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Julius Nyerere (1922-99)Tanzanian president. Born in March 1922, in Butiama in what was then Tanganyika, Nyerere was the son of a chief of the Zanaki tribe. He became a teacher and, in 1949, was the first African from Tanganyika to study in Britain. After receiving a degree in history and economics from Edinburgh University, he returned to Tanganyika to continue teaching, and became involved in politics. In 1954, he became a member of the British colonial legislative council. In the same year, he also became president of the Tanganyikan African National Union, which advocated independence. Despite constant harassment by the British colonial authorities, he argued for independence and became the colony's chief minister in 1960. When the country was granted internal self-government on 1 May 1961, he was made prime minister and, on full independence in 1962, he became president. He formed a one-party state, building up a political movement that was both socialist and Christian, and struggled to reconcile the various ethnic factions in the country. In 1964, he negotiated the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, which, in October, became Tanzania. In contrast to many other African leaders, Nyerere soon realised that Western models of democracy or Communism were not applicable to African society and needed to be adapted to local conditions. In the Arusha Declaration of 1967, he introduced a socialist economic system that would be based on the ujamaa, or village, which would own all resources. Although this system succeeded in bringing about a greater equality of income, there was little incentive to work harder, and the stresses of the global market soon undermined it. The economy was also debilitated by the war against the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in 1978-9. Nyerere came to have an important influence with the nationalist guerrilla groups in what was to become Zimbabwe. He was a key figure in the formulation of the peace plan that was concluded at the Lancaster House conference in London in 1979. Nyerere's quiet but effective style of public speaking won him respect in the Commonwealth, and he translated Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and The Merchant of Venice into Swahili. He retired in 1985, but remained an influential figure, a symbol of unity and independence. He died on 14 October 1999 in London, where he was being treated for leukaemia. |
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