The Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Hon. Bernard Membe (MP) is at the Edinburgh University, Scotland for the commemoration ceremony of the 10th anniversary of Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere's death. This commemorative event was attended by tens of African dignitaries including H.E Ali Hassan Mwinyi, former President of the United Republic of Tanzania, Mr. Joseph Butiku, Chief Executive Officer of the Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation, H.E Mwanaidi Sinare Majaar, Tanzania High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, the vibrant Tanzania community in Scotland, scholars, academicians from Edinburgh University and other invited guests.
Participants discussed Mwalimu Nyerere’s life, his time as a student at the Edinburgh University, legacy and the inauguration of the Nyerere scholarships at the Centre of African Studies.
Hon. Membe (MP) also launched a publication that contains a diverse range of articles about Nyerere’s legacy titled Julius Kambarage Nyerere: Life Times Legacy published to celebrate the life of Mwalimu Nyerere by the First Magazine Publishers of London. Amongst articles in that publication are Mwalimu Nyerere as I knew Him by H.E Ali Hassan Mwinyi, Second President of the United Republic of Tanzania.
Others are Memories of Julius Nyerere by H.E Benjamin W. Mkapa, third President of the United Republic of Tanzania; Beloved Son of Africa, by H.E Joachim Chissano, former President of Mozambique; Mwalimu Nyerere and African Unity, by Dr. Salim Ahmed Salim, Chairman of the Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation and former OAU Secretary General.
Others who contributed articles in the publication are Mzee Rashid Mfaume Kawawa, Mr. Joseph Sinde Warioba, Judge Mark Bomani, Brig. Gen (Rtd) Hashim Mbita, Dr. Thomas Molony, Dr. Andrew Coulson, Mr. Pius Msekwa, H.E Mwanaidi Sinare, Dr. Maria Kamm and many more.
Afterwards, Hon. Membe (MP) will unveil the Millennium Plaque in honour of Mwalimu Nyerere.
Today the University of Edinburgh will host an Edinburgh-Tanzania day in the Chrystal Macmillan Building (CMB) to showcase some of the exciting research and teaching relationship that exist between the University and the United Republic of Tanzania.
Tomorrow, Wednesday 11 November, the University will also host a Marie-Aude Fouéré of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, from the Centre for African Studies, who will be talking about Mwalimu Nyerere and commemoration in the contemporary Tanzania.
6 comments:
this is wonderful. A good Man who was a real real blessing to many of us!
I think we should make him a saint, what do you think majaliwa? I think that will be great for this nation, on which we would remind of ourselves not by just actons in sake of remembrance of his IDEAS and IDEOLOGIES, but by divine intervention as well.
I think he already affecting your life immensely by looking at your words, what a blessing has he bestowed upon you! Mmhh!
A well rounded man with morals and standard for all of us to live on, we need to erect more of his statues on the major streets of our cities, I hope that would satisfy us all... A DREAM will be realised.
This is great stuff. Mwalimu did many great things for our nation. I can't wait to purchase the new book they just published on him.
Dicrimination, I am also a member of this blog Mzee, if you failed to publicize my comment, I will publish the whole article, on what perceived to be discriminating my comments regarding the legacy of Nyerere
Was Nyerere a great leader? Yes Indeed! A saint? No. There is no need to make him a saint or build more statues for him. History will absolve Nyerere despite crimination by the die-hard critics.
Guys, it’s my first time to read this blog but I hope my comments would merit appearing here!
I believe this blog is a wonderful place for ‘like-minded people’ to exchange views and ideas for the benefits of our country. Of course, our country needs a lot of things to be done in order realise its potential. And one of the things is to ‘SPEAK’! We need to speak against all those odd stuff that make our country looks like it’s looking NOW! Of course, in the end, we need to act!
Today, I’ll just speak about the idea of calling our first president ‘Saint’ as underpinned by plethora of commentators on this blog and others alike!
I need to explicitly say that I’ve got nothing against our first president; instead he has my utmost respect for what he had done and achieved for the country and the continent [Africa]. In fact, Mwalimu was for everyone [man of the people]! He was humbled by people from all walks of life including believers and non-believers!
Needless to say, Mwalimu was one of practisers [big] of Catholicism but he didn’t distance himself from those who didn’t practise Catholicism or ‘hate’ those who didn’t embrace it!
As I said earlier, I respect this guy very much as a true leader of his time!
I’m neither catholic nor Christian but I do respect other forms of religion! In my opinion, calling him Saint is more like affiliating him with one sect of religion (Christianity!). I don’t know what Saint means but it’s one of Christianity vocabularies!
It should be remembered that Mwalimu wasn’t a religious leader of any sort, he was just a politician and he had achieved all he had achieved through political arena and nothing else!
Of course, those who fancy calling him Saint would opt to do so, but people like me (who don’t know what Saint means) calling ‘Baba wa Taifa’ fits the purpose.
Alternatively, the best way to remember him is to follow his legacy! Otherwise, we can call him all these ‘fancy names’ in the world while doing nothing to keep his legacy; surely, this would make him crying with bloody tears in his graveyard!
R.I.P BABA WA TAIFA
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Maghee
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