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Defending the People's Railway in the Era of Liberalization: TAZARA in Southern Tanzania

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

Jamie Monson
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Abstract

When the services of the TAZARA railway in Tanzania were threatened with cutbacks in the 1980s and 1990s, rural community leaders wrote petitions of protest to district–level officials. In these petitions, they complained that railway decision–making was being guided by profit–making rather than nation–building priorities in response to pressure from the IMF and the World Bank. The railway had abandoned its original role as a servant of the people, they argued, employing the language of socialism, nationhood and pan–African solidarity that had been utilized by the state during the construction era in the 1970s. Yet the railway services sought by these local communities had facilitated their own entry into profit–seeking behaviour as entrepreneurs in the TAZARA corridor. The transition from socialism to liberalization along the TAZARA railway was therefore a negotiated process in which the meaning of concepts such as ‘privatization’, ‘profit’ and ‘freedom’ were contested.

Résumé

Lorsque les services ont été menacés de réduction sur la ligne ferroviaire TAZARA en Tanzanie dans les années 1980 et 1990, les responsables ruraux ont organisé des pétitions pour protester auprès des fonctionnaires de district. Dans ces pétitions, ils se plaignaient de ce que les prises de décision en matière ferroviaire étaient guidées par le profit et non par des priorités de formation de la nation en réponse aux pressions du FMI et de la Banque mondiale. Selon eux, les chemins de fer avaient abandonné leur rôle originel de serviteur du peuple, employant le langage du socialisme, du sentiment national et de la solidarité panafricaine qu'avait utilisé l'État pendant sa période de construction dans les années 1970. Or, ce sont les services ferroviaires sollicités par ces communautés locales qui ont facilité leur propre adoption d'un comportement de recherche du profit en tant qu'entrepreneurs dans le couloir TAZARA. La transition du socialisme vers la libéralisation le long de la voie ferrée TAZARA était par conséquent un processus négocié au sein duquel la signification de concepts tels que «privatisation», «profit» et «liberté» était contestée.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 76 , Special Issue 1: African Socialisms and Postsocialisms , February 2006 , pp. 113 - 130
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2006

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