The Forgotten Speech...

I always say, this man was a great leader... Hats Off.

This Speech was sent to me by friend via souce JamiiForum

In the first part, a group of university students (almost 400 of them) from DUC (before it became UDSM) marched to the Statehouse protesting the National Service arrangement which they considered to be exploitative in nature. Without fear or excuses Nyerere and his Cabinet were prepared to meet them. Force was not used to stop them. 

The incident is recorded in “We Must Run, While They Walk, pp 26-32- a book by William Edgett Smith” Digital transcription is mine; all italics and brackets original. I will have a Pdf file with the complete text next time. 

THE SECOND PART
“My salary! Do you know what my salary is? Five Thousand damned shillings a month! Five thousand damned shillings in a poor country! The poor man who gets two hundred shillings a month - do you know how long it’s going to take him to earn my damned salary? Twenty-five years! It’s going to take the poor man in this country, who earns two hundred shillings a month, twenty-five years to earn what I earn in a year. 
“The damned salaries! These are salaries which build this kind of attitude in the educated people, all of them! All of them! Me and you! We belong to a class of exploiters! I belong to your class! Where I think three hundred and eight pounds a yeas is a prison camp! Is forced labor! We belong to this damned exploiting class on top. Is this the country we fought for? Is this what we worked for? In order to maintain a class of exploiters on top?

“I agree with you! We are paying too much! Everybody in this damned country is paid too much- except the poor peasant. I’ll slash the salaries! I agree with you! I’m glad you’re so concerned about this country! Forced labor? Where do we get this language? The day I can give every worker of Tanzania three hundred and eighty pounds, we will have worked a revolution that has not been worked anywhere in Africa. The day that I succeed in giving everybody in this damned country three hundred pounds, we shall have worked a terrific revolution; we could stand all of us on top of Kilimanjaro and proclaim the Tanzanian revolution!

“Forced labor! Go, go in the classroom, go and don’t teach. This we shall county as National Service for three hundred and eighty pounds a year. You are right salaries are too high. Everybody in this country is demanding a pound of flesh. Everybody except the poor peasant. How can he demand it? He doesn’t know the language. Even in his own language he can’t speak of forced labor. What kind of country are we building?” He fairly screeched the words.

“I have accepted what you said. And I am going to revise salaries permanently. And as for you, I am asking you to go home. I’m asking all of you to go home. Rashid! You are responsible to see that they go home.”

There was mild applause, presumably from those students who didn’t realize what had happened. He expelled them, three hundred and ninety three in all and sent them home. all of them
 ha ha ha ha!