2009/11/01 by Arrigo Pallotti · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #African history and culture studies #Global Maritime and Colonial Histories #African studies and sociopolitical issues #Colonialism #Legitimacy #Politics #Tanzania #Independence (probability theory) #Opposition (politics) #Political science #Foreign policy #Hegemony #Law #Political economy #Public administration #Sociology #Ethnology
paper · doi:10.1080/17532521003607393
openalex publication_date 2009/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/13
On 15 December 1965 Tanzania broke off diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom (UK) because of Harold Wilson's policy towards Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI). Although Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere took this course of action to comply with a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Organisation of African Unity, he made the support for Rhodesian independence a central pillar of Tanzania's nation-building project. Since 1967 human dignity, African liberation and opposition to racialism and colonialism became central tenets of both Tanzania's foreign policy as well as the Ujamaa socialist policy implemented internally by its government. The loss of a British £ 7.5 million loan notwithstanding, Tanzania's unyielding criticism of British policy towards UDI strengthened Nyerere's national and international legitimacy and reinforced the Tanganyika African National Union's hegemony over the national political space. Relations between Tanzania and the UK were finally restored in July 1968, after the other African governments had re-established them. Nyerere felt sure that this policy reversal would not put at risk his government's political legitimacy.