African women were at the forefront of nationalistic struggles for independence in Africa that were at their height in the 1950s. In mainland Tanzania, then known as Tanganyika, Bibi Titi Mohamed emerged as a leading voice in building the liberation movement through a political party known as the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU). As a leader of the women’s wing of TANU, she traveled throughout the country to mobilize both women and men to join the party that led to the independence of Tanganyika in the early 1960s. During the transition to full independence, she became a member of the Legislative Council, agitating for inclusive improvement in the welfare of all citizens. Her contribution in the parliamentary debates focused on rural development and equal access to employment, education, and provision of healthcare, with special attention to women in general and the girl child, in particular. After independence, she became the Junior Minister for Community Development and a leading advocate of people-centered development and gender equality. During the second half of the 1960s, Bibi Titi’s promising political career took a downward turn, bringing it to an abrupt end in the early 1970s. Her downfall started in 1965 when she lost her parliamentary seat in the general elections. Since one had to be an MP in order to be a Minister, she also lost her ministerial position in the government. Although she continued to serve as a notable member of the ruling party’s executive organs and vocal leader of its women’s wing, her career hit another snag when TANU issued the Arusha Declaration on Socialism and Self-Reliance in 1967. She would appear to have disagreed with provisions of the Arusha Declaration’s Leadership Code that barred leaders from owning rentable properties as well as being of the opinion that the process used in adopting the Declaration had been inadequately consultative. On this account, she resigned from all party positions. One would have assumed that after the resignation she would have had a quiet retirement from her momentous political career, but this was not to be. Three years later, she was charged for treason and then jailed for life prior to getting a presidential pardon in 1972. Bibi Titi’s life after imprisonment went on unrecorded and unnoticed. She largely lived out of the public limelight that characterized the first decade of her political career. One of the most recognized names in the country partly faded from the public for almost an entire generation. Reference to her name and contribution to national his/herstory disappeared from party and government official records, almost extinguishing her significant role in the early years of Tanzanian history. However, in the 1980s and 1990s, her name started to re-emerge, not least because of the rise of the feminist movement, life histories, and gender and women studies. Hers is the story that ought to be told and retold—of the muting and unmuting of a leading voice of freedom. It is a story that will continue to manifest itself in various debates on the nature and character of the leadership of liberation movements, with specific reference to women leaders in Africa.
This is the second of our Debate Special Issue reports on the three linked workshops which the Review of African Political Economy held in Africa in 2017-18. We have called the series 'Connections' to emphasise its distinctiveness from the more usual academic conferences. We also wanted to widen our networks across Africa and create new ones, in particular to bring together activists and scholars to reconsider the potential for radical socioeconomic transformation and engagement in the continent. This report tries to avoid academicism and to speak in an accessible way to the 'moment of Dar'. It includes contributions from the presenters at the workshop as well as accounts from two active participants -Njuki Githethwa, a scholar activist and writer from Kenya, and Tamás Gerőcs, a political economist working as a research fellow at the Institute of World Economics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences.ROAPE was founded in 1973 in the context of liberation struggles and committed itself to anti-imperialism and socialist development in Africa, as well as to broadly materialist analysis; it aims to continue in that spirit. We dedicate this project to Samir Amin, who had hoped to come to the workshop but whose illness prevented this and whose death sadly occurred as we were preparing for publication.The second of our workshops was held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on 16-17 April 2018. 1 The first was held in Accra, Ghana in November 2017 to coincide with the centenary of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the 60th anniversary of Ghana's independence. The workshop in Dar coincided with the 50th anniversary of the Arusha Declaration, which heralded a bold socialist experiment. Our final workshop in this series was in
This article investigates a particular discourse of witchcraft in Tanzania famously known as Chuma Ulete. Perceived as apractice that involves leaking or stealing wealth mysteriously, it has increasingly become popularized in both mainstream andsocial media within the context of a post-socialist neo-liberal economy. In this article it is conceptualized as the witchcraft ofthe poor as, purportedly, it is generally used to magically steal money from small businesses. Although the concept has receivedlittle attention in the sociological and anthropological literature, it could provide an explanation for some instances of marginal gains in the market economy, and how people make sense of it. The article argues that they do so through invoking, simultaneously or sequentially, religious, traditional, business, and poverty discourses. The concept has also been extended to express exploitation in the market economy, where issues of services and romantic relationships are concerned. As such, thearticle brings to light its definition, characteristics, and how people deal with it.
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The private business sector has been expanding rapidly in urban Tanzania since the country started liberalizing its economy in the 1980s. Witchcraft discourses linked to the business sector have emerged side by side with the increased liberalization of public spaces and media. Drawing from an ethnographic study of 52 adolescents with small businesses in urban Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and a Foucauldian analysis of popular discourses on witchcraft and business, I attempt here to make sense of why witchcraft is invoked in a sector that is conventionally viewed as the realm of economic rationality in neoliberal discourses. In this article, I suggest that capital, knowledge, and markets, which continue to be presented as necessary conditions for business growth, are not sufficient in explaining why certain businesses fail and others succeed. It rather suggests context specific reasons that may explain how adolescents with small businesses end up embracing popular discourses that link business success or failure to witchcraft, such as Chuma Ulete (reap and bring). It also explains the impact that such an embrace has on the ways in which these young people with small businesses are engaging with entrepreneurship. This entails unpacking how witchcraft ends up being invoked by those who need their businesses to grow as well as explaining how they take pre-emptive measures to protect their businesses from such apparent witchcraft.
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