Department of Economics, University Dar-es-Salaam PO Box 35045 23/10/75
Dear Eve and Tony -
Joe posted your letter on and it was grand to hear from you after our long lapse into silence.; and here I am in your hunting ground, doing a visiting lecturer spell, teaching underdevelopment theory, in an underdeveloped country at last. The Academic Life has its perks, and this is one of the most rewarding.
I am here for 4 months, by arrangement through the Inter -University Council, and half has gone by: Due back in Britain mid-December, though after a short spell in LM, hoorah, hoorah; propose to leave here by abt Dec. , though I'm hurtling through a tightly packed course, trying to do in 3 and a half months what I do in the UK in 3 terms. Students are very intelligent, off the mark like silver bullets, though I fear me they are hurtling towards high posts in the bureaucracy.
Some are radicalised for as long as they remain on The Hill, where debate is relatively free and promotion and job security still to come as prime considerations: Some who try to remain true to their student committment land up heavy drinkers or silent cogs in a machine, not prepared to say yea, but aware of what it means to say no.
I had not realised how far the process of entrenching the managers; technocrats and bureaucrats had gone. I think the path was lost by 1971, after the workers took the Guidelines literally and were sat upon; ands then again after the right wing lurches of 1973/74 when Ny [rere] conceded so much to the right, including Ujamaa which turned into plain villagisation.
Are you subscribers to the Review of African Political Economy,'our' new journal (a group of independent radical m-ist africanists with 3 issues to our credit already, and the third with some provocative analysis of rural policy in Tanzania:)
In brackets: my typing has always been foul but today's trouble is compounded by the fact that I'm typing on an Italian machine which has transposed letters like m w z and all the figures and punctuation marks too.
The university, at least in the social sciences, is extremely congenial because of the group of radicals who share a perspective and method of analysis. In Britain you're lucky if you find one congenial and like-minded colleague in a Dept; here there are whole half departments reading each other's work., tearing one another to bits, but at least generating a critical and creative approach. 2 good books out soon: the third Shivji version i.e. Class Struggles in Tanzania; which Heinemanns is doing and a book on Uganda with a similar title by Mahmoud Mamdani, ex-Ugandan, but radicalised in the USA by the vigorous sixties:
You're starved of news. Kenya is blowing up a bit. Oneko has only just been released after all this time, partly as a result of certain pressures we managed to build in Britain, or are we kidding ourselves? But Martin Shikuku and Seroney, the Deputy Speaker are in detention since they alleged in open house that having killed the party, Kenyatta is now out to kill Parliament.
They were arrested at gunpoint in the parliament Bldg. Perhaps he didn't say Kenyatta, but those who killed KANU are now out to kill Parl. This is some of the furore since the death, sorry murder, of Kariuki. Some tight new regulations are in the offing requiring every govt official to pay some large amount like 1000 shillings (?) to join the party in order to remain in situ:
Did you see the three articles in the SA Times about the royal dynastic goings-on; they were not allowed into Kenya and I am not surprised: Pretty devastating expose..
For the rest Houphout Boigny is about to have the I Coast diplimatically represented in SA. That makes 2 of them, together with Malawi.
.
Until now Smith's intransigence has made him the most reliable opponent to V's detente manoeuvres, but now Nkomo is picking Vorster's chestnuts out of the Rhodesian fire by agreeing to talk constitutional settlement with Smith. A really tangled scene; I don't know why he can't simply be as bad as Britain and argue that he can't do without SA's trade; why rush into Vorster's arms by rationalising his mercenary requirements as being in the interests of all who love freedom?
Meanwhile; as the journalists say when trying to link paras; MPLA seems to be holding its own in Angola, and news from Mozambique is electrifying if you're fired by reports of students in chemistry doing distillation experiments in the labs producing vitamin C tablets for dispensaries - the unity of theory and practice, so unknown in this continent...
I'm not starry eyed, not me, but it sounds good.
Would clips do in that still world?
By the way I forgot one choice Kenya titbit: Njonjo warning dissident legislators that they must support Kenyatta or face the consequences, thus: Those who think they will become president might die while Mzee is still alive. He is still the Att-Gen...
later: a more familiar machine in the hotel along the ocean.
What else can I fill you in on? Ethiopia's military looks like going the way of all flesh in khaki, denying the Unions an independent existence and shutting down one of the organisers, and 18 others in an airport incident when the organiser was trying to hand out leaflets to airline employees calling for a general strike. AND the continued pursuit of the war against Eritrean which the new military does not seem distinct from the old.
Nigeria's coup was just another palace revolution. Officers envious of Gowon's position at the top of the tree, demanding the restoration of collective army rule, but also trying to preempt popular discontent by changing the face of the regime. There was resentment at the ripping off that was taking place, especially of oil money, but there is no reason to believe that the new set will be any different. I've done a new book on Libya, you may have heard of? But now I don't seem to write anything but lecture notes and letters...
Joe has a third of a book on southern Africa coming out, from Penguins. He and Basil Davidson and one other.
He'll probably be there for a week in December, since there will be a southern African conference under IDEP auspices.
What are your kids doing or are they not with you?
Robyn kicked in her course at Sussex University on the grounds it confirmed her conviction that universities were elitist and univ students bores and snobs. She's doing some communications course at a poly, Jill is a research assistant at the Open University linked to the Dean of the Science Faculty, but bored out of her mind, or so she claims. Shawn is steamrollering her way through one temp. job after another in search of the Opportunity, but in Britain's crisis the days of opportunity seem to be over, except by special luck.
Regret having missed your phone call when last you passed through but it tends to happen, since I'm doing this frightful commute between London and Durham, except during vacs.
India, much as I though I would find it from your experiences.
Don't be too seduced by the village ethos. Alternatives aren't found in the village unless they're penetrated - Red Army style as in China - from outside. Which doesn't mean any of the things that are said about peasants are true but that as you describe they're taken down by money-lenders and the age-old system of screwing them.
There's a book edited by David Lehman on Agrarian Reform and Agrarian Reform is which has some interesting analyses of Indian peasant questions, contradictory, but one or two rather revealing (not Lipton's).
And the journal of Peasant Studies is worth following. There are of course some very good analysts of Indian political economy, some of whom have been published in the Economic and political Weekly for years. People like Utsa Patnaik, Jarus Banarji and others...But serious, quite tough reading, all this and maybe hard to concentrate on the villages all round you, and towns too.
Hope to hear from you again, and let's try to keep this up.
much love -
Ruth
Dear Eve and Tony -
Joe posted your letter on and it was grand to hear from you after our long lapse into silence.; and here I am in your hunting ground, doing a visiting lecturer spell, teaching underdevelopment theory, in an underdeveloped country at last. The Academic Life has its perks, and this is one of the most rewarding.
I am here for 4 months, by arrangement through the Inter -University Council, and half has gone by: Due back in Britain mid-December, though after a short spell in LM, hoorah, hoorah; propose to leave here by abt Dec. , though I'm hurtling through a tightly packed course, trying to do in 3 and a half months what I do in the UK in 3 terms. Students are very intelligent, off the mark like silver bullets, though I fear me they are hurtling towards high posts in the bureaucracy.
Some are radicalised for as long as they remain on The Hill, where debate is relatively free and promotion and job security still to come as prime considerations: Some who try to remain true to their student committment land up heavy drinkers or silent cogs in a machine, not prepared to say yea, but aware of what it means to say no.
I had not realised how far the process of entrenching the managers; technocrats and bureaucrats had gone. I think the path was lost by 1971, after the workers took the Guidelines literally and were sat upon; ands then again after the right wing lurches of 1973/74 when Ny [rere] conceded so much to the right, including Ujamaa which turned into plain villagisation.
Are you subscribers to the Review of African Political Economy,'our' new journal (a group of independent radical m-ist africanists with 3 issues to our credit already, and the third with some provocative analysis of rural policy in Tanzania:)
In brackets: my typing has always been foul but today's trouble is compounded by the fact that I'm typing on an Italian machine which has transposed letters like m w z and all the figures and punctuation marks too.
The university, at least in the social sciences, is extremely congenial because of the group of radicals who share a perspective and method of analysis. In Britain you're lucky if you find one congenial and like-minded colleague in a Dept; here there are whole half departments reading each other's work., tearing one another to bits, but at least generating a critical and creative approach. 2 good books out soon: the third Shivji version i.e. Class Struggles in Tanzania; which Heinemanns is doing and a book on Uganda with a similar title by Mahmoud Mamdani, ex-Ugandan, but radicalised in the USA by the vigorous sixties:
You're starved of news. Kenya is blowing up a bit. Oneko has only just been released after all this time, partly as a result of certain pressures we managed to build in Britain, or are we kidding ourselves? But Martin Shikuku and Seroney, the Deputy Speaker are in detention since they alleged in open house that having killed the party, Kenyatta is now out to kill Parliament.
They were arrested at gunpoint in the parliament Bldg. Perhaps he didn't say Kenyatta, but those who killed KANU are now out to kill Parl. This is some of the furore since the death, sorry murder, of Kariuki. Some tight new regulations are in the offing requiring every govt official to pay some large amount like 1000 shillings (?) to join the party in order to remain in situ:
Did you see the three articles in the SA Times about the royal dynastic goings-on; they were not allowed into Kenya and I am not surprised: Pretty devastating expose..
For the rest Houphout Boigny is about to have the I Coast diplimatically represented in SA. That makes 2 of them, together with Malawi.
.
Until now Smith's intransigence has made him the most reliable opponent to V's detente manoeuvres, but now Nkomo is picking Vorster's chestnuts out of the Rhodesian fire by agreeing to talk constitutional settlement with Smith. A really tangled scene; I don't know why he can't simply be as bad as Britain and argue that he can't do without SA's trade; why rush into Vorster's arms by rationalising his mercenary requirements as being in the interests of all who love freedom?
Meanwhile; as the journalists say when trying to link paras; MPLA seems to be holding its own in Angola, and news from Mozambique is electrifying if you're fired by reports of students in chemistry doing distillation experiments in the labs producing vitamin C tablets for dispensaries - the unity of theory and practice, so unknown in this continent...
I'm not starry eyed, not me, but it sounds good.
Would clips do in that still world?
By the way I forgot one choice Kenya titbit: Njonjo warning dissident legislators that they must support Kenyatta or face the consequences, thus: Those who think they will become president might die while Mzee is still alive. He is still the Att-Gen...
later: a more familiar machine in the hotel along the ocean.
What else can I fill you in on? Ethiopia's military looks like going the way of all flesh in khaki, denying the Unions an independent existence and shutting down one of the organisers, and 18 others in an airport incident when the organiser was trying to hand out leaflets to airline employees calling for a general strike. AND the continued pursuit of the war against Eritrean which the new military does not seem distinct from the old.
Nigeria's coup was just another palace revolution. Officers envious of Gowon's position at the top of the tree, demanding the restoration of collective army rule, but also trying to preempt popular discontent by changing the face of the regime. There was resentment at the ripping off that was taking place, especially of oil money, but there is no reason to believe that the new set will be any different. I've done a new book on Libya, you may have heard of? But now I don't seem to write anything but lecture notes and letters...
Joe has a third of a book on southern Africa coming out, from Penguins. He and Basil Davidson and one other.
He'll probably be there for a week in December, since there will be a southern African conference under IDEP auspices.
What are your kids doing or are they not with you?
Robyn kicked in her course at Sussex University on the grounds it confirmed her conviction that universities were elitist and univ students bores and snobs. She's doing some communications course at a poly, Jill is a research assistant at the Open University linked to the Dean of the Science Faculty, but bored out of her mind, or so she claims. Shawn is steamrollering her way through one temp. job after another in search of the Opportunity, but in Britain's crisis the days of opportunity seem to be over, except by special luck.
Regret having missed your phone call when last you passed through but it tends to happen, since I'm doing this frightful commute between London and Durham, except during vacs.
India, much as I though I would find it from your experiences.
Don't be too seduced by the village ethos. Alternatives aren't found in the village unless they're penetrated - Red Army style as in China - from outside. Which doesn't mean any of the things that are said about peasants are true but that as you describe they're taken down by money-lenders and the age-old system of screwing them.
There's a book edited by David Lehman on Agrarian Reform and Agrarian Reform is which has some interesting analyses of Indian peasant questions, contradictory, but one or two rather revealing (not Lipton's).
And the journal of Peasant Studies is worth following. There are of course some very good analysts of Indian political economy, some of whom have been published in the Economic and political Weekly for years. People like Utsa Patnaik, Jarus Banarji and others...But serious, quite tough reading, all this and maybe hard to concentrate on the villages all round you, and towns too.
Hope to hear from you again, and let's try to keep this up.
much love -
Ruth
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