Recently, Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan lamented about some people in her government who are starting to exhibit certain tendencies which, by insinuation, were either weeded out by the previous administration or it was just not an opportune time for the culprits to exhibit them. Surprised? You should not if you consider our national character. I return to this subject shortly.   

On December 9, 2021, Tanzanians marked the 60th anniversary of the independence of Tanganyika, the bulk of what is now Tanzania. Sixty years of independence is not a small feat, that’s why the event was colorful. As a country, we have a long list of achievements, including peace and stability – the envy of many neighboring countries in the region. Improved physical infrastructure, increased life expectancy, which is now 65 years, and higher level of literacy are some of the other achievements. Still, the three “enemies of the nation” – poverty, diseases, and ignorance – pose serious challenge to our people.

In celebrating independence and new year, the public discourse is usually around the things I have mentioned above. There is typically very little on how we can better improve on our, say, national character. The national character of a people is a result of their culture, manifested in their perceptions, beliefs, and conduct.

Normatively, there is good and bad national character. Thus, it is imperative to continuously work to protect and create one that distinctively and positively bring out the best from individuals, for their own good and that of the society. This is an area we haven’t done very well, thus we cannot be very proud of.

At the center of this problem is our inability to link culture and development. For many of us, culture is culture and politics is politics. Even for some policymakers, culture starts and ends with traditional dances and attires when they are exotic enough to catch an eye of a foreign tourist. The idea of culture being the source of a national character that instills confidence, hard work, honesty, and nurture our collective imagination and creativity is virtually nonexistent.

There is a huge scholarship on how culture can steer or hinder progress. Amilcar Cabral linked culture to national liberation, underscoring its importance in building resistance against foreign domination. Kwesi Kwaa Prah in his book Anthropological Prisms: Studies on African Realities makes an interesting argument that culture is the only missing jigsaw in Africa’s development plans. Our very own Chambi Chachage has also addressed this question in his brief on Engendering Sustainable Development through a Synthesis of Struggles for Cultural Liberty.

The manifestation of a bad national character is evident in our daily experiences. Both in public and private spaces. I will take you through “three days of reckoning”, which evoked my interest in the importance of self-governance.

In the evening of Friday, December 17, 2021, I walked into a barbershop to get a trim. Sitting next to me was a man in his 50s who had just got his hair done. But he was not leaving. Instead, perhaps impressed by the relative calm in the room, he thought it was wise for him to receive the word of God from his mobile phone. Just like that, the peace in the room was replaced by loud preaching from his phone. You will probably think the man was on a mission to earn a few converts, except that the preaching was in Arabic and, judging from the reaction in the room, or lack of it, no one seemed to grasp what was being said. I glanced at the man, admiring his total disregard for others.

That same evening, I returned home to loud music coming from nearby grounds. I learned it was a religious gathering. The sound was that of heavy metal. Where the music would stop, the voice of a seemingly animated preacher took over the airwaves. The noise was unbearable to the extent that I could not watch television in my own living room, and it went on for the entire night! The irony of it all is I live inside a university where I teach! So much for tranquility.

On December 18, I tweeted about an imaginary young man who has all tastes of modernity: he owns a fancy car and does his shopping in a mall. Yet, he sees no need to return the shopping cart, or more conveniently, place it in its designated area at the parking lot. It is common to see abandoned shopping carts in the parking area to the extent that they block vehicles and pathways for pedestrians. A piece of advice for the reader, inspect your surrounding before you hit that reverse gear, lest you knock over a shopping cart neatly placed behind your car.

In response to my tweet, one tweep quizzed, “where should a shopper leave the cart?” and continued to offer a candid advice that perhaps I should travel more often and see the world because not returning shopping carts is apparently normal behavior. “Are you a mall attendant (to be asked to return shopping carts)?” another one wondered, clearly not seeing any shred of wisdom in my tweet.

Then came Monday, December 20. I had gone to class but was put off by the noise that was coming from small gatherings of students outside the classroom. They were talking and laughing on top of their voice without a care in the world. I went outside at least three times to try to explain to them why it was important they keep their voices low. Eventually, they stopped but the damage had already been done.

Later that day, my wife who is in Japan called and described to me her amazement at the quietness in Japanese streets, let alone campuses. The Japanese, she told me, are clean and orderly. They queue everywhere. Her several attempts to let the elderly cut the line by taking up her place have been met with smiles and humble rejection. “They are extremely polite and don’t shout,” she said in surprise.

Two days before, on December 18, I watched Arsenal’s impressive 4-1 win against Leeds United in the English Premier League. One of their star performers was Takehiro Tomiyasu, their new Japanese acquisition who has been nothing short of phenomenal this season. If tenacity and industry were a person, that person would be Tomi, as he is affectionately known to the Arsenal faithful.

To understand Tomi’s work ethics, one needs to appreciate the Japanese national character. It includes being respectful and punctual. When asked how Japanese players differed from their European counterparts, Arsene Wenger who spent 18 months coaching in the Far East country had this to say: “For a manager it is a dream to have a Japanese player. If you tell him to run 10 laps, you haven’t even finished the sentence yet and he is already started.” Wenger adds: “When a Frenchman arrives five minutes late, he still thinks he is on time. In Japan when it’s five minutes before the set time he thinks he is too late.” Punctuality.

In Japan, politicians resign for falling asleep in meetings. Any shameful act (meiwaku) by an individual is considered harmful to the group. The burden of redressing lies squarely on the shoulders of the culprit.  Growing up we revered films featuring Yakuza mobs, but we never really understood when a member of the group cuts off his finger. I for one thought it was out of fear, not knowing it was a way of atonement for breaching the mob’s code of conduct.

Traditionally, in Japanese society, a Samurai would rather commit ritual suicide by disembowelment (harakiri/seppuku) and die honorably than fall in the hands of the enemy. Kamikaze, a practice where Japanese pilots would commit suicide by crashing aircrafts onto enemy ships during the Second World War, is the modern manifestation of a strong sense of honor and loyalty for the Japanese people.

In China where I spent a few years as a student, the Chinese would literally do anything to save face (mianzi). Losing face (diu lian) is equivalent to losing one’s dignity. Mianzi determines individual decisions and informs government policies.

Some of us in Tanzania do possess these traits, but certainly not to the extent of affecting our policies and decisions at the level of the political leadership. We, in Tanzania, cannot fathom why, for instance, a Japanese or Chinese engineer commits suicide because the bridge he constructed has collapsed. We are used to mediocrity and dishonesty, so much that a minister who was an anti-vaxxer yesterday is today leading a vaccination campaign! It is abhorrent that such a reckless U-turn is not based on science, rather the fact that there is a new leadership, which embraces vaccination. No burden of redressing past mistakes is placed on the minister, neither by the appointing authority nor the group – that is, the society.

Equally, other senior government officials who abandoned face masks when the pandemic was claiming lives of our loved and dear ones to appease an anti-mask president, have shamelessly made similar U-turn. They continue to hold their positions, and we have accepted it. They didn’t lose face, and collectively we did not feel let down.

If this is not baffling, consider a retired army colonel who now holds a senior position in the ruling party, publicly revealing that during his time in the army, he “helped” the party by providing fuel for its traveling cadres! 200 litres of army fuel! In the video, which is doing rounds on social media, the retired army man admits doing that is against the law, but he still takes pride in the act because, in his own words, without the ruling party in power he will lose sleep “defending the system!”

It is not clear how the matter was dealt with but the fact that he is here to proudly tell the story is a sign that he got away with one: misallocating army resources to cater for the party! If you are still wondering, his confession was met with a round of applause from party members in attendance. No shame.

Every society has its good and bad traits, of course. The challenge is how to build capable systems from the good traits in us. We often make reference to east Asia for its rapid economic transformation in recent decades, but how much attention do we pay to the role of national character in its success? Not much, maybe.