I enjoyed reading about how Swahili has spread across Africa — especially learning about the efforts of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere. I hadn’t realized how Swahili ended up in South Africa. Nyerere supported the liberation of other African countries both in words and in deeds.
Tanzania became a staunch supporter of the liberation movements developing in southern Africa, donating land in its central Dodoma region as a training camp for the armed wing of South Africa’s African National Congress. Nyerere broke diplomatic relations with Britain in 1965 over the latter’s handling of Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence, and offered Dar es Salaam as headquarters for the African Liberation Committee, an organ of the OAU that channelled support for independence movements around the continent. Because of this, thousands of people from southern Africa learned Swahili during stays in Tanzania, and many more looked upon the language as that of a steady ally.
I also loved his response when challenged about whether African countries were ready for independence:
“If you come into my house and steal my jacket, don’t then ask me whether I am ready for my jacket. The jacket was mine, you had no right at all to take it from me … I may not look as smart in it as you look in it, but it’s mine.”
via HN