland, including a significant number of members of parliament, feel the same way. They also want three governments. And they feel that Zanzibar is overly represented in the union government and in parliament far out of proportion to its size.

I believe the union will continue to exist. But it is a precarious existence. Dialogue and concessions are critical to its continued existence. So is rule by consensus, including formation of coalition government which includes major opposition parties; of which there is none at the moment - the opposition is too weak and hopelessly divided - except the Civic United Front (CUF) in Zanzibar.

There is another problem that has begun to surface on the political scene in Tanzania. And that is complaints by a significant number of Muslims who feel that they have been marginalized in a country whose government since independence has been dominated by Christians; although this is highly debatable. Tanzania's ruling party has done everything possible to defuse religious tensions by providing equal opportunity to all Tanzanians regardless of their religious beliefs. I also discussed this matter with Andrew Nyerere, President Nyerere's eldest son, in October 2003 in connection with my book about his father and Tanzania and he had this to say:

"I wish to make a few comments on some things which have happened on the political scene here in Tanzania. I want to comment about the street protests against the government.

Mostly, it is the Muslims who have protested against the government. These protests started when Ali Hassan Mwinyi was president. The Muslims were saying that ever since before independence, the policy of the government had been to favour Christians in educational opportunities, and that this resulted in Muslims becoming less educated than Christians; and consequently, becoming comparatively poor. They said that when Mwalimu Nyerere came to power, he had a policy of favouring Christians because his mentor, Father Walsh, was telling him to turn the country into a Christian country.

Also, they wanted some Islamic tenets to be observed as government policy. For example, we have had street riots here because the Muslims wanted Muslim school girls to be permitted to wear hijab, the head scarf, when going to school. There have been very many of these riots by Muslims. I remember the last riot which happened a few years ago was very serious. It went on for four hours. The police were able to restore calm after they had fired more than one hundred tear-gas cannisters.

These riots have become progressively more violent. It used to be that the crowd would disperse after the police fired one or two tear-gas cannisters. But in the last riot, the mob dispersed only after the police had fired one hundred tear-gas cannisters.

So, this is what has always happened; a minor incident would trigger violent street protests, but it is not only because of this minor incident that the masses would protest. It is also because they have these perceived grievances; they feel that there are economic inequalities, or they may feel that there is no justice; they feel that justice is only for the rich.

But the protests against the government were not very successful. They were not successful because the people who were leading this struggle against the government were not educated. These people were well-versed in the Quran. But they were not educated in the way of the world. And so they could not threaten the government. I remember one day I went to one of their religious meetings. They were having many such meetings to argue with Christians. And at this meeting, they had a banner which read: "Let the Bible speake." So, I told the Ustaadh who was there that the spelling of "speak" was not correct. That was the way it was written five hundred years ago. And, in subsequent days, when I saw that banner, he had changed the spelling.

The purpose of the banner was that they wanted to criticize the Bible, and that they would find proof in the Bible to support their statements. But when these people were writing in English, as if William Shakespeare was their English teacher, it showed they were not intellectual, and the government did not have any reason to fear them. In saying this, I do not mean to disparage William Shakespeare. I am sure the common man would benefit from reading Shakespeare; he seems to me to be a prophet of the common man.

Another reason why they did not succeed in shaking the government is because they rioted. They did not want to cooperate with Christians. When they rioted, it was not safe for Christians to approach them. They refused to cooperate with people who had the same socio-economic problem they had. And so, the mob had to disperse when the police brought more reinforcements.

But the government, of course, made a great effort to have a dialogue with the Muslims and to assure them that it was doing everything possible to address their concerns. And this went a long way to pacify the Muslim community.

So, these people demonstrate against the government and they are quickly dispersed, and it seems as if it is not important. But this is not the way it should be treated. When these riots took place, President Mwinyi panicked, and suddenly promoted the minister for home affairs and made him deputy prime minister. The interior (home affairs) minister would retain his post but would also be deputy prime minister. This post did not exist before; it is a post President Mwinyi created at that moment. The idea of promoting the minister of interior was, of course, to make him ruthless and grateful for the promotion, and protect the government.

I have been watching these things happen and have felt that this is real politics, when the masses threaten to bring down the government; not to vote it out of office but to bring it down violently. Then it can be said that the people are engaged in political action.

But now you don't see these protests anymore because the government probably has got legitimacy and the masses are convinced that it is doing everything possible to help them.

There was also rioting by hawkers in Dar es Salaam. The government wanted to remove them from the city centre and send them to the outskirts. There was a big riot. Again, it looked as if it would become messy. But the Regional Commissioner, Mustapha Nyan'ganyi, talked to the hawkers, the street vendors, and calmed them down.

I was there, and I thought it was a good thing that Mustapha Nyan'ganyi had been able to calm those people down. And after two weeks, or may be less, Mustapha Nyan'ganyi was appointed the Tanzania ambassador to the United States. Obviously, President Mwinyi was pleased with what he had done.

Then, there was the CUF (Civic United Front) riot in Zanzibar after the election (in 2000). It was very serious and many people died. It was preceded by election violence, on the day of the (general) election, in which many civilians were beaten by the riot police.

Time alone will heal these wound because such political violence scars the minds of the populace. All these incidents are very savage, very brutal, and one wonders why the masses are ever ready ro riot.

But, now, we have peace in the country. Occasionally, there will be a rich man trying to dispossess ten or twenty families of their land. But mostly, there is peace.

These are the riots which have been taking place in the country. I don't know what the future holds."

All this came up when I was discussing with Andrew the political situation in Tanzania while I was working on the expanded edition of my book, Nyerere and Africa: End of an Era, to which he has made a significant contribution in terms of comments on a number of subjects.

Concerning the new era of politics in Africa which is characterized by multiparty politics, and which you have asked me about in this interview, I believe that it will be a long time before the continent achieves true democracy.

Most countries, including Tanzania, remain de-facto one-party states even when elections are not rigged; a rare phenomenon. For example, Tanzania's ruling party CCM has the electoral mandate to rule, although that's highly questionable in Zanzibar. But it clearly won on the mainland. And the country remains a de-facto one-party state for all practical purposes because the opposition is weak and divided. And that is the case in most African countries where government opponents are too weak and divided to mobilize nation-wide support against those in power. And incumbents, whose parties have ruled for decades, capitalize on that to perpetuate themselves in office.