The “Proconsul of African Nationalism”: Nyerere and Tanzania

Abstract

In 2022, the 100th anniversary of Julius Nyerere (1922–1999), the leader of Tanganyika, the founder and first president of Tanzania, an outstanding African politician and statesman, was celebrated. His political legacy in Tanzania, as well as the socio-political dynamics in Tanganyika and Zanzibar are the milestones in the recent history of the East African region, in the history of ideology, national question, national movements on the continent. His name is associated with both African nationalism and pan-Africanism. The achievements of Nyerere as a nationalist – “gathering”, creating, structuring, stabilizing and preserving a multi-tribal Tanzania as an integral state unit – are at the same time the success of Nyerere as a pan-Africanist, since the Tanganyika-Zanzibar union is a relatively successful experience in the political unification of two previously separate sovereign territories.