Moral Lessons of Ujamaa of Julius Nyerere: A Necessity Paradigm for Restoration of Dignity for the People of Tanzania

Sunhwa, Gaspar (2003) Moral Lessons of Ujamaa of Julius Nyerere: A Necessity Paradigm for Restoration of Dignity for the People of Tanzania. PhD thesis, Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley.

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Abstract

Like many other African countries, Tanzania got its independence during the cold war era. In 1967, under the presidency of Julius Nyerere, Tanzania adapted ujamaa. as a policy of social, economic, and political development. Although Nyerere's ujamaa has often been interpreted in the West as equivalent to the socialism which prevailed in Eastern Europe during the cold war, the truth of the matter is that ujamaa is a distinctively African form of socialism. Ujamaa is the way of life which gives an African dignity, respect and sense of identity. As a matter of fact, it was colonial economic, social, and political policies which distorted the pattern of African life. When colonialists came to Tanzania, they introduced capitalism which disoriented the life which gave dignity to the people. So ujamaa of Nyerere is a way of retrieving the dignity which colonialists failed to recognize. Therefore, in this thesis I want to demonstrate that the moral lessons of ujamaa are the conditions of the possibility of restoration of dignity for the people of Tanzania. When Nyerere addressed a Congress of Maryknoll Sisters on October 16, 1970 in New York City, he said We say that a human person was created in the image of God. I refuse to imagine a God who is poor, ignorant, superstitious, fearful, oppressed, wretched - which is the lot of the majority of those He created in his own image. Humans are creators of themselves and their conditions, but under present conditions we are creatures, not of God, but of our fellow humans.

Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
Uncontrolled Keywords: History of Ujamaa, Tanzania before colonialism, practice of Nyerere's Ujamaa, Traditional African Socialism, Critical Reconstruction ofNyerere's Ethical Philosophy of Ujamaa, Inherent dignity of person; "human equality and dignity": Brief analysis ofNyerere's understanding of dignity, Distributive justice based upon equal basic rights, Ethics of Ujamaa as a paradigm which can restore the dignity ofthe victims of Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS),
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BJ Ethics
Divisions: Africana
Jesuitica
Depositing User: JHI Africa
Date Deposited: 19 Mar 2014 12:14
Last Modified: 12 Mar 2018 13:49
URI: http://thesisbank.jhia.ac.ke/id/eprint/27

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