ABSTRACT
Julius K. Nyerere believed philosophically in his concept of “ujamaa,” which he saw in utopian terms as a broadening of the traditional African extended family into the national and even the international realm. African socialists, like all true-believers, turned out to be profoundly immodest, never stooping to temper their visions and illusions with proof or praxis. Africanologists such as Professor George B. N. Ayittey say that, for all his charm and intellect, Nyerere actually misunderstood his own African heritage. Nyerere must be judged a false teacher by any of the indicators of development, of economics, and of human happiness. He died this week in London, at seventy-seven of complications in his treatment of leukemia; Nyerere always proudly proclaimed that he was a socialist. The one subject of these mealtime discourses was that the Swedes, the Danes, all those good folk with good intentions, were pouring their abundant development gift moneys to Nyerere’s new and independent Tanzania down the drain.
