SPEECH BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED REPUBLIC OF TANZANIA, HIS EXCELLENCY BENJAMIN WILLIAM MKAPA, AT THE CELEBRATIONS MARKING THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF TANZANIA MAINLAND, NATIONAL STADIUM, DAR ES SALAAM, 9 DECEMBER 2001 Your Excellency Daniel Toroitich arap Moi, President of the Republic of Kenya; Your Excellency Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, President of the Republic of Uganda; Honourable Dr. Ali Mohamed Shein, Vice-President of the United Republic of Tanzania; Honourable Amani Abeid Karume, President of the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar; Honourable Frederick T. Sumaye, MP, Prime Minister; Honourable Justice Barnabas Samatta, Chief Justice of Tanzania; Honourable Shamsi Vuai Nahodha, Chief Minister of the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar; Honourable Mama Maria Nyerere; Honourable Mama Fatma Karume; Honourable Chairmen, Vice-Chairmen and Leaders of Political Parties; Honourable Pandu Ameir Kificho, Speaker of the Zanzibar House of Representatives; Honourable Hamid Mahmoud, Chief Justice of Zanzibar; Honourable Retired Prime Ministers; Honourable Ministers and Members of Parliament; Excellencies High Commissioners and Ambassadors; Honourable Elders from the Independence Struggle; Distinguished Guests; Ladies and Gentlemen. My Fellow Citizens, We are today marking 40 years of our independence, the independence of Tanzania Mainland, then known as Tanganyika. We have just seen some of the Tanzanians who were born at the time of our independence. They are adults now. But they have no first hand experience of what it was like to live under colonialism. They only read about it, or are informed by those who lived through that experience. On a day like this, therefore, we need to remind ourselves of what our independence really means. A few days before we became independent, the Founding Father of our Nation, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere, wrote an article in the East Africa and Rhodesia, a Journal that used to be published in London during those days. Mwalimu wrote as follows: Our whole existence has been controlled by people with an alien attitude to life, people with different customs and beliefs. They have determined the forms of government, the type of economic activity–if any–and the schooling which our children have had. They have shaped the present generation of Tanganyikans, more than any other influence. Even if they have always done their best to do what they believed to be good for us…, it would be no less wrong. A man who tries to control the life of another does not destroy the other any the less because he does it, as he thinks, for the other’s benefits. It is the principle which is wrong, the principle of one man governing another without his consent… On 9th December 1961, in this very National Stadium, before a huge and ecstatic crowd of the citizens of the newly independent nation, Mwalimu Nyerere received the Instruments of Independence. He then said: I have received these Instruments which are the embodiment of my country’s freedom with the deepest emotion. This is the day which we have looked forward to for so long, the day when every Tanganyikan can say, ‘I am a citizen of a sovereign independent state’. My Fellow Citizens, Colonialism embodies the indignity of being governed without your consent; consent that could only be expressed through democratic means. But to be colonised is more than being subjected to an unjust system of government; it is also an ugly infringement on all aspects of human life; it is an arrogant denial of the colonised person’s physical and mental freedom; it is an affront to a person’s dignity and humanity; a brazen disrespect for his customs and his way of life; and a callous disregard of his development needs. From the beginning Africans refused to be colonised. And today we remember, with much gratitude, our earliest freedom fighters: the likes of Abushiri and Bwana Heri of Uzigua; Hamisi Bin Kombo of Mtwapa in today’s Kenya; Kabarega of Bunyoro in Uganda who fought for 5 years; Chief Mkwawa who fought for 8 years, and the heroes of the Maji Maji Rising, 1905-1907. It is not possible for me to mention all African heroes who sacrificed so much in a militant effort to keep colonialism out of East Africa over 100 years ago. We remember them, and we shall always remain most grateful to them all. What they fought and even died for, namely freedom and independence, has finally become the norm in our today’s lives. We have enjoyed self-rule for 40 years now, we are respected, and we exercise our right to self-determination. We also realise that the responsibility for our development and the destiny of our nation lies in our own hands. That in itself is sufficient reason for us to be so happy and to celebrate today. But that is not all. We have united two countries, Tanganyika and Zanzibar, and created Tanzania; an entirely new Nation that is our own creation, unlike the ones left by the departing colonial masters. We have built ourselves the foundations of a free nation; a nation characterised by unity, respect and solidarity; a nation in which there is no discrimination on the basis of colour, race, gender, tribe, religion, or place of origin; a nation in which we all affirm one human equality and deserve equal respect; a nation in which citizens are not classified as either masters or servants; a nation in which land and other natural resources are a common and shared heritage of all of us, not the exclusive property of a few clever ones; a nation that promulgates equal opportunities for self-development for everyone. We have tried to improve those opportunities for self-development and we shall continue to do so in various ways. For, as Mwalimu Julius Nyerere said in 1971, when we were marking 10 years of our independence: And in December 1961, Tanganyika did not attain economic power–and certainly not economic independence. We gained the political power to decide what to do; we lacked the economic and administrative power which would have given us freedom in those decisions. For it is no use deciding to import more goods than you have foreign currency to pay for, or deciding to provide free books for all children if you have neither the teachers, the buildings nor the money to make a reality of that decision. A nation’s real freedom depends on its capacity to do things, not on the legal rights conferred by its internationally recognised sovereignty. My Fellow Citizens, In these 40 years of independence, we have done a lot to build the economic and administrative capacity to implement the development decisions we rightly make as a free nation, and as a free people. We have addressed the bodily needs, and built the intellectual capacity of our people, in terms of health and education delivery. We inherited a discriminatory system of education and health. There were schools for Europeans, schools for Asians, and schools for Africans; those for Africans used mainly to train clerks and messengers, not leaders. Likewise, there was similar discrimination in hospitals. We immediately eradicated all such forms of discrimination, which Tanzanians under 40 years have fortunately never experienced. Education We then invested a lot in educating our people, using new and refocused curricula. It is true we still have problems in this area, but we have also made impressive gains. I will mention only a few: We have increased the number of primary schools four-fold, from only 3,100 schools to 11,650; and the number of students has increased nine times, from 486,000 to 4,537,608. We have increased the number of secondary schools almost 46 times, from under 20 to 918; and the number of the secondary school students 30 times, from 11,832 to 347,958. In 1961, we established a Constituent College of the University of East Africa, beginning with a Law Faculty. We began with only 14 students. Today we have 5 fully-fledged public universities and colleges, and 12 other public institutions of higher learning. There are also 10 private universities or constituent colleges thereof, and more are in the pipeline. The number of students in public universities has increased more than 1,000 times, from 14 to 14,895 (2000/2001). There are also 1,360 students in private universities, 3,537 in other public institutions of higher learning, and 2,178 in three public technical colleges. In 1961, only 15 per cent of adults were literate. Today, almost 80 per cent of them are literate. Health We have also made significant strides in the health sector. I will give a few examples. The total number of hospitals has increased from 119 to 224; and the number of hospital beds from 15,753 to 25,834. Rural Health Centres have increased 16 times, from 22 to 344. Dispensaries have increased 6 times, from 715 to 4,376. The number of African doctors has increased a hundred times, from 12 only to 1,190, of whom 291 are specialists, compared to the situation at independence when we did not have even a single African medical consultant. In 1961, there was an average of one African doctor for every 833,000 people; today we have one such doctor for every 26,000 people. Average life expectancy at birth increased from 38 to 52, before HIV/AIDS pushed it back to an estimated 48 years. Infant mortality has fallen from 235 per 1,000 live births to 90. In 1961, we had only 201 water wells; today there are 5,951 wells. In 1961, only 11 per cent of our people, mostly in urban areas, and even then largely in areas where Europeans and Asians lived, had access to safe water.