I don’t believe in miracles. But for those who do, a miracle happened on Wednesday, October 29, in Tanzania, fondly known as the ‘Island of Peace’ because of its cohesion and stability.
Unexpectedly, the youth, or Gen Z as they are popularly known, woke up from deep slumber and jammed the streets, agitating for credible, fair, and transparent elections.
They caught the country and the world unaware. The ‘untouchable’ in the country were shaken in their boots to the core! When the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party organised ‘uchafuzi’ or ‘uchakachuaji’ (shoddy elections, as the Gen Z call it), little did they know they were opening a Pandora’s Box.
The Gen Z took to the streets, continuing protests up to the time of writing this article on Friday as they defied warnings from the country’s army chief to end the unrest. CCM, which has ruled and misruled Tanzania since independence in 1961, was confident about ‘winning’ in an election wherein the candidates were the incumbent and party flagbearer, Samia Suluhu Hassan, and some decoy candidates, aka CCM-B.
The main opposition leader, Mr Tundu Lissu, was in jail and another opposition leader was disqualified from the election.
For the first time, the young protesters invoked the former Ugandan strongman Idi Amin’s moniker, calling their female president ‘Idi Amin Mama’. If Julius Nyerere, Tanzania’s founding father and CCM founder, and Amin could be resurrected, they wouldn’t believe what is happening.
There are reports that about 700 protesters have been killed. Being a Tanzanian myself, it’s unthinkable to believe that what transpired would. Who’s safe under the sun, especially in Africa, which is pregnant with dictators and corrupt rulers?
My family and I were in Tanzania two months ago. We’d obviously feel the anguish and the frustrations by just looking at how many young people waste their lives operating dangerous motorbikes. They don’t obey traffic rules.
We hired a driver. We couldn’t drive lawlessly, as it is the norm in Dar. The goings-on in Tanzania sent me back to Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease, and my own books Born with Voice, Gen Z and the Internet Revolution, and Saa ya Ukombozi.
In Dar es Salaam (haven of peace), Tanzania’s largest city and heartbeat, thanks to its grinding traffic jam, noise from street vendors and sirens the bigwigs apportioned to themselves, it is no longer at ease, but Saa ya Ukombozi.
In Mwanza, the youth vandalised some properties. They intercepted a truckload of marked votes disguised as corn bags.
Some businesses owned by ruling party cadres and public officials were set ablaze. But what do we learn from Tanzania?
Here, the nuggets of wisdom are: First, this movement that the Tanzanian Gen Z is carrying forward could, if not addressed, motivate other ‘volcanoes’ to erupt. Second, this generation is totally different from others. Geopolitically, this wave is menacingly looming over Africa.
It started in Kenya, then in Madagascar, and now it’s playing out in Tanzania. Worldwide, we’ve seen the Gen Z protests erupt in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal. How will it end? It’s hard to tell.
To conclude, there cannot be perpetual peace amid prevalent corruption and injustices. Thus, power abusers must know. Power and pomp are but vanity. They belong to the people. Humans aren’t chicken whose eggs you can steal and eat as they idly watch. Woe unto you who take your people for a ride.