LONDON – Tanzania has re-invented itself twice – the first time in 1964 after a bloody revolution had overthrown the Omani-descended Sultan who ruled the neighboring spice island of Zanzibar. Tanganyika, as it was then, persuaded the successful African-led rebels to join their island with the mainland, and Tanzania came into being. This union remains precarious because of latent Zanzibari nationalism after too many years of misrule. The second time was when Julius Nyerere, the founding father of independence, stepped down in 1985 and two successive presidents over the last twenty years have ushered in free market reforms, fundamentally altering the direction of a once moribund socialist economy. But the legacy of the Zanzibari revolution of 1964 and of Nyerere still hang over the country. Nyerere, who died four years ago, had been a teacher and he became what was in fact Tanzania’s headmaster. He was incorruptible, unpretentious but totally...
