Let's face it, the Tanzania media is not being very neighbourly
By CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO
As East African leaders met to give the political federation a shot in the arm, regional observers were focused on the surprising and increasing hostility towards the East African Community from Tanzania.
For many years, the Tanzania of Julius Nyerere was the Mecca of Pan-African politics in Africa. The Organisation of African Unity's Liberation Committee was based there, and from the late 1960s through to the early 1980s, nearly every progressive liberation movement in sub-Sahara Africa was either headquartered or had significant representation in Dar es Salaam.
Tanzania is still internationalist, witnessed by its role in brokering the Burundi peace, and the attempts to heal the rift between Presidents Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame after the Ugandan and Rwanda armies fought over the spoils of occupation in the eastern Congo jungles six years ago.
However, outside the statements of President Jakaya Kikwete and a few of his ministers, popular Tanzanian attitudes toward the Community seem to be growing decidedly hostile. The country is unique in the Community in that a Tanzania website,
www.habaritanzania.com, actually hosts a running hate campaign against other East Africans.
An exasperated columnist in Rwanda's New Times complained about how; "It is filling Nyerere's land with the most xenophobic venom imaginable." Meanwhile, sections of the Tanzania media take exception to even the most mildly critical articles and cartoons on Tanzania appearing in the Kenya and Ugandan press - especially the former. These articles invite sharp responses, and calls to expel Kenyans.
On the other hand, I have not read a single article in the Ugandan and Kenyan media rebutting unflattering stories about them in the Tanzania media - and there are a lot. One reason is that Kenyans and Ugandans are part-time patriots and only rally to defend their countries when a European or American criticises them. They tend to be quite tolerant of, and often even to agree with, criticism by other Africans.
Kenya has simply too much to lose economically if the Community goes up in smoke, so it would seem there's an informal strategic agreement not to do anything that gives the xenophobes in Tanzania ammunition.
In Uganda, because of Tanzania's much-appreciated role in ousting the dictator Idi Amin in 1979, but also because it's a landlocked country, there's a general consensus about the East Africa Community across the political divide. Therefore, it's just not fashionable to rail publicly against Tanzania (or Kenya for that matter). There now seems to be a belief in Kenya and Uganda that Tanzania could walk away from the EAC, and therefore a creeping elite consensus that you can criticise any country in the world, but you can't ruthlessly challenge the erroneous views about the Community that one sees in the Dar es Salaam media because it could provoke a crisis.
THE RESULT IS THAT MANY regionally-minded Tanzanians (and the tens of thousands of them who send their children to Kenya and Ugandan schools) aren't getting enough support for their worldview. But also because the rest of East Africa isn't screaming foul, the Tanzanian government is able to get away with not dealing with this problem. Even more surprising is that the radical intellectuals in Tanzania have retreated so much, they hardly speak out against the demonisation of other East Africans.
Because of this silence, by the time EAC governments put pressure on Dar es Salaam, it will be too late. Today, the vocal ultranationalists in Tanzania don't want the rest of East Africa. Tomorrow, they might just have their wish. The rest of East Africa might not want to touch a xenophobic Tanzania. Someone has to say these things.
Charles Onyango-Obbo is Nation Media Group's managing editor for convergence and new products. E-mail:
cobbo@nation.co.ke