THE RACE FOR THE PRESIDENCY. THE FIRST MULTIPARTY DEMOCRACY IN TANZANIA. T L Maliyamkono. Tema Publishing, Dar es Salaam. 1995. 90 pages $15.00.

I have often wondered why it takes book publishers so many months to publish a book when Sunday newspaper publishers take less than a week to provide an equal amount of reading. So this attractively designed little book with colour illustrations and very useful statistical appendices produced in record time, represents an achievement. Unfortunately the content shows that it has been produced in a hurry. The book begins well with a useful summary of Tanzania’s economic plight. In its political content, however, it assumes that the reader is familiar with recent political events and therefore covers them and particularly the characteristics of the parties and personalities in rather a superficial way. The author takes the story up until two weeks before the election. He indicates that he knows what he is talking about by scoring high marks in predicting what the result would be. He predicted a victory by Benjamin Mkapa with 55% to 65% of the vote (he got in by 61.8%), that the CCM would have a landslide victory in Parliament (CCM did!) and that in Zanzibar ‘1 would expect neither party to take a majority either in Presidential or Parliamentary voting’. Most observers would go along with that.

The book contains a succinct chapter on Nyerere’s achievements and failures and points out that he has been involved in the transfer of power three times in succession without military intervention – something the author rightly describes as Tanzania’s greatest achievement’ – DRB.

JAPANESE AID TO TANZANIA: A STUDY OF THE POLITICAL MARKETING OF JAPAN IN AFRICA. Kweku Ampiah. African Affairs 95 (378). January 1996. 17 pages.

Japan has a good reputation in the aid world. Its aid budget has increased dramatically in amount – from $252 million in 1985 to $1.04 billion in 1991 and anyone who has seen the change in the state of the roads in Dar es Salaam knows how effective it can be.

The value of this article is the skilful way in which the author analyses the motivation behind the giving of the aid to a country (Tanzania) which Japan clearly recognised as being different or special. Thus, Tanzania became by far the biggest recipient of Japanese grant aid among African states and was second to Kenya in technical aid. A country which promised little or no economic benefit to Japan (Japan was Tanzania’s third most important trading partner in 1991 but Tanzania was only Japan’s lOlst trading partner) tended to get little loan aid because of opposition from the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry – Kenya was the main recipient. It was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which was the primary initiator of Japan’s economic assistance to Tanzania.

The author argues that it was not just charity because Tanzania got so much more aid than other African countries. It was Tanzania’s leading frontline position in Southern Africa, Tanzania’s popularity in the Third World and, because of a Japanese tendency to place great importance on individuals, the centrality in it all of Julius K Nyerere. Ampiah notes significantly that Tanzania was understanding of Japan’s ‘predicament’ as a nation that survived on trade and therefore had to continue to deal with the then outlawed state of South Africa.

There is much more in this article including useful statistics, brief evaluations of the different aid projects and a note on the very limited Japanese investment in Tanzania – by 1993 seven private Japanese companies had invested a total of only $5.5 million – DRB.

BAGAMOYO – A PICTORIAL ESSAY. Jasper Kirknaes and John Wembah- Rashid. (Obtainable from J Kirkenes, P 0 Box 128, Frederiksberg. Denmark 2000. £4 plus postage).
HISTORICAL ZANZIBAR. Introduction and captions by Professor Abdul Sheriff. HSP Publications. 7 Highgate High St. London N6. Tel: 0181 340 3054. £19.95 (Postage free for UK BTS members).
Bagamoyo marked the final stage of the long overland route from the Great Lakes via Tabora and was the main port for the shameful trade in slaves and ivory in the first half of the nineteenth century. It was also the starting point for the famous expeditions by Burton and Speke in 1857 and Stanley in 1871.
With the gradual ending of the slave trade and the establishment of a Catholic mission in 1868, Bagamoyo became a haven for the welfare and education of freed slaves. The Germans made it the administrative centre of their newly acquired East African Colony until 1891 when the capital was moved to Dar es Salaam.

The historical background is briefly set out in the first of these books – a ‘pictorial essay’ which includes some 50 black and white photographs with an attractive cover in colour showing the beach and old Customs House. The order is at times confusing, with scenes from the German period of rule in the 1890’s on the same page as views from the 1990’s. Some of the references to the British presence in Bagamoyo are rather tendentious.

With few, if any, books available on this historic town, this publication is to be welcomed as a reminder of Bagamoyo, the place where ‘one lays one’s heart to rest’. Professor Sheriff presents us in the second book with a splendid album of (mainly Victorian) photographs taken from Zanzibar’s archives. Many of these fascinating scenes have probably not been published before. Here we have the State Barge presented to the Sultan by Queen Victoria: a locomotive of the Bububu Railway complete with American-style cowcatcher; and a photo of the Sultan taking tea with British officials which is vintage Evelyn Waugh.
The darker side of Zanzibar’s history is shown in disturbing photographs of chained slaves and of the damage done by the 1896 bombardment. The earliest photograph is that of the explorer Henry Stanley receiving an address of welcome; the most recent shows the last Sultan opening the last Assembly shortly before the 1964 revolution, while Karume sits quietly a few feet away.

Professor Sherrif’s six-page Introduction succeeds in summarising the main features of the period without succumbing to anti-colonial cliches, and there is a clear and informative plan of Zanzibar town. This attractively produced book is recommended not only for those under the spell of Zanzibar but also for anyone planning a visit who wishes to learn something of the Spice Island’s fascinating history. John Sankey

BLOOD, MILK AND DEATH. BODY SYMBOLS AND THE POWER OF REGENERATION AMONG THE ZARAMO OF TANZANIA. Marja-Liisa Swantz with the assistance of Salome Mjema and Zenya Wild. Finnish Anthropological Society. 1995. Bergin and Garvey. 168 pages. Hardback £44.95.

The Zaramo are a coastal people, closely related to the Kwere and the Zigua, living in and around Dar es Salaam. Once elephant hunters, they became farmers , and are now increasingly urbanised; but through all these changes they have preserved their character and identity. Marja-Liisa Swantz has lived among the Zaramo and studied them as an anthropologist for the last 25 years. This short and accessible book is a compilation of her writings with, as a kind of descant, the notes of a young Zaramo woman recalling her life and upbringing.

They are a people whose unity is based, not on attachment to land, but to their common valued way of life. What sometimes appears to outsiders to be inexplicable economic ‘backwardness’, is in fact a deliberate opposition to government directed ‘development’ which has not taken their needs into consideration. ‘The Zaramo have been steadfast in their determination to evade incorporation into alien systems, even when they would gain economic ally^. This book looks at the symbols that bind Zaramo life together, centred round the puberty ceremonies of young people, especially the girls. From their seclusion, which is a kind of death, they emerge to life, through a series of rites with a complex symbolism on how they will play their part as women and mothers. ‘The Zaramo’ writes Swantz, ‘as far back as oral and written history can determine, have chosen.. ..to live according to their own values.. . This book is an attempt to describe some of the values that guide the Zaramo, and to come to some conclusions about how they have so consistently been able to find their way1. She concludes that the close-knit communal way of the Zaramo has much to offer to modern Tanzania if the nation can only find a way to acknowledge and incorporate it.
Virginia Luling

OUTLOOK FOR SURVIVORS OF CHILDHOOD IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: ADULT MORTALITY IN TANZANIA. Henry M Kitange et al. British Medical Journal. Vol. 312. January 27 1996.

A team mostly from the Tanzanian Ministry of Health and Newcastle upon Tyne University has recorded adult deaths and death rates in Tanzania. Very high death rates in infants and small children are well recognised in sub-Saharan Africa but hitherto little has been known about mortality in those who survive the most dangerous first years.

Trained enumerators carried out censuses from mid-1992 until mid-1995 in 8 areas of Dar es Salaam, 59 villages in Morogoro and 47 in Hai district with a total of over 160,000 adults aged 15 to 59 years. Nearly 5,000 deaths were recorded in this age group.
The death rates were lowest in Hai, a relatively prosperous area growing cash crops, greater in Dar es Salaam and higher still in Morogoro where there is much subsistence farming with sisal cultivation. It was estimated that 32% of those aged 15 would die before their sixtieth birthday if current mortality persisted; 46% would die in Dar es Salaam and 53% in Morogoro. Women fared far worse than men from ages 20 to 34 in Morogoro and from 15 to 39 in Dar es Salaam. In Hai only women aged 25 to 29 had higher death rates than men.

The authors took great care to obtain complete censuses over three years, so these figures are the best available. They paint a bleak picture. Women aged 20 to 24 in Morogoro, for example, have a mortality which is over 40 times greater than women of the same age in England and Wales. The causes of death have not yet been analysed fully, but HIV and maternal mortality probably cause most excess deaths in young women.

The authors hope that these results will provoke a debate about health expenditure. Concentration on preventing infant and child mortality may have led to the relative neglect of adult mortality, much of which could probably be prevented. Epidemiological studies are of immense importance and the authors must be congratulated for their work and their paper. Long-term studies are particularly valuable, so we must hope that these observations can be continued.
John Wood

COME OVER AND HELP US – A DOCTOR IN AFRICA. Dr. Leader Stirling. AMREF Tanzania Publishing. 1995.
Dr. Leader Stirling originally published his autobiography in 1976 but it has been up-dated and re-issued with a supplement to the introduction written by Julius Nyerere in 1995.

The overwhelming impression , which made me enjoy it so much is Dr. Stirling’s obvious enthusiasm for almost everything he was involved in and his bubbling sense of humour comes out on almost every page. For example, I was fascinated by the extraordinary fact that one of his instructors in surgery was able to whip out an appendix in two minutes forty seconds! or the story of Louiza with acute septicaemia, whose progress to health was greatly assisted by a crate of Guinness; or the inspector from the Directorate of Medical Services whose previous encounter had been when Stirling had tried to restrain him as he ran naked down Victoria embankment late one night! The inspection went off well. There are many things touched on, more or less in passing, but without elaboration. I would have been very happy to have read about the remarkable improvisation at which Dr. Stirling became so adept. In this day of modern medicine, it is fascinating to read that quite simple techniques or equipment may be equally effective in saving lives. Triple distilled water with a bit of salt and glucose added to prepare intravenous infusions may shock the ‘modern’ doctor, but has saved many lives. A corkscrew is effective in removing tumours from the uterus, and a teaspoon has many surgical uses. Sterilised hippo fat makes an excellent aseptic ointment. I found the book entertaining and fascinating but my main criticism is that it was too short. For example, Leader Stirling was active in scouting throughout most of his life, but I would have been happy to read a lot more of the various ‘adventures1 with wild animals, despotic colonial officials and so on. I hope he will soon publish the sequel.
David Gooday, Elubisini Farm
Swaziland

INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE, INNOVATION AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: AN INFORMATION SCIENCES PERSPECTIVE. Paper presented at the 1993 Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, Boston Massachusetts. A Lalonde and G Morin-Labatut. IDRC. Ottawa. This paper focuses on the movement of development

priorities in recent years away from the solely economic to ‘people-centred development’. More attention should be given to ‘Indigenous Knowledge (IK)’ the authors say. An example of development which has ignored IK to its cost is the Canadian Wheat Scheme in Tanzania. It is suggested that, had the Barabaig been included at an early stage, there would have been improved planning of land utilisation and the project would have been more sustainable.

I feel doubtful as, not only are there two systems of farming at opposite ends of the spectrum, but also little was known about the Barabaig in 1969/70 – in fact, not many people wanted to know about them. An entirely new approach would have been necessary by planners, involving lengthy research and negotiation using specialist personnel when what was required was a quick answer to feeding Tanzania’s growing urban population. We are indeed wiser now, but to say that it could have been otherwise in the beginning is hypothetical. No doubt the writers of this paper could have found a better example to illustrate their proposition.
Christine Lawrence

ASANTE MAMSAPU. E. Cory-King. Minerva Press. 1995. This rather ordinary autobiography provides a fascinating insight into life in Tanganyika in the inter war period from 1927 to 1939. The story, as such is essentially of the author’s own childhood, although, through the eyes of ‘Putzi’ are recorded the exploits of her father, the well-known writer Hans Cory, as he undergoes a transformation from plantation manager to social anthropologist. The environmental and social backdrop of Tanganyika is vividly evoked, but the brevity of the period and the structural limitations of the autobiographical form hinder the development of the book and allow for very little narrative progression.

Nevertheless the nature of the autobiography is used to great effect in the highly entertaining portrayal of the book’s diverse characters: the omnipotent Hans, frivolous Lili and the countless caricatures throughout are the book’s main strength, bringing a personal, entertaining and human perspective on life in the territory under the British. The author’s own nationality – as an Austro-German she is in a minority and easily distanced from other nationalities – lends itself nicely to the caustic and hilarious appraisal of the other colonists that is one of the book’s delights. In fact, this device is much more prevalent towards the end which is indeed where the story becomes increasingly engaging. Her cynical eye it seems is used to much better effect when turned on the other Europeans rather than her own family. This artistic eye for detail and an affinity for nature combine to give us an intimate picture of the environment that surrounds her. However, her descriptive style is invariably and perhaps inevitably a reflection of her colonial experience: paternalistic in her social comments but wonderfully observant in her faithful translation of the Tanganyikan landscape and perhaps slightly nostalgic, judging by the numerous Kiswahili euphemisms that pepper the text. Still, this is obviously the mark of an author in love with her subject, regardless of the fact that the narrative lacks compulsion.

I think Cory-King’s intricate and personal story of a childhood in Tanganyika would be particularly rewarding for those who knew Tanganyika and Hans Cory or know Tanzania, since the beauty of her autobiography lies in the realistic and sensuous evocation of the landscape and the people rather than in anything inherently remarkable about the stories of her upbringing.
Ben Rawlence

WOMEN WIELDING THE HOE. CROSS CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES ON WOMEN.
No 16. Centre for Cross Cultural Research on Women. Oxford
University. Edited by Deborah Fahy Bryceson. Berg, Oxford.
This paper arises out of a workshop held in Holland in 1995 and looks at women as farmers in Africa and discusses a whole range of issues relevant to women’s lives in those African societies where hoe agriculture is prevalent.

Of the 14 chapters, six are from researchers whose work has developed in Tanzania. The editor has written an excellent introductory chapter on the mystique surrounding African women hoe cultivators.

Pat Caplan contributes an article from her return visits to Mafia where she did her field work 20 years ago and presents narratives of women’s views on the function and practicalities of motherhood in work and life. All very readable and a real pleasure to hear directly from womens’ own voices. Ulla Vuorela discusses truth in fantasy by presenting a number of powerful morality tales about women’s experience in marriage told for and by women in Msoga village in Northern Tanzania. A sharp insight into a world of difference between stories which begin at the point where stories from western cultures end in the ‘happy ever after…’ Han Bantje contributes a review of the relationship between maternal workloads and reproductive performance. His chapter contains very interesting factual information and reflections on human resilience which challenges conventional theories of nutrition.

Deborah Fahy Bryceson’s own fine contribution summarises the changing direction of development agencies’ policies and their gradual recognition of their tendencies to impose western assumptions on women’s lives in Africa even when demonstrably inappropriate. It is summarised by its title ‘Wishful thinking; Theory and Practice of Western Donor Efforts to Raise Women’s status in Rural Africa’.

An important and readable publication which is definitely
recommended to BTS members, especially for its value in helping readers to re-adjust their focus, which past perspectives and policies have often left seriously askew. Compulsory reading for anyone planning to go on the BTS visit to Tanzania in July, and who want to understand the position of women in Tanzania today.
Maura Rafferty

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

REVEALING PROPHETS. PROPHESY IN EAST AFRICAN HISTORY. Edited by David Anderson and Douglas Johnson. James Currey. 1995. 310 pages. Hardback £35. Paperback £12.95. This study contains a chapter by Marcia Wright, Professor of African History at Columbia University New York, in which she analyses in some detail the background events, with particular reference to peasant grievances and prophetic religion, which led up to the Maji Maji Rebellion in southeastern German East Africa in 1905 HEALTH SECTOR REFORM AND ORGANISATIONAL ISSUES AT THE LOCAL LEVEL: LESSONS FROM SELECTED AFRICAN COUNTRIES. S Mogedal, S Hodne Steen and George Mpelumbe. Journal of International Development 7 (3) 1995. 18 pages. Experiences with health sector reform in Botswana, Mozambique, Zambia and Tanzania including issues such as decentralisation, user fees, privatisation and human resource management.

INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE IN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT: IRRIGATION IN MSANZI , TANZANIA. Ophelia Mascarenhas and P G Veit . World Resources Institute, New York. 1995. 34 pages. How the people of Msanzi in Rukwa Region have successfully managed their water and irrigation system.

WHO CARES ABOUT WATER? Jan-Olof Dranqert. Waterlines. 13 (3). 1995. 3 pages. Whether a source of water in Sukumaland is developed by an individual or by a group, the belief is that it is a gift from God; everyone is entitled to use it. What incentive is there for individuals to develop a new water source? But individual ownership and use is acceptable where the new source is from a previously (traditionally) unknown arrangement, for example, construction of large storage tanks.

EVALUATION OF NETHERLANDS AID TO INDIA, MALI AND TANZANIA: SUMMARY EVALUATION REPORT. Netherlands Development Cooperation. 1995. 218 pages.

STRENGTHENING NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN AFRICA. World Bank Technical Paper No.290. October 1995. 164 pages. Tanzania is one of the 12 countries covered in this discussion on strengthening of agricultural research.

ASYMPTOMATIC GONORRHOEA AND CHLAMYDIAL INFECTION IN RURAL TANZANIAN MEN. H Grosskurth et al. British Medical Journal. Vol. 312. 1996. A study of 500 men in Mwanza Region which confirmed that these infections are asymptomatic; the results have important implications for the design of control programmes.

LIBERALIZATION AND POLITICS. THE 1990 ELECTION IN TANZANIA. Ed: R S Mukandala and Haroub Othman. 1995. Dar es Salaam University Press. 319 pages. Paperback $30.00. Includes case studies on the elections in Zanzibar, Chilonwa, Bunda and Mtwara .

EVOLUTION OF OPERATIONAL RESEARCH STUDIES AND DEVELOPMENT OF A NATIONAL CONTROL STRATEGY AGAINST INTESTINAL HELMINTHS IN PEMBA ISLAND 1988-92. E Renganathan et al. Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 73 (2) 1995. 7 pages.
PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECONDARY EDUCATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: A COMPARATIVE STUDY. E Jimenez, M E Lockheed and associates. World Bank Discussion Paper 309. January 1996. 144 pages. $9.95. This paper compares costs and achievements in private and public secondary schools in five countries including Tanzania.

POLITICAL PARTIES AND DEMOCRACY IN TANZANIA. M Mmuya and A Chaligha. Dar es Salaam University Press. 223 pages. $21.50. Comprehensive study of the foundation of the new parties. BIOGAS DIGESTERS. Katia Jassey. Agrotec Newsletter 9. June 1995. The use of biogas digesters for cooking in Tanzania.
TANZANIA’S FIRST MULTI-PARTY ELECTIONS AS SEEN BY A. M. BABU. Maendeleo. C/o Londec, Instrument House, 207 Kings Cross Road London WC1 9DB. 1995. 12 pages. A M Babu is the Overseas Representative of the NCCR-Mageuzi party. This personal account of his experiences concludes on a hopeful note. ‘Tanzanians must take heart. All is not lost. Behind the dark clouds of deception and rigging there is a silver lining. Whoever imagined only six months ago that … the opposition would still muster 40% of the popular vote in this first experiment in multi-party democracy … the majority of the 40% are energetic young people, the cream of young Tanzanians who have suffered the worst aspects of Nyerere’s economic nightmare … the opposition must strive to build on this formidable base . . . . l

FINANCIAL INTEGRATION AND DEVELOPMENT IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: A STUDY OF INFORMAL FINANCE IN TANZANIA. M S D Bagachwa. 1995 £6.00. This paper is part of a report on an Overseas Development Institute (ODI) study of financial systems in four Anglophone countries.

DEVELOPMENT, DEMARCATION AND ECOLOGICAL OUTCOMES IN MAASAILAND. Kathreen Homewood. Africa 65 (3) 1995. 19 pages. This paper, using precise quantitative data, documents what it describes as the progressive erosion of territory and the imposition of new boundaries on the Maasai from the 1880,s to the present and how the Maasai communities have dealt with this by circumventing imposed boundaries, exploiting and sometimes attacking the resources the boundaries were designed to protect and in developing strategies to use to good effect the opportunities that boundaries can present.

TANZANIA BOOK NEWS. Ed: A Saiwaad. Children’s Book Project, P 0 Box 5702, Dar es Salaam. 1995. 8 pages. The first issue after a long break. Includes tenders for the publication of school books, TEPUSA – an NGO for the promotion of publications in Africa and an overview of the book project.

KILIMANJARO TALES: THE SAGA OF A MEDICAL FAMILY IN AFRICA. Gwynneth and Michael Latham. Radcliffe Press. 211 pages. £24.50. The story, based on the diary of his mother, of the life of Don Latham, a District Medical Officer in the 20’s and 30’s including background on Michael Latham’s own time in Tanzania.

GLOSA ENGLISH-SWAHILI DICTIONARY. Leonard A Sekibaha. Published by Glosa, P 0 Box 18, Richmond, Surrey TW9 2AU. 36 pages. £5.95. Glosa was originated by Prof. Hogben in 1943 while he was fire-watching in Aberdeen during the Second World War. This booklet contains the 1000 words which it claims are all that are needed to write, read, speak and understand the language; all the words are from Latin and Greek roots. The author runs the Glosa Centre in Pangani.

CONTINUITY AND AUTONOMY IN SWAHILI COMMUNITIES: INLAND INFLUENCES AND STRATEGIES OF SELF-DETERMINATION. Afro-Pub and SOAS, London. 1994. 231 pages. £28.00

POTATO CULTIVATION IN THE UPOROTO MOUNTAINS, TANZANIA: AN ANALYSIS OF THE SOCIAL NATURE OF AGRO-TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE. Jens A Andersson (Wageningen). African Affairs. 95 (378) January 1996. 19 pages. Although over supplied with sociological jargon and completely lacking in quantitative data (‘because of its unreliability’) this paper is revealing in pointing out a) the influence of migration of people on the choice of variety of potato grown in this area of South- Western (Southern Highlands) Tanzania b) the rise and fall of the pyrethrum industry c) the attractions of Kenya as a market for potatoes grown in Northern Tanzania d) changing consumption patterns in Dar es Salaam e) improved transport facilities – all these in addition to the normal agronomic factors of production.

THE CULWICK PAPERS 1934-1944. POPULATION, FOOD AND HEALTH IN COLONIAL TANGANYIKA. Ed: Veronica Berry. Academy Books, 35 Pretoria Ave, London E17 7DR. £22.75 incl. p&p. The first half of this book consists of articles written by A T Culwick, a District Officer and his anthropologist wife about the Ulanga valley and the second half is a survey conducted in 1938-39 of ‘Bukoba and its context in nutrition’. The book is illustrated with 88 contemporary photographs, 4 maps and numerous tables. MIRADI BUBU YA WAZALENDO (The Invisible Enterprises of the Patriots). Gabriel Ruhumbika. Tanzania Publishing House. 1995. 168 pages. This saga written in Swahili with a Kikerewe flavour tells the story of a group of people facing the big changes which have occurred during the period from the 1930’s to the 1980,s.

A new edition of the HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF TANZANIA is in the final editing stage and should be published later this year. (Thank you Thomas Ofcansky from Washington DC for letting us have this advance notice – Editor).