Where is Uhuru?

Reflections on the Struggle for Democracy in Africa

Issa Shivji

The neoliberal project, led by the IMF and World Bank, promised to correct distortions in the African postcolonial environment and to expand democratic space. For a people who had suffered years of statism, these promises were persuasive. However, several decades down the line, Issa G. Shivji aptly asks, Where is Uhuru?

These essays show that the reform period opened the continent to greater privation by a more emboldened local political class who, by acquiescing to foreign imperialist forces, undermined the struggles for democratic transformation and economic empowerment. The rewards of multiparty politics, the dividends from a new constitutional dispensation, the processes of land reform, women ‘s rights to property, and the Pan-Africanist project for emancipation all suffered severe body blows. Shivji calls for new, Africa-centred thinking that is unapologetic of the continent‘s right to self-determination.

Contents

Introduction
Where is Uhuru? Reflections on the Struggle for Democracy in Africa
Edited by Godwin R. Murunga

Part 1 Contested Terrain of Democratic Politics
1 Critical Elements of a New Democratic Consensus in Africa
2 Good Governance, Bad Governance and the Quest for Democracy in Africa: An Alternative Perspective
3 Towards a New Democratic Politics
4 Democratic Village Governance: A Contested Terrain

Part 2 The State of the Debate on Constitutionalism
5 Three Generations of Constitutions and Constitution-Making in Africa: An Overview and Assessment in Social and Economic Context
6 Towards a New Constitutional Order: The State of the Debate in Tanzania
7 Federalism, Constitutionalism and the Crisis: Democracy and the Tanzania Union
8 Constitutional Limits on Parliamentary Powers

Part 3 Land: A Terrain of Democratic Struggles
9 Land Tenure Problems and Reforms in Tanzania
10 Grounding the Debate on Land: The National Land Policy and its Implications
11 Reflections on the Issue of Women and Land

Part 4 Intellectuals, Biographies and Reminiscences
12 From Neoliberalism to Pan-Africanism: Towards Reconstructing an Eastern African Discourse
13 Walter Rodney – A Revolutionary Intellectual
14 National Autonomous Development in the Thought of Edward Moringe Sokoine
15 The Life and Times of Babu: The Age of Liberation and Revolution

Part 5 Pan-Africanism or Imperialism
16 Pan-Africanism or Imperialism? Unity and Struggle towards a New Democratic Africa
17 Globalisation and Popular Resistance
Part 6 Empire ‘s Lawlessness
18 Law ‘s Empire and Empire ‘s Lawlessness: Beyond the Anglo-American Law

About the Author

Issa G. Shivji was professor of law at the University of Dar es Salaam and now holds the Mwalimu Nyerere Research Chair in Pan-African Studies at the same university.