Structural Adjustment and the Fragile Nation: The Demise of Social Unity in Tanzania

Author(s): Paul J. Kaiser

Source: The Journal of Modern African Studies , Jun., 1996, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Jun., 1996),
pp. 227-237
Published by: Cambridge University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/162030

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The Journal of Modern African Studies, 34, 2 (i996), pp. 227-237
Copyright ? i996 Cambridge University Press

Structural Adjustment and the

Fragile Nation: the Demise of
Social Unity in Tanzania

by PAUL J. KAISER*

TANZANIA is one of the few African countries that has remained

relatively calm since independence. However, its long history of ethnic,
racial, and religious cohesion has begun to fray as the Government
attempts to reform its ailing economy in accordance with World Bank
and International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditionalities. This process
offers an opportunity to explore the degree to which there is a causal
link between liberal economic reform and social unity. This is especially
relevant as many African regimes are implementing similar policy
prescriptions in the form of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs),
the terms of which often depend on the minimal financial leverage that
African negotiators have vis-a-vis the advanced industrial countries of
the North.1 York Bradshaw and Zwelakhe Tshandu have argued that
'the burgeoning debt crisis may represent the "new dependency" for
many African countries which cannot acquire capital from other
sources besides the IMF and the World Bank.'2
The degree to which this 'new dependency' has affected the
continent has been thoroughly analysed by scholars and practitioners
from both the North and the South. According to Nicolas van de
Walle, there have been three phases of research on structural
adjustment in Africa.3 Initially, there was a 'fierce wave of criticism'
during the early years of IMF/World Bank planning and implemen-
tation. This was followed by a 'fragile consensus' that domestic policy

* Assistant Professor of Political Science, Mississippi State University, Mississippi.

1 The term 'North' refers throughout this article to the advanced industrialized countr
while 'South' refers to 'developing', 'less-developed', or third-world countries.
2 York W. Bradshaw and Zwelakhe Tshandu, 'Foreign Capital Penetration, State Inter
vention, and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa', in International Studies Quarterly (Guildford),
34, 2, June i990, p. 23.I
3 Nicolas van de Walle, 'Review Essay: adjustment alternatives and alternatives to
adjustment', in African Studies Review (Atlanta), 37,3, December I994, pp. I 03-I7. See also, Steve
Kayizzi-Mugerwa and Jorgen Levin, 'Adjustment and Poverty: a review of the African
experience', in African Development Review (Abidjan), 6, 2, December I 994, pp. 1-39.

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 228 PAUL J. KAISER

choices were at least partially responsible for the economic crisis in

Africa, thus necessitating the need for some type of reform.4 Currently,
there are renewed criticisms of SAPs, with specific calls for 'alternative
approaches' that disparately range from increasing the overall resource
base of structural reform efforts,5 to the kind of 'balanced pragmatism'
advocated by Sayre Schatz, namely: 'an even-handed weighing of
probable costs and benefits of government involvement on the one
hand, and reliance on the market on the other '.6
Regardless of the empirical perspective obtained from whatever the
methodology or ideology adopted, the implementation of SAPs
represents a genuine movement away from the state-centred economic
policies that controlled and often stifled activities in the private sector
during the I96os and I970s. According to Maurice Williams:

With the end of the Cold War and the progressive globalization of trade and
capital markets, developing countries are encouraged to look to private
enterprise as the motor of development and the means for meeting their
economic and social needs ... It is believed that by adoption of open market
economies, the world stands on the threshold of redirecting resources, sharing
technological advances and attaining levels of human prosperity never before
imagined.7

While there has been a plethora of research on different facets of this

reform process, little has been done to explore how it has affected the
diverse terrain of ascriptive and associational identities that pervade
African society. The relationship between structural adjustment,
democratisation, and ethnic tension has recently been examined by
J. 'Bayo Adekanye, with specific focus on countries known for their
histories of ethnic division and conflict such as Nigeria, Burundi, and
Rwanda.8 By way of contrast, this article explores the degree to which

John Ravenhill, 'Adjustment with Growth: a fragile consensus', in The J7ournal of Modern
African Studies (Cambridge), 26, 2, June i988, pp. I79-2I0.
5 Giovanni Andrea Cornia, Rolph van der Hoeven, and Thandika Mkandawire (eds.), Africa's
Recovery in the i 990s: from stagnation and adjustment to human development (Basingstoke and New Yor
I 993) .
6 Sayre P. Schatz, 'Structural Adjustment in Africa: a failing grade so far', in The Journal of
Modern African Studies, 32,4, December I994, p. 692.
Maurice Williams, 'The Role of Private Enterprise in Human Centered Development', in
Development (Rome), 2, I994, p. II.
8 J. 'Bayo Adekanye, 'Structural Adjustment, Democratization and Rising Ethic Tensions in
Africa', in Development and Change (London), 26, 2, April I995, pp. 355-74. According to Henry
Bienen and Mark Gersovitz, 'Consumer Subsidy Cuts, Violence, and Political Stability', in
Comparative Politics (New York), i9, i, October i986, p. 25, 'subsidy cuts may provoke discontent,
but they do not appear to be more fundamental as a cause of instability than many other short-
run factors which are at work leading to social and political instability, not to say long-run trends
in society'.

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 THE DEMISE OF SOCIAL UNITY IN TANZANIA 229

recent religious and racial tensions in Tanzania are related to the on-
going process of economic liberalization.

TANZANIA, i963-I980: FROM MODERNISATION TO UJAMAA

Immediately following Tanganyika's independence in i96i, efforts

were made to implement a programme which depended on foreign
investment to support massive, capital-intensive industrialization
and agricultural development projects. By the middle of the i96os, it
became apparent that this ambitious five-year plan was not yielding
anticipated results, and that Tanzania was on a path towards increased
dependence on the North. As noted by Jumanne Wagao, urban-rural
income differentials increased dramatically, rural-based development
was ignored, local expertise remained inadequate, and finance became
synonymous with capital projects at the expense of mobilizing under-
utilised labour and land resources.9 Given these imbalances, President
Julius Nyerere presented an alternative vision in I 967 as outlined in the
Arusha Declaration. In this document, the governing Tanzanian
African National Union (TANU) - later named Chama Cha Mapinduzi
(CCM) - called into question the benefits of modernisation policies by
challenging the basic tenets of capitalism.'0
The Arusha Declaration served as the ideological foundation for this
critique, and a form of 'African Socialism' was proffered to bridge the
gap between the needs of Tanzania's predominantly rural peasantry
and modern socialist statecraft. An attempt was made to retreat from
capital intensive industrialization that required huge amounts of
foreign capital and technology, and priority was given to the
development of the agricultural sector through ujamaa vffjiini. S
population was widely dispersed on small plots of land, peasants were
moved to newly constructed settlements in order to promote efficient
agricultural production and to facilitate the equitable delivery of basic
services that had not occurred during the early years of independence.
The process of villagisation was intended to integrate the logic of
economic efficiency with the goal of social equity.
Foreign grants, loans, and investments were discouraged in order to
eliminate the 'complete dependence' on outside help that would

9 Jumanne H. Wagao, 'Adjustment Policies in Tanzania, i98i-9: the impact on growth,

structure and human welfare', in Cornia, Van der Hoeven, and Mkandawire (eds.), op. cit.
Pp. 93-II5.
10 Tanganyika African National Union, The Arusha Declaration and TANUvs Policy on Soc
and Self-Reliance (Dar es Salaam, i967).

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 230 PAUL J. KAISER

'endanger' Tanzania's political independence and autonomous policy-

making ability.1" To this end the Government tried (i) to channel
carefully monitored external assistance towards increasing domestic
productivity; (ii) to limit imports to only those goods that could not be
produced domestically; and (iii) to establish South-South trading
relationships. The importance of 'self-reliance' in development was
emphasized as a way of unifying the disparate communities of Tanzania
with the common aim of decreasing dependence on the North for
capital and technology.
Legislation in I 969 set in motion the process of nationalizing private
schools, of Africanising head teachers, and of standardising classroom
curricula in accordance with Nyerere's 'Education for Self-Reliance'.
Less than ten years later, the Education Act of I 978 initiated a
universal primary education mandate that legally obligated all students
to study for seven years so that they could contribute thereafter to
national development. Universal access to education was expected to
have positive implications for social unity by helping to transcend
ethnic, racial, and religious differentiation.
Other policies were implemented in an attempt to protect the
cultural integrity of a nation with over I 00 ethnic groups and
substantial Muslim and Christian populations of black African, Asian,
Arab, and European decent. As explained by the Ministry of Education,
in order to minimise 'the universality of English as the medium for
transmission of Tanzania cultural values', a language policy was
adopted that emphasised KiSwahili, whose increased use 'also served
to reinforce the promotion of positive attitudes towards the re-
spectability of rural life'. Most importantly, 'The teaching force was
fully integrated through interchanges and cross posting of teachers
from different ethnic and religious groups'. 12 KiSwahili was adopted as
the language of instruction in primary schools, and it also served as the
medium of communication in the political, business, and personal
spheres of Tanzanian life. Given the diversity of languages spoken in
the country, KiSwahili facilitated cross-ethnic communication in a
distinctly African context, and it also lessened linguistic dependence on
the colonial language of English.13
The degree to which Nyerere's policies were successful has been the

" Ibid. p. i i.
12 Ministry of National Education, The Ministry of National Education Combined Annual Report for
the rears ig70-I975 (Dar es Salaam, i983), p. 2.
13 See Abdallah Khalid, The Liberation of Swahilifrom European Appropriation (Nairobi, I 977), for
more on this perspective as applied to Kenya.

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 THE DEMISE OF SOCIAL UNITY IN TANZANIA 23I

subject of voluminous debate." They did not achieve the intended

results of agricultural, economic, and industrial self-reliance. Indeed,
during the final years of the ujamaa era, basic consumer goods were
rarely available, the transportation infrastructure was collapsing, and
the Government was unable to provide many of the basic health-care
and education services that were promised immediately following the
Arusha Declaration. However, the potentially divisive array of social
groups achieved a degree of cohesion that surpassed each and every
neighbouring country. The degree to which this was facilitated by
ujamaa is difficult to measure, but it certainly deserves attention as
multi-ethnic/religious/racial countries throughout the world deal with
the repercussions of social divisions based on ascriptive identity. While
Lissi Rasmussen's research on Christian-Muslim relations discovered
that 'despite the difficulties of accomplishing ujamaa, this experience,
both in its development and in its life-setting in the villages... has been
a source of positive encounter' for both religions,15 much more needs to
be done to better understand the relationship between social cohesion
and ujamaa. 6

TANZANIA, i98I-95: FROM UJAMAA TO ADJUSTMENT

The National Economic Survival Programme (I 98I-2) and the

Structural Adjustment Programme (I982-6) were implemented to
address economic stagnation in the country during the final years of
Nyerere's leadership. These self-imposed austerity measures were
designed to stave off acceptance of IMF/World Bank policy pre-
scriptions that the President believed would betray the fundamental
concept of self-reliance that had been articulated years earlier in the
Arusha Declaration. By way of contrast, his successor, Ali Hassan
Mwinyi, embraced political and liberal economic policies in the hope
of invigorating an economy that was billions of dollars in arrears with
little or no signs of growth on the horizon. In other words, the statist
ujamaa orientation of TANU/CCM was gradually jettisoned in favour
of a market-oriented approach.

14 Active participants in this debate have included Justinian Rweyemamu and Issa Shivji from
Tanzania, Walter Rodney and Clive Thomas from Guyana, and Lionel Cliffe, John Saul, and
Goran Hyden from the North. See Simon S. S. Kenyanchui, 'Scholars' Conflicting Interpretations
of Tanzanian Ujamaa: a review article', in African Journal of Sociology (Nairobi), 3, I, May i989,
pp. 84-93.
1 Lissi Rasmussen, Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa: the cases of Northern Nigeria and Tanzania
compared (London, I993), p. I09.
16 Little attention was paid to the r6le of ujamma in mitigating ethnic tensions in Unesco,
Studies on Ethnic Group Relations in Africa: Senegal and the United Republic of Tanzania (Paris, I 97

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 232 PAUL J. KAISER

After almost six years of conflict between Nyerere and IMF/World

Bank officials regarding economic policy and access to international
capital, Tanzania adopted an Economic Recovery Programme (ERP)
that began in i986, the second phase of which addressed the social
dislocations caused by liberalisation."7 As part of the ERP, the
Government began to sell some of its many parastatals, and in response
to this on-going process it was not long before racially motivated
questions started to be asked about who should be allowed to move into
the rapidly expanding private sector. The inaugural issue of the news
magazine Change in I993, devoted to exploring this controversy,
contained a strong warning from Nyerere, in line with CCM
pronouncements:

when you start to sell these parastatals to a few people and assert that they are
African-Tanzanians and hail such Africanisation you will soon discover that
Africanisation is not monolithic - rather it is also balkanised: it has in it
Christians, Muslims and in the Christians there are Lutherans, Catholics,
Anglicans and in the Muslims there are Sunnis, Khojas, Shias. You will
promote social divisions which do not exist today.'8

But 'the harsh economic environment ... emanating from the shock
therapy of the economic reforms ... has had a visible impact', as Change
explained in I994:

The quality of life of the majority of Tanzanians has declined in the wake of
eroded incomes, in real terms, and the general escalation of costs of the most
basic necessities of life. The 'Welfare State' built over the last thirty years has
witnessed a virtual demise with the people, particularly the urban workers,
being called upon to share costs of education and health at a time when their
incomes are inadequate even for meeting food needs."9

At the same time, the quality of life for the minority Asian community
has improved 'tremendously', thus exacerbating 'a strong perception
that the wealth divide is intensifying on racial lines'. 20
With the advent of multi-party politics in the country, some
opposition leaders stated their desire that Asian Tanzanians should not
benefit from the sale of parastatals at the expense of the 'indigenous'
inhabitants. The leader of the Democratic Party (DP), Reverend
Christopher Mtikila, was one of the most vocal supporters of this
strategy. After he had publicly declared at a rally that the economy was
being run by i6i Asian Tanzanians in the interest of their own
community rather than the poor African majority, violence im-
mediately followed and some Asian Tanzanians were attacked by DP

17 Wagao, loc. cit. p. 99. 18 Change (Dar es Salaam), January I993, p. 5.

'" Ibid. June-July I994, p.3. 20 Ibid.

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 THE DEMISE OF SOCIAL UNITY IN TANZANIA 233

supporters. The daily/weekly English and KiSwahili newspapers

published numerous accounts from late I992 to early I993 of the role
played by Mtikila - which helps to explain why he was described,
according to a poll conducted by Heko (Dar es Salaam), as the most
popular politician in the country after Nyerere.21
Despite attempts by CCM leaders to defuse this angry debate,
indigenisation has opened the door to long dormant anti-Asian
sentiment. For example, immediately after the police had removed
peddlers and informal-sector merchants from the streets of Dar es
Salaam's Kariakoo neighbourhood in September I993, they violently
responded by looting Asian shops and publicly espousing anti-Asian
rhetoric.22 During this time it was alleged in the local press that
Vindyadhas Girdhar Chavda, a non-Tanzanian Asian, had misused
debt conversion programme funds to rehailitate four sisal estates near
the coastal town of Tanga. The Member of Parliament who publicly
reported this scandal was threatened by high-ranking government
officials, leading to speculation that they wanted to suppress any
publicity about this money-laundering scheme.23 Similarly, when the
Government awarded Independent Television (ITV) the right to
broadcast the Summer I 994 World Cup games, its key investor,
Reginald Mengi, was threatened by some Asian owners of Dar
Television (DTV) .24 Each of these episodes was widely reported in both
English and KiSwahili language newspapers, a coverage that reflected
growing anti-Asian sentiment among African Tanzanians throughout
the country.
The assumed religious cohesion of the nation has also been called
into question as the Muslim/Christian divide shows signs of widening.
The revelation of Zanzibar's membership in the Organisation of
Islamic Conference (OIC) with mainland Tanganyika's knowledge
and backing caused some MPs and the press to re-examine the
constitutional implications of the i964 Union,25 which does not allow
for either Tanganyika or Zanzibar to make unilateral foreign policy
decisions. Parliamentarians were divided on this issue. In August I993,
as many as 55 from the mainland introduced legislation in the National
Assembly supporting the establishment of a separate Tanganyikan

21 Africa Confidential (London), 36, I 5, 2 I July I 995.

22 Uhuru (Dar es Salaam), 4 September I993, and Wakati ni Huu (Dar es Salaam
September I993. 23 Research notes, Bruce Heilman, Bloomington, Indiana.
24 Mfanyakazi (Dar es Salaam), 25 June I994.
25 See Issa G. Shivji, Tanzania: the legalfoundations of the Union (Dar es Salaam, i990)
Abdou Jumbe, The Partner-ship - Tanganyika-Zanzibar Union: 30 turbulent years (Dar es Sal
I 994) -

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 234 PAUL J. KAISER

Government (in addition to the already existing Zanzibari and Union

Governments), with others calling for the outright independence of
Zanzibar as a sovereign state.26 The leader of the DP harshly criticised
the Union in a public letter to the UN General Assembly and Security
Council.27
Some have used the OIC controversy to drive a wedge between the
Muslims on the islands and predominantly Christian population on the
mainland. A number of Muslims in Dar es Salaam began to assert their
political agenda in a manner that led to confrontation with the CCM
Government. For example, as many as 28, including the leader of a
Dar es Salaam mosque and the chairman of the National Koran
Development Council (known as Balukta), were charged with sedition
and incitement to violence after two pork butcheries situated in
predominantly Muslim areas had been attacked.28 While the rival
national Muslim organisation (Bakwata) and CCM leaders - both
Christian and Muslim - remained unified against Balukta's agenda,
such an inflammatory incident highlights the potential for division in a
country that still prides itself on religious tolerance.

POLITICS AND CHANGE

In I990, the Government officially sanctioned political debate on

multi-partyism as an alternative to continued rule by Chama Cha
Mapinduzi (CCM), while simultaneously permitting the proliferation of
independent publications and newspapers formerly restricted by the
state.29 Despite the Nyalali Commission's findings that a majority
Tanzanians did not want multi-party politics, the Government
changed the system, and the CCM celebrated its i5th anniversary
same month that its national executive committee legalised political
competition, albeit with the important proviso that each party would
be nationally based without racial, ethnic, or religious orientation.
Since then, despite the rhetoric of national unity, political violence
has periodically surfaced, notably during the campaigning that

26 Inter-Press Service, 'Tanzania-Politics: Nyerere calls for resignation', E-mail, 2 No

I994. Also, Joel D. Barkan, 'Divergence and Convergence in Kenya and Tanzania: pressures for
reform', in Barkan (ed.), Beyond Capitalism vs. Socialism in Kenya and Tanzania (Boulder and London,
I 994), p- 34-
27 Christopher Mtikila, Letter to the United Nations, E-mail, I5 December I994.
28 This incident was widely reported in Kenya and Tanzania during April and May I993.
29 Aili Mari Tripp, 'Local Organizations, Participation, and the State in Urban Tanzania', in
Goran Hyden and Michael Bratton (eds.), Governance and Politics in Africa (Boulder and London,
I992), p. 238.

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 THE DEMISE OF SOCIAL UNITY IN TANZANIA 235

preceded the October-November I995 elections,30 and the alleged

significance of ethnic differences has been brought to the fore.31 For
example, the NCCR-Mageuzi's presidential candidate, Augustine
Mrema, an ethnic Chagga, reportedly 'failed to pull in votes in areas
that should have been opposition strongholds, such as West Lake,
where voters saw NCCR as run by Chagga, not their own people'.
Mrema obtained 28 per cent of the votes while the victorious CCM
candidate, Benjamin Mkapa, won the poorly organized campaign with
62 per cent.32 Tanzania was nostalgically described in The Express in
October 1995 as 'long a model in... turbulent times, unified by one
language (Swahili), one party and one leader, despite an ethnic and
religious mosaic'. The writer went on to record the complaint of a
Tanzanian 'who matured during the Nyerere era ... that now one must
know whether neighbours and friends were Christians or Muslims',
information that was not considered necessary before'.33
In Zanzibar, the CCM incumbent, Dr Salmin Amour, narrowly
beat his main rival, Seif Sharriff Hamad, the candidate for the Civic
United Front/Chama Cha Wananchi (CUF/CCW), by less than one
percentage point according to the 'official' results announced by the
Zanzibar Election Commission (ZEC). These were delayed four days
amidst conflicting reports by opposition parties, newspapers, foreign
embassies, and election observers regarding irregularities in the vote-
counting process.34 Analysis of the ZEC figures reveal that although the
CCM dominated Unguja, Amour was 'unable to win a single ward in
Pemba', which overwhelmingly supported the CUF.35 Immediately
following this fiercely contested election, jubilant CCM followers in
Zanzibar town and some rural areas harassed CUF supporters, many
of whom fled to Pemba. While this Pemba/Unguja split did not
originate with the 1995 elections, the results of the disputed el

30 See Daily News (Dar es Salaam), i8,22, and 25 September I995, for reports o
violence in the country.
31 According to Gurnam Singh, 'Modernisation, Ethnic Upsurge and Conflict in the World'
in International journal of Group Tensions (New York), 24,4, Winter I994, p. 406, 'The decline
the ideology of territorial nation-state created a sort of vacuity wherein ethnicity is fast emergin
as the most solid basis for political formation and its sustenance'.
32 Africa Confidential, 36,23-24, I7 November and i December I995.
33 The Express (Dares Salaam), 26-28 October I995, p. 8.
34 On 24 October 1995, the CUF cited 'a chain of irregularities that have surfaced in the
electoral process', and the following day the CCM issued a formal complaint 'against the chain
of irregularities done during the electoral process [which] ... led to a lot of confusion whereby
causing the elections not to be free and fair'. On 27 October I995, a press release by the
Netherlands Embassy 'on behalf of the Heads of Mission of seventeen bilateral donor agencies',
noted 'discrepancies in the compilation of the votes for the Presidency'.
35 Africa Confidential, 36,24, I December I995, p. 4.

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 236 PAUL J. KAISER

process revived tensions between the islands that date back to the
colonial period.36

CONCLUSION

Market-based solutions to Tanzania's economic woes have not built

on the assumed social cohesion of the ujamaa years and divisions are
beginning to emerge. In comparing Tanzania 'to a house that has just
been completed', Nyerere lamented that 'the country has been hit by
a tremor, developing cracks which must be filled', including 'the
political union between Zanzibar and the mainland, corruption,
religious tensions, tribalism, the constitutional crisis and lack of the rule
of law'."' To continue Nyerere's analogy, although over 20 years of
ujamaa policies have helped to create structures that have supported
multi-racial/ethnic/religious Tanzania, the foundations are proving to
be fragile as the shock of a rapidly retreating state begins to take its toll
on national unity.
The goal of sound economic management is indeed a necessary
requisite for future growth, but needs to be done with constant
attention to maintaining and further enhancing social cohesion.
Trimming over-staffed bureaucracies, selling off deficit-ridden para-
statals, and decontrolling the price of previously subsidised commodities
(such as bread, sugar, and flour) may appear to be inevitable, but the
picture changes once an evaluation is made of the immense importance
of ethnic, racial, and religious factors as well as the significance of the
criterion of efficiency. The public sector provides jobs and state
subsidies mean that food is widely available for those who are under-
and unemployed. To rapidly remove these governmental supports
may make short-term economic sense but is more than likely to
precipitate long-term social costs that will strain the fabric of national
unity that is so essential for political and economic development.
The consolidation of the post-colonial state has been a delicate and
complicated process that necessitates moving past the current logic of
structural adjustment in order to accommodate past and present
cultural, linguistic, and social realities on the African continent. A
tenuous balance has to be achieved between economic development
and social cohesion in diverse societies. Unfortunately, the tendency
has been to embrace or reject structural adjustment without recognizing
its strengths and weaknesses from the vantage point of the continuing

36 See Abdul Sheriff and Ed Ferguson (eds.), Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule (London, i99i),
passim. 3 Agence France Presse, E-mail, I4 March I995.

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 THE DEMISE OF SOCIAL UNITY IN TANZANIA 237

fragility of the nation. This is counter-productive since Africa's

development is characterized by dependent and interdependent North-
South links that are too complicated for doctrinaire allegiance to
economic liberalism or statist policies that have proven to be ineffective.
When searching for a balance between the state and a regulated free
market, sensitivity to local considerations is essential. The case of
Tanzania reveals that finding this middle ground is a challenge even for
a country that has a long history of social integrity despite its ethnic,
religious, and racial diversity.
Some have argued, in the tradition of Francis Fukayama's often
cited thesis on 'the end of history', that Western liberalism has won on
a world-wide scale.38 Others have expressed optimism about the
emergence of a 'new world order'. But we need to remember that the
fall of state socialism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union
virtually coincided with the increasing prominence of IMF/World
Bank structural adjustment prescriptions. A liberal economic order is
now an assumed requirement for development almost everywhere in
the world, and this has occurred at the expense of various socialist
experiments. However, as Adekanye argues, 'the conditions of reduced
socio-economic resources and opportunities created by debt and
adjustment tend to intensify inter-group struggles'." If the balance
between liberal economic reform and social cohesion has proven
difficult to maintain in Tanzania, what is in store for the rest of the
African continent?

38 Francis Fukayama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York, I 992).
39 Adekanye, IOc. cit. p. 367.

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