A Patriot's Response to Hon. Wolfgang Ringe, German Ambassador to Tanzania
C.S.L. Chachage
Professor of Sociology
University of Dar es Salaam
I read Ambassador Wolfgang Ringe's article on "Why we Support Renovations of Songea's Maji Maji Museum" with a curious sensation. This article appeared in some national English papers on 28th February 2006. In this article he talked about "cruel punishment operations of the German colonial troops against insurgents in the so-called "Maji Maji War". He further referred to the 100 years commemoration as a commemoration of the "uprising of the native population against the German colonial rulers". Accordingly, this "would remain one of the darkest chapters of the German colonial history". (emphasis added)
This "war will always remain part of the collective memory as yet another example of the fight against inhumanity, which should never happen again", according to the Ambassador. He is grateful that "within 100 years the relations between our two countries have developed so intensively in a positive direction".In this regard I am glad to announce that the German Foreign Ministry has pledged Sh 8.5 million to the renovation of the Maji Maji Memorial Museum in Songea".
guess that is how "diplomatic" language is supposed to be couchedin terms of "so-called 'Maji Maji War' (since it is not a war deserving the characterization of a war), "uprising of natives" (since the citizens of Tanzania were natives and not a people deserving any regard), the liberals and the left questioned "inhumanity and the necessity of having colonies as a civilized nation" (of course, despite the atrocities, Germany committed them as a civilized nation, which it still is today), etc. Therefore all that these "natives" require is the renovation of their museum with some Sh 8.5 Million!
On reading this article today, Aimé Césaire would have retorted: since the natives are full of memories, they only ask for satisfaction of ontological nature. They are pure spirits! All they want are their museums to remember their fighters who were beheaded and their skulls sent to Bonn as trophies, but not economic improvement or materials situation. Give a wink to their museums; after all it was only an "inhuman treatment" which should remain in their collective memory. In short, you tip your hat to native museums, you tip off your hat to the immortal memory! This is the kind of message I read from the Ambassador's article.
I would like to put the facts clear. In fact, left wing members of the Reichstag (parliament) such as August Bebel, had pointed out way back in 1899 that Deutsch-Ostakanische Gessellshaft (DOAG) was nothing more than a small circle of capitalists, bankers, merchants and factory owners - very rich and greedy people - who controlled the German state, with the Chancellor being the executive authority. According to him, the nature of colonial policy was "to exploit a foreign population to the highest degree." Bebel, after reading the report on the War in 1906 commented that all that was being proven was the fact that colonialism was about exploitation and nothing less than that, and that is why the War had occurred. The liberals and the left in Germany did not question the "inhumanity and the necessity of having colonies as a civilized nation", but the ruthless exploitation of the colonial system!
We, the patriotic people of Tanzania are commemorating the 100 years of the heroic struggles of Maji Maji to draw inspiration in the renewal of our struggles for social justice and against oppression, exploitation, racist despotism and all forms of arbitrariness and bigotry. More than 300,000 people were killed in this war against the DOAG. It was nothing short of genocide - the same that was committed against the Herero and Nama people (not tribe as you refer to our communities!) of Namibia, when they rose against the German rulers in the same years of Maji Maji. Violent, brutal massacres and other forms or reprisals of natives ("as a means, of bringing tribesmen to parley", as some colonial officers put it) in the name of civilization were the norm under colonialism.
The figures were so staggering because of the methodical suppression of the people. In Ungoni, half of the population is believed to have died; in Upangwa and Ulanga, two thirds of the population was killed. It was not in the battlefield where more people were killed, but outside them. Germans destroyed foodstuffs: they had resorted to what was called "scorched earth policies" and terror. They destroyed dwellings, grain stores and burnt fields, to the extent that sowing and harvesting could not take place. People slept outside, and ended up being devoured by the lions of Selous. Henceforth, disease, especially small pox and sleeping sickness were let loose. Captain Wangenheim maintained that "Only hunger and want can bring final subjection. Military action on its own is a mere drop in the ocean".
Germans were not different from the other colonizers. More than 10 million people were killed in Congo during the time when it was run as a private possession of Leopard II, King of Belgians, from 1885 to 1908 and continued after that. Thousands of people were sacrificed during the building of the rail connecting Brazzaville with the port of Pointe-Noire. The so-called civilized world does not regard these as Crimes Against Humanity. Characteristically, such massacres have not entered Western historical and moral memory like their later counterparts, e.g. Lidice in the former Czechoslovakia - the Nazi Massacre in World War II! It is well known that there was an intimate link between colonialism and Nazism. Accordingly, terms such as conzentrationslager (concentration Camps) were first used in Namibia when this genocide was being committed by the Germans.
Maji Maji War of Resistance was a resistance against plantation owners, cash crops communal production under supervision of colonial agents, and harsh German colonial rule in general. It was a resistance of a people who owned their conditions of labour and produced for themselves against forced labour. It was a struggle of the direct producers who believed that "all Africans were one, that they were free men", who should not work without payment, suffer oppression, pay taxes, etc. When addressing the UNO in 1956 on the necessity of Tanganyika becoming independent, Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere said the following on what you call the so-called Maji Maji War: "The people fought because they did not believe in the white man's right to govern and civilize the black. They rose in a great rebellion not through fear of a terrorist movement or a superstitious oath, but in response to a natural call, a call of the spirit, ringing in the hearts of all men, and all times, educated or uneducated, to rebel against foreign domination. It is important to bear this in mind,"
The war resulted into an appalling ecological disaster across southern Tanzania. These parts have not yet recovered from this trauma. Selous was expanded to the detriment of people's livelihood. Germans were to ban African hunting in South East Tanzania, since it was found to have caused the Maji Maji War. But the Banning was for other reasons than those, since elite sports hunting paid more to the government coffers than African taxes. Over the years, Germany, through GTZ has been spending millions of money in conservation measures. These measures resulted into the harassing and beating of the poor men, women and children of Southern and Southern East Tanzania on the pretext that they were poachers and illegal arms owners in 1989. GTZ had devised a "participatory" method of benefits sharing for the people around Selous - in terms of getting a share of a hunt once in while. The Selous game reserve remains very important for elite hunting and it is quite profitable for the hunting companies that have blocks in the game reserve.
That language by the Ambassador is an expression of real relations between Germany and Tanzania. The fact that Germany can dictate (of course not directly) on some issues, and even decide that she understands better what Tanzanian's want, simply demonstrates the fact that what is supposed to be a "positive direction" is an acknowledgement that Tanzanians are a subservient people to German economic interests. Tanzanians have not forgotten the fact that after the Union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar in 1964, the Bonn government of Chancellor Ludwig Erhard insisted that it would not have any relations with a country that violated Germany's Hallstein Doctrine, except for Soviet Union: Tanzania was asked to close the East Germany's embassy. Tanzania refused to do so. The result was West German retaliated by canceling military aid, which had included STG 4 million in capital aid overnight and cancelled all remaining aid including STG 3 million in technical aid.
The Nkrumah Hall at the University of Dar es Salaam is one naked example of a structure that was never finished because of this cancellation. The Bonn Government was considering further measures to put pressure on Tanzania. This was the "positive direction" of the two countries. Mwalimu Nyerere, in reaction to this was to retort: "A hungry dog will accept food in any way you give it to him, even if you throw it at him. It is different with a human being. You have to be careful with the way you give food to a hungry man. He has his dignity to preserve."
Currently, some of the projects to that "positive direction" are such as the GTZ programmes in the rural areas, which encourage communities such as the Wamaasai, Wapare, Wasambaa, Wa-arusha, Wagogo, Wayakyusa and Wazaramo to offer tours to tourists brought by the tour companies that show their culture, their sacred places of worship, economic activities (such as farming, pastoralism and fishing). By showing the "authentic" life and surroundings of Tanzania, the villagers are paid, and income generated is used for development projects, such as, the building of dispensaries, schools and cattle dip sites. In Sadaani National Park itself, there is a fully equipped mobile camping expeditions company and a lodge on Mkwaya coastline near the National Park headquarters operated by A Tent with a View Safaris. This company is owned jointly by a German and a Tanzanian. It has another lodge in Selous Game Reserve, and the owners are former employees of the GTZ sponsored Selous conservation project.
There are numerous examples that can be shown to demonstrate this "positive direction". Wengert-Windrose-Safari Ltd, through Dr Lechner, Jagd International World-Wide Hunting (of Germany) described Tanzania in a brochure in 1995 as the "Best Bongo area in Africa. There is no comparable hunting ground in Africa with a similar diversity or number of species or where such staggering game populations still exist in a wilder, more primitive, and still to a large extent, unspoilt. It is the greatest hunting paradise left on earth." A Tent with a View Safari Lodge in Sadaani (Bagamoyo) and Selous Game reserve, which claims to support cultural tourism programme for the benefit of the poor has the following description of the Bagamoyo beach resorts in its advertisement: "The beach that stretches to either side of Bagamoyo is every one's idea of a tropical paradise. In its days thousands of slaves were shipped on a regular basis. Resort hotels are fully equipped for water skiing, big game fishing and scuba diving. One can observe activities of local fishermen." The Ngar Sero Mountain Lodge, at the slopes of Mount Meru on the edge of Arusha National Park, in a similar manner describes its lodge as a "fine German farmhouse, set in some of the most spectacular landscaped gardens in East Africa." Colonial images are invoked in these enterprises that are setting a "positive direction" to the relations of the two countries.
No wonder that GTZ could sponsor what are called KAP studies (Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices) on their projects, since with the failure of the water projects in Tanga, for example, they were convinced that there was something wrong with the knowledge, attitudes and practices of Tanzanians. When they were contradicted, they claimed that it is those aspects that accounted for the failure of the projects, and not some structural and political issues! Currently, they are doing what are called Behavioral studies. These are supposed to be surveys to account for the spread of AIDS, without taking into account historical, regional and cultural aspects. Again, they are convinced that AIDS has something to do with the behaviour and attitudes of Tanzanians I am a sociologist by profession, I know the use and abuse of surveys. It is such studies that perpetuate the colonial language in this country.
With respect, Mr. Ambassador, the best way would have been to declare that the 1905-1907 War was a crime against humanity: it was genocide, which is not different from Auschwitz during World War II, even if the numbers did not reach millions. Those areas that were devastated by the War are the most underdeveloped areas of the country. As symbolic gesture of apologizing and recognizing the humanity of Tanzanians, the German Foreign Ministry should have pledged money for building schools, dispensaries, water systems and rural industries in those areas. I am sure that the government of Tanzania and its people can contribute the Sh 8.5 at one stroke! You should also interrogate the purposes of the researches conducted by your German experts in Tanzania if they are of any relevance at all to the people of Tanzania.
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Vorsitzender des Ausschusses „Kirchliche Entwicklungsdienste und Ökumene“ des Ev. Kirchenkreises Oberhausen