Julius Kambarage Nyerere

Julius Kambarage Nyerere

(April,13 1922 – October,14 1999 )

Was first President of Tanzania (previously Tanganyika), from the country’s founding in 1964 until his retirement in 1985. He studied in Edinburgh and was the first Tanzanian to study at a British university and only the second, who gained a university degree outside of Africa He took a position in teaching and because of these activities, he was forced to choosebetween his political activities or his teaching – he resigned from teaching and was reported as saying that he was a schoolmaster by choice and a politician by accident.During his economic policies he introduced a policy of Collectivization in the country’s agriculture system – Ujamaa or “family hood”. He believed that life should be structured around “Ujamaa”.It was known that Nyerere had faith in rural African people and their traditional values and their way of life. In his opinion, Africans were already, recently, socialist, and all they needed to do was to return to their traditional “roots”, their traditional mode of life and they would regain it. In 1999 Julius Kambarage Nyere, also known as Father of the Nation, died because of leukemia in London and was buried in Musoma, Tanzania.

~ von mi am März 5, 2008.