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UJAMAA AU UKABILA (NATION OR TRIBE): THE DIVERGENCE OF ECONOMIC AND LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION POLICIES IN KENYA AND TANZANIA

by

TABITHA TONGOI

Ngonidzashe Munemo, Advisor

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Political Science

WILLIAMS COLLEGE

Williamstown, Massachusetts

19/05/2015

DATE Tongoi 2

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Nation or Tribe: Peace in Tanzania vs. Ethnic Conflict in

Kenya……………………………………………………………2

Chapter 2: A Path to Peace: One­Party Socialism and Single Native Language

of Instruction Policies in Tanzania ……………………………29

Chapter 3: The Prevalence of Conflict: Patron­Client Capitalism and a lack of

Single Native Language of Instruction Policies in

Kenya…………………………………………………………..62

Chapter 4: Patron­Client Socialism in Zambia: A missed Opportunity at

Unification……………………………………………………...97

Bibliography………………………………………………………………116 Tongoi 3

Chapter 1:

Nation or Tribe: Peace in Tanzania Vs. Ethnic Conflict in Kenya

In July 2008, I visited Northern Tanzania with my father as part of his doctoral research on ‘Business as Mission in Africa’. We had travelled across the border from my home country Kenya to visit with a young pastor, Mwanajuma, who had succeeded in creating a sustainable farm in his urban home in Morogoro.

Upon arrival, we were warmly welcomed and invited to share in a meal of sima

(cornmeal), kuku (chicken stew) and sukuma wiki (kale), all harvested from his homestead. As the night wore on, Mwanajuma asked us whether things had begun to settle down in Kenya after the post­election violence. At the time, Kenya was just recovering from a tumultuous period of ethnically­charged violence following the 2007 elections. The violence had resulted in the death of over one thousand citizens and the displacement of hundreds of thousands more.

My father, in response, mentioned that our leaders were still at loggerheads and that ethnic tensions were still very high, particularly between the

Kikuyu and the Luo. Mwanajuma responded in Swahili and said, “Ujamaa au ukabila? Shida yenu ni lugha. Ikiwa mngezungumza lugha moja mngenjenga undugu.” (Loosely translated as: Nation or Tribe? Kenya is at war with itself because its citizens do not speak the same language. If you spoke the same Tongoi 4

language you would build a sense of nationhood.) He went on to highlight that despite the fact that Tanzania was just as ethnically diverse as Kenya, it had not experienced political mobilization based on ethnic identities. As the rest of the evening wore on, our conversation meandered into other topics more closely related to my father’s research on ‘Business as Mission in Africa’. However, I couldn’t help but muse over Mwanajuma’s seemingly conventional wisdom that

Kenya is not a peaceful nation because its citizens do not speak the same language. Mwanajuma’s diagnosis of ethnic violence in Kenya appeared simplistic at first glance but upon further reflection I realized it was worth investigating as Kenya and Tanzania share many similarities but differ with respect to conflict.

The Puzzle

As Joel Barkan notes, “it is not surprising that until the mid­1980’s more articles and books were published about [Kenya and Tanzania] than about any other countries on the African continent except South Africa and possibly

Nigeria.1” Analyses of Kenya and Tanzania are appealing because these countries share geographical and historical commonalities, which enable scholars to control

“the number of variables that impinge upon the developmental process and that

1 Joel Barkan, "Divergence and Convergence in Kenya and Tanzania: Pressures for Reform," Beyond Capitalism versus Socialism in Kenya and Tanzania (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1994) 7. Barkan D. Joel. “Divergence and Convergence” 7. Tongoi 5

can be held constant or near constant in an examination of the countries” 2 yet they have followed radically different trajectories of development. Specifically, both countries are populated by small peasant agricultural households many of which have similar Swahili­speaking Bantu cultures. In addition, both experienced colonial rule and inherited a common set of political, administrative and economic institutions. Initially, Tanzania was under German rule but became a British

Protectorate in 1920 while Kenya was a settler colony from 1885. Colonial rule set in place a common market with a single currency as well as transport and communication infrastructure such as ports and railway lines. As adjacent countries, they share a common climate and similar natural resource endowments.

Ethnically, both countries are similarly fragmented with the likelihood that two randomly selected individuals being from different ethnic groups being higher than 0.93.

Linguistically, both countries share a history of Kiswahili use. Kiswahili emerged as a language of trade on the East African coast before the tenth century.

It was a language that was composed of both Bantu and Arabic words. The expansion of Kiswahili inland from the coast occurred during two phases. The first was the Arab slave trade of East Africa in the early 1800’s during which the

2 Barkan 7. 3 Daniel Posner, “Measuring Ethnic Fractionalization in Africa”, American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 48, No. 4, (October 2004): 849. Accessed April 15, 2015. < http://web.mit.edu/posner/www/papers/ethnic_fraction.pdf> Tongoi 6

interior of the country was gradually opened up by trading caravans with then in the form of a Swahili­speaking ‘managerial’ core. And the second was during colonialism when the first systematic studies of the Swahili language were made by missionaries and used as a basis for teaching. Consequently, a census carried out within a few years of independence indicates that whereas only 10 percent of the population of Tanzania spoke Kiswahili as their mother tongue, it is estimated that 90 percent of the population were bilingual in Kiswahili and a vernacular language, with only 15 percent having any knowledge of English4. In Kenya it is estimated that at independence, only 2% of the population of spoke Kiswahili as their mother tongue, 60­70 percent of the population were bilingual in Kiswahili and a vernacular language5, and 9 percent spoke English as a first language6, and a large percentage had a basic knowledge of English. In both Kenya and Tanzania, the spread of Swahili was reinforced by the fact that it had no tribal roots, thus making it acceptable to the learners; it was easily learnt by people speaking other

Bantu languages because of its structural similarities; it was used in trade and commercial interactions; it was a lingua franca in urban communication; and lastly, it was widely used in religious activities and in the army and police7.

4 Casmir, Rubagumya, Language in Education in Africa: A Tanzanian Perspective. Multilingual Matters Press, 1990. 5 Jenny Cheshire. English Around the World: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. 6 Cambridge Encyclopedia of English Use. 7 Martin, Putz. Discrimination through Language Use in Africa? Perspectives of the Namibian Experience. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter, 1995. Tongoi 7

Despite these similarities, Kenya and Tanzania have had very different economic and political trajectories after independence – especially as concerns matters of governance, policy, multi­party politics, the state and civil society – so much so that Kenya has suffered several ethnic clashes while Tanzania remains peaceful. The most obvious point of divergence for Kenya and Tanzania has been their choice of economic policies and thus a vast majority of the comparative literature that seeks to decipher the foundational difference between Kenya and

Tanzania has focused on post­independence economic policies. As Lofchie notes,

Kenya has been termed somewhat of an “economic miracle” in Africa owing to its international reputation for steady capitalist economic growth in the years following independence. Tanzania, contrastingly, has been regarded as one of

Africa’s worst cases of economic mismanagement, alongside Ghana because of its extreme socialist­driven economic decline particularly in the 1980’s. However, if the wider literature on the intersection of economics and ethnic politics in

Africa is to be applied to the cases of Kenya and Tanzania, one would expect ethnic conflict in Tanzania rather than in Kenya as in poorer economies people are more likely to band around ethnic identities in order to make claims on scarce resources. However, in the case of Kenya and Tanzania, the opposite is true.

Kenya, experienced greater economic growth than Tanzania yet has endured multiple episodes of ethnic conflict, while in Tanzania, despite its shrinking economic pie, has not experienced rampant civil unrest that is ethnically Tongoi 8

construed. In Kenya, civil unrest is blatantly animated along ethnic lines ­ with members of the Luo and Kalenjin communities clashing with the dominant

Kikuyu tribe.

This thesis seeks to explain why despite the combination of high ethnolinguistic fractionalization and very poor economic growth, Tanzania has been peaceful yet Kenya, despite more robust economic growth has endured episodes of conflict. I draw from and advance the theoretical framework of

Edward Miguel and Daniel Barkan to argue that Kenya's and Tanzania's divergence is tied to their divergent economic and linguistic policies. This thesis argues that Tanzania’s one­party socialism and single native language of instruction policies are what bolstered it from disintegrating into ethnic violence and that Kenya’s patron­client capitalism and lack of a single native language of instruction policy are what led to ethnically­articulated violence.

Literature Review on Ethnic Diversity and Conflict in Post­independence

Africa

Before engaging in a discussion of ethnicity in Africa, it is imperative that

I first define the term “ethnicity” and its usage in this thesis. The term “ethnicity” is broadly used in the social sciences to refer to “the state of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition”. Ethnicity therefore refers to shared cultural practices, perspectives and distinctions that set apart one group Tongoi 9

of people from another. In this thesis, ethnicity and tribe8 are used interchangeably just as they are used in Kenya and Tanzania to refer to distinct linguistic and cultural communities. In both Kenya and Tanzania, ethnicity is demarcated mainly by language rather than shared cultural practices and as such ethnicity ­ via language – serves to distinguish one group from another. By this definition, the Kikuyu and the Kamba are distinct ethnic groups because they speak different languages. This is still the case, despite the fact that they might share cultural practices such as circumcision or small­scale farming for sustenance. In Kenya and Tanzania, ethnicity pre­dated the colonial encounter. African societies functioned through an “elaborate system based on a confederation of groups with ethnic, cultural, and linguistic characteristics.” The process of British colonial state­formation, and in particular, indirect rule; highlighted differences between ethnic groups and rendered ethnicity as a salient identity. Britain’s system of divide and rule pitted one group against each other. In Kenya’s case, for example, the Kikuyu ethnic group had greater access to state resources due to its geographical proximity to Nairobi – the capital city and headquarters of the colonial government.

Based off of this working definition of ethnicity, it is not surprising, that scholars of Africa have long focused on ethnicity as a central feature of the

8 Some scholars prefer to use ethnicity rather than tribe as the latter was, in many instances, used as a racial slur to connote the “primitivity” of indigenous African people. Tongoi 10

continents political and economic rhetoric. In many instance, ethnic conflict management has been the central focus of scholarship on Africa, given the continent’s unusually high level of ethnic diversity and equally high incidence of violent conflict.9 Academics have traditionally argued that internal ethnic divisions are detrimental to political and economic stability. Ethnic diversity has thus been blamed for among other things, sparking conflict and social divisions, which, in turn, negatively impact the economic and political development of states.

Broad­based scholarly works on ethnic conflict have underscored the notion that diversity is responsible for Africa’s low provision of public goods

(Kimenyi, 2006; Miguel and Gugerty, 2005), political instability (Buhang, 2006;

Easterly, 2001), and high conflict (Barr and Oduro, 2002; Milanovic, 2002).

Gabriel Almond’s seminal article, “Comparative Political Systems”10, written in

1956, asserts that there is a causal relationship between ethnic fragmentation and rising conflict. This view was prevalent among many policymakers in the 1960’s who cited the perils of ethnic division and tribalism as the root causes of democracy’s failure in the newly independent states of Asia and Africa. These

9 Englebert and Dunn note that for all of sub­Saharan Africa, the probability that two randomly selected individuals belong to different ethnic groups is 66 percent, while for the world as a whole (including Africa), the average is 36 percent. As such, they argue that Africa is significantly more ethnically diverse and heterogeneous than the rest of the world. 10 Gabriel Almond, Comparative Political Systems, The Journal of Politics Vol. 18, No. 3 (Aug., 1956) 391­409. Tongoi 11

contemporary works seemed to confirm John Stuart Mill’s old argument that stable democracy is only possible in relatively homogenous societies: free institutions are next to impossible in a country made of different nationalities.11

Since then, numerous comparative studies have examined the effect of ethnic heterogeneity on political stability and have argued that the prospects for sustainable economic and political development increase when the number of ethnic groups in a state decreases. Arend Lijphart argues in his work on consociational democracy, Democracy in Pluralistic Societies that, “cooperation among groups becomes more difficult as the number of participating in negotiations increases”12. Thus a study of African societies cannot ignore the political salience of ethnicity. From independence to present day, this is a reality that African nationalists and scholars have had to come to terms with particularly because social mobilization easily and often occurs along ethnic lines. Ethnic identity in postcolonial Africa is a potentially lethal social and political building block that political leaders exploit in order to take control of the state. In what follows, I highlight the main approaches to the study of ethnicity.

Goran Hyden, who writes extensively on African politics in comparative perspective, provides us with four types of approaches to the study of ethnicity.

11 John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1958) 230. 12 Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration (New Haven: Connecticut, Yale University Press, 1977) 56. Tongoi 12

The first approach, primordialism, argues that “family, kinship, ethnicity and language are the most influential formative factors in life… [and that] individuals are captured by these social and cultural givens to such an extent that their behavior and choices are a direct reflection of these attachments.”13 This school of thought views ethnicity as a “deep­rooted, ancestral, irreducible, and non­ negotiable part of one’s identity.”14 The second approach, constructivism, assumes

“a much greater degree of autonomy by implying that individuals are not complete captives of their cultural environment but use pieces of it in creative ways to define who they are.”15 For constructivists, writing in the late 1970’s and

1980’s, ethnic identities are somewhat malleable and are dependent upon other factors. For constructivists, ethnic identity does not transcend contemporary life, rather it can be constructed and deconstructed, invented or rendered less salient.

While identities are constructed and mobilized for resource mobilization within the state, they have real traction in the political imagination of states and as such are not easily reconstructed.

Utilitarianism or instrumentalism, the third approach identified by Hyden, takes ethnicity as an alienable political commodity that can be traded for materialist and other tangible gains. Utilitarianism assumes that individuals “will

13 Goran Hyden, African Politics in Comparative Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006) 186. 14 Kevin Dunn and Pierre Englebert. Inside African Politics (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2013) 68. 15 Hyden 187. Tongoi 13

act together to maximize their common preferences, interests or purposes when the benefits of doing so exceed the costs”16 Dunn et. al note that the “two key dimensions of instrumentalist texts is their tendency to focus on the uses of ethnicity by political entrepreneurs and their view of ethnic groups as political coalitions like any other.”17 As Hyden writes, students of political leaders in

Africa such as Bates (1981) and Majefe (1971) have argued that political leaders call on tribalism to advance their own political agenda under the façade of acting on behalf of their ethnic groups. The salience of ethnic identities is thus the result of rational cost­benefit analyses by political entrepreneurs.

The last approach that Hyden identifies in the literature on identity politics is transactivism, which argues that identity is determined in the context of social interaction. For scholars such as Eriksen (1993), self­identification is not enough to understand how a particular identity such as ethnicity or nationality comes about. Barth (1969) argues similarly that “we cannot ignore the ascriptive nature of ethnic groups – that is how the boundaries of these groups are maintained with the help of language, dress, food and other types of symbols.”18 As Hyden states, these phenomena become particularly potent in social exchanges and determine the boundaries of inclusivity and exclusivity. These four approaches are represented in the table below19:

16Banton 1993 in Dunn et al 94. 17Dunn et. al 95. 18 Hyden 188. Tongoi 14

Autonomous

Constructed Utilitarian

End Means

Primordial Transactive

Embedded

Figure 1. Definitions of ethnicity (Hyden)

In my analysis of Kenya and Tanzania, I align my approach with two schools of thought – instrumentalism and transactivism. Instrumentalism asserts that while ethnicity may have existed prior to colonialism in Africa, the actions of post­independence leaders have resulted in its salience as politicians use ethnic groups as an alienable political commodity to maximize their own gains.

Additionally, ethnicity is reproduced as a social construction through transactivism and is maintained through language practices as afforded by language of instruction policies. Both schools of thought inform the origins and endurance of Kikuyu ethnic domination that has led to ethnic conflict in Kenya and the socially engineered creation of a pan­ethnic, largely peaceful Tanzanian nation.

19 Hyden 186. Tongoi 15

Outside of the literature on definitions and origins of ethnic­based identity in Africa, some scholars have sought to explain the variation between countries.

Collier and Hoefller (1998) and Lijphart (1977) have argued that it is not simply ethnicity in and of itself that is problematic but rather ethnic concentration, and especially polarization that are the principal culprits behind conflict in Africa.

Collier and Hoefller assert that “wherever two relatively equal but distinct cultural groups account for most of a country’s population, the probability of conflict is higher than in societies with more diverse and dispersed groups”20. Lijphart writes that in plural societies, that is “[societies] divided by what Harry Eckstein calls

“segmental cleavages…political divisions follow very closely, and especially concern lines of objective differentiation, especially those particularly salient in a society.”21 For Lijphart, it is the very nature of the society that constitutes a crisis.

Daniel Posner, an Africanist scholar provides the seminal work,

“Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa”, that focuses on the intersection of ethnicity and economic policies in Africa. Posner’s work starts with the assumption that political grouping is brought about by rational decision­making around access to State­provided goods and services. In other words, “ethnic or linguistic identity is not the variable that drives people to organize politically, it is the variable around which they decide to organize into coalitions to gain the most

20 Hyden 196. 21 Lijphart, 6. Quoting Harry Eckstein, Division and Cohesion in Democracy: A Study of Norway (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966) 34. Tongoi 16

access to government goods and services.” If access to economic resources is the core motivation for grouping around ethnic identities, one would expect that where these resources are more scarce, ethnic banding would be more potent.

However in the case of Kenya and Tanzania, the opposite is true. Despite its higher levels of economic growth, why is ethnicity a salient feature of politics in

Kenya while in poorer Tanzania it is not?

These arguments by Collier & Hoefler, Lijphart and Posner do little to explain the divergence between Kenya and Tanzania. In Kenya, the Kikuyu account for only 20 percent of the population with the Luhya, Luo and Kalenjin accounting for 14 percent, 13 percent and 12 percent of the population respectively. In Tanzania the variation is similar with the Sukuma accounting for

16 percent of the population and the Nyamwezi and Chagga accounting for 8 percent­ 10 percent each. Lijphart’s argument on ethnic variation thus fails to explain the stark contrast in Kenya’s and Tanzania’s trajectory as pertains to ethnic conflict. In both countries, one would expect that the larger groups would manipulate ethnic ties in order to secure political and economic power. However, this happens only in Kenya as in Tanzania the Sukuma, Nyamwezi and Chagga opted instead to fold into the nationalist rhetoric.

Needless to say, as is evidenced by my literature review, post­ independence analyses on ethnicity and nation building in Africa have focused on Tongoi 17

how political socialization leads to the disintegration of national unity. While these insights are useful in positing ethnic fragmentation as a root cause for ethnic violence in Africa, they cannot address the central concern of this study – why similarly diverse countries have had different outcomes. While ethnically diverse post­independence Kenya fits the literature on ethnic conflict in Africa that argues that heterogeneity breeds conflict, we do not see this uniform negative outcome in equally ethnically diverse Tanzania. Why has Kenya endured ethnic tension and conflict while equally diverse Tanzania has not? In answering this question, I am informed by Joel Barkan’s comparative analysis of Tanzania’s and Kenya’s economic systems and Edward Miguel’s comparative study on nation building and comparative goods provision in Kenya and Tanzania.

Joel Barkan elucidates this paradox by arguing that economic models determine “the pace, sequence and configuration” by which development takes place22. Barkan coins the term “one­party socialism” to describe Tanzania and the term “patron­client capitalism” to describe Kenya, in order to capture the specific configurations of public policies and political institutions that distinguished the two countries from each other23. While Kenya’s and Tanzania’s economic models may have fitted within Cold War typologies of capitalism and communism, respectively, a contemporary reading might refer to them simply as varieties of

22 Barkan preface p. xiv. 23 Barkan 5. Tongoi 18

State capitalism24. By this definition, Kenya would fit into a model of decentralized State capitalism while Tanzania would fit within a trope of State­led centralized capitalism. By analyzing Kenya and Tanzania as, simply, varieties of

State capitalism, the State is then seen as primarily and predominantly determining access to the economy by playing the role of distributor of white­ collar jobs. In this framework, the Tanzanian State would be assessed as having provided white­collar jobs equitably regardless of ethnicity, and in so doing guarded against the emergence of class25 differences, while the Kenyan State would be assessed as permitting private accumulation and supporting the growth of class inequality by provided white­collar jobs to a preferred ethnic group – the

Kikuyu. The shortfall with this approach, however, is this: it fails to acknowledge that while Ujamaa was, by and large, an economic system that resembled State­ led centralized capitalism more than it did Marixst socialism, it was, foundationally, a social engineering project whose core mandate was to unite ethnic groups by adopting a single native language policy. For this reason, I return

24 Prof. Mahon, Thesis Discussion, April 27 2015. 25 During my thesis discussion, Prof. Mahon alluded to a framework that explored the notion that ethno­linguistic demarcations map onto class distinctions and that essentially language was a marker of one’s class. However, I disagree with this statement. Such a proposition would mean that being Kikuyu in Kenya granted one entry into a higher social class by default. However, this was not always necessarily the case. Elite members of the Kikuyu tribe that did not tow the line were ostracized – J.M Kariuki and Began Mbugua are a case in point. Additionally, non­elite members of other ethnic communities that were ascribed to Kikuyu hegemony, such as Daniel Arap Moi, who is a Kalenjin and came from a poor socio­economic background, were granted access to economic resources. The working distinction at hand was therefore not class, but rather ethnicity. Tongoi 19

to Barkan’s distinctions of patron­client capitalism for Kenya, and one­party socialism for Tanzania. The use of the term patron­client capitalism for Kenya succinctly describes “an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit”26 ; and that is overlain with political decisions that are divisive and usually articulated along ethnic lines.

By contrast, socialism captures an ethos of “social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.”27 The use of the term socialism also acknowledges that Tanzania, not only attempted to make an ideological shift away from capitalism, (even though socialism, as a transitional stage to communism, was not fully achieved as described in Marxist theory); but also that it engaged in a project of social engineering by adopting Kiswahili as a single unifying native language of administration and instruction.

Barkan argues that Kenya’s pursuit of patron­client capitalism led to clustering around ethnic identities. In other words, patron­client capitalism was an economic strategy that emphasized growth over equity. Contrastingly, Barkan states that Tanzania’s pursuit of one­party socialism greatly contributed to a nationalist ethos but curtailed the country’s economic growth. These particular nuances, as notably highlighted by Barkan, go a long way in providing a historical

26 Merriam Webster Dictionary. 27 Merriam Webster Dictionary. Tongoi 20

background for the prevalence of peace in Tanzania and the perpetual eruptions of ethnically­charged violence in Kenya.

Barkan writes that, “so divergent were these strategies that until the mid­

1980’s, one country’s model for development was invariably regarded by the leadership of the other as a recipe for underdevelopment”28. Kenya’s strategy was to maximize economic growth, while Tanzania’s was to maximize equity. By

Barkan’s argument, Kenya’s patron­client capitalism may have translated into faster economic growth, but owing to corruption and favoritism along ethnic lines, its development was curtailed by violent episodes of ethnic dissent.

Contrastingly, while one­party socialism in Tanzania might have slowed down economic growth in the short run, the focus on equality meant that broad/deep differences across ethnic groups did not become institutionalized. However,

Barkan’s argument falls short in that it does not identify the working variable within economic models that most notably contributes to divergences in nation­ building and local collective outcomes. It is for this reason that my analysis draws form the theoretical framework of Edward Miguel.

Miguel’s research falls within the transactivist school of thought and begins by estimating the impact of ethnic diversity on local collective outcomes in both Tanzania and Kenya in order to argue that the differences in both countries

28 Barkan 6. Tongoi 21

were most likely caused by differences in nation­building policies. Miguel’s proposition is that “nation building requires a dramatic restructuring of cultural, educational, and language policies [and thus] should move onto government policy agendas”. In his view, “public policies that promote interaction, information sharing and coordination across groups are plausible vehicles for reducing inefficiencies associated with diversity.”29 He asserts that in order to sustain cooperation across numerous ethnic groups, members of different groups need to have frequent social interactions and personal affinity as community pressure and dense social ties are crucial in sustaining good collective outcomes30.

Miguel argues that political socialization happens mainly through mass media and educational systems [as these] can be employed by political leaders to inculcate citizens with desirable political ideals, including a strong attachment to the nation over regional or ethnic identities.”31. Miguel argues that the working variable in economic models that most notably contributes to divergences in nation­building between Kenya and Tanzania, is the education system – particularly the language of instruction in schools. This, he posits, is because the language of instruction directly allows for a mass propagation of doctrinal values while serving to most blatantly highlight or downplay ethnic divisions, particularly in ethno­

29 Edward Miguel, “Tribe or Nation?: Nation building and public goods in Kenya versus Tanzania” in World Politics 56.3, 327­ 362 (The John Hopkins University Press, 2004), 329. 30 Miguel 329. 31 Miguel 331. Tongoi 22

linguistically heterogeneous societies. However, Miguel’s argument does not explicitly explain how projects of nation­building come to diverge in the first instance. While he alludes to differences in public policies as explaining divergent outcomes in Kenya and Tanzania, he does not provide a theoretical rational for how public policies are preliminarily shaped by political ideologies and economic models.

My thesis therefore draws from both Barkan’s and Miguel’s arguments in order to account for how economic models map onto projects of national building in order to explain divergences in Kenya and Tanzania’s economic and political trajectories. Barkan’s argument provides a historical and theoretical framework with which to understand how economic models in Kenya and Tanzania came to differ in the first place, while Miguel’s argument illustrates that language of instruction policies are the pivotal mechanism by which centralized nation­ building projects foster local collective action in ethno­linguistically diverse settings.

The goal of this thesis is, therefore, to systematically consider how collective political action, peace and stability can be sustained in ethnically diverse settings through nationally inclusive economic and language of instruction policies, with post­independence Kenya and Tanzania as my case studies, and

Zambia as a preliminary extension. At the very core of my argument is the Tongoi 23

assertion that Kenya’s post­independence economic policy reinforced ethnicity, while Tanzania’s Ujamaa policy rendered ethnicity apolitical. By this assumption, my thesis argues from both instrumentalist and transactivist schools of thought by asserting that ethnicity is sustained and perpetuated as in the case of Kenya, or subverted and downplayed as in the case of Tanzania, for political and economic gains through the use of language as a socially­constructing demarcation. Using colonial boundaries as a natural experiment, I seek to evaluate how differences in postcolonial economic policies and language of instruction policies might explain the prevalence of ethnic­identity based politics in Kenya, and the insignificance thereof in Tanzania. My thesis argues that one­party socialism and single native language of instruction policies in Tanzania account for its relative peace and stability, while patron­client capitalism and a lack of single native language of instruction policies in Kenya account for its frequent episodes of ethnically charged violence.

Chapter Development

In chapter two, I trace Tanzania’s economic policies from independence till the end of Nyerere’s rule in 198532 to demonstrate that despite its potential to become as ethnically charged as Kenya, Tanzania’s peace can be explained by its

32 Nyerere retired from the Presidency in 1985, after which Tanzania made the switch to capitalism. The period of analysis from 1961­ 1985 is crucial in determining how Ujamaa led to the entrenchment of nationalist values amongst the Tanzanian citizenry. Tongoi 24

adoption of one­party socialism and its consequent single native language of instruction policies. I argue that while Nyerere’s adoption of African Socialism was an economic project that sought to radically restructure the market, it was also by and large a deliberate project in social engineering and nation­building.

As an economic policy, Ujamaa attempted to overhaul the colonial legacy of capitalism and to reorient the local market towards self­sustenance through the nationalization of manufacturing and production and the installation of agricultural cooperatives (Ujamaa villages). Central to Ujamaa was a linguistic policy that decreed that Kiswahili be the sole official and national language and that degraded the use of English and vernacular languages in common everyday use. The adoption of this policy was carried out through the education system when Kiswahili was instituted as the sole language of instruction in schools.

Whether Ujamaa failed due to intrinsic flaws in its policies or due to failures in implementation, is not the concern of this study. Rather, chapter two seeks to understand the mechanism by which Ujamaa created a sense of nationalism that has resulted in peace and stability. Chapter two therefore argues that Ujamaa was predicated on an equal distribution of resources to all regardless of ethnicity. As such, the distribution of economic spoils based on ethnicity was neither fed nor sustained by state policy. Additionally, a single native language of instruction policy, was a deliberate project of social engineering that served to de­emphasize ethnic, racial and linguistic cleavages. Tongoi 25

In chapter three, I trace Kenya’s economic policies from independence till the end of one­party rule under Moi in 199033. I analyze the intersection between

Kenya’s post­independence economic model and its language of instruction policies after independence. I argue that Kenya’s pursuit of capitalism created an ethnically­charged patron­client system and that the consequent adoption of

Harambee (or self­help) resulted in a decentralized education system and language of instruction policies. This is because, at independence, Kenyatta did little to overhaul capitalism as it had been set up by the British. Instead, he established Harambee – a system of self­help that decentralized capitalist development and that allowed ethnic groups to cluster around parochial land and linguistic identities and in so doing crippled the economy. Harambee turned into a system of patron­client capitalism by which members of Kenyatta’s ethnic group, the Kikuyu, benefitted from the economic spoils of the country at the expense of other groups. During Moi’s era, Nyayo continued in the footsteps of Harambee, but became a system by which Moi’s tribesmen, the Kalenjin, gained access to economic spoils. The effects of decentralized development were reflected in the education system. Not only was English given status as the official language, it was also instituted as the main language of instruction in schools. Kiswahili came second and vernaculars third with each ethnic group being granted jurisdiction

33 Moi came to power in 1978, but officially ended single­party rule in 1990. The period from 1963 to 1990 marks the foundation of ethnic divisions in Kenya. Ethnic violence became more rampant during and after the 1990’s ­ especially during the election periods of 1992, 1997 and 2008. Tongoi 26

over its language of instruction in schools. This had the effect of demarcating class and ethnic cleavages – individuals who spoke English and Kikuyu were thus the first in line to benefit from economic spoils. This emphasis on multiple and non­singular native language of instructions further highlighted cleavages.

Chapter three therefore illustrates that it is the very intersection of patron­client capitalism and non­singular language of instruction policies that served to propagate inequitable development and thus violence and dissension along ethnic lines.

In chapter four, I summarize the findings of my thesis and then extend my hypothesis through a brief discussion of Zambia. Zambia resembles Kenya and

Tanzania in many ways. Firstly, it experienced British colonial rule and as such it inherited capitalism as an economic model. Economically, Zambia experienced both socialism and capitalism, each with varying success. Because of this, I can use Zambia to highlight the effect of economic policy stressed in this thesis.

Secondly, Zambia has a high ethno­linguistic fractionalization index of 0.82 and a similar ethnic make­up to Kenya and Tanzania in which the largest ethnic groups make up about a fifth of the population and thus no single group can dominate the others by virtue of population size. Thirdly, Zambia inherited English as a national language and attempted to use it as a non­native unifying language, with little to no success. This is a particular development is nuanced by that fact that while Zambia does not have the benefit of Kiswahili as a neutral lingua franca, Tongoi 27

half of its population speaks Bemba, a native language that could have been

propagated as a tool for nation­building. Zambia’s trajectory therefore suggests

that in order for language to serve as a unifying factor, it is of critical importance

that the language of choice be native to its speakers. Zambia therefore finds itself

occupying the continuum of economic and language of instruction policies

between Tanzania and Kenya. I argue that Zambia is an example of non­native

single language policies and patron­client socialism as illustrated in the table

below.

Capitalism (Accumulation) Socialism (Equity)

Native Single Language //// Tanzania (Peace) Policy

Zambia (Sporadic occurrences of Kenya (Ethnically­articulated Lack of Native Single ethnically­articulated dissent but not Language conflict) Policy necessarily violence)

Figure 2. The Convergence of Economic Policies and Language of Instruction

Policies

In the subsequent chapters, I illustrate that the material differences in

Kenya and Tanzania are a product differing models of economic development that Tongoi 28

in turn influenced their native language of instruction policies. Economically, I show that Kenya pursued patron­client capitalism and Tanzania instituted one­ party socialism. Kenya pursued an economic strategy that emphasized a capitalist economic model, built on institutions and policies inherited from the colonial era, while Tanzania made a clean break with its colonial legacy, choosing instead to pursue socialism. I examine how these economic choices in turn influenced native language of instruction policies, leading to ameliorated ethnic cleavages in

Tanzania and heightened ethnic conflict in Kenya. Tongoi 29

Chapter 2

A Path to Peace: One­Party Socialism and Single Native Language of Instruction

Policies in Tanzania

At independence, as scholars like Collier and Hoefller would assert, Tanzania seemed poised to fall victim to ethnic, religious and racial conflict. Tanzania had two large and powerful tribal groups, the WaSukuma, WaNyamwezi and WaChagga, accounting for 16 percent, 8 percent and 10 percent of the entire population, respectively, and each with a budding agricultural economy. The other 120 distinct language/ethnic groups make up 66 percent of the population. It also had an almost equal number of Christians and Muslims; and small but important non­indigenous communities of Asians and Europeans. Despite its high ethnic fragmentation of 0.93, Tanzania has managed to have few significant ethnic divisions and has attained more political stability than many post­independence

African states. It has succeeded not only in integrating its 130 tribes into a new nation­ state; but it has also absorbed within its union, through a federal structure, the islands of

Zanzibar and Pemba.34 As Godfrey Mwakikagele writes, “Few countries in the world can match Tanzania’s record of inclusion. Indeed, it’s not uncommon to hear people from other countries who have lived in Tanzania say, ‘There is no racism and tribalism in

Tanzania.’” 35 Tanzania provides an example of one of the most successful cases of

34 Micheal Hodd. “Tanzania After Nyerere.” The Journal of Developing Areas Vol 3 (1989): 10. JSTOR. Accessed April 13, 2015 < http://www.jstor.org/stable/4191779?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents > Tongoi 30

inclusive civic nationalism and transformation in Africa. On a continent where the post­ independence process of nation­building has produced many long­burning conflicts,

Tanzania stands as an outlier state.

What accounts for Tanzania’s success, despite having one of the highest levels of ethnic diversity in Africa? This chapter contends that Tanzania’s stability is no accident, but the outcome of a centrally formulated strategy of undermining ethnic ties through restructuring the economy and adopting a unifying single native language policy. I identify and expound on two main factors that led to the successful creation of a strong

Tanzanian national identity. The first was the adoption of African socialism, Ujamaa, in

1967 in response to the failures of neocolonial capitalism. Ujamaa worked to actively break down the material basis of economic disparities along class, racial and ethnic lines by discouraging and preventing private accumulation. Through programs such as villagization, Ujamaa inculcated a nationalistic rhetoric that transcended ethnic loyalties.

The second feature of Tanzania’s history that worked to dissipate racial, ethnic and religious tensions was the institutionalization of Swahili as the native language of instruction in schools. As a single native language of instruction, Kiswahili bridged the existing cleavages that transcended ethnic, racial and religious identities and loyalties.

This was backed by a revision of the curriculum content, the Africanization of the teaching force and an extensive adult literacy program. Peace in Tanzania was therefore a

35 Godfrey Mwakikagile. Nyerere and Africa: End of an era (Atlanta, GA: Protea Publishing, 2002) 335. Tongoi 31

result of deliberate economic and linguistic policies that deemphasized racial, ethnic and religious cleavages.

Economics: The Road to Socialism in Tanzania

The occupation of Tanganyika36 by Germany in the early 20th century not only changed the socio­political structures of the indigenous people of Tanganyika but also ushered it into a capitalist world economic system. The people of Tanganyika were forced to alter their agricultural production systems and orient their local economies toward providing raw materials for European metropoles. German rule succeeded in ushering tectonic shifts in the economic landscape of Tanganyika through the introduction of a hut tax37. Although Germans practiced indirect rule – that is, they afforded the indigenous population a significant amount of cultural autonomy ­ the colonial economy was coercive and extortive. Not surprisingly, these regimes of compulsion and exploitation were met with a lot of resistance, culminating in the clashes of the Maji Maji rebellion that ran from 1905 – 1907.

After World War One, Germany lost all of her colonies to the victors. Thus,

Britain took over the administration of colonial Tanganyika and, like Germany, relied on a system of indirect rule in which “Africans were guaranteed possession of their land so as to cultivate cash crops while the political system of indirect rule was aimed at

36 Tanganyika refers to present­day Mainland Tanzania prior to its merger with Zanzibar to form Tanzania. 37 Hut tax was a type of taxation introduced by British and German colonialists in Africa on a per hut or household basis It was payable in grain, money or stock. The monetization of the economy supported the British colonial administration by forcing Africans to labor in the colonial economy. Tongoi 32

silencing the vast majority by using a few indigenous authorities as instruments for disciplining the peasant masses.”38 Indirect rule was thus a means of extracting taxes, labor and surplus with minimum overt political change. Nonetheless, despite these claims of minimal political change, indirect rule succeeded in highlighting: racial differences between the Muhindi (Asian) and the African; class differences between the educated

African elite and the non­educated peasantry; and regional differences that favored greater development in the North leading to closer integration of these areas into the capitalist economy. However, a significant swath of the African population united in their opposition to colonialism, eventually forming the Tanganyika African National Union

(TANU) in 1954 under the leadership of Julius Nyerere . In 1961, this vehement opposition culminated in Uhuru (Independence).

Upon gaining independence, Tanzania continued to pursue a capitalist economic model. The colonial legacy of dependence on Western economies as well as low local production accentuated social differentiation throughout the country. The Africanization of the Civil Service resulted in a greater number of African petty bourgeoisie within the political and ruling elite39. Despite these real gains for Africans following independence in Tanzania, the transfer of power into the hands of an African ruling class only served to further stratify the country. African elites were eager to transfer the spoils of the colonial era to their own coffers. Additionally, Asians continued to dominate the commercial sector of the economy as colonization had given them a headstart by barring Africans

38 Horace Campbell. “Socialism in Tanzania: A case Study.” Third World Politics. 6 (1975): 2. JSTOR. 13 April 2015. . 39 Campbell 44. Tongoi 33

from getting credit through the African Credit (Restriction) Ordinance of 193140. Owing to these realities, the first six years of independence saw a vast majority of the African population denied access to economic opportunities. As Campbell notes,

in a population of more than [thirteen] million, the international bourgeoisie and their agents, the white settlers and comprador capitalists were still profiting from the labor of the peasants [of whom] 85 percent …were illiterate….The low yields from agricultural production were reinforced by the lack of an industrial base. The rural poor testified to the special committee of cooperatives in 1966 that [their] incomes [had] been dwindling and … [that] they were continually being overtaxed.41

Facing ever shrinking foreign exchange earnings from cotton, sisal, cashew nuts, tobacco and tea, Nyerere was well aware that Tanganyika’s economy needed to be radically transformed. A new approach to economic development was crucial if Tanzania was to keep from deteriorating into poverty and fracturing along racial, religious, class or ethnic lines42.

Thus in 1967, Nyerere adopted a bold new socialist economic strategy that would radically break away with the capitalist colonial legacy. In February 1967, Nyerere declared:

40 Campbell 44. 41 Campbell 44. 42 Politically, a violent coup in Zanzibar in 1964 in which the Arab minority leadership was overthrown, was indicative of the racial and religious cleavages that were beginning to take form within the country. Tongoi 34

We have been oppressed a great deal, and we have been exploited a great deal and we have been disregarded a great deal. It is our weakness which has led to our being oppressed, exploited and disregarded. Now we want a revolution – a revolution which brings an end to our weakness, so that we are never again exploited, oppressed or humiliated.43 The Arusha Declaration was fundamentally a socialist development program that: stressed a more equitable distribution of the country’s wealth at the expense of high rates of economic growth; state ownership of the “commanding heights” of the Tanzanian economy; the diminution and regulation of the private sector; de­ emphasis of Tanzania’s principal agricultural exports – coffee, cotton, and sisal – in favor of the creation of more than 300 import substitution industries owned by the state; state intervention in the marketing of the country’s food supply; and the forced villagization of the rural population.”44 The Arusha Declaration was a deliberate decision by the leadership to radically transform both the ideological and the material bases of the country. Economically, this translated into the nationalization of all commercial banks, insurance agencies, import/export business and milling industries such that the State would then control all leading sectors of the economy45. The National Development Corporation was mandated to instigate, coordinate and manage this aspect of government policy. Politically, TANU moved in to adopt concrete measures that would limit the growth of a bureaucratic petty bourgeoisie. The Arusha Declaration stipulated that “[every] TANU and government leader must be either a peasant or a worker, and should in no way be associated with the practices of capitalism and feudalism.”46 The leadership code thus mandated that leaders of government, party and parastatal not be allowed to hold shares, own private enterprises or receive multiple salaries from private property. Similarly for the populace, the creation

43 Julius Nyerere. “Arusha Declaration”. Freedom as Socialism. 235. 44 Barkan 5. 45 Nyerere 236. 46 Nyerere 249. Tongoi 35

of Ujamaa villages was meant to curtail geographic disparities in economic growth. The villagization policy emphasized the principles of “joint production, egalitarian distribution and the universal obligation to work”47. Ujamaa villages were the embodiment of self­reliance. Most importantly though, Ujamaa villages served to deemphasize the salience of ethnic and racial identities. In the period between 1973 and

1982, major relocations were broadly termed as Operation Songeza (meaning moving in

Swahili) clustered previously disparate rural household into a village. The idealized

Ujamaa villages would involve a collection of peasant households working on communal farms, and who via disciplined hard work would gradually raise their living standards, and generate surplus income to finance various social infrastructures. Thus, by emphasizing democratically controlled and planned producer villages, Ujamaa promulgated the notion of African communalism on which pre­colonial African societies were built.

Nyerere’s Arusha Declaration produced predictable dissent and resistance from some government elites and the emergent black bourgeoisie who were not willing to give up their access to economic resources. Additionally, as Campbell notes, “the primary contradiction of the Ujamaa policy, in spite of its merits, was [that it] was governed by the demands of the capitalist [global] market”48. Internally disputes between progressives and conservatives hampered the implementation of policies such that eventually, the provision of the barest social services – medical facilities, education, running water,

47 Campbell 44. 48 Campbell 46. Tongoi 36

houses – was lacking49. Only five years after the Arusha Declaration the realities of imperialist machinations to undermine the goals of Ujamaa were evident. While institutional features of developmental villages were in most cases poorly executed,

Ujamaa’s success was also curtailed by many heads of parastatals who accumulated wealth through their posts and who exported surplus to Nairobi and London.

It is no surprise then that in the 1980’s Tanzania experienced a period of economic decay. Temwende identifies four main reasons why this was so. The first was due to “the uncontrolled growth of the public sector…and government spending, combined with corruption and poor productivity.” 50 The second concerned “the states involvement in the economy and the resistance of the peasantry to the coercion that created the village system leading to declining agricultural productivity”51. The third is found “in the cycle of alternating droughts and floods that wracked the country” at the time, reducing exports and foreign exchange earnings. The state pursued “redistributive policies and interfered with the operation of markets resulting in a dramatic slowdown of economic growth”52, as the ruling elite sought to use their offices to monopolize the economic sector. Consequently the civil service was bloated and corruption and mismanagement of state resources was a key feature of this period. Lastly Temwende argues that “the oil price shocks of the late 70’s increased demand on Tanzania’s foreign

49 Campbell 47. 50 PBS Foundation Undated, Columbia Encyclopedia 2004, Temwende 2004, 2. Web. 6 May 2015 51 Barkan 20. 52 Barkan 21. Tongoi 37

exchange earnings just as these were themselves declining.” These four factors were critical in hearkening the end of Ujamaa as an economic model.

A fifth reason often cited in the broad literature for the collapse of socialism in

Tanzania was that its socialist ideology had resulted in discrimination against Tanzanian exports by the capitalist West53. As a result of this exclusion and Tanzania’s overall change to focus on domestically consumed crops, agricultural production as a share of

GDP fell from 56 percent to 42 percent between 1965 to 197554. Of significant importance was the fact that Tanzania’s agricultural production was much lower than its population growth. Tanzanians thus had some of the lowest standards of living in the region. Chachage notes that “there were nearly 400 parastatals handling production, processing, transportation and marketing of goods and services [and] prices of almost

1000 commodities were also controlled [during] this period.” 55 Consequently, state marketing and distribution firms were benefiting at the direct expense of the peasantry.

Tanzania’s economy therefore greatly suffered because it had allowed state­owned industries to dominate the country’s agricultural and manufacturing sector so as to attain its socialist goal of equity.

53 Barkan, 21 54 Minorities at Risk Project, Chronology of Zanzibaris in Tanzania, 2004. Web. 6 May 2015 < http://www.refworld.org/docid/469f38e61e.html> 55 PBS Foundation Undated, Columbia Encyclopedia 2004, Temwende 2004, 2. Web. 6 May 2015 Tongoi 38

Yet despite the deepening economic crisis, Tanzanians did not define the cause of their predicament along ethnic lines. This is in stark contrast to Kenya, as I show in the next chapter, in which the Kikuyu tribe had been seen as benefiting from economic spoils on the basis of ethnic inclusivity. In other words Kenyans argued that their grevances had been brought about by a system of exclusivity in which one was only able to access economic resources based on their proximity to political power – which was in this case dominated by Kikuyu. Therefore, even though Kenya’s economic decline was not as bad as Tanzania’s; it was ethnically and as such inequitably distributed. In Tanzania, contrastingly, Ujamaa had affected each tribe negatively, but equally. To use a phrase of

Munemo’s, “everyone was poor!”56

That said, a different type of conflict emerged in Tanzania – one that was articulated geographically. Declining economic conditions on the mainland had led to strains between Zanzibar and the central government and in the October 1980 a secessionist anti­Union coup plot was unearthed. The potential for heightened conflict was addressed by the resignation of President Aboud Jumbe and the emergence of Ali

Hassan Mwinyi as President of Zanzibar in 1984 and later on as President of the Union in

1985. This transition, while not seamless, did not lead to the bloody clashes that were experienced in Kenya. In what follows, I illustrate that this very fact, which lies at the crux of my thesis, is tied to Tanzania’s native language of instruction policies in schools.

I demonstrate that Tanzania laid the groundwork for nationalist sentiment by employing

Swahili as the sole language of instruction in schools. This had the effect of minimizing

56 Thesis Advising session, March 16, 2015 Tongoi 39

ethnic distinctions and creating cross­cutting cleavages that wove a strong nationalist sentiment.

Education for Nation­Building: Single Native Language of Instruction Policies

Education was long established as tool for nation­building by leaders of early independent Africa. Most foundationally, it served as a means through which to decolonize the mind and inculcate African cultural values. Economically, a literate workforce would be critical in providing the manpower that African economies needed in order to reduce dependence on Europe. Education policy thus focused on the content and structure of the curriculum, and most importantly on the language of instruction in schools. Education as a nation­building project in post­independence Tanzania can be divided into three phases that mirror the periods of economic development in Tanzania.

The first is the national consolidation phase (1961­1966) prior to Ujamaa; the second is the socialist phase (1967­ 1982) that took place during Ujamaa; and the third, the “crisis and adjustment phase” which continues to date57. In what follows I illustrate that

Tanzania’s choice of a single native language of instruction policy was central to assailing ethnic, racial and religious cleavages, leading to a mostly peaceful political history. In addition, the success of the single native language of instruction policy was bolstered by Tanzania’s take on curriculum content, mass education, and the

Africanization of the teaching force.

57 Barkan 215. Tongoi 40

Pre­independence colonial education had a number of inherent drawbacks such as low student enrollment, Western­oriented curricula and teaching force, and a low number of institutions, amongst others. To entrench its national culture and attitudes, British colonialism used education as its primary instrument. While education was not universally available, where it was, it functioned to ideologically favor the British administration. In lower classes of education, in primary and middle schools ­ the critical stage at which attitudes are formed ­ civics was introduced as a political education subject to glorify the British Empire, the King or Queen and British systems of governance58.

Colonial education therefore succeeded in producing a small minority of culturally

Western­oriented and Western­educated elite who approached matters of economic, social and cultural development from their minority standpoint. At independence, this had in turn resulted in “a couple of pockets of highly urbanized centers with the trimmings of modernity, existing side by side with the vast rural areas comprising 90 percent or more of the population59 which maintained more or less the same subsistence level of life as in colonial times.

When Tanzania gained independence in 1961, the new leadership fully recognized the use of education as an instrument for societal change. As Dennis Mbuyi writes, “education was perceived almost without any reservation to be the ‘precursor’ of development [and] many “nation­builders” [were] convinced that a society and its economy can be transformed through education.”60 This task of nation­building, consisted

58 Mwakikagile 469. 59 Hill et. al. 38. Tongoi 41

of “giving new identities, new loyalties, or just discovering an identity which colonialism by oppression or by assimilation had tended to destroy or falsify”61. As such, it saw loyalties as malleable and thus subject to manipulation. In ethnically, racially and religiously diverse Tanzania, “decisions concerning what roles [to assign] to the former colonial­language and/or African mother tongues both in schools and in the society at large [were] highly…politically sensitive.”62 Language policy therefore had the potential to unify or to highlight ethnic cleavages.

The first five years of independence therefore saw the Tanzanian government introduce the new Education Ordinance implemented between 1st January 1962 and

March 15th 1970.63 The Ordinance abolished the former racial divisions of the educational system and substituted it with a national school system based on a common curriculum and common organization. The semi­independent religious school systems came under the control of the State. The State was now responsible for conditions of service for teaching staff, admission policies and syllabi for secular instruction,64 as opposed to pre­ colonial times in which most schools were effectively autonomous with little to no supervision from the colonial government. The initial post­independence phase therefore saw the nationalist takeover of the colonial schools which were unevenly distributed throughout the country, in part fee­charging, largely run by Europeans and Christians,

60 Mbuyi 15. 61 Mbuyi 15. 62 Mbuyi 13. 63 Hill et. al. 261. 64 Hill et. al. 270. Tongoi 42

racially segregated and externally oriented in ideology, quality and certification procedures65.

Additionally, Nyerere’s ruling party, TANU, proceeded upon independence to nationalize the curriculum and to reduce racial and religious inequalities in school coverage. Nationalization meant a transformation of the curriculum to introduce values that emphasized an appreciation of African culture. Africanization included the content of the curriculum but also a tectonic shift in the “face” of the education system. Prior to independence the teaching force was mainly made up of expatriates serving on two­year contracts. Immediately after independence most of the teachers were recruited from

Scandinavia, Canada and the ‘third world’, although there was a push towards having

Tanzanians fill in teaching positions66. Nyerere’s government was keenly aware that the

Africanization of the teaching force would further bolster the decolonization of the education system that had, since its inception, been dominated by a European missionary class.

In order to expand access to education, the first Five Year Development Plan allowed for three grades of Teachers: Grade A teachers being those with four years of secondary education and two of years professional training; Grade B teachers being those who had completed 10 years of school education and Grade C teachers being those who had completed 8 years of primary education. With the founding of the University

College, Dar es Salaam in 1961, the Government began to offer scholarships to students

65 Hill et. al. 215. 66 Hill et. al. 272. Tongoi 43

in line with manpower survey reports. Degree courses for a B.A (Education) and B.Sc

(Education) were directly tailored to produce Grade A teachers to suit the needs of secondary schools. However, Grade B and C teachers were also trained in small colleges often run and managed by Christian missions67 and in­service training ensued upon graduation so as to upgrade teachers.

Two other major innovations of the 1961­1967 period were the Unified Teaching

Service and the Citizen District Education Officers68. The Unified Teaching Service brought together for the first time all the newly trained African citizen teachers. Prior to this regulation, teachers working for voluntary agencies were subject to conditions of service determined by their employing agencies and these differed significantly from those of the Central or Local Government teachers. The second innovation of the time was the introduction of Citizen District Education Officers who supervised the primary school system after being trained for their new responsibilities. The very use of the name

‘Citizen’ was meant to emphasize the indigenousness of the position and the embodiment of self­government in Tanzania. Citizen District Education Officers were trained by the

State – an important step in ensuring the inculcation of nationalistic ideals amongst the population, and the increase of transparency and accountability at the district level.

Nyerere did not spare the education system from the wrangles of politicking. In

1965 TANU introduced the TANU Youth League in secondary schools as part of its push for political education. The TANU Youth League provided political education for

67 Hill et. al. 273. 68 Hill et. al. 273. Tongoi 44

students in line with the party’s political philosophy. Political mobilization endured into tertiary education and in 1966 TANU established its headquarters at the University

College of Dar Es Salaam and began to draft students into the National Service69. These developments, however, only laid the groundwork for education reform that would begin in earnest after the Arusha Declaration of 1967.

With the announcement of the Arusha Declaration, Education in Tanzania became an even greater tool for social engineering between 1967 and 1982. On February

5th 1967, President Julius Nyerere outlined the principles of Ujamaa, which he called

African Socialism. Ujamaa was a pragmatic philosophy aimed at combining the imperatives of nation building with the traditional obligation of mutual support in peasant subsistence societies. The term ‘ujamaa’ “projected one’s identification with immediate kin on to the country’s citizenry, conjuring the need for collective effort through the nation and for the nation, in defiance of Tanzania’s extreme tribal heterogeneity and regional differences. In Nyerere’s words, it was an ‘attitude of mind’.” 70 Within the

Arusha Declaration emerged the ideology of ‘Education For Self­reliance’, a belief that

Tanzania should be developed by Tanzanians themselves and on the bases of their own socio­political and socio­cultural systems. This meant that any incorporation of outside help in the fields of science, technology and the arts would have to suit the needs of the country and its ethos of socialism and self­reliance71. The principles of the declaration

69 Hill et. al. 217. 70 Hodd 42. 71 Hill et. al. 147. Tongoi 45

were meant to guide the Tanzanian economy into greater self­reliance with mass education being a major instrument for realizing the embodiment of Ujamaa ideology.

According to Nyerere’s Ujamaa philosophy, colonialist values had to be overturned in order to build a new citizen with a decolonized mindset. In justifying the adoption of Ujamaa Nyerere posited that “the purpose of education [was] to transmit from one generation to the next the accumulated vision and knowledge of the society and to prepare young people for their future membership of the society and their active participation in its maintenance and development”72 As such, as pertains to education policy, the fundamental ethos of Ujamaa was structured around the belief that education must be relevant to the economic and political needs of Tanzania. As a result of this, educational policy came to be based on these four key elements73. Firstly, a continued commitment to careful manpower planning that ensured rapid movement towards self­ sufficiency in man­power, while maintaining such control over the expansion of higher educational facilities. This therefore reconciled the demands of such expansion with other development priorities. Secondly, Ujamaa recast the values generally inculcated by higher educational institutions in order to generate commitment amongst an emergent elite to national goals rather than to narrow self­interest. Thirdly, Ujamaa led to a reorientation of primary schooling in order to fit the majority of pupils to life in the rural areas rather than to employment in the urban centers. And lastly, Ujamaa placed a growing emphasis on political education that was designed to raise the level of

72 Mwakikagile, 470. 73 Cliffe et. al., Socialism in Tanzania : An Interdisciplinary Reader Vol. 2 Policies (Niarobi : East African Publishing House, 1973) 215. Tongoi 46

consciousness for governmental and political leadership amongst the adult population.

Thus, the entire life­cycle of Tanzania’s education system was therefore geared towards a singular goal, Ujamaa.

In ‘Education for Self Reliance’, Nyerere writes:

For the majority of our people, the thing which matters is that they should be able to read and write fluently in Swahili, that they should be able to do arithmetic and that they should learn something of the history, values and workings of their country and government and that they should acquire the skills necessary to earn their living. It is important to stress that in Tanzania most people will earn their living by working on their own or on a communal shamba(farm), and only few will do so by working for wages which they have to spend on buying things the farmer produces for himself.74 Language of instruction in schools was therefore a tool with which to inculcate values compatible with the building of a common sense of cultural identity and a commitment to

Tanzanian socialism. The language of instruction in schools was a critical aspect of the

Ujamaa project. The question of national language, particularly the language of instructions in schools, as a crucial basis for nation­building had been a priority for

TANU right from the start. Prior to Ujamaa in 1964, the Institute of Swahili Research had been established to aid in the preservation and development of Swahili as the national language75. TANU associated language with national identity, integration and development and in line with this basic nation­building principle; Swahili was made the sole medium of instruction in primary schools in 196876. Nyerere was keen to implement language policies that made full use of Swahili in order to weaken primordial77 ethnic

74 Nyerere 24. 75 Hill et. al. 273. 76 Grade 1 – Grade 6 in US system Tongoi 47

loyalties and to form a unified national identity. Language of instruction policies were such a central feature of the nationalization process in Tanzania.

However, the question of the language of instruction in schools in Tanzania was not new to newly independent Tanzania. As far back as the thirties and forties the question of the medium of instruction cropped up. Prior to independence, Swahili was used alongside English in classrooms and in teacher training colleges. For example grade

2 teachers for elementary schools had a two­year teacher training course with Swahili as the language of instruction, while grade 1 teachers for middle school and teacher training colleges trained for four years with English as the medium of teaching.78 During colonial rule, English developed an important level of prestige and Swahili was only considered a stepping stone towards this final objective. English language was seen to open more opportunities for a broad­based and intellectually demanding education as it gave one the ability to read the newspaper and to read books.

As Polome et al., write of Africanist Scholars Cameron and Dodd, “the Africans themselves were ambivalent [about the language of instruction in schools], recognizing on the one hand cultural values inherent in the local language of the home and on the other, the need to communicate with people over a much wider area”79. As such,

Kiswahili continued to be used as the medium of instructions in primary schools, as was

English in secondary schools. Twenty years prior to independence, local vernaculars had

77 Hill et. al 141 78 Hill et. al 141 79 Hill et. al (quoting Cameron and Dodd (1970) 71) 143 Tongoi 48

almost completely disappeared from the education system and the future national language was progressively being established.

However, Swahili suffered lower prestige precisely because it was viewed as the language of native Africans. English on the other hand was associated with power and prestige. As Whiteley writes, “[English served as] a mark…if only secondarily of social distance – a means of reaching down to people rather than of enabling them to reach up to the administration.”80 In the 1940’s while Swahili was a subject that was examined up to the Cambridge School Certificate standard, English remained the medium of instruction in secondary schools and institutions of learning. As such, there was a wider variety and greater supply of English learning materials leading to the notion that English was a more prestigious language than Swahili. It is because of this socio­linguistic history that all educated Tanganyikans as well as very large proportion of those who had never gone to school had become bilinguals with a great adeptness in the use of English and

Swahili. Polome notes that “by 1950 therefore, Tanganyika had emerged as a territory unique among all the multilingual territories of Africa, in having an African language widely spoken as a lingua franca and extensively used in the administrative and educational systems of the country.”81Therefore, prior to independence, Tanzania had the choice of choosing either English or Swahili as its national and official languages.

When Nyerere announced the Arusha Declaration he was critical of the use of

English within the education system. For him, “Africanization” [could not] be achieved

80 Hill et. al 145. 81 Hill et. al 145. Tongoi 49

while leaving untouched the basis itself of the colonial system of education that is, the colonial language as a medium of instruction.”82 As Mbuyi states, the early years of independence were marked with uncertainty as Tanzania’s government shifted policies tied to language of instruction in schools. Initially, like in neighboring Kenya, Swahili was given national language status while English remained the official language. This policy was incoherent and ambiguous particularly in the school context. Mbuyi illustrates that the aforementioned policy led to

a dual type of education (brought about by integrative measures taken soon after independence), the division of roles between English and Swahili led to an educational system divided between English­medium and Swahili­medium schools. (This applied to elementary schools only. Secondary levels were exclusively English­medium). Coupled with the problem of school fee differentials the situation inevitably led to the emergence of a hierarchy between two systems of elementary schools with the result that access to English medium schools (which were indeed expensive) were restricted to high income families. The political implications resulting from this two­stream educational system for Tanzania threatened to undermine the foundations of the new society.83 In 1967, the year in which the Arusha Declaration was announced, Tanzania’s leadership elevated Swahili to the status of both official and national language of the land. This choice of Swahili over English was backed by the fact that Swahili is a lingua franca that is spoken by 90 percent of the population in Tanzania84, but also that Kiswahili

82 Mbuyi 19. 83 Mbuyi 19. 84 The Bantu branch of languages is most dominant and includes over one hundred languages compared to only twenty non­Bantu mother­tongues. This development predates colonialism having started during the Arab Slave Trade of East Africa. Mbuyi writes that this perception of Swahili as an African lingua franca that was “nobody’s language” aided in the successful use of Swahili as a national and nationalizing language. It is for this reason that Swahili encountered little if any, real competition or resentment despite that fact that Tanzania had over 100 languages. Tongoi 50

was an indigenous African language that would embody a clean break from Western cultural traditions and aid in the fashioning of a pan­ethnic Tanzania.

In 1968, the government announced that Swahili was to be the sole medium of instruction in primary schools. Swahili as a linguistic medium in schools was viewed as capable of instilling and translating national values and goals in line with Ujamaa.

Teaching materials had to be translated and re­written – particular in technical subjects such as mathematics, science and geography – and teachers trained on how to approach the problems of terminologies. The Institute of Education of the University of Dar es

Salaam was therefore mandated to develop a huge vocabulary covering the various subjects in order to support the use of Swahili as the medium of instruction. With the technical expertise of specialists in subjects ranging from mathematics and biology to geography and chemistry, subjects were translated to Swahili creating an interrelated system of concepts in the lingua franca that would ensure that children understood the material.

Aside from the language of instruction in schools, there were three policies within

Nyerere’s Education for Self­Reliance that fostered nation­building. The first was the

Africanization of the content of the curriculum, the second was the revision of the subjects available to the population and the third was the emphasis on adult education. As regards Africanizing the curriculum content, Mbuyi notes four key aspects that complemented Tanzania’s broader socialist policies as well as its particular language of instruction policy. Firstly, he acknowledges that “Tanzanian texts [under­emphasized] Tongoi 51

life in urban areas and focused instead on efforts by villagers to bring development, in the forms of various social amenities, to rural areas”85. Secondly, he argues that Tanzanian texts placed emphasis on “extended rather than nuclear family” while the “ethnic/Tribal” dimension was given prominence in the Kenyan texts. Mbuyi reveals that:

The treatment of “Ethnic/Tribal” is presented differently in the Kenyan texts as the ethnic groups or tribe is usually conceived to be an important unit of activities in the texts. It is used to identify and differentiate one such self­contained “unit” from other similar “units” on a variety of levels (culture, language, habitat, beliefs, education…) The comparison between the treatement of “ethnic” and “tribal” aspects in the two sets raises the inevitable question about the potential danger implied in any type of dual development of loyalties, in this case, between traditional (associated with ethnic/tribal) and national (associated with the nation­ state) loyalties. … The Tanzanian texts seem to have avoided the altogether diffiucult dilemma by de­emphasizing images of “ethnic or tribal” identities by focusing only on creating new identities and loyalties based on the nation­state.86

This subtlety conveys the ways in which Ujamaa engineered a cohesive image of solidarity through the content of the curriculum87. The curriculum was also tailored to meet the economic needs of the population by introducing agriculture and political education in schools. This was in line with Nyerere’s goals of building a socialist society that laid stress on “realistic preparation for a working life in a developing but overwhelmingly rural society”88 The values which were emphasized included “a sense of commitment to the total community, […]cooperative endeavor, […]concepts of equality and responsibility to give service.” 89 Education in the words of Nyerere was therefore

85 Mbuyi 23. 86 Mbuyi 29. 87 Mbuyi 24. 88 Cliffe et. al 217. Tongoi 52

meant to “counteract the temptation to intellectual arrogance […], encourage an enquiring mind [and] an ability to learn from what others do [and] a basic confidence in his own position as a free and equal member of society.” 90 Education was therefore carefully curated to serve the needs of the individual, but most importantly to meet the goals of a unified state.

As regards the revision of subjects available to the population, certain key changes were made in Agriculture, Civics and History so as to “more thoroughly impart the basic skills a farmer and participating citizen needs”91. Primary school life was designed to make primary schooling terminal92, agriculture­based and relevant to the needs of the village community93. School life was also reorganized so as to encourage productive self­reliant enterprise and the closer integration of schools with the communities around them. 94 Political education was also introduced for party, government and other key officials as well as the general public. TANU’s political education team undertook a series of seminars for political leaders and government officials from the Cabinet down to the cell leaders and extension workers and teachers with the aim of passing on socialist principles as well as spelling out the tasks required of different actors. This was a key feature of how education served as a tool for mass political socialization.

89 Nyerere 231. 90 Nyerere 231. 91 Cliffe et. al 217. 92 Meaning that students would be able to drop out of school at primary level with the basic skills needed to create viable livelihoods. 93 Barkan 219. 94 Barkan 219. Tongoi 53

Adult education was the third locus of socialist education in Tanzania that complemented its language of instruction policies. Adult education was viewed as the fuel with which to make Village Development Committees effective organs for the community’s involvement in its own development95. Adult literacy programs were also conducted in Swahili. Similar to the socialization of children in Tanzanian schools and youth camps, adult literacy programs also emphasized the Tanzanian socialist nationalism. The content of the education was concerned with “giving a realistic understanding of Tanzanian society and the problem of economic development and nation building it faces, together with some of the basic skills required of those in leadership­ organizing groups, managing finances and communicating effectively”96 By the 1980’s, over 90 percent of adults had acquired basic literacy97. It was thus this dual process of Swahilization as well as the singular ideology of Ujamaa, as channeled through the education system that promoted unity in Tanzania.

The last phase of Tanzania’s education history, that runs from 1983 to date, has been less significant than the two previous phases in subverting ethnic­based identity politics in Tanzania. In the period after 1983, Tanzania was grossly affected by the economic downturn brought about by socialist policies. Economic deterioration particularly affected educational finance, leading to the introduction of cost­sharing and the widening of education service provision to the private sector. As scholars in

Education Finance, Brian Cooksey, David Court and Ben Makau have written98:

95 Cliffe et. al 218. 96 Barkan 218. 97 Barkan 218. Tongoi 54

Until recently, official per capita resources allocated to education were falling steadily for a decade or more. Inflation and falling tax income meant large shrinkages in recurrent and capital budgets across the board, the major cause of declining per capita spending on education. Expenditure per primary [school] pupil is said to have fallen by more than a third between 1980 and 1987 (Wagao in Cornia et al. 1992:34). Moreover, relative spending on education seems to have gradually declined throughout the post­independence period. Whereas many countries, including Kenya continue to invest up to a quarter of recurrent budgets in the education sector, Tanzania managed less than 10 percent in 1988/1989, down from 15 percent in 1983/198499.

With shrinking coffers Tanzania took on a policy of cost sharing – parents were expected to cover most of the cost of primary school construction and maintenance, and secondary school fees were introduced in 1984100. Given its socialist inclinations, cost sharing in

Tanzania was a visibly controversial issue. With the increase in disillusionment brought about by the failing economy of the 1980’s, Tanzania’s education system suffered from stagnating primary enrollments and an increase in private school enrollments. In addition, the church, NGO’s, community, cooperative and other non­state educational initiatives gained traction as alternative education service providers.

Despite these challenges, the values of the ‘Education for Self­Reliance’ policies especially as pertains to the lowered salience of ethnic identities are still evident.

Tanzania was highly successful in the field of political socialization. “Curriculum changes, the use of Kiswahili in primary school, the district quota for secondary school

98 Barkan 220. 99 Andersson and Rosengart 1988, quoted by World Bank 1991c:3 100 Barkan 221. Tongoi 55

entrance, the opening of university to adult students, and the national boarding school system have […] had a considerable long­term integrating effect.”101

Analysis and Discussion

As this chapter has illustrated, Tanzania’s economic and linguistic policies are the main reason why Tanzania stands as an outlier state on a continent where the post­ independence process of nation­building has produced many long­burning conflicts.

Tanzania, as one of the few examples of inclusive civic nationalism in Africa, provides one of the most successful cases of ethnic transformation in Africa and is an important case for studying politics in ethnically diverse countries. Compared to the rest of the continent, Tanzania has managed to have few significant ethnic, racial or religious divisions and has attained more political stability than many post­independence African states. Behind this achievement are two critical factors: a centrally disbursed strategy of undermining ethnic ties by restructuring economic relations between groups and the adoption of a unifying single native language of instruction policy.

However, this outcome was not by mere chance but rather the result of careful and deliberate planning by the national leadership. As this chapter has illustrated,

Tanzania’s trajectory after independence had the potential to become as ethnically charged as Kenya’s. The independence period had ushered an era of capitalism that was poised to fracture Tanzania. At independence, when Tanganyika African National Union

(TANU)’s first chairman, Julius Nyerere, became the country’s government leader in

101 Barkan 229. Tongoi 56

1961, he was intent on developing an effective system of national integration. The principal challenge in the early years came from the split between Tanganyika (mainland) and Zanzibar (the islands off the Indian Ocean coast). This had the potential to disintegrate into fierce religious, racial and ethnic dissent because the mainland was largely Christian, black African while the islands were Muslim and Arab. In 1964, when

Zanzibar regained its independence from the established Arab minority rule, Nyerere accepted a nonelected political representation of Zambia in the Tanzania National

Assembly that was disproportionately large given its relatively small population size102.

Also, he agreed to a “complicated semi­federal arrangement under which the new country, the United Republic of Tanzania, would be governed by a president and two vice presidents. The President of the United Republic would be directly elected by the combined electorates of the mainland and Zanzibar, whereas the president of Zanzibar would automatically serve as one of the vice­presidents of the union.”103 In 1965,

Tanzania broke early with the colonial Westminster system and legislated in favor of a socialist democratic, centralist, one­party participatory government under the Tanganyika

African National Union (TANU).

Sensing the potential for divisions along ethnic, racial and religious lines, Nyerere introduced the radical policy of Ujamaa, African Socialism in 1967. As a gifted intellectual and political writer, Nyerere articulated Ujamaa as the ideological rationale for breaking away from multi­partyism in his 1967 speech known as the Arusha

102 Barkan 83. 103 Barkan 9. Tongoi 57

Declaration. Ujamaa is a Swahili word that implies the practice of reciprocity by members of the same family. Summarizing the Arusha Declaration, Joel Barkan writes:

In what was probably the single most important contribution by an African writer to the literature on normative political model for poor countries like Tanzania and then outlined the policies his country would henceforth pursue to achieve a socialist alternative. Economic growth for its own sake – which Nyerere regarded as the mindless pursuit of money, resulting in the “exploitation of man by man” would be subordinated to the quest of a more equitable and socially just society. Such a society would be achieved through the combination of a benevolent state which would take over and run “the commanding heights” of Tanzania’s economy, and self­reliance (i.e., sacrifice) on the part of the Tanzanian people. State and society would in turn be led by a benevolent party, TANU which would be the guardian of socialist values and the supreme institution of the land. (Joel D. Barkan, Divergence and Convergence, 15 svc)

Ujamaa “enabled both leaders and followers to elevate political discourse to a level where ethnicity [did not] count”104. As Martin (1990) notes, Tanzania achieved a remarkable degree of national integration by emphasizing African symbols that cut across ethnic boundaries. Nyerere also made full use of the strong political organization that he and his fellow nationalist leaders developed before independence. Key to Ujamaa policy was the inculcation of a new leadership code to dismantle the petty bourgeoisie, the absorption of all private enterprises by State apparatus and the villagization process by which communities would move towards greater self­reliance.

To accomplish the objectives of Ujamaa, Nyerere sought to establish TANU as the guardian and propagator of socialist values. Under its leadership as the supreme political actor, TANU would direct all other institutions, public and private, towards this

104 Barkan 83. Tongoi 58

goal. TANU established an extensive apparatus that paralleled all state institutions down to the village level. Its National Executive Committee (NEC) was the highest level of decision­making, with village cells of ten households being the very lowest political organ. The Bunge, (Swahili for “Legislature”) was coopted by TANU. Recruitment to the

Bunge was as closed process and most of the seats were filled by presidential nominees or nominees of associations affiliated with TANU. Similarly, members of the civil service were expected to be members of TANU and adhere to the party guideline. Tripp

(1992) notes that civil society in Tanzania was effectively crushed105. From the mid­60’s onwards, “all independent associations were either banned or brought under the control of the ruling party”. By effectively unifying the country through the Party, Nyerere not only established a system of transferring Ujamaa values but also ensured that the State’s involvement in development was deliberate and heavy­handed.

In addition, Nyerere dismantled divisive colonial systems such as the chieftainship that was predicated upon tribal affiliations, and instead ordered the country along village and district lines. Nyerere also made deliberate attempts to assail any potential conflict with Zanzibar. In 1977, the two parts of the union, Tanganyika and

Zanzibar joined into Tanzania and merged their constitutions into one. Chama Cha

Mapinduzi (CCM) was formed as a merger between TANU and the Afro­Shirazi Party of

Zanzibar, further curtailing any efforts to break apart from one­party supremacy. CCM

105 As opposed to Kenya in which autonomous associational life was allowed to develop be it through ethnic associations such as Kikuyu Embu Meru Association (GEMA) or religious associations such as the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK), independent associations in Tanzania were dismissed. Tongoi 59

and TANU coopted critical sectors of the economy including university student groups, women’s activist organizations, the press and trade and labor unions – this had the effect of tightening and enforcing nationalistic sentiments among vast potentially fractious members of society.

The education sphere was also crucial to the creation of a united Tanzania. The adoption of a single native language of instruction policy was meant to undercut any ethnic, racial and religious cleavages. It is the intersection of Ujamaa and the adoption of

Kiswahili as a language of instruction in schools that ameliorated ethnic conflicts in

Tanzania. In many African countries such as Tanzania, education served as a tool for political socialization. The content of the curriculum, the Africanization of the teaching force as well as the revision of language of instruction policies were helpful in the decolonization of the education system. The language of instruction was particularly important because language groups map onto ethnic groups ­ with ethnicity having been rendered salient during colonialism, the language of instruction could serve to exacerbate or invalidate ethnic cleavages.

Education during the colonial era acted resulted in a vast majority of the population being under­educated and the few that succeeded being indoctrinated with

Western values. Upon independence, Tanzania began to reform the education sector through various means, including and not limited to the Africanization of the teaching force, the reconstitution of the curriculum content and syllabi and the promulgation of

Adult literacy. Most importantly, Tanzania’s decision to pursue a single native language Tongoi 60

of instruction policy in its primary education was critical in superseding cleavages between different ethnicities, religions and races. The very fact that the entire nation was taught in the same language was unifying in and of itself. In addition, the use of a single native language rearticulated the notion that nation came first before individual, race, religion or ethnicity.

In conclusion, the successful creation of a pan­ethnic Tanzanian nation­ state and a strong national identity was predicated on two main factors. The first is Ujamaa, a political rhetoric that transcended ethnic loyalties and the second is the instutionalization of Swahili as the native language of instruction in schools. These two critical developments created cross­cutting cleavages that transcended ethnic, racial and religious identities and loyalties. Even after the end of Ujamaa, Tanzania also emerged as a strongly secular state in which a Catholic President from the mainland, Julius Nyerere was succeeded by a Muslim President from the island despite the potential of these identities to spark division. In addition, it has been possible for Asians and Europeans to win electoral contests against African opponents and hold high offices in government.

Tanzania has been relatively immune to xenophobic violence despite a colonial history of racial formation similar to Kenya and Uganda. While President Iddi Amin expelled

Asians from Uganda in 1972, Tanzania did not experience any anti­Asian race riots from

1965­1991106. Political socialization in Tanzania is thus critical in explaining why despite

106Ronald Aminzade, Race, Nation and Citizenship in Postcolonial Africa: The Case of Tanzania (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013) 5. Tongoi 61

its high potential for ethnic and religious cleavages, Tanzania remains a model for inclusive nationalism. Tongoi 62

Chapter 3

The Prevalence of Conflict: Patron­Client Capitalism and a Lack of Single Native

Language of Instruction Policies in Kenya.

Since Kenya gained its independence in 1963, it has suffered from numerous bouts of ethnically­charged violence. From as early as 1966, there has been a tenuous rift between Kenya’s largest tribe, the Kikuyu, and other similarly­sized tribes such as the

Luo, Kalenjin and Luhya. While alliances have shifted with the demands of each presidential regime, the dominance of an ethnically­based political culture has prevailed.

In many ways Kenya’s political trajectory fits right within the predictions made by scholars such as Lijphart and Hayden on their works on ethnicity and conflict in Africa.

With an ethno­linguistic fractionalization index of 0.88, Kenya’s ethnic diversity can be singled out as its greatest hindrance to national building. However, the same cannot be said of Tanzania, which happens to have very similar metrics to Kenya’s. Why has conflict prevailed in Kenya while similarly diverse Tanzania has remained peaceful?

A historical sweep of Kenya’s political economy reveals that ethnic violence in

Kenya can be attributed to patron­client capitalism built around access to economic resources and to the lack of single native language of instruction policies through which to foster unity. This process was set in motion by colonial policies and carried on by incumbents after independence was regained. During the colonial era, in an effort to protect European settler interests and rationalize administration, the British imperial regime in Kenya sought to impose a new ethnic geography so as to generate labor from native reserves of confined ethnic communities. The British settlers coveted the central Tongoi 63 highlands of Kenya, that later came to be known as the White Highlands. The Mau Mau struggle of the 1950’s that eventually led to Kenya’s independence was inspired by

Africans’ desires to “consolidate and gain legal titles to their land holdings and subsequently participate in the production of lucrative cash crops”107. The colonial period also instituted a system of education that favored a white majority and an elite African few. The little education that African students received was heavily imbued with Western values. In response, the Independent African Schools movement began as an attempt by

Africans to expand education provision, as well as to Africanize the curriculum content in order to preserve African values. Therefore, upon independence, Kenya’s new leadership was aggrieved by two main colonial policies: the alienation of land in the white highlands and the denial of education to indigenous people.

In what follows I illustrate that the actions of post­independence leaders, Kenyatta and Moi, did little to address the colonial land economy and the adequate provision of educational opportunities for the masses. Instead, the development of patron­client capitalism, as seen through the system of Harambee, as well as the lack of a centralized and coherent education policy on language of instruction in schools, built on colonial policies, and in turn, led to the crystallization of ethnic cleavages. As such, in comparing

Kenya and Tanzania, the prevalence of violence in the former can be tied to patron­client capitalism and native language of instruction policies that ethnically demarcated the nation.

107 John Haberson. “Land Reforms and Politics in Kenya, 1954­ 1970.” The Journal of Modern African Studies. Vol. 9 (1971) 231­ 251. JSTOR. 13 April 2015. . Tongoi 64

The Entrenchment of Patron­Client Capitalism in Kenya

When the British East Africa Company was granted the right to administer control over the territory that is now Kenya, it envisioned economic development through agricultural production. In order to achieve this, the British government granted the private East Africa Syndicate 1,300km2 of land in the Rift Valley and surrounding highlands to promote white settlement and establish export agriculture. These temperate, fertile highlands of central Kenya would become the enclave of white Britons – gaining the name the White Highlands108. Consequently, the establishment of settler plantations for coffee and tea production entailed the dispossession of Africans – mainly members of the Kikuyu tribe although Maasai and Kalenjin ethnic communities were also affected.

The forceful eviction and repatriation of Kikuyu and other ethnic groups exacerbated anti­colonialist sentiments, as seen in the subsequent Mau Mau rebellion. Just as importantly, the colonial interventions resulted in the “commercialization of the local economy, which [in turn] led to the emergence of a wealthy landowning class of

Kikuyu”109.

Swainson argues that the colonial era created an embryonic African bourgeoisie

“with its roots in new forms of commodity production which were founded on the direct employment of wage labor”110. The colonial administration in Kenya limited commodity production in African reserves, and instead channeled African labor to settler estates.

108 Peter Veit. “History of Land Conflicts in Kenya.” Focus on Land in Kenya. 2011. April 13, 2015. file:///Users/localmacaccount/Downloads/kenya­history­of­land­conflicts.pdf >. 3. 109 Veit 4. 110 Nicola Swainson. “State and Economy in Post­Colonial Kenya.” Canadian Journal of African Studies. Vol. 12 (1978): 360. April 13, 2015. < http://www.jstor.org/stable/484484?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents >. Tongoi 65

Through taxation, coercion, licensing regulations and quality control through marketing boards, the colonial administration created a dominant settler economy that stifled the demands of indigenous capitalism111. It is no coincidence then that the nationalist demands voiced by the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA) in the 1930’s and the Kenyan

African Union (KAU) in the 1950’s were largely a reflection of grievances tied to the expropriation of the most productive land by British settlers from African farmers. These are the very demands which later shaped the rhetoric of the Mau Mau liberation movement, which was composed of dispossessed squatters who coordinated violent attacks on European elements. The colonial political economy, by virtue of being capitalistic, also created a petty bourgeoisie for whom economic spoils were rationed and limited. It is not ironic then that the Mau Mau liberation movement was dominated on one hand by dispossessed peasants who wanted their land back and on the other hand by petty bourgeois such as Jomo Kenyatta and Tom Mboya who had emerged as part of an

African trading class in the reserves112.

Between 1945 and 1963 the Mau Mau liberation movement intensified as a united front of both “the grievances of the petty bourgeoisie [and] dispossessed groups of squatters and unemployed” in the struggle to gain political independence. The Mau Mau movement led to the military defeat of “settler pre­eminence”113 within the state of Kenya.

As Swaison emphasizes, the movement largely “reflected the material basis of nationalist demands”114. Colonial capitalism entrenched an economic system that distinguished

Africans as mere consumers rather than producers. Independence was thus construed as

111 Swainson 361. 112 Swainson 361. 113 Swainson 361. 114 Swainson 362. Tongoi 66 an effort to “correct the settler dominance of the economy”115 – it was a battle for access to resources to produce and distribute goods. In a speech given following a series of constitutional amendments in October 1963, four months prior to independence, Kenyatta emphasized that, “I assure the country that the new Constitution now provides a strong base for a united Kenya nation, within which each everyone – regardless of tribe or race – shall feel safe and secure.”116 These sentiments were in line with views expressed a year earlier at a Committee of Supply debate in which Kenyatta expressed the purposes and the difficulties of economic planning as follows:

I have been approaching the problem of long­term planning with five main objectives in mind. The first is to associate the private sector and general public more closely with the Government’s planning machine. The second is to avoid waste of scarce resources of capital and skilled manpower. The third is to make as smooth as possible an economic transition from Colonialism to Independence. The fourth is to advise planning organisations and produce a plan which will prove attractive to overseas investment, essential if we are significantly to spread the benefits of development throughout the country, both in urban and rural areas. (178, Suffering without Bitterness, Jomo Kenyatta)

Thus, when Kenyatta gained power after KANU’s win in the general elections of

May 1963, he pursued “a strategy that emphasized economic growth over equity and that built upon the institutions and policies inherited from the [capitalistic] colonial era”117.

Kenya’s agricultural economy hardly broke from its colonial construction. It continued to rely heavily on tea and coffee exports. Access to land therefore continued to be central feature of the colonial legacy that permeated into post­colonial Kenya and functioned to

115 Swainson 362. 116 Jomo Kenyatta. Suffering Without Bitterness. (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1968) 211. 117 Barkan 5. Tongoi 67 heighten ethnic cleavages. As Harbeson notes, “colonial land policy concentrated less on increasing African control over the country than on entrenching each rural, racial and ethnic community including the Europeans in land areas reserved for their exclusive control.”118 As such, colonial policy had two major consequences in post­indepenedence

Kenya. Firstly, it had destroyed traditional land tenure patterns and thus the new government had to restructure the country’s land economy. Secondly, it had fuelled a political culture in which anger at the unjust acquisition of land under colonial auspices was articulated along ethnic lines.

Within the first decade of Kenya’s independence, little had been done to rectify the economic and political ills brought on by colonial land policy. As Veit notes, “the fundamentals of the colonial land tenure system remained in place including the unequal relationship between statutory and customary tenure, the retention of de facto ethno­ territorial administrative units and the unaccountable powers of the executive branch over land.”119 The County Council and the Commissioner of Lands continued to govern statutory land, as opposed to traditional institutions120. In addition, colonial “Crown

Land” was simply categorized as “government land” a move that did not transfer land to dispossessed peasant farmers but that rather gave access to Kikuyus who had the financial means to purchase land.

Kenyatta tightened control over land in three main ways: firstly, by maintaining a system of freehold land titles121 that did not question how land had been acquired;

118 Swainson 363. 119 Veit 7. 120 Veit 7. Tongoi 68 secondly, by ensuring that individual private ownership rights derived form the sovereign

(President) as in colonial times; thirdly, by continuing to undermine customary tenure systems through government programs such as the Settlement Fund Trustees.122 Thus, during the first few years of Kenyatta’s rule, he had hardly diffused the land issue caused by the displacement of Kikuyus from the British owned “White Highlands”. Instead, by resettling Kikuyu in Maasai­owned land in the Rift Valley, Kenyatta sowed the seeds of enmity between the Kikuyu and Kenya’s other ethnic groups.

Most evident of Kenyatta’s inactions was the retention of de facto ethno­territorial administrative units that demarcated and highlighted differences between ethnic groups.

This particular aspect of Kenyatta’s “neopatrimonial ethnic arithmetic”123 would have ramifications for Kenya’s ethnic clashes for decades to come. For example, Kenyatta’s decision to include a Kalenjin, Moi, into his regime was due to the idea that “Moi would help Kenyatta…co­opt the Rift Valley into a governing coalition rooted in the Kikuyu­ dominated Central Province.”124 In a similar vein, Veit indicates that ethnic favoritism and political patronage resulted in “95 percent of the former White Highlands being transferred to black ownership, principally Kikuyu, but also Embu and Meru (together these ethnic groups comprised 30 percent of the population).”125

121 Freehold property can be defined as any estate which is free from hold of any entity besides the owner. Hence, the owner of such an estate enjoys free ownership for perpetuity and can use the land for any purposes however in accordance with the local regulations. 122 The vehicle that the independent Kenya government used to facilitate the acquisition and subsequent distribution of formerly white­owned farms. http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category.php/comment/46930 123 Ngonidzashe Munemo. Domestic Politics and Drought Relief in Africa: Exploring Choices. (Boulder: Line Rienner Publishers, 2012) 53. 124 Munemo, 53. 125 Veit, 7. Tongoi 69

Politically, at independence, Kenya had inherited a quasi­federalist constitution that gave provinces a fair degree of political autonomy. The two most prominent parties,

Kenya African National Union (KANU) and Kenya National Democratic Union (KADU) merged, creating a de facto one­party state126. Munemo, commenting on the politics of the era, argues that “[for] Kenyatta, unity between KANU and KADU was the starting point of true Uhuru, or independence.”127 There were two broad nationalist parties in Kenya at independence: “the Kenya African National Union (KANU) and the Kenya African

Democratic Union (KADU). [The former] was composed of the two largest, better­ educated and wealthier ethnic groups, the Kikuyu and Luo and it supported the creation of a strong, unitary, centralized state. [While the latter] was composed of smaller ethnic groups seeking a constitution that would grant ethno­regional constituencies significant power through federalism or Majimboism”128. The colonial project in Kenya had thus

126 Munemo argues that : The resolution of the struggle between KANU’s centralist state agenda and KADU’s quasi­federalist project in favor of KANU, began with the results of transitional elections of 1961 and was completed three years later when KADU voluntarily dissolved in 1964. In the 1961 transitional elections, KANU drew 67.4 percent of the vote to KADU’s 16.4 percent. However, KANU’s vote share translated into a little over a third of the Common Roll seats (19 of the 53), while KADU’s one­sixth of the vote won it a fifth of the seats (11 of 53).126 General elections in 1963 offered KANU another opportunity to extend its political advantage over the regionalists in KADU. KANU won a total of 83 seats; 72 out of the 112 openly contested seats (with 54 percent of the vote) and 11 of the 12 National Member seats selected by the directly elected members of the House. A somewhat disjointed KADU managed to win only 32 seats from the open elections (with 26 percent of the vote) and just 1 of the 12 National member seats.126This resounding victory for KANU was followed by a tenacious push by Kenyatta to consolidate his position through the creation of a strong Executive Presidency and the desire to entrench the centralist victory by establishing a ‘voluntary’ one­party state in Kenya. For Kenyatta, unity between KANU and KADU was the starting point of true Uhuru, or independence. Kenyatta also sought to weaken the regional agenda by co­opting senior members of KADU into his cabinet. Against the onslaught of constitutional amendments that empowered Kenyatta, rhetoric that framed KADU as anti­Uhuru for maintaining its opposition in parliament, and co­option of its leaders into Kenyatta’s cabinet, KADU dissolved in November 1964, and its members in parliament joined KANU.

127 Munemo 52. Tongoi 70 resulted in “competing visions of how an independent Kenya was to be organized and governed”129,that would plague Kenya for decades to come.

Having been imprisoned during the Emergency of 1953, Kenyatta came to power simply as the figurehead of the independence movement with Tom Mboya and Oginga

Odinga having strong links to the grassroots political movement. When Kenyatta came into power he was aware that Kenya was already splintering along ethnic lines – with

KANU being a coalition of the Luo and Kikuyu and KADU being a coalition of smaller ethnic groups. This was soon amended to place all constitutional powers within the hands of the central government in 1964 when Kenyatta introduced a one­party executive presidency, a move that allowed him to centralize power around himself and Kikuyu politicians. Consolidating his presidency was meant to guard against splintering along ethnic or racial lines – but it also indicated insecurities that Kenyatta had about his position as President. As such, when the parties merged, Kenyatta, took on the role of

“mzee (old man) or “father of the nation”130. Once at the top of a one­party state system in which power was concentrated in the office of the president, Kenyatta promoted the interests of his Kikuyu people – especially those of the Kiambu sub­group to which he belonged, while retaining a loose alliance with patrons from other groups131. As scholars such as Gertzel (1970) and Tamarkin (1978) have noted, Kenyatta developed patron­ client hierarchies based on ethnicity, through which he maintained his political influence.

128 Munemo 52. 129 Munemo 52. 130 Barkan 90. 131 Barkan 81. Tongoi 71

In order to secure his position, Kenyatta’s government quickly “swerved from the objectives of nationalism, including widespread restitution of land to Kenyans” and instead towards a power struggle between Kenyatta and his “left­leaning Luo vice president Oginga Odinga.”132 Politically, this was accomplished through the civil service

– with the provincial administration “being given a dominant role as agent of the executive”133. Kenyatta’s government blatantly favored the Kikuyu in the course of

Africanizing the civil service upon independence. During colonialism, the Kikuyu disproportionately benefitted from the limited opportunities offered to the African populations – they aggressively sought out educational qualifications and thus attained secondary and university education. As Barkan writes, “The presence of the European community in Kenya, prior to the independence, coupled with the geographic homeland of the country’s largest tribe, shaped the politics of the immediate post­independence era and gave rise to cleavages based on ethnicity that have structured Kenya’s politics ever since.”134 This legacy carried on deep into Kenyatta’s regime as Kenya’s first president, and with an ethnically­toned political rhetoric already deeply entrenched, it is no surprise then that he used the ethnic­based patronage systems in order to secure his rule.

Kenyatta’s stringent policies were inspired by the fear of competition ­ he was aware that leading up to independence and even thereafter, he faced a large threat from small ethnic groups outside of the Luo and Kikuyu who comprised over 60 percent of the population. When the Kenya People’s Union was formed in 1966 in opposition to

KANU, Kenyatta’s government grudgingly tolerated it and eventually outlawed it three

132 Munemo 53. 133 Swainson 363. 134 Barkan 12. Tongoi 72 years later in 1969. Parties like KPU were aggrieved by the inequitable access to resources for non­Kikuyu elements, and articulated their sentiments along ethnic lines.

Swainson writes that, the “radical political wings of the Kenya African Union (KANU) had been gradually purged during the early 1960’s.”135 Three years after independence,

Kenyatta continued to rely heavily upon his own cronies to consolidate his power over the state and in 1966, the “Kenya People’s Union [KPU] was founded in 1966 amidst accusations that KANU had betrayed the interests of the masses since independence and sold the “fruits of uhuru” to foreign interests.”136 In response, Kenyatta brutally thwarted any opposition to his leadership. When Tom Mboya, a Luo with considerable support among various ethnic groups including the Kikuyu emerged, he was murdered in 1969.

Similarly, J. M. Kariuki, who had a similar populist national appeal, was murdered in

1975.

In many respects the basis for ethnic tensions had began to take shape in Kenya – in part because of a failure of the elite to integrate at a national level due to differing political ideologies but also because of the failure of Kenyatta’s government to deliver on its pre­independence policies. These tensions were alluded to in a speech given by

Kenyatta on Madaraka (Independence) Day in 1966:

There are some persons who suggest that our African Socialism is of no account. They would have Kenya surrender to external interests, and put what they call “Scientific Socialism” in its place. Such people are traitors to the cause of Kenya nationalism….Throughout our struggle for Independence one of our greatest obstacles was tribalism which was played upon by the colonial regime….parties such as KADU and APP…based themselves upon tribalism. (313, Suffering Without Bitterness, Jomo Kenyatta)

135 Swainson 362. 136 Swainson 363. Tongoi 73

Sensing a threat to his power from those who “[exploited] tribalism for political ends”,

Kenyatta used obtrusive amendments to consolidate power around the executive relied on an ethnic matrix that privileged the Kikuyu. Jomo Kenyatta was able to “use state power to propel [his] own moves into production and distribution” rather than use state power to correct the settler dominance of the economy137. As opposed to Tanzania’s bold break with its colonial legacy, Kenya maintained a viable system of governance “through formal institutions over which only he had control”138. Kenyatta carried out a series of constitutional amendments that weakened the role of his Luo Vice – President Odinga.

The most impactful of these amendments was the abolition of a national presidency, which was then replaced with eight regional vice­presidents139. This had the effect of reducing Oginga’s influence. Kenyatta also extended and preserved colonial institutions such as the judiciary and security forces, and the civil service (particularly the Provincial

Administration (PA)). As Munemo aptly notes:

Kenya’s PA system contained eight provinces subdivided into 41 districts, which largely coincided with Kenya’s major ethnic groups. Each district was split into divisions with each division into a number of “locations” until reaching finally the village, or sub­location level. In 1965, the PA system was removed from the Ministry of Home Affairs and placed under direct control of the Office of the President. The reforms also gave the president authority to appoint provincial commissioners [to] assistant chiefs, and in this way, the whole PA system came to represent the interests of the executive at the local level.”140

Aside from manipulating the government structures for his own political ends,

Kenyatta also heavily relied on informal institutions to secure power – the most

137 Swainson 362. 138 Munemo 53. 139 Munemo 53. 140 Munemo 54. Tongoi 74 prominent of which was Harambee. Harambee is a Swahili term that means “let us pull together”. The term drew upon the communal system of labor… whereby members of a neighborhood were summoned by a “caller” to work together on a specific task…141”The concept of Harambee was a traditional principle that existed in many native Kenyan tribes. As Kefa Chepkwony writes, “[Harambee] was known by various names such as

“Kip­ange” in the Kalenjin community; the Kikuyu called it “Ngwaito”; the Luo –

“Konyir”; the Luhya – “Obwasio”.”142 Each community had a collaborative system in which groups of men and groups of women would consolidate their work efforts in order to cultivate, build houses, clear bushes, harvest among other activities. The prosperity of the group was thus dependent upon each one pulling their weight for the common good.

Harambee projects were thus to be locally initiated, implemented and maintained.

Projects were varied and could include needs such as school fees raising, hospital bill harambees and even pre­wedding fundraisers. Harambee was therefore not only a synonym for fundraising, but also included in­kind contributions for labor and building material. This concept is similar to that of Ubuntu, commonly found amongst Southern

African Bantu groups.

It is no surprise that after independence Kenyatta instituted harambee or self­help development as national philosophy that would guide political and economic development. Kenyatta adapted the philosophy of harambee as an embodiment of

141 James Smith. “The Harambee Movement in Kenya: Self­Help, Development and Education among the Kamba of Kitui District.” The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 30 (1992) 701 – 703. JSTOR. April 13, 2015. < http://www.jstor.org/stable/161279 >

142 Kefa Chepkwony. The Role of Harambee in SocioEconomic Development in Kenya: A Case of the Education Sector. 2008. Phasi. 13 April 2015. . Tongoi 75

“mutual assistance, joint effort, mutual social responsibility and community self­reliance.

[harambee was thus] an informal development strategy for the people and by the people in partnership with other stakeholders both internally and externally, the government, as well as non­governmental organizations in order to speed up development.”143Akong’a

(1989) quoted by Chepkwony lists the following as some of the core formal principles of

Harambee144 as articulated by Kenyatta:

1. Bottom­up approach to development in which individual at the community and

grassroots level actively participate in the initiation, planning and implementation

of development projects locally.

2. Collective good is valued above individual gain with participation in harambee

benefiting the wider public rather than just the individual.

3. Pro­active approach in providing facilities and services that meet the felt needs of

the majority members of the community.

4. Utilization of local resources such as labor, materials and funds in order to be

cost­effective.

For a capitalist Kenya, it was not the State’s responsibility to invest in or develop local communities. Munemo argues however, that while Kenyatta conceived of harambee as a means through which communities would pull together to participate in self­ development, it quickly fell prone to patronage. With the aforementioned political challenges to his presidency, Kenyatta used the harambee system to foster patron­client relationships. Munemo writes that “Kenyatta used his stature and influence over the largest and wealthiest faction within KANU (the Gikuyu, Embu and Meru Association

143 Chepkwony 3. 144 Chepkowny 5. Tongoi 76

[GEMA]) to induce and direct harambee contributions to loyal politicians. Defecting and disloyalty could be punished by withdrawing harambee contributions and in so doing, limiting the chances of re­election.”145 Harambee therefore functioned to inculcate patron­ client capitalism that crystallized Kenya’s ethnic fissures.

When Daniel Arap Moi took over as President of Kenya in 1978 upon Kenyatta’s death, the same ethnic tensions that had shaped Kenyatta’s tenure permeated unchecked into Moi’s regime. Moi, who was the former leader of the disbanded Kenya African

Democratic Union (KADU), which had merged with the ruling KANU within a year of independence, consolidated power from the former KADU heartlands. Under Moi,

Kenya’s government formally banned political opposition in 1982. In August of the same year, disgruntled members of the army staged a coup. This marked a significant shift in the direction of Moi’s presidency. Moi realized that he had to develop a new network of followers who owed their allegiance to him. Moi resorted to populism in order to fortify his position. He promised to fight corruption among bureaucrats and political elite and to work to transfer tangible economic and political benefits to ordinary Kenyans. He developed Nyayo as a nationalist philosophy. Nyayo which translates to ‘footsteps’ was

“intended to enable Moi to draw on Kenyatta’s charisma and reputation to legitimate his position by claiming that his administration followed in the founding father’s footsteps.”146 In fact, Moi’s “footsteps” were insecure and he had to increasingly rely on coercion and force to secure his position. He was eager to use land and other economic resources to manipulate and control loyalty. Having inherited a country in which “land was scarce and public sector jobs were in short supply”, he resorted to using patronage

145 Munemo 54. 146 Munemo 61. Tongoi 77 systems to reward loyalists and achieve short­term political ends147. In order to fortify his leadership against the dominant Kikuyu tribe, Moi used patron­client relations to transfer economic resources away from the Kikuyu and to his Kalenjin core.

As opposed to his predecessor Kenyatta, Moi lacked the charisma of a nationalist founding father. In addition, he came from a small insignificant ethnic group called the

Tugen and therefore upon his ascension to power drew support from the Kalenjin and

Maasai in the Rift Valley Province, the Abaluhya in Western Kenya and within Coast

Province. Moi also faced the challenge of governing the country without alienating the

Kikuyu. In order to do this, he “relied on shifting coalitions among the Kikuyu and often

[…played] one faction against another”148. Moi retained a Kikuyu Vice President, Mwai

Kibaki, until 1989 and ostracized Kenneth Matiba, another Kikuyu who had become a major threat to Moi’s presidency by the late 1980’s.

Additionally having inherited a weak party, Moi “had no obvious instrument for political mobilization and recruitment”149. Without a party structure, Moi was institutionally weak. Munemo argues that as regards coercive powers, Moi was constrained. Munemo writes that “Moi was not able to deploy the institution of harambee

…to maintain political control and shore up his own incumbency. Raising sufficient self­ help development funds was too closely fused to Kenyatta’s standing and the support accorded him by wealthy, and especially Kikuyu elites.”150

147 Veit 8. 148 Barkan 82. 149 Munemo 58. 150 Munemo 58. Tongoi 78

Whereas Kenyatta relied heavily on the Provincial Administration to secure loyalty to his regime, Moi decided to strengthen KANU to achieve his own political ends.

He proceeded to further fortify the single­party system and he revitalized the KANU

Parliamentary Group “whose main purpose was to eliminate the need for debate of policy issues in the National Assembly”151. The legislative arm of the government, the National

Assembly, thus lost significance by the 1980’s. Moi insisted that all political leaders and government civil servants become lifetime members of the party. He also altered election rules to prevent dissent – voters were required to queue behind their preferred candidates rather than cast a secret ballot. Similarly, leaders such as Robert Ouko who opposed Moi were murdered and others like Kenneth Matiba and Charles Rubia were detained.

Members of civil society including journalists such as Dedan Mbugua of Beyond magazine; lawyers such as Anyang’ Nyong’o and Gitobu Imanyara; and members of the church such as Henry Okullu expressed their sentiments against the hard hand of Moi’s regime152. On October 23rd 1990, Africa Confidential recorded that Moi had made a number of appointments of Kalenjins – of which the Tugen were a sub­ethnic group ­ to key positions of government such as internal security153.

Similar to his predecessor, Moi drew heavily from the former “Crown Lands”, apportioning land that had been reserved for forest reserves or agricultural reserves to his cronies from the Rift Valley. By the time Moi gained power in 1978, land policy had already gained momentum in the political rhetoric of electioneering, with leaders often referring to Majimboism or regionalism as the means to which to recover land that was

151 Barkan 91. 152 Barkan 59. 153 Barkan 82. Tongoi 79 allegedly ‘stolen’ by Kikuyus upon their resettlement in the Rift Valley and Western

Kenya in the 1960’s. Like his predecessor, Moi did not address the landless population of

Kenya during his regime. In fact, many of the Kikuyu peasants in the Rift Valley were descendants of former Mau Mau fighters and members of ethnic groups residing at the coast. With the introduction of multi­party politics in 1991, it is no wonder that land grievances have often led to violent conflicts during election time.

The Moi regime was notorious for funding ethnic clashes in the 1992 and 1997 elections that fuelled fierce division between ethnic communities, still evident in the present day civic life. Clashes in the 1990’s and even more recently in 2008 that have resulted in the deaths of thousands and the internal displacement of hundreds of thousands, have been largely centered around ethnically charged land­grabbing activities154. In addition, public resource distribution of services such as education, health and infrastructure was inequitable in Kenya, with each incumbent using their political office to favor their ethnic group.

As such, just twenty­five years after independence, the precedent for ethnic­based politics in Kenya had been set. Despite the three year Luo­Kikuyu alliance under the joint umbrella of KANU between 1966 and 1969, Kenyatta established a one­party state in

1969 in which Kikuyu enjoyed many of the country’s economic spoils. When Moi came into power, he promoted the interests of his ethnic minority, the Kalenjin and Western

Rift Kenya enjoyed the economic benefits of state largesse until Moi was voted out of office in 2002 and the pendulum swung back to the Kikuyu under the leadership of the incumbent President Kibaki.

154 Veit 7. Tongoi 80

Multi­lingualism And The Lack of a Single Native Language of Instruction in

Schools

As adopted by Kenyatta in the post­independence period, harambee fit into post­ independence policies on education, particularly as pertains to the choice of language of instruction in schools. The roots of harambee (as pertains to the language of instruction) in schools can be traced back to the early 1920’s when Africans pulled together in opposition to missionary and colonial education, which they felt was not only inadequately provided but also fast becoming a tool for inculcating Western values and undermining African culture. Communities sought to establish and support their own local schools, also known as “independent schools” – a prominent feature of colonial education in Kenya. In summarizing the growth and proliferation of independent schools in Kenya, Michael Kovar writes155:

African education in Kenya is traced from its beginnings in tribal education and rituals through [to] the establishment of formal European style mission schools in the reserves with subsequent interference in traditional tribal customs (eg. female circumcision), reaction by young and old against such interference and the resultant establishment of a separate system of schooling which permitted the best of the European style of schooling (as perceived by the Africans) to co­exist with traditional practices deemed essential to the societal organization of the Kikuyu tribe. The establishment of these independent schools was the result of an uneasy alliance between tribal leaders (with the necessary money) and a new group of younger, more politically oriented men…. In this statement, Kovar acknowledges that indigenous formal education in Kenya was initially construed in political terms: it was to serve three main ends. Firstly,

Independent schools were an avenue through which Africans resisted colonial domination

155 Micheal Kovar. “The Kikuyu Independent Schools Movement: Interaction of Politics and Education in Kenya (1923 – 1953).” Union List of Theses and Dissertations Reflecting Research on Kenya. 2014. Research Kenya. 13 April 2015. < http://researchkenya.or.ke/node/24980 >. Tongoi 81 and upheld their own cultural values, mainly through using the vernacular as the language of instruction in schools. Secondly, independent schools were a means with which to subvert colonial economic hegemony by creating an educated elite that could compete for white collar jobs. Thirdly, independent schools were a way through which to organize politically –often bringing together radical leaders in the pursuit of self­governance.

Kovar goes on to argue that the number of independent schools grew phenomenally after World War II. This was particularly because African war veterans had been exposed to the weaknesses of the British colonialists as well as to the benefits of using education to create the intellectual and skilled workforce that could threaten the colonial government. Independent schools soon became centers of communication and recruitment of “freedom fighters” during the Mau Mau rebellion. Schools were used by

Kikuyu nationalists not only for educational purposes but also as a means of extending their influence to rural areas. Emerging leaders such as Jomo Kenyatta eventually took control of formal educational associations that had previously been dominated by missionaries and local colonial governments. During the Emergency of 1953, many leaders of these independent schools, including nationalist leader Jomo Kenyatta, were arrested due to their overlapping role as nationalist leaders.

Having conceptually developed in a school setting, the ramifications of harambee were quickly felt early independent Kenya’s education system. Cooksey et al, identify four critical developments brought about by the dominance of harambee as a guiding feature of education policy after independence. Firstly, as regards financing education, newly independent Kenya continued in the footsteps of the colonial government.

Responsibility for financing education was shared amongst religious bodies, communities Tongoi 82 and parents, under the banner of harambee. Secondly, uneven regional development during the colonial era, translated into the under­representation of some geographical regions and communities with the Kikuyu tribe benefitting receiving most access to education. Thirdly, a widespread belief that the role of education was to lead to white­ collar jobs rather than for self­sustenance as was the case in Tanzania. Citizens were thus prone to seeking economic and political privileges through patron­client relations. And lastly, a general belief that in the planning and management of development, particularly as pertains to education, the state should play a supportive rather than central role.

I focus on this last feature to illustrate that the weaknesses of a decentralized education policy that relied on harambee, were most animated in an incoherent language of instruction policy. In what follows, I show that language of instruction policies failed to promote a sense of nationhood in Kenya as they did in Tanzania, instead conferring ethnic identities that coupled with patron­client capitalism, became the bases of conflict for decades to come.

Indeed, language policy as it relates to ethnic nationalisms in Kenya cannot be addressed without taking a historical perspective. It has its foundations in colonial language policy following the occupation by European powers at the end of the 19th century. Language and educational policies were a key foci of colonial rule. Nabea divides colonial language policy into two periods. The first is the period before the First

World War and the second is the period after the Second World War. He argues that in the first period there were several players involved in the formulation of language policy.

Namely “Christian missionaries who thought that gospel would be best spread in the mother tongue, [….] colonial administrators who had an interest in controlled teaching of Tongoi 83

English to Africans in order to obtain low cadre employees in their administration,

[…and] British settlers who feared the Europeanization of Africans through English language lest they became too educated to accept the role of wage laborers.”156

Needless to say, these competing interests in language policy impacted the education system. The 1924 Phelps­Stokes Commission “recommended that Kiswahili be dropped in the education curriculum except in areas where it was spoken as the first language. The Commission also recommended that the local mother tongue be taught in early primary classes, while English was to be taught from upper primary up to university level.”157 Leading up to World War II, language policies in Kenya were not only incongruent, they served to entrench English hegemony, undermine Kiswahili as a unifying language and encourage the use and spread of ethnic languages.

After World War II, the second period in educational development was characterized by domination by the colonial government. The intensification of the freedom struggle led British colonialists to further undermine the spread of Kiswahili as a unifying language. The education system served to put these policies into effect. As

Nabea records, “[in] 1950­1951, the Education Department Reports pointed out that it was inappropriate to teach three languages at primary school. The Reports included

Beecher’s 1949, Binn’s 1952 and the Drogheda Commission of 1952. The documents recommended that English be introduced in the lower primary to be taught alongside the mother tongue, and called for the dropping of Kiswahili in the curriculum, except in areas

156 Wendo Nabea. Language Policy in Kenya: Negotiation with Hegemony. Journal of Pan African Studies. Vol. 3 (2009): 123. JSTOR. 13 April 2015. < http://www.jpanafrican.com/docs/vol3no1/3.1%20Kenya%20Language%20Policy.pdf >. 157 Nabea 124. Tongoi 84 where it was the mother tongue.”158 Going by the colonial language policy in Kenya, it is apparent that linguistic hegemony was a feature of colonial rule – English was posited as the dominant language with the aim of preventing Kenyan nationalism which was solidifying around African languages, and in particular Kiswahili159.

Upon independence, there continued to be little governmental coordination between language of instruction policies, language­learning objectives and policies concerning the relative roles that English, Swahili and vernacular languages were to play. The proliferation of ethnic languages, thus served to highlight and promote differences between ethnic communities. Kenya was thus bequeathed a divisive linguistic in which the English­speaking (and thus educated) Kikuyu elites were best suited to benefit from an exclusionary ethnic based system.

Similar to the colonial era, independent Kenya’s language policy vacillated. As

Nabea writes, “there were epistemological and strategic moves in the form of research commissions which were carried out in order to inform the language policy, though the implementation of recommendations from such tasks [was] lackluster.”160 In 1964, the

Kenya Education Commission carried out a survey to establish the interests of citizens with regard to language use. Nabea notes that the findings revealed that “most people wanted a trilingual approach to education.” 161Government policy thus allowed for students to learn in their mother tongue for the first three years of learning. In rural schools this resulted in linguistically homogenous schools while in the urban areas the

158 Nabea 124. 159 Nabea 125. 160 Nabea 125 161 Nabea 125 Tongoi 85 use of English or Swahili was more prevalent than the use of one particular vernacular language. The Ominde Commission of 1964, further convoluted linguistic policy in

Kenya when it revealed that “many Kenyans were in favor of English as the medium of instruction from primary school to university level”162. This had the effect of propping up

English use at the expense of vernaculars. English was thus introduced in beginners’ classes under the New Primary Approach, and its use was heavily emphasized163.

In 1967, the Kenya Institute of Education (KIE) “started producing books in various mother tongues including in Kiswahili, for use in primary schools”164. Additionally, the government decreed that Adult Education would be taught both in Kiswahili and vernacular. The 1976 Gachathi Commission recommended that vernaculars be used as the sole language of instruction till fourth grade, but that Kiswahili be taught from then on till university. Kiswahili thus received more recognition but was still given an inferior status in the curriculum. Nabea records that “English was allotted 8­10 periods out of 40 hours each week [and] Swahili was allotted 3 hours”165. Thus in Kenya, trilingualism persisted. This had the triple effect of entrenching cultural and ethnic identities; relegating Kiswahili to an inferior language by understating its potential to unite the country across ethnic lines; and oversubscribing to English use, that when placed in the context of a capitalistic economy, created linguistic classes of haves (English speakers) and have nots (non­English speakers).

162 Nabea 126 163 Nabea 126 164 Nabea 126 165 Nabea 126. Tongoi 86

A 1985 study by Cleghorn et al. on Kenya’s varied language conditions reveals the disastrous effects that these incongruent policies have had on fostering national unity through a single language. In each of the three schools in which this study was carried out, each had a different language of instruction model, illustrative of Kenya’s varied language conditions. One was an urban school where instruction was in English from early primary education; the second was a peri­urban school where English and Swahili – two second languages for most pupils – were used as the initial media of instruction; the third school was located in a rural district where Dholuo (Luo), the vernacular, was the initial medium of instruction.”166 The study concluded that language of instruction played a critical role in fostering social cohesion. Most importantly, it suggested that there have been no established and special provisions to teach English in ways that will ensure that it is mastered by young pupils throughout the country – such that even if English was to be perceived as having the potential to bridge ethnic cleavages, not enough effort was being put into ensuring that this outcome was achieved. Their study reveals the impact of vacillating language of instruction policies on reproducing ethnic demarcations but also in reproducing ethnically stratified economic classes. Consequently, students that spoke

English had greater potential to access a wider range of economic resources later on in their lives than did those who spoke just their vernaculars or just Kiswahili.

Most importantly however, this vacillation in native language of instruction policies had a disastrous effect on national linguistic cohesion and by extension only served to highlight ethnic fissures. With more than 40 indigenous languages spoken in Kenya, in

166 Allie Cleghorn, Marilyn Merritt AND Jared Obagi. “Language Policy and Science Instruction in Kenyan Primary Schools.” Comparative Education Review. Vol. 33 (1989) : 21­39. JSTOR. 13 April 2015. . Tongoi 87 addition to English and Swahili, the national language; diversity is highlighted through an vacillatory language policy. The harambee system was thus a crucial component of this linguistic matrix. Linguistic diversity became especially potent when coupled with patron­client capitalism because language became a marker for those who would be afforded upward mobility in a Westernizing socio­economic structure. In Kenya, upward mobility was guaranteed for those who spoke Kikuyu – a marker of one’s ethnicity and

English – a marker of one’s education. With scarce economic resources, the absence of a coherent native language of instruction policy functioned as a natural filter for those who qualified to be included in the share of the political and economic spoils.

Aside from divisive language of instruction policies that went hand in hand with the patron­client harambee system, a number of developments by the Ministry of

Education further polarized Kenya along ethnic lines. Institutions were set up to control education policy and management at the national level. Barkan notes four main developments in the constitution as regards education policy that highlight how the laws pertaining to education policy further fissured Kenya along ethnic lines167.

Firstly, the 1966 Teachers Service Commission (TSC) Act made all teachers state employees. As such, rather than be accountable to their local communities, like the citizen teachers in Tanzania, teachers reported to the State. Secondly, The 1969

Education Act Streamlined central administration and professional management, reducing the legal powers of the minister and director of education, school inspectorate, curriculum supervisors, and local school managers. With the mopping of power by the central administration, schools were not accountable to their communities but rather to

167 Barkan 206. Tongoi 88 those in power. This fuelled patron­clientism, and redirected attention away from the medium of instruction in schools as a unifying and nationalizing feature and instead to divisive ethnic­based power politics. As such, from observing the actions of political leaders, one could infer that nation­building across ethnic groups was hardly a top priority. If anything, the political system benefitted from the lack of nationalistic sentiment among the populace.

Similarly, the Nyayo Era was marked with a continued emphasis on economic growth and sustenance, rather than on nation­building. The Nyayo Era did little to foster nationalism through the education sector. The government’s efforts were solely focused on gaining popularity rather than fostering unity. For example, Moi’s announcement in

1978 that his government would provide free milk to schoolchildren168 was intended to grant Moi some internal support for his leadership. In the realm of constitutional amendments the same overarching theme can be gleaned. At higher levels of education,

Barkan notes that despite the sound division of labor, “the TSC, KNEC and the universities [were] not always able to exercise the autonomy stated in the laws which set them up.”169 Major policy decisions in education were made without the professional input that would have afforded them greater success. For example, presidential decrees in

1974 and 1979 announced the abolition of school fees in primary schools – a move that caught planners and professionals unaware170. As Barkan notes, this led to confusion in the education sector due to the need to employ new teachers and thus pay them as well; and a sky­rocketing need for new school buildings and support infrastructure. A similar

168 Munemo 59. 169 Barkan 206. 170 Barkan 207. Tongoi 89 case in point was the 1980 Law established the Kenya National Examination Council

(KNEC) as the sole body for conducting examinations outside of the university. This meant that the body was prone to manipulation by political elite. By dictating, through the bottle­neck effect, who gets to pass through to the next cycle of education, KNEC dictated which individuals or communities would, in the future, be best positioned to benefit from state resources through government jobs. The few years of the Nyayo era thus saw the government emasculate decision­making bodies within the Ministry of

Education through single party rule and patron­clientism.

As regards language of instruction policy, little changed during the Moi era. The 1981

Mackay Commission recommended eight years of primary school, four years of secondary school and four years of university education. Additionally, it passed that

“English remain the language of instruction, while Kiswahili was made a compulsory subject in both primary and secondary education [although] mother tongue [was] to be used in lower grades of primary schools in areas where this was possible.”171 This policy only furthered a climate of education in which ethnicity was highlighted through the education system. Owing to their advantageous position in the economy, the Kikuyu continued to benefit from this policy.

The government then launched the 8­4­4 system172 in 1983, soon after the failed coup of 1982 and added pre­vocational subjects to the curriculum in order to prepare students for self­reliance173 through inclusion of subjects such as home science, wood work, metal

171 Nabea 126. 172 This is a system in which students underwent eight years of primary education, four years of secondary education and four years of tertiary education. 173 Barkan 208. Tongoi 90 work, pottery and business education. As Barkan notes: “in political terms, the 8­4­4 initiative attempted to shift responsibility for creating employment away from the state.”174 The 1985 Kenya High Commission for Higher Education Act set up an agency to coordinate the development of all postsecondary education in the country. This development translated into increased access to education resources for dominant ethnic communities at the expense of others, failing then to deal with the problem of ethnic polarity.

While the Nyayo Era can be credited for shoring up enrolment of students at all levels it did little to change the ethnic matrix upon which economic and political development was based. Admittedly, between 1963 and 1991, the number of primary schools more than doubled in number from 6,502 to 15,196175. Similar outcomes were noted in secondary and tertiary education. However, none of these education reforms were directly tailored towards fostering nationalistic sentiment or dealing with the challenges of a multi­ethnic and multi­lingual developing country.

Instead, education policy was highly tied to the economic demands of the country and vice versa – as economic policy followed education policy to some extent too.

Government policy focused on unemployment that had been brought by the increase in the number of graduates. Unemployment of graduates thus became a matter of political concern as the rapid expansion of tertiary education soon surpassed the government’s ability to offer graduates gainful employment. Economic deterioration – as a result of the

OPEC cuts also resulted in a weakened economy in Kenya. Consequently, the costs of

174 Barkan 210. 175 Barkan 208. Tongoi 91 financing education fell squarely on the shoulders of parents. With the advent of globalization and the growth of the international aid donor industry, self­help harambee groups fell prone to the whims of international aid donor policies which now channelled funds through politicians and local leaders. Again, rather than formulate and institute an inward­facing education policy that would put the national needs of the country first,

Kenya’s education system had become increasingly susceptible to outside and foreign pressures that drew attention away from the crucial connection between language of instruction policies in schools and the fostering of national cohesion.

Analysis and Conclusion

In this chapter, I have illustrated that while independence served to deracialize the state, little was done after independence to detribalize Kenya. Colonial strategies had been highly unsuccessful – failing on one hand due to inadequate human and physical resources and on the other hand due to resistance from indigenous people. Upon independence, Kenya’s decision to pursue an open market economy was ill­conceived and had far­reaching consequences for the development of nationalist sentiments. As opposed to Tanzania, after 1967, in which equality regardless of ethnicity was emphasized through socialist policies, Kenya’s decision to pursue capitalism resulted in an inequitable distribution of resources based on one’s connections to power via their ethnicity, a weak patrimonial state and economic decline. The harambee philosophy was first sounded by Jomo Kenyatta and rearticulated by his deputy, Daniel Arap Moi was a crucial aspect of creating an ethnic matrix on which political and economic manoeuvrings were made. Harambee as a concept relied on a bottom­heavy approach to development particularly in rural Kenya and by virtue of being a fundraising and resource­collecting Tongoi 92 system, it soon fell prone to patron­clientelism as Kenya’s economy began to deteriorate in first decades after independence. As Barkan notes, “[politicians] used harambee to solicit support at election time.” These patron­client relationships, he adds, “replaced political activities through political parties… [as they were] oiled by harambee donations from rich and powerful patrons. In reality the leadership used harambee to divert political energies that could have been spent in questioning a centralized and authoritarian state.”

Most importantly, the harambee system functioned to not only insulate communities, and limit, to use a term of Miguel’s, social interactions that ameliorate ethnic cleavages.

Newly independent Kenya had also inherited a highly politicized education environment. Colonial education with its uneven spread of missionary activity and differentiated modes of colonial development had produced disparities in education provision across the country. Consequently, Kenya inherited problems of social inequity and regional and linguistic disparities to access to education. Nonetheless, like many

African countries at independence, Kenya viewed its education system as a great gain.

The prevailing view at the time was that colonial authorities had limited access to education for Africans and that this had resulted in limited economic and political development. As such, education was a tool that would advance the country’s overall development. With many leaders of the new nations themselves graduates of modern, mostly European Universities, education was touted as the means to modernization and forging national unity. As Cooksey et al argue, “the challenge for new elites was to maintain national unity and social cohesion by ameliorating inequalities in the distribution of educational facilities and opportunities”176.

176 Barkan 201. Tongoi 93

Upon independence, the leadership of the new nation was expected to expand educational opportunities for the majority of the population. However, this would prove to be an insurmountable task for the newly independent country, not by default but rather, by choice. Among the citizenry access to education was perceived as critical for personal development as it was a means to white collar employment in a young but burgeoning

African workforce. Education was consequently a viable means through which to access state resources by working directly for the state or in politically generated activities.. As such, for communities, the presence of many educated individuals provided a gateway to improved social and economic access. In Kenya, education provision was then a means to access a share of the economic spoils accrued through rentist capitalism.

Kenya’s patron­client capitalism, as embodied through harambee, fed into policymaking in education. In the early post­independence period, education continued to feature prominently in the political rhetoric – but unlike Tanzania, in which it was touted as being a fundamental aspect of nation building, educational expansion in Kenya was understood primarily in economic terms. Instead, Kenya failed to centralize its education sector and “school creation was not a centralized process. [Control] was only exercised through school registration and inspection systems, a single national examination and accreditation system, and judicious dispensations of central funding”177. Kenya lacked the nationalist project that Tanzania had at its disposal. As a result, the impact of centralization in education in Kenya, whatever little there was, was not as pervasive as it was in Tanzania.

177 Barkan 207. Tongoi 94

Instead Kenyatta expanded his “[harambee] government policy of transferring the burden of rural development to those villages in need and calling upon local resources to satisfy local demands” into the education sector. Education was understood as having “a high premium as a source of middle­ and high­level manpower…to fill positions previously held by expatriates.”178 In a newly independent country, controlling educational opportunities was thus critical in building one’s economic clout and strengthening one’s political muscle. As such it is not that education in Kenya was not a political priority and as such was not centrally structured, but it is the very fact that it was viewed as politically sensitive to the core of national life that it became a site for political wrangling.

Kenyans heeded the call to harambee and took to mobilizing to set up institutions, primary schools and secondary schools. As such, harambee succeeded in rapid growth in the enrolment of pupils and students across the country. To date, the education sector is probably the single most important beneficiary from the harambee movement. As

Chepkwony writes of more recent times, harambee schools have been crucial in increasing access to education for nursery, primary and secondary education. 600 schools have been established and a currently run as Harambee schools. In addition, bursary schemes for children from needy schools have been established in order to enable them to pay for their school, college and university fees. The premium on education in Kenya has continued to be higher than for most other public goods. An analysis of harambee

Projects, conducted by Transparency International, between January 2000 and September

2002 reveals that 58 percent of harambees were in respect to education with important

178 Barkan 207. Tongoi 95 projects in health, water and electricity getting a joint total of 9 percent179. Harambee contributed to the education sector by aiding the development of harambee schools, harambee institutes of science & technology and vocational training centers and harambee centers of higher education. Harambee schools were a major feature from the

1960’s onwards.

However, despite the fact that harambee schools have contributed to increased provision of education, they have done little to avert ethnic tensions between groups. If anything, the very ethnically insular nature of harambee schools may have resulted in weaker integration across Kenyans of different ethnicities. This is because, from their inception, harambee schools, were local and originated from ethnically grounded mobilisation. With education perceived as a means through which to gain access to employment and by extension state resources, access to education was politically controlled through patron­client relations that often fell within the groove of ethnicity.

Harambee as a development philosophy proved divisive in practise, and it created incoherence in education policies – the most significant feature of which was the lack of a singular native language of instruction in schools. Increased literacy and numeracy did not necessarily translate to the growth of a nationalistic sentiment that might have overridden ethnic clustering. If anything, harambee led to more insular ethnic groups by allowing different ethnic groups to function in isolation and also to focus on their own communal needs rather than the national needs. This policy was a stark contrast to

Tanzania’s centralized educational development policies that forced different ethnicities to work together and in so doing ameliorated ethnic cleavages. The latter development,

179 Chepkwongy 8. Tongoi 96 coupled with patron­client capitalism, I argue, sowed the seeds for ethnic dissent in

Kenya.

Scholars such as Cheesman (2008) underscore the importance of patron­client capitalism in explaining Kenya’s post­election violence in 1992, 1997 and 2007­2008.

The most recent bout of ethnic violence in Kenya is illustrative of the dangerous interplay between patron­client capitalism and the lack of a single native language of instruction policy. After Mwai Kibaki, the incumbent president of Kikuyu ethnicity was fraudulently declared the winner of the elections, the supporters of his opponent, Raila Odinga, a man of Luo ethnicity, took to the streets in violent reprisal. As Cheeseman notes, it is “the perceptions of the state as controlled by the Kikuyu [that] led to a revolt against electoral fraud based on ethnic lines.”180 The Kikuyu were perceived as unequally benefitting from the postcolonial state. Ethnic cleavages were not only constructed and invented in

Kenya’s colonial and post­colonial history, but also rendered more salient over time.

Consequently, a history of Kenya’s political economy reveals that ethnic violence in

Kenya can be attributed to ethnically determined access to state resources and to lack of single native language of instruction policies through which to foster unity.

180 Dunn et. al. 73. Tongoi 97

Chapter 4:

Patron­Client Socialism In Zambia: A Missed Opportunity At Unification

From as early as the mid­1960s, Kenya and Tanzania have been viewed as approaching ideal models of economic and social development in post­independence

Africa. A comparison of both countries is intriguing because despite the similarities in demographic variables that scholars have identified as being central to ethnic relations in

Africa, the political and economic trajectories of the countries have significantly diverged. Kenya and Tanzania are similar in that both countries are former British colonies that were inculcated into the global capitalist system upon independence, both were exposed to English as a lingua franca and both have an ethno­linguistic fractionalization index that is higher than 0.83. In light of these significant similarities, it is indeed puzzling that the political and economic trajectories of both countries have been radically different after independence.

To explain this seemingly paradoxical outcome, I have demonstrated that ethnic violence in Kenya and the lack thereof in Tanzania boils down to the intersection of economic and language of instruction policies. That is, Tanzania’s one­party socialism and single native language of instruction policies are what bolstered it from disintegrating into ethnic violence while Kenya’s patron­client capitalism and lack of a single native language of instruction policy are what led to ethnically­articulated violence. My emphasis on single native rather than simply single language of instruction policies shall be explained further at the end of this chapter when I extend my analytical model to the case of Zambia. Tongoi 98

In developing my argument, I showed that in the 1980’s despite the fact that

Tanzania’s shrinking economy was on the verge of near collapse because of Ujamaa,181 antipathy to socialism was not ethnically expressed because of two main reasons. The first was economic: one­party socialism had emphasized an equal distribution of spoils regardless of one’s ethnic group; and the second was related to inclusive education policies, particularly tied to the adoption of Kiswahili as the sole native language of instruction in schools. One­party socialism and single native language of instruction policies are what socialized students, and in turn reoriented the country towards a nationalist outlook. As such President Nyerere’s Ujamaa deliberately downplayed ethnic identities, and instead created a united Tanzanian front. Additionally, socialism promoted the use of a single native language of instruction policy, which had the effect of nurturing cross­cutting cleavages across ethnic, racial and religious groups.

In the next chapter, I turned my focus to Kenya. I showed that as opposed to

Tanzania, post­independence Kenya disintegrated into patron­client capitalism that fuelled ethnic divisions. Harambee as a philosophy of self­help and community­driven development failed to foster collective action amongst members of different ethnic communities. If anything, it created a patronage system by which one’s access to economic resources was determined by their ethnic affiliation. Consequently, the lack of centralized and state­led approach to development was mapped onto the education sector and most notably mirrored in language of instruction policies. Kenya continued to oscillate between a trilingual education system in which English was the primary language of instruction, while Kiswahili and vernaculars were relegated second and third

181 Barkan 23. Tongoi 99 priority respectively. Thus, while Kenya accrued economic growth, the benefits of capitalism were enjoyed by a select few – Kikuyu’s that had access to education and were thus members of the English­speaking governing elite. With the benefits of capitalism accruing to a select few of Kenya’s populace it is no surprise then that antipathy was expressed in ethno­linguistic terms. As such, I have illustrated that violence in Kenya has been brought on by patron­client capitalism and the lack of a single native language of instruction policy by which to underplay ethnic cleavages en masse.

Extensions and Implications

I have thus explained the divergence in Kenya’s and Tanzania’s trajectories in regards to ethnic conflict, and what at first may have appeared to be a paradox is a paradox no more. It is no surprise that Kenya has experienced three episodes of post­ election ethnic cleansing with the tribal clashes of 1992, 1997 and 2008 being specifically targeted at the Kikuyu tribe while Tanzania has enjoyed political stability and a strong durable sense of national identity. However, it is of analytical interest to preliminarily test this argument beyond the bounds of Kenya and Tanzania. In what follows, I turn to a brief discussion of Zambia.

Zambia resembles Kenya and Tanzania in significant ways. It too had the potential to fissure along ethnic and racial cleavages as it had a high ethno­linguistic fractionalization index of 0.82182. Similarly, at independence, it had no ethnic group that was large enough to dominate the rest of the country. The Bemba, Lozi, Tonga and

Nyanja were the most numerous ethnic groups and together they accounted for over 50%

182 Thesis Advising Meeting, February 2015. Tongoi 100 of Zambia’s population. As in Kenya’s case, the colonial era played on these divisions in order to control the population. For example, the Bemba, who are found in Zambia’s north and northeast and who provided much of the labor for the copper mining industry, had their traditional political structure severely disrupted by direct British rule. However, direct rule gave the Bemba access to resources and consequently, an economic and political edge over other ethnicities as was the case for the Kikuyu in Kenya. In Zambia, the Bemba of the northern copperbelt had access to a “degree of modern infrastructure, a modicum of formal education, and a labor force more acquainted with Western capitalist economy”183. It is no surprise then that, according to Zambia’s census in 2000, the Bemba

(or Awemba, Wemba) account for only 11 percent of Zambia’s population yet over 30 percent of Zambia’s population speak ciBemba – the language of the Bemba.

While these are the very variables that scholars have pointed to in explaining ethnic conflict in Africa, Zambia like Tanzania has not experienced rampant ethnic conflict. Scholars such as Bauer and Taylor have attributed this to one main explanation: the deliberate use of economic and social policies “ to [quell] nascent ethnic tensions by balancing ethnic representation” in all aspects of governance184. Worth noting, is the fact that Zambia straddles the economic continuum between Kenya and Tanzania. Zambia started out with a capitalist economic model and then switched to Humanism, a version of African Socialism, and back again to capitalism. This had implications for its likelihood of disintegrating into ethnically charged violence.

183 Gretchen Bauer and Scott Taylor. Politics of Southern Africa: State and Society in Transition. (London: Lynne Reinner Publishers, 2005) 52. 184 Bauer et. al. 52. Tongoi 101

In what follows, I trace Zambia’s trajectory to argue that like Tanzania, Zambia did not degenerate into wholesale ethno­political conflict particularly because President

Kaunda’s call for “ “One Zambia, One Nation” ” was more than simply a political slogan.

In other words, Kaunda employed Humanism, a set of carefully curated economic and social policies that are tied to the language of instruction in schools, to deemphasize ethnic and linguistic cleavages. However, Zambia’s success has not been as acclaimed as

Tanzania’s because, among many differences in the two countries, Humanism was poorly articulated and implemented; and Zambia opted to use English, a non­native language of instruction, in schools.

Oscillations in Economic Policy: From Capitalism to Patron Client­Socialism in

Zambia

Zambia, like Kenya and Tanzania, experienced British colonial rule towards the turn of the 20th Century. This was of crucial importance in curating a capitalist economic system that would then come to plague Zambia after independence. Under the British

South Africa Company (BSAC), England sought to exploit the copper deposits in the

North of the country, as an appendage to its entrenched rule in South Africa and Southern

Rhodesia. In 1924, the British government took over the administration of what was then referred to as Northern Rhodesia. Northern Rhodesia was to serve as a “reserve of cheap labor serving the white­owned mines and farms of the region.” 185 During the three decades of Britain’s colonial rule, Northern Rhodesia’s economy was oriented towards exportation of copper, raw materials and capital generated from trade186. The Northern

185 Bauer et. al. 13. 186 Bauer et. al. 15. Tongoi 102 region of Northern Rhodesia became known as the Copperbelt and it came to serve as the backbone of the country’s colonial economy. In 1953, just ten years prior to its independence, Northern Rhodesia was incorporated into the Central Africa Federation that included Southern Rhodesian (now Zimbabwe) and Nyasaland (now Malawi).

However, with the currents of independence sweeping across other parts of the continent, this federation was a short­lived experiment. African opposition to white minority and

British colonial rule grew throughout the federation years. Several social, economic and political factors motivated Zambia’s nationalist pre­independence phase. Namely: an informal color bar that constrained the rights of Africans; insufficient access to education and social services; and inadequate investments in agriculture to aid peasant farmers187.

While opposition to foreign rule had begun as early as the 1910’s a new leadership forced itself to the fore in the 50’s, one that was willing to militantly oppose the whites and call for the transformation of new institutions to embody the demands of the African majority188.

The United National Independence Party (UNIP) was formed in 1960 under the leadership of Kenneth Kaunda. With the imminent collapse of the Federation at the fore of political discourse in the 1960’s the British government was increasingly agreeable to relinquishing governance to an African majority. Northern Rhodesia became the United

Republic of Zambia on 24th October 1964 when Kenneth Kaunda was elected its first president. The colonial period in Zambia’s history that ended in 1964, had placed Zambia within a larger global capitalist system and had entrenched a resource­based economy – a

187 Bauer et. al. 27. 188 Bauer et. al. 27. Tongoi 103 factor that would come to greatly constrain and direct Zambia’s economic and social development to the present day.

Scholarly literature on post­independence Zambia divides Zambia’s political history into three republics based on pivotal reconstructions of the economy. The first period which lasted from independence to 1972, the second lasted from 1972 to 1990 and the third goes from 1990 to present. These periods are distinguished by significant changes in economic and political policy. The first republic marked a period of multi­ partyism and capitalism. The second republic marked a radical shift to one­party statehood and a version of African socialism called Humanism. The third republic marked a return to multi­partyism and capitalism. These significant shifts in Zambia’s history offer an opportunity to further examine the argument developed from a comparison of Kenya and Tanzania.

When Zambia gained independence in 1964, its new rulers hardly had an independent economic base. The nature of a copper­based economy was that it was buoyant and subject to the whims of the international export market. Also, having been constructed during the colonial era, the copper production system was largely oriented to meet the needs of a Western world. Additionally, the “income and rents from the minerals were shared out among the new government, the foreign mining companies and the international banks that held the foreign loans.”189

Zambia’s first republic that lasted from 1964 to 1972 was marked by the two critical economic and political developments. Firstly, a rise in mineral export earnings

189 Bauer et. al. 64. Tongoi 104 financed the introduction of welfare services. Secondly, the distribution of resources in the northern belt of the country meant that political language was rife with ethno­ regionalism – a factor that led to the introduction of one­party rule and humanist socialism in the second republic.

In the first five years of Zambia’s first republic, the incumbent government was tasked with fulfilling the promises that it had made during its election campaigns.

Amongst the top priorities was the deracialization and Africanization of the state bureaucracy. UNIP’s leaders had a clear course with which to transform the political and economic system so as to alter the social framework of the nation. They immediately began administrative reorganization and indigenization of posts in earnest in order to offset the white majority in leadership. Other departments of the civil service were also rapidly expanded to include a large number of new African personnel – Burdette notes a doubling in civil service posts from 23,000 in 1963 to 52,000 in 1967190. However, despite these efforts at localizing and consolidating the leadership and civil service, administrative structures and procedures remained unchanged during the first republic.

As Burdette notes:

The civil service was also politicized. In theory under the Westminster format, the civil service is politically neutral, but in Zambia this was hardly adhered to. Political appointees at the top (the permanent secretaries and ministers especially), reflecting competing political interests at cabinet level, became enmeshed in personal and sectional disputes, which permeated the institutions and sometimes brought administration to a standstill. (Burdette, Zambia In Between Two Worlds, p. 69) In order to tackle “bureaucratic paralysis” Kaunda resorted to “reshuffling” ­ a process by which officeholders could be shifted from one post to another without prior warning.

190 Bauer et. al. 66. Tongoi 105

In addition, Kaunda broke down ministries into smaller units and disbursed them to leaders based on according to their ethno­regional background. While the first cabinet held sixteen individual posts, the number had risen to twenty­six by 1972191. Both strategies had the effect of consolidating power around Kaunda’s office as senior politicians and civil servants could not stop governmental action through building power bases within administration because they could not expect to serve for longer than eighteen months in any particular post.

Despite these efforts, within the first few years of independence, political upheavals had begun to take shape within Zambian politics. These were often articulated as ethno­regional or ethno­linguistic conflicts. The members of the ANC party had a large southern and eastern followings consisting of Ila, Tonga and Lenje speakers, while

UNIP, had a large number of Northern followers from the Bemba community. In the

Western parts of the country, in Barotseland, the old BaLozi ruling class was also eager for power. Kaunda was therefore largely aware that “ethnic balancing” was necessary.

That is, “each ethno­linguistic group was to be granted a certain number of high­level positions based in part on the “numerical, political and bargaining strength of a particular group within the ruling party.” ”192 However, as was the case in Kenya, this language of tribalism “masked a more complex process of class consolidation and personal accumulation of power and prestige.”193 Political leaders therefore turned to tribal appeals to back their standing in office. In the elections of 1970, elections turned violent with supporters of UNIP attacking members of the ANC party194. Protests by women and youth

191 Bauer et. al. 69. 192 Bauer et. al. 73. 193 Bauer et. al. 70. Tongoi 106 further highlighted the ethnic divides and the civil unrest that was threatening to tear apart this newly independent nation195. It is for these reasons that Kaunda shifted towards a policy of a one­party state. However, the demise of multi­partyism in and of itself could not eliminate tribalism. Kaunda’s rhetoric of “One Zambia, One Nation” provided a philosophy of unification to which Zambians could aspire to. “One Zambia, One Nation” was a call for all stakeholders to consciously uphold unity in diversity196.

While Zambia had always leaned towards socialism as an ideology from as early as 1964, it was not until 1967 that President Kaunda gave form and structure to this social and economic system. In Zambia, this came to be known as Humanism. Kaunda articulated his ideas in two booklets: Humanism I published in 1967 and Humanism II published in 1974. Like his counterpart in Tanzania, Kaunda had envisioned African

Socialism to mean “policies to lessen overt colonial inequalities and to extend civil rights to citizens regardless of color or race.”197 Core to African socialism was the raising of living standards through a more equitable distribution of national wealth and social services for a majority of the population. Intrinsically, Humanism was a merger of “the basic ideals of Christianity and antiracism [and] egalitarian precepts of nineteenth century liberalism and Fabian socialism.”198 However, these ideals would prove to be vague articulations that did not transfer into radical shifts in how society was organized. Rather, they served to “socialize the economy by the instrument of State control in order to bring

194 “Man Fights for Life After Election Battle Rocks Township.” Times of Zambia. 27 July 1970. PDF. 195 “Women Strip Off in Election Protest.” Times of Zambia. 4 August 1970. PDF. 196 “Zambia: One Zambia, One Nation – Building Unity in Diversity”, Times of Zambia. 2 March 2015. 197 Bauer et. al. 77. 198 Bauer et. al. 77. Tongoi 107 this important sector of […] life closer to the people who now own it.”199 Humanism, then served at the very most, as rhetorical justification for a one party state.

Unlike Ujamaa, which had strong programmatic clarity that was sufficient to radicalize and reorient the economy, Humanism was poorly articulated and implemented.

That said, it did provide a sufficient catalyst to transform the economy from a heavy reliance on foreign ownership. As Bauer writes, “Humanism provided some philosophical support for the introduction of welfare programs [and] state ownership edged out the multinational corporations in mines and manufacturing.”200 This reconstruction of the economy was crucial in order to bridge the sharp divide between local and foreign owners but also in productivity and living standards between urban and rural dwellers and between blacks and whites. While humanism provided a basis for social transformation, the reality was that Zambia’s transformations remained largely capitalist in nature – they focused on the agricultural and manufacturing industry with little emphasis placed on transforming social institutions such as the civil service and education sector. With plummeting copper prices in the global economy by the 1970’s it is not surprising that Kaunda’s government spent much of its energy supporting a flailing economy rather than reorienting itself inward towards a nation­building project.

By the turn of the first decade of independence, Zambia’s economy had taken a plunge for the worse due to plummeting prices of copper in the global economy. While fissures had begun to appear between the urban and rural populations as well as amongst the ruling class, these never broke down into ethno­regionally or ethno­linguistically

199 Bauer et. al. 77. 200 Bauer et. al. 77. Tongoi 108 inspired conflicts or violence. Unlike Kenya, in which one ethnic community mainly benefitted from the spoils of economic prosperity, in Zambia all communities were affected by the shrinking economy. In many ways, the incumbent government could escape responsibility by blaming the economic downturn on international markets that were beyond its control. Despite these seemingly obvious options, Kaunda’s government did not face any large­scale opposition.

Where Ujamaa had served to hold Tanzania together, Humanism had served to temporarily patch dissent in Zambia. The second republic was marked by a move to one­ party statehood and a centralization of power in the executive branch of government.

With the spoils of the economy being meagre, social development through Humanism was limited. Therefore, just as Nyerere did upon Ujamaa’s failure, Kaunda used his position to manipulate political allegiances when Humanism began to fall apart. As Bauer notes, politics became “a game of musical chairs” in which “Kaunda’s charm and political deftness allowed him to refine a particular brand of personal politics that

[disarmed] his opponents and [tended] to protect other national politicians when the public [came] calling for accountability”. In many ways, as scholars have noted,

Zambia’s relative social stability delicately hinged on Kaunda’s personality. Kaunda received a lot of public acclaim and favor from citizens and was seen as occupying the role of the father of the nation.

However, unlike Ujamaa, Humanism as a formal system created systems of paternalism that drew attention away from nationalist policies. Only a handful of

Kaunda’s speeches directly animated the workings of socialism and the few that did left a Tongoi 109 lot to be desired. As Bauer notes of Kaunda’s Watershed Speech delivered on June 30th

1975:

…the president reaffirmed the country’s commitment to socialism. He reinforced this with the last of the major reforms, the abolition of freehold tenure of land. He attacked the inefficiency of the parastatals and denounced the capitalistic tendencies appearing in Humanist Zambia [….] William Tordoff noted that the national assembly was functioning primarily to legitimize government policy through debate and passage of bills rather than as an independent and countervailing force to the executive.201 Similar sentiments that aligned themselves with a socialist ideal would occasionally make their way into speeches on broad economic policies, but none comprehensively sought to change the status quo. Consequently, when the third National

Development Plan was introduced in 1980, its goal reflected continued emphasis on socialism but the fact of the matter remained that Kaunda’s government lacked the political muscle to carry these plans into fruition. Having been crippled by years of depressed copper markets, Zambia was unable to fund an expansion of agriculture and manufacturing – industries that had potential to catapult it into greater economic independence. However, at the turn of the third republic in 1990, Humanism in Zambia had fully lost momentum and it remained in many ways an elusive ideal that was never quite within reach of Kaunda’s government. In what follows I turn to a discussion of

Zambia’s language of instruction policies.

A Failed Attempt at Unification: English As A Single Non­Native Language of

Instruction in Zambia

Zambia has an ethno­linguistic fractionalization index of 0.82. It is widely claimed that it has over 72 languages spoken although only seven vernacular languages

201 Bauer 90. Tongoi 110 have official status based on the major languages of each province202. That said, according to the 2000 census, Zambia’s most widely spoken languages are Bemba (spoken by 52 percent of the population as either a first or second language), Nyanja (spoken by 37 percent), Tonga (spoken by 15 percent) and Lozi (spoken by 11 percent)203. English is closely identified with the colonial era and only 2 percent of Zambians speak English as a first language – most of whom are the educated elite class, and 27 percent speak it as a first or second language204. Nonetheless, English has the status of official language while the other seven languages are recognized as national languages.

Like many countries in Africa, Zambia’s language of instruction was greatly influenced by its colonial heritage. The British colonial system in Zambia introduced

English as a hegemonic language by decreeing that it be taught alongside vernacular languages. In 1927, the Colonial Office in Zambia established a language of instruction policy that remained in place until Zambia gained independence in 1964. The policy stipulated that mother tongue was to be used for the first two years of primary education, followed by a dominant vernacular up to Standard 5 and then English thereafter. This policy was put in place because the Phelps­Stokes Commission of 1924 had encouraged the use of local languages as lingua francas to be taught in this aforementioned three­tier model.205 On the eve of its independence, UNESCO sponsored the Hardmann report on

202 Zambia’s ethno­linguistic communities map onto ethno­regional demarcations. The Bemba are largely found in the Northern copperbelt, the Lozi in the central region and the Tonga in the South and South­West. 203 Lutz Marten and Nancy C. Kula. “Zambia: ‘One Zambia, One Nation, Many Languages” May 18 2015 < http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~nckula/Zambia.pdf> 204 Lutz np.

205 Rebekah Gordon. “Language and Education Planning in Zambia.” Linguistic Portfolios. Vol. 3 (2014) 13 April 2013. . Tongoi 111

Zambia’s education system that recommended that English be used as the sole medium of instruction in schools from Grade 1 to the end of tertiary education. This proposal was endorsed by the then Minister of Education and enshrined in the 1966 Education Act. The underlying basis of this decision was that English was to serve as a unifying language that would foster a sense of nationhood. “One Zambia, One Nation” became the motto that Zambia adopted – in essence it highlighted the desire that Zambia become a unified nation and followed the belief that “one nation equals one language”. African Humanism, which embodied a number of “Christian­informed ethical principles”206, was less politically relevant than the Ujamaa policies of Tanzania. The adaptation of the motto

“One Nation, One Zambia” had not done away with tribalism nor led to the establishment a national identity. The centrifugal forces of tribalism were evident in Zambia second republic (1972 – 1991). UNIP – the sole political party was not seen as representing the interests of society.

English was adopted primarily with the hopes of achieving this unity. As was the case in many post­independence African countries, the role of language in education remained critical because “schools are a primary site for the implementation of language policies and can have a strong effect on the overall vitality of a language.”207 However, in just over a decade since the Hardmann report, the weaknesses of having English as a sole medium of instruction became apparent. In a 1977 report titled ‘Education Reform:

Proposals and Recommendations’ education authorities acknowledged that “learning is best done in mother tongue” but acknowledged that “this situation is found to be impracticable in multi­lingual societies such as the Zambian society”208. However, the

206 Lutz np. 207Gordon 51. Tongoi 112 only reform that was made was that teachers were allowed to “explain concepts that might not otherwise be understood through the medium of English, in one of the seven official local languages, provided a majority of pupils in a class could understand this vernacular language.” However, a decade and a half into independence, English had failed unify an ethno­linguistically diverse Zambia. The absence of a single, dominant or indigenous language of instruction had not only weakened the education system but it also had failed to unite Zambia.

With the end of the Cold War and the onset of globalization, Zambia was also swept into the rhetoric within global education circles in the 1990s and this was therefore another reason why English was seen as inadequate. Educationists around the world were making arguments for the use of local languages in aiding literacy in multi­lingual societies. In 1992, Focus on Learning was adopted to replace the 1977 report. Focus on

Learning stipulated that “the major Zambian languages would be the basic languages of education from Grades 1 to 4”209. English had failed as a language through which to pass on education and consequently had failed to provide any prospects of unification in

Zambia. As Shay Linehan writes:

It was evident that the first thirty years of English medium had been less than satisfactory. Teaching and learning in an alien language had meant that, for the vast majority, school was unrelated to real life. Rote learning was the only way to approach a situation where understanding was absent from school, with mindless repetition replacing problem solving and inventiveness. The critical importance and intersection between language policy and education is best captured in these sentiments by Linehan who quotes Kelly210:

208 “Hardmann Report.” Zambian Ministry of Education. 1977. 32. 209 “Focus on Learning.” Zambian Ministry of Education. 1992. Point 1.7 Tongoi 113

Not that language policy could be blamed for everything. Other factors were at work. […] years of economic collapse, droughts and sickness. […Were] it not for the language policy, we would have had better educated people who would have known better how to cope with the economic problems, and even with those arising from drought, AIDS, and other extrinsic factors. (Kelly, 1995, p. 6) As African countries continue to assess their systems of education, language of instruction will remain of critical importance in curating an education system that prepares its citizenry for service to the nation’s economy211. As Mr. Kabimba, Zambia’s

Patriotic Party Chairman so aptly stated in a press interview on education policy, “ There is a deliberate effort by colonial masters to kill native languages. A language gives personal and cultural identity. […] English is a foreign language. Our education system does not meet the [economic] demands of a third­world country.”212 The double bind with the use of English is that it was, in many ways, rejected as an authentic medium of instruction, and consequently failed to unite Zambia.

Analysis and Conclusion

In regards to the prevalence of ethnically­ charged violence, Zambia falls between

Kenya and Tanzania. While ethno­linguistic regionalism is still prevalent within

Zambia’s political rhetoric, it is widely accepted amongst scholars that Humanism served to spasmodically patch up ethnic, racial and religious cleavages in Zambia. Humanism

210 M. Kelly. “Language Policy in Education in Zambia.” Zambia National Reading Forum, Lusaka. 1995. 211 Gershom Ndhlovu. “Zambia Ditches English in Primary School For Government­ Approved Local Languages.” Global Voices. 17 February 2014. Global Voices Online. 13 April 2015. < https://globalvoicesonline.org/2014/02/17/zambia­ditches­english­in­primary­school­for­ government­approved­local­languages/ > . 212 “Education System to be Overhauled, Local Languages To Be Made More Prominent – Kabimba.” Lusaka Times. 14 January 2013. . Tongoi 114 failed to fully deliver on its unifying ideals as it was poorly implemented and lacked the programmatic approach of its Tanzanian counterpart. While it did lead to a nationalization of the economy and the entrenchment of a leadership code by which the ruling elite were exempt from accumulating spoils, it was otherwise weakly implemented. Additionally, the adoption of English as a unifying language failed because unlike Kiswahili in Kenya and Tanzania, it was not neutral but rather it demarcated colonial class boundaries. English was also taught alongside other vernaculars and thus ethnic divisions were still highlighted through the education system.

Zambia therefore serves to extend my argument in several ways. Firstly, as regards economics, the adoption of patron­client socialism was less effective than patron­ socialist socialism as observed in Tanzania. By this argument, the prevalence of peace in

Tanzania can be tied to its use of the party apparatus to broadly enact the values of

Ujamaa amongst the citizenry. Contrastingly, while patron­client socialism had the potential to destabilize ethnic identities, it lacked the ideological momentum to transform ethno­regional relations in Zambia.

Secondly, Zambia’s history illustrates that critical role of language in affording individuals access to a country’s economic resources cannot be overstated. For language to unify it must fit three main criteria: it must be indigenous/native; neutral – that is not belonging to a predominant group; used as the language of instruction in schools as well as be the primary language of the State, army, legislature, trade and religion. Language must be careful not to create a dichotomy between those who can participate in nation­ building by virtue of their education and those who cannot for lack of it. In Zambia,

English failed to unite the nation across class and ethnicity for three main reasons. Firstly, Tongoi 115 it was a non­native language that was associated with colonialism and thus could not foster national identity. Secondly, owing to its sparse distribution to the educated few during the colonial era, it was intrinsically predicated on class. Lastly, outside of the classroom setting, when English was instituted as the language of the judiciary and trade

& business it created a system by which those who weren’t proficient speakers had limited access to the states resources – without the level of English proficiency needed to engage politically vast swathes of the population were subject to the whims of the government.

Additionally, as it was not the sole lingua franca of education, it was undermined by the prevalence of vernaculars that continued to highlight ethnic cleavages. Similarly,

English in Kenya, and more succinctly, the combination of English and Kikuyu, because symbols of power since it is gave specific individuals access to powerful institutions and the prestige inherent in those institutions. Tanzania therefore succeeded in its unifying project because Kiswahili was not only the national and official language, it was the sole language of instruction for several decades. In many ways, Mwanajuma, the pastor from

Morogoro was right. Kenya’s outcome of ukabila (tribalism) and Tanzania’s outcome of

Ujamaa (nationhood) elucidated divergences in economic and language of instruction policies that in turn explain the prevalence of violence in the former and the lack thereof in the latter. Tongoi 116

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