The Cameo Night Club, in the deep dark underbelly of Arusha, Tanzania, was, not to put too fine a point on it, a dump: six barstools, five tables with chairs and a broken-down three-seat sofa against the far wall. However, it had one advantage over every other gin joint in Arusha: it never closed. You could get a beer or whisky at 3am on Christmas, Eid al Fitr, Diwali and every public holiday. More than once, we walked out of the Cameo after the sun rose on a Sunday and headed uptown to the New Safari hotel for a big breakfast before going home to sleep most of the day.
An existential statement
One Saturday, actually well after midnight on Sunday, a short, thin, middle-aged man who had obviously drunk more than his quota stood up and announced to one and all: “Nipo hapahapa” (“I’m right here”). He turned to those who may have missed his declaration: “Nipo hapahapa.” He then staggered up to the bar and repeated: “Nipo hapa … hapa,” pointing down with his right index finger twice on “hapa … hapa” for emphasis. No question that everyone in the Cameo knew he was right … here.
I’ve spent most of my adult life hapahapa in Tanzania, even before that wondrous incident in Arusha and, from 1984, in Dar es Salaam. A lot has changed over time – mostly for the good, some for the not so good.
Tanzania’s relative peace after independence
Tanzania’s founding father and first president, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, made several prescient decisions after independence in 1961, with the aim of creating unity. He declared that Swahili would be the official language. In Kenya, Uganda, Zambia and Malawi, MPs rant and rave in English. In Tanzania, MPs rant and rave in Swahili and everyone can understand what all the fuss is about.
He also moved government officials, teachers, and secondary school students out of their home areas to other parts of the country. A student from the southeast, attending a secondary school in central Tanzania, might have a best friend who came from the northwest. The headteacher could be a Chagga from Kilimanjaro and his deputy a Nyakyusa from Kyela, which borders Malawi.
Furthermore, Nyerere, a devout Catholic, almost always appeared in public wearing a Muslim cap. It became standard practice for a Christian president to be followed by a Muslim. The country has had six heads of state, three Christians and three Muslims.
Conflicts in other African countries
While Tanzanians are aware of tribes, tribalism does not figure in politics. In 1994, Rwanda experienced a tribal genocide which left 800,000 dead. Kenya erupted after the 2007 election when Kikuyu and affiliated tribes went at it with Luo and affiliated tribes. The result was 1,200-1,500 dead and 350,000–700,000 displaced, depending on source.
Currently, we see conflict in Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, South Sudan and Mozambique. Congo was a mess when Kurtz arrived in the 19th century, and still is. Until recently, Tanzania has been viewed as an island of tranquillity surrounded by turbulence.
Civil unrest after Tanzania’s 2025 election
That changed on 29 October this year – election day – with disruptions all around the country which the police and military met with force, some say excessive force. No exact figures have emerged on the number of deaths – estimates range from a few hundred to several thousand, with hundreds missing. I wrote about what I experienced in early November. CNN reported the events much more broadly.
Word went out that there would be mass demonstrations on 9 December, Independence Day, to protest the violence of October 29. In response, President Samia Suluhu cancelled Independence Day celebrations. But just in case, starting on 5 December, we saw police and military in combat gear at every big intersection in Dar and in other major cities. On the 9th, like the night before Christmas, not a creature was stirring. Major thoroughfares practically deserted.
Zanzibar – a more violent history than the mainland
The long-held image of Tanzania as a peaceful nation, before October 29, ignores occasional violence since independence. In January 1964, the Tanganyika military mutinied. President Nyerere had to call in British troops to restore order.
The mutiny occurred two weeks after the bloody overthrow of the Sultan of Zanzibar. In the process, the insurgents raped and murdered Arabs and Indians. The estimated number killed range from hundreds to 20,000. In order to establish a more stable situation, President Nyerere and the new Zanzibar head of state, Abeid Karume, formed the United Republic of Tanzania. A group of Zanzibari army officers assassinated Karume in 1972.
Politics on Zanzibar has continued to turn violent from election to election. In January 2001 – in events following the 2000 election – protesters were fired upon by government security forces. Thirty-five died, 600 were injured and more arrested. Around 2000 Zanzibaris fled to Mombasa, the first Tanzanian refugees in the country’s history.
Most recently, violence erupted in Zanzibar after the 2020 election. Human Rights Watch found that at least 14 people died and 55 were injured.
While violent incidents were happening on islands of Zanzibar, mainland Tanzania (which some still refer to as Tanganyika) was spared. That is why October 29 and its aftermath, which played out all over the country, is the most cataclysmic event in the 64 years since independence.
Tanzanians fear for the future
A friend, who is well connected to current and former senior government officials, wrote me the following message:
“I am definitely terrified and even more so in my own back yard … we need global therapy because anxiety levels are soaring and all I see is a slippery slope ahead.”
Others I have talked to echo this anxiety. What they say goes like this: Everyone is wasiwasi (anxious). Fujo (chaos) can happen at any time in any place. You can be walking to the shop and get caught in the middle of a running battle. We don’t know what the government will do. We don’t know what the vijana (young people) will do. Maisha magumu zaidi sasa (life is harder now).
Columnist Elsie Eyakuze, writing in the December 6-12 edition of The East African (subscription required) put it this way:
“Consensus building, incremental change, the centrality of the ‘people,’ on whose behalf broader decisions were made, civic rituals and general predictability set the baseline for our public life that underpinned our vaunted stability and peace. In the absence of this convention … we might have to develop a new vocabulary … and I don’t think we are ready to do that yet.”
October 29 marked a turning point
We knew ‘normal’ in Tanzania before 29 October; Tanzanian ‘normal’ after 29 October, as one friend wrote, “is a mystery”.Dr Nicodemus Minde of the Nairobi-based Institute of Security Studies, in a 10 December interview for the BBC World Service’s Focus on Africa strand, said that Tanzania is at a “critical juncture of its history. Without resolving the events around October 29, the country will be ungovernable going forward.”
I am reminded of The Road not Taken, a poem by Robert Frost:
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by …”
Will Tanzania go down the road to authoritarianism, or will it take the road less travelled to build consensus? As events play out in the days, weeks, months and probably years ahead, all 70.5 million of us in Tanzania, here we are – ‘tupo hapahapa’.
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