Protests against denial of citizenship for Jenerali Ulimwengu

Jenerali Ulimwengu, journalist, activist, and an example of committed citizenship, has been rendered stateless by the Tanzanian Government in a move that is clearly motivated as a means of silencing an individual who has been brave enough to expose corruption and scandals of leading individuals in the government.

Jenerali has been a prominent member of Tanzanian civil society, having served in various Governmental positions including being a member of parliament. Since graduating, he has been an active member of the ruling party TANU, and later CCM (Chama cha Mapinduzi) of which he was a member of its National Executive Committee from 1992 to 1997. He was a founder of the first independent Kiswahili independent weekly Rai, one of the most popular radical magazines in the country. All those who know him speak of his courage in expressing critical, yet constructive, stances against those who sought to oppress the disadvantaged and marginalised not just of Tanzania, but worldwide.

There can be little doubt that Jenerali Ulimwengu has been denied citizenship because of his Pan-Africanist, patriotic and progressive politics above factionalism and unscrupulous partisanship; because of his unwavering struggle for the rights and dignity of the dispossessed, says the petition against this outrage. The Tanzanian government has refused to give reasons for the decision to deny him citizenship.

Writing from New York, Mahmood Mamdani writes: What, I have often wondered since I left Dar-es-Salaam in 1979, made Tanzania so different politically from other countries in the East and Central African region? Whereas ruling circles everywhere in the region seemed keen to identify and expel one or another group as not indigenous, Tanzania resisted.

A strong reason for this exception, I think, has been the political legacy of Mwalimu Nyerere. Mwalimu heralded a reform of the colonial state one may say its decolonization -- by transforming its juridical and political basis. Mwalimu faced a colonial legacy of group-based legal and political identity, and thus a state structure that combined a racialised civic law and authority in towns with ethnicised customary laws and native authorities in the countryside.

The greatness of the Nyerere era was that it transformed this legacy into a non-racial and non-ethnic law and administrative authority. With it, Mwalimu's Tanzania also transformed the nature of citizenship and rights from an attribute of groups considered indigenous to that of individuals with a residence in and a membership of the political community called Tanzania.

This is why the denial of citizenship to Jenerali Ulimwengu goes beyond the injury being done to one individual, Jenerali, a gifted and dedicated Tanzanian, African and indeed man of the world. Its real significance is that this injury marks a turn for the worse in the political history of the country. This land that pioneered an era of freedom seems ready to fall in line with the worst of tendencies in the region, why this development should be a source of grave concern to all.

What, I wonder, was the political and moral force of Jenerali's conduct that the powers of the day are willing to sacrifice an entire political legacy to silence it?

We urge all readers of Pambazuka News to sign the petition (see the link below) and make their voices heard by writing to the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania directly or protest through your own government representatives (http://www.tanzania.go.tz/index.html).

* Firoze Manji, Fahamu - learning for change