Revisiting a poem to make sense of my country.

Sometimes, you write a poem and put it on the shelf, because times have changed. Sometimes, you bring it back because history repeats itself.

An elegy to a country

Tanzania, Tanzania, nakupenda kwa moyo wote!

I still remember

pressing my right hand on my bony chest and holding it there,

I felt it deeply,

the song that stirred in my lungs,

I belted it out fervently with my out-of-tune childish voice.

I loved you,

and even though I hadn’t been anywhere else in the world,

you were imprinted in my heart.

You started as an ideal.

A country built on blood, dialogue and love.

A survivor of coups and imperialism.

A fighter.

You raised great men and brought even greater ones to their knees.

You were,

sometimes heaven, sometimes hell.

Unaligned, neither east nor west.

Powerful to your children,

Powerless to the changing times.

And you changed,

succumbed your ideals to reality,

socialism to capitalism,

sanctity to humanity,

but you were still reverent.

A force.

Unapologetically African.

I was born of you.

My motherland – a wild, tall grass, brown earth,

A sunny land that nurtured me to fearlessness.

You carried me on your shoulders

and showed me the world

stretching out to the horizon.

I was born of your voice, strength, and unity.

I was born free – 

as free as the endless plains of Serengeti,

or the peaks of Kili kissing the heavens.

You were as carefree as my childhood,

running through bare roads,

jumping into muddy paddles,

swimming in slow running rivers.

There were no guns.

There was no fear.

You were my hope –

a cradle,

a harbour,

a home,

a warm cup of tea on a cool evening.

I have heard of days

when our forebears’ blood watered the scorched earth,

and freedom was but a distant hope.

when death was better than servitude,

and they hung us on poles

when we resisted their evil rule.

I have heard of the glory of independence,

a torch lit on top of Kili

to rid us of the dark colonial days,

and shine the light of freedom in all of Africa.

I have heard of fierce fighters,

Frelimo and ANC,

embraced and nurtured in our very soil

to bring freedom to their homes.

I have heard of ujamaa,

a people committed to freedom and self-reliance. 

I have heard of a lost decade,

of a country lost in indecision and punishment,

an economic crisis in its hands,

Rations, children lined up for a bar of soap and a kilo of sugar.

Poverty and corruption, money tied in the hands of few.

I was there in 95,

A country in its thirties, changing once again;

The first multi-party elections,

laying the old ways to rest.

A new awakening

A country that once wrote its women out of history, going to Beijing.

Have you ever wished to go back?

How far back would you go?

If I could go back in time,

I would go back to the time when

the first silence nested in my throat

and cough it out.

Yesterday, a journalist was abducted from his home –

and I felt nothing.

Not fear, not pain,

not even disbelief.

I scrolled past the tweets and hashtags,

past the wails of this injustice into the internet abyss.

Today, I don’t even remember his name –

it is just another name

of another person lost,

abducted, by “the unknown”.

I fear the nothingness in my heart –

I tell myself I am tired of the drama,

of politics and poli-tricks.

I do not rant.

I do not comment on extrajudicial killings,

or Azory,

or the gunning down of Tindu Lissu.

The truth is, I am a coward.

I am afraid to speak.

I am afraid of disappearing.

Hopelessness springs through dried-up hope and it festers –

a cancer, or something worse.

Death –

Of democracy, of freedom.

Who should I cry to?

The silent AU? Or the unequal UN?

Are we not afraid of their bombs?

Haven’t we heard of Afghanistan,

Libya, Iraq or Zimbabwe?

Are we ready for Sudan or Egypt?

Is this how they too came to be –

the silence of many driving a machete through the heart of freedom?

I wonder if fifty years from now

I would have to answer to an annoyed grandchild –

‘I heard you used to vote once, and presidents came and left, is that true?

I sometimes see my imaginary grandchildren peer out through a small window,

to a concrete world filled with tanks and armed robots.

‘How could you let this happen?’

 They would ask, tears rolling down their cheeks.

I will not be able to scroll past his questions and it will hurt.

So, I write this poem,

a fatwa for the dictator.

When I wrote this poem, I was naïve. I thought, one man, could single handedly change a country. I thought of presidents as either heroes or villains, and in my books, I had made this particular president, with early signs of a dictator, the absolute villain. The funny thing is, I voted for him. At the time, I convinced myself that I was voting for the lesser evil. Former prime minister, Lowassa, had left CCM and joined Chadema and destabilised the strong coalition of opposing parties (UKAWA). If this was planned, then I had fallen for it, hook, line and sinker. I carefully rationalised how my vote was for Magufuli and not CCM, and let him take the country by storm.

Magufuli surprised us at first, doing everything in his power to show us he was the man of the people who would straighten the rotten public sector. His strong anti-corruption stance was refreshing and welcome, and I was even happy with how he handled foreign investors. One could argue that his method was abrasive and lacked tact, but it was gratifying to see multinationals cower and pay taxes rightly owed to the country. Sure, the business environment became difficult for local companies too, but I consoled myself that with these kinds of policies, the cream will rise to the top in the churning, and the old corrupt actors would be pushed down.

But as it goes with these things, it wasn’t until he touched something dear to me that I felt the pinch of his policies. When he clamped down on journalism and free speech, I started fearing the worst. There were only two narratives about Tanzania, and neither of them was balanced.  There was a narrative of praise coming from Tanzanians, the only one that was truly acceptable. Then there was a narrative of blind critique, especially from international media, which was then used in propaganda, that the media was so critical of Magufuli because he was against western interests. Meanwhile, Tanzanian journalists self-censored and censored each other out of a manufactured fear of the overreaching president, who at times was more a phantom than a real thing, a ghost that would haunt those who dared to speak out. This is not to say there were no real consequences for people who spoke up. Journalists like Eric Kabendera and the still-missing-and-feared-dead Azory Ngwanda faced completely horrifying consequences.

I wasn’t so naïve as to hold only President Magufuli responsible. What he did was simply build on the foundation made by his predecessor. The oppressive laws against media, journalism and free speech were enshrined by President Kikwete and fortified by Magufuli. And as much as I want to fault him, Magufuli was someone who wholeheartedly believed in Tanzania. The problem is, he thought he was the only one. That no one else could be as patriotic. And for anyone who was patriotic enough, they were required to love the country in silence.  To accept the uncelebrated death of their ideals and embrace his, whether they agreed to them or not. Because he loved his country, and his heart was in the right place. But if his heart was in the right place, what of others? What ills did other politicians who criticised him (like Tundu Lissu or Mbowe) wish for Tanzania?  But this wasn’t the Tanzania that our forebearers fought for. So, I wrote this poem, and my poetic fatwa, it seems, worked. When President Magufuli died, I felt sad. I realised that I didn’t want him gone, I just wanted my free speech back! Or at least the illusion of it.

President Samia took office, and something resembling hope sprang in Tanzania. When she declared a new era of civilised politics, people let out a sigh of relief. The rhetoric, as flimsy as rhetoric can be, comforted us. But in reality, the laws and regulations that enabled Magufuli remained the same. Censorship remained – songs were banned, and warnings not to criticise the president were heard on national news. It was a reminder that we were all at the president’s mercy still, and we were only lucky her bark was not as loud as Magufuli’s, but her bite, if she chose to, would hurt just the same. She had at her disposal everything that Magufuli had. The same constitution. The same police.

Four years after Magufuli’s death, Tundu Lissu, still outspoken about electoral reforms, is facing treason charges. Activists are still abducted. The East African Community seems to be in cahoots to "deal" with headache-inducing activists in the region. Maria Sarungi, a Tanzanian activist, was abducted in Kenya by unknown assailants. Kenya’s Boniface Mwangi, and Uganda’s Agather Atuhaire were abducted in Tanzania and tortured. Of course, the government has always denied any involvement. It is always unknown assailants.

Activists in Tanzania have been demanding a new constitution – one that would enshrine the changes they wish to see in the country. One that would lessen the absolute powers of any sitting president and ensure no one is truly above the law. One that would usher in new laws for free and fair elections.  These kinds of changes aren’t sexy or easy.  They aren’t absolute either. They require people to consistently make noise, to demand the kind of change they want. It requires a different kind of people – those who strip themselves of the “wanyonge” identity that politicians love to portray Tanzanians to be. If we truly understand the power of “regular Tanzanians”, the power of the people in a democratic state, we will stop crying when our heroes turn out to be something else. We would simply vote them out of office.

Back in Magufuli’s time, I felt it was imperative to write about things that were happening in Tanzania. For example, I wrote Macho, macho man: A toxic form of masculinity has infected politics in Tanzania. Democracy is on the line, and Silence speaks volumes: Tanzanian artists and musicians are facing government censorship in a country where 64 new restrictions have just been introduced. I also recited Tusipoteze Imani during Tanzania’s COVID-denial years. I hoped that I wouldn’t have to write these kinds of things during President Samia’s time. After all, she is our first female president. I have hoped, and I still hope, that she will tell Tanzanians what they long to hear – that she will protect their rights to speak, protest, and ask for reforms, and this time, it would be more than rhetoric.

If there is anything I have learned from revisiting this poem, it is that there is no virtue in thinking of this world in absolutes – in black and white, good and evil. It is neither practical nor helpful. Presidents are people, and as people, they have a bit of good and a bit of bad. Magufuli was neither a saint nor a villain. Likewise, President Samia is a complex and nuanced human being. I just hope, for Tanzania's sake, it is the good in her that will prevail in this election year.