USA Africa Dialogue Series - Biafra in the Tanzanian Imagination - And Vice Versa

Subject: [UDADISI: Rethinking in Action] Biafra in the Tanzanian Imagination - And Vice Versa

After reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel Half of a Yellow Sun I wrote:  I have just finished reading your novel on Biafra this evening. Congratulation for a work well done. I am very much interested in the way Tanzania and Nyerere were/are perceived by the 'Biafrans'. Could you kindly share with me the imagination behind that story of  a 'Tanzania Bar' in your novel. 

When I finally met her, she pointed out that indeed Tanzania mattered a lot in the Biafran imagination. A lot of places and things were named Tanzania after Nyerere announced his country's controversial support for Biafra's secession. The stance was eloquently presented in a small booklet entitled 'The Nigeria-Biafra Crisis' by Julius K. Nyerere (4 September 1969). As I have noted in an article on African Unity at What Cost? his assertion remained Pan-Africanist as they were Anti-Imperialist. For him, in as much Tanzania wanted to see a federated Nigeria as a step towards a united Africa, it was not ready to support a war to keep Biafrans as part of Nigeria even against their will as that would be tantamount to letting a potential great exemplar of African unity become an African imperial power.

Interestingly, Biafra also became part of the Tanzanian imagination. A whole residential area was renamed Kinondoni Biafra. Maggid Mjengwa has given great publicity to this childhood neighborhood of his. The University of Dar  Salaam, the then celebrated hub of revolutionary ideas, was not left behind. It even named one of its residences Biafra Flat.

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Posted By Blogger to UDADISI: Rethinking in Action at 8/19/2012 07:30:00 AM