Introducing an African Anomaly
GORDON, WALTER R.
Introducing an African Anomaly TANZANIA YOUNG NATION IN A HURRY By Alexander MacDonald Hawthorn Books. 253 pp. $4.95. Reviewed by WALTER R. GORDON Reporter, Baltimore "Sun" Sometimes the...
...MacDonald, regrettably, devotes little space to political issues such as TANU, the Tanzanian party which has advanced farther than any other African political party...
...Reviewed by WALTER R. GORDON Reporter, Baltimore "Sun" Sometimes the vagaries of world politics propel the most impoverished and obscure nations into the center of the international arena...
...But his detailed and optimistic description of the community development program suffers from a failure to discuss similar programs in Mali and Guinea...
...The partial success of Tanzanian development programs rests on the success of TANU in mobilizing the people, and the hopes for future economic success depend primarily on the future of TANU as a monopolistic, partly democratic party...
...The ramifications of a recent arms shipment from Tanzania came close to wrecking neighboring Kenya's only legal political party, the Kenya African National Union...
...Wisely enough he deserts the ministries of Dar es Salaam for the villages of the bush country, where the most important changes are now occurring...
...Political issues are not...
...After a brief sketch of the country's history-culminating in independence and union-MacDonald examines in detail the current fiveyear plan and its implications...
...Its strategic location makes it a convenient staging area for military operations-guerrilla or conventional-against the white bastions to the south, and a natural way station for arms and supplies shipped to the innumerable dissident movements of Central Africa...
...Economically, a combination of community development, rural public works and human investment has started a true social and agrarian revolution...
...On balance, though, economic and social issues are handled adequately...
...MacDonald says simply, "TANU is Tanzania," and drops the subject...
...Believing emphatically in the success of Tanzania's program, he neglects to point out how it differs from those that failed elsewhere...
...Alexander MacDonald, former editor of the famed Bangkok Post, has sought to fill the vacuum with this new book, Tanzania: Young Nation in a Hurry...
...Tanzania's foreign policy is so completely non-aligned that the country has become one of the most open in the world...
...While it is a useful and informative introduction to the country's complexities, it only partially succeeds...
...Yet its implications bear on all the questions raised in the book...
...It deals, in terms of trade or aid, with East and West Germany, Red China, Russia and the United States, Israel and Egypt...
...Most specialists in African Affairs agree that the African problem of today is primarily political...
...Its importance stems from its distinctive foreign policy, strategic location and development program...
...Unfortunately, no first-rate analysis of Tanzania has been published in the United States...
...Such is the fate of Tanzania, a Texas-size republic with a population of slightly over 10 million, combining anomalously the former British-controlled territories of Tanganyika and Zanzibar...
...In the 1965 election, for example, a number of prominent ministers and parliamentarians were defeated and replaced...
...Politically, the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) has taken a long stride toward a program that paradoxically combines a one-party monopoly with genuine democracy...
...In its development programs, Tanzania has initiated political and economic experiments which may prove valuable for a number of floundering new nations...
...In other words, before economic development can have any serious chance of success, the new countries must first establish viable political institutions both to administer the country and to serve as a link between the people and the government...
Vol. 49 • October 1966 • No. 21
