CROSSROADS : ‘Shikamoo’ World Bank … you could be right!

What you need to know:

  • The colonialists in Tanganyika, and elsewhere, realized that there was not going to be any other road, except that to freedom. They had to let go.

In pre-independence Tanzania (Tanganyika), some members of the community were reduced to subhuman beings, no wonder the freedom struggle, which was led by the likes of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere became a matter of life and death.

The colonialists in Tanganyika, and elsewhere, realized that there was not going to be any other road, except that to freedom. They had to let go.

A paper by Kerry Martin of University of Vermont, titled “Sambaa Stories: The Spread, Loss, and Value of Ethnic History in the West Usambara Mountains” notes how “the colonists reduced the Wasambaa to such sub-human conditions that they had to say Shikamoo to not only European people, but to European objects as well. For instance, when they found a white man’s hat lying on the ground, they had to bow to it and say “Shikamoo.”

Etymologically, the archaic Shikamoo was a shortening of shika miguu ya (“to fall at one’s feet”). The interjection shikamoo was simply used by an inferior to greet a superior. It was literally telling the superior “I am beneath you” and failure to say it to the masters who had laid claim to our natural resources, there would be hell to pay.

A language and its words are always dynamic. Today, Shikamoo means something different. It is a show of respect to elders and not submission. Even English words have changed meaning over the years. The word “nice” once meant “silly or foolish/stupid.” The word silly once meant worthy or blessed. So, our generation should not feel guilty using the word Shikamoo, as it means a totally different thing today. But it does not mean that we should be ignorant of our past.

For those of us who were born in post independence, it’s paramount that we study the history of our nation as we address today’s struggles for national and individual self actualisation. There is no doubt that gaining political independence from the colonial masters will always be one of the major milestones to be forever embedded in our history as a nation.

But then it was a beginning of another struggle, which the founding fathers called the battle to rid the nation out of ignorance, diseases and poverty. For individual citizens, it was a struggle to lead a dignified and decent life.

Years after independence, Mwalimu Nyerere noted (as quoted in David Lamb’s The Africans, New York 1985) that during the struggle for independence, leaders “spoke and acted as if, given the opportunity for self-government,” they “would quickly create utopias.” The reality on the ground was devastating. Some became unjust and tyranny became rampant.

In the struggle for self actualization as a nation, we have come a long way, but still we have got a long way to go before we reach the ‘promised land’.

There is a (ki) Sambaa proverb that says “Hekuna muima ushenao bontokeo.” Its meaning is that, even if the mountain is high, if one is determined, one will reach its peak.

It has been a long journey for many Tanzanians in the fight to break away from the yoke of poverty. There is hope we will reach there. At the national level, despite great fortunes in natural resource wealth, for huge national projects we have to many times depend on international borrowing.

Everyone agrees that as a nation we have made many strides economically but more must be done, if the growth is to be really felt by 47 per cent population considered extremely poor.

The World Bank has advised that if we want to take the economy to next level, three steps need to be taken: Prudent management of macroeconomic fundamentals; reform business environment (support the growth of the private sector); and effectively implement public investment plan. Shikamoo World Bank that is the dose we need. Maybe.

Saumu Jumanne is an assistant lecturer, Dar es Salaam University College of Education (DUCE)