Julius Nyerere

"We in Africa have no more need of being "converted" to socialism than we have of being "taught" democracy. Both are rooted in our past—in the traditional society which produced us."

"Freedom to many means immediate betterment, as if by magic … Unless I can meet at least some of these aspirations, my support will wane and my head will roll just as surely as the tickbird follows the rhino."

"Those who receive this privilege therefore, have a duty to repay the sacrifice which others have made. They are like the man who has been given all the food available in a starving village in order that he might have strength to bring supplies back from a distant place. If he takes this food and does not bring help to his brothers, he is a traitor. Similarly, if any of the young men and women who are given an education by the people of this republic adopt attitudes of superiority, or fail to use their knowledge to help the development of this country, then they are betraying our union."

"Democracy is not a bottle of Coca-Cola which you can import. Democracy should develop according to that particular country. I never went to a country, saw many parties and assumed that it is democratic. You cannot define democracy purely in terms of multi-partist parties."

"I have read and re-read the Arusha Declaration and found nothing wrong with it except perhaps replacing a few commas here and there... it was clear for some of us that it would only be a mad man who would stand up and defend the Arusha Declaration."

"Yes, we have one party here. But so does America. Except, with typical extravagance, they have two of them!"

"Education is not a way to escape poverty, it is a way of fighting it."

"Small nations are like indecently dressed women. They tempt the evil-minded."

"Julius Nyerere...was the only head of state to offer his country an economic and political program for development that was anticapitalist, nonaligned, and based on grassroots self-activity...Anti-imperialists everywhere recognized the Arusha Declaration (1967) as a document relevant not only to Tanzania but to all newly independent African countries and some thought more generally: it was proposing development that avoided reenslavement via the capitalist market. It must be noted that not even the most astute and dedicated supporters of Nyerere's Declaration had as far as I know ever even mentioned what it says about Tanzanian women working much harder than men-and the profound implications of this for development."

"Many Indian leaders were educated at British universities where socialist – often Marxist – economics was in vogue. This applied to other leaders of the Third World who had been educated in Britain such as Julius Nyerere, president of Tanzania from 1964 to 1985, who also implemented Fabian and African socialist ideas. He had read economics and history at the University of Edinburgh. He enforced collectivisation, and when peasants resisted, he burnt down villages. The result was economic decline, corruption and food shortages. When Tanzania tried market economics, it recorded impressive growth: gross domestic product (GDP) rose 40 per cent between 1998 and 2007."

"Here is a man who retired as a head of state and went back to his small village house to live a pension like any other public servant."