By Dastan Kweka
Tanzania’s foreign policy has seen a significant shift over the last two decades, from a multifaceted, globally focused and values-dominated framework of engagement, to a largely monolithic, interest-driven and nationalistic set of guidelines. This momentous shiftoriginates, in part, from a 2001 decision to adopt a “new” foreign policy with a disproportionate focus on “economic diplomacy”.
Although the new foreign policycited the need to “safeguard” past achievements, the decision to make economic interests the underlying purpose of the country’s engagement with the world pointed to a declining commitment to idealistic, and global ambitions of, for instance, pursuing African Unity, or supporting the self-determination efforts of oppressed people. These were two key objectives that had for years informed the country’s engagement with various courses, such as Israel vs Palestine, and Morocco vs Western Sahara questions, and liberation in Southern Africa. These ambitions, although costly, had enabled the country to command a degree of Pan-African and global respectability that few nations of Tanzania’s stature could muster. By doing away with the nation’s advanced and obliqueapproach to foreign policy, the framers of the new policy had, unwittingly, thrown away a strategic advantage.
Literature describes the first thirty years of independence as the pinnacle of Tanzania’s diplomacy. A key turning point came in 1965 when the country confronted Great Britain, a former colonizer and leading donor, over its handling of the reprehensible events in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). During the same period, the country downgraded its relations with the then West Germany following a spat over a diplomatic status that had to be accorded to East Germany. In both cases, Tanzania sacrificed huge amounts of economic benefits, mainly in the form of concessional loans and fundamental technical assistance. In both cases, the country’s position was clear – majority rule in Southern Rhodesia (and in all other minority-ruled territories), and respect for our sovereignty, regardless of our stature.
These positions were morally defensible and globally appealing, and were taken at a time when the country was quite young, with a tiny (predominantly agrarian) economy and no discovery of significant natural resources. However, some scholars, such as Ali Mazrui, Jeannette Hartmann, and Christos Frangonikolopoulos, have argued that the country was able to take such positions because of its limited strategic importance in the international arena. With the exception of Mazrui, this view fails to sufficiently acknowledge the counterbalancing role of the country’s soft power at the time, as embodied by President Julius Nyerere’s often (morally) principled positions, connections in both the West and the East, and high oratory skills. Through these events and positions, and others that followed, Tanzania distinguished, and established itself as a visionary, Pan-African leader, at least in the Anglophone World, and at most in the Global South.
In 1966, President Nyerere spoke at the University of Zambia after honouring an invitation from his friend and President, Kenneth Kaunda. In his speech – The Dilemma of the Pan-Africanist – he highlighted what he saw as a tension between the need to build the new nations that had just acquired independence, and the pursuit of the “greatest dream of all” – Pan-Africanism. He saw a danger, that countries could voluntarily give up on the dream. A dream that had inspired collaboration across the many nations of Africa, and created a sense of brotherhood/sisterhood.
However, the focus of the new foreign policy that the country adopted in 2001 – economic diplomacy – has been informed by the assessment that both the country, and the world at large, had seen a significant “economic and socio-political shift”. As such, there was a need to “secure the core national interest” as a sovereign state. In other words, economic interests were seen to constitute the core national interests, and all other (non-economic, mainly humanistic and moralistic) interests were considered secondary.
This “realist” way of viewing and defining national interests effectively paved the way for a monolithic and “narrowly-nationalistic” framework of engagement – a complete opposite of the framework that guided the country during the first, nostalgic thirty years of diplomacy. By choosing a rudimentary and domestic-focused framework, the nation threw away its pole star, and started relinquishing its leadership of the Anglophone World and the Global South to emerging actors – those that could attempt to form exclusive regional coalitions or imagine reforming the African Union. In terms of strategy, the nation made a controversial choice of abandoning its hard-earned position in a “blue ocean” – a sphere of differentiation, strategic advantage, and attraction, and went for the “red ocean” – a crowded and ordinary space.
A few senior government leaders have made attempts to convince the public (both inside and outside the country) that the nation has not failed to hold onto its historic role internationally. However, a lot of effort has in recent years gone towards re-asserting the country’s (foreign) policy autonomy – a clear indication that we have been forced on the defensive. This is a position that requires self-reflection, and self-correction, and not self-denial and self-delusion.
A key lesson from the first thirty years of the country’s experience in conducting foreign affairs is that it is quite possible for a relatively small economy such as Tanzania’s to exercise an outsized role in the international arena. However, because of the many economic, military and technological limitations that characterize our realities, hard power cannot be the underlying basis of the nation’s strategy for engagement, and should only be used in exceptional circumstances. Instead, our strategy needs to rely on soft power. Our foreign policy needs to be anchored to a set of value-based principles and action points that can be defended both by power of logic and moral reasoning.
Twenty years have now elapsed since the “new” foreign policy of Tanzania was adopted. It is my view that its overwhelming focus on economic diplomacy is inappropriate and has, among other concerns, a crowding-out effect. There are at least six foreign policy issues that the country needs to prioritize today – global pandemics (COVID-19, Ebola), violent extremism, climate change, cyber-security, trade diplomacy and organized crime (drug trafficking, money laundering). A foreign policy that focuses, to a large extent, on only one of these issues, at the expense of others, limits the country’s ability to protect its broader (national) interests.
As a nation, Tanzania needs to recognize the gravity of these transnational problems –all of which require a high degree of cooperation with other countries – and ensure there is a setup that makes it possible to respond effectively. One, and possibly the only way, is to reaffirm its commitment to a higher, idealistic, and, at least, a truly Pan-Africanist vision. It is, basically, a time for a new, comprehensive and “global” foreign policy. One that would restore our ambition for serving humanity, and recalibrate the metrics for measuring our diplomats performance.
