MBONEKO MUNYAGA
Sunday News;
Sunday,June 17, 2007 @00:04
Tanzania Standard Newspapers
A LONDON group of publishers yesterday
re-launched the Arusha Declaration as one of the key documents
for the emancipation of man in the 20th century.
Mwalimu’s son, Madaraka is in London for the event and has been
invited by the publisher, Mrs Selma James, who, with her
husband, CLR James, was active in the movement for independence
and federation in the Caribbean, which drew many lessons from
the struggle in Africa.
Madaraka was expected to deliver a keynote speech about growing
up as Mwalimu’s son and about the practical benefits of living
in an Ujamaa village. Since the death of Mwalimu on October 14,
1999, Madaraka has stayed at Butiama, Mwalimu’s birth village
largely taking care of the family estate.
The Arusha Declaration focuses on Ujamaa or ‘African
brotherhood’, self-reliance and co-operation. It also strongly
fights corruption by government or ruling party officials. The
London event will also mark 50 years of the independence of
Ghana and 60 years of Indian independence, landmarks in human
liberation, the organisers said.
“Though it was written 40 years ago, it has not been surpassed
as a perspective for development in the whole Third World,” said
a dispatch from the organisers.
June 16 is African Child Day as well as Soweto Day when children
in South Africa expressed their collective opposition to
apartheid and the Boer regime responded by shooting tens of them
down.
The Arusha Declaration guided Tanzania’s political thought and
philosophy for nearly 20 years before the ruling CCM set it
aside at a meeting in Zanzibar in early 1986 in favour of market
policies.
However, many economic transformation programmes have gone back
to massive social spending on education, health and water supply
as Mwalimu had argued under his “The Purpose is Man” philosophy
for the development of societies.
Mwalimu said he had read and re-read the document several times
after it was set aside and still saw nothing to change,
although, he said, if given a second chance, he would have done
certain things differently.