Defending the People's Railway in the Era of Liberalization: TAZARA in Southern Tanzania

ABSTRACT When the services of the TAZARA railway in Tanzania were threatened with cutbacks in the 1980s and 1990s, rural community leaders wrote petitions of protest to district-level officials. In these petitions, they complained that railway decision-making was being guided by profit-making rather than nation-building priorities in response to pressure from the IMF and the World Bank. The railway had abandoned its original role as a servant of the people, they argued, employing the language of socialism, nationhood and pan-African solidarity that had been utilized by the state during the construction era in the 1970s. Yet the railway services sought by these local communities had facilitated their own entry into profit-seeking behaviour as entrepreneurs in the TAZARA corridor. The transition from socialism to liberalization along the TAZARA railway was therefore a negotiated process in which the meaning of concepts such as 'privatization', 'profit' and 'freedom' were contested. RESUME Lorsque les services ont ete menaces de reduction sur la ligne ferroviaire TAZARA en Tanzanie dans les annees 1980 et 1990, les responsables ruraux ont organise des petitions pour protester aupres des fonctionnaires de district. Dans ces petitions, ils se plaignaient de ce que les prises de decision en matiere ferroviaire etaient guidees par le profit et non par des priorites de formation de la nation en reponse aux pressions du FMI et de la Banque mondiale. Selon eux, les chemins de fer avaient abandonne leur role originel de serviteur du peuple, employant le langage du socialisme, du sentiment national et de la solidarite panafricaine qu'avait utilise l'Etat pendant sa periode de construction dans les annees 1970. Or, ce sont les services ferroviaires sollicites par ces communautes locales qui ont facilite leur propre adoption d'un comportement de recherche du profit en tant qu'entrepreneurs dans le couloir TAZARA. La transition du socialisme vers la liberalisation le long de la voie ferree TAZARA etait par consequent un processus negocie au sein duquel la signification de concepts tels que >, > et > etait contestee. ********** During the construction of the TAZARA railway between 1969 and 1974 in Tanzania, the project was hailed as the 'freedom railway' and the 'people's railway'. Those who worked on the railway's construction were encouraged to consider themselves as part of a larger national and regional political liberation project. The Chinese railway management emphasized socialist principles such as international solidarity and brotherhood in order to foster worker discipline. In newly independent Tanzania, the railway construction workers were seen as builders of the nation. During the final years of TAZARA's construction, rural farmers were also tied to the project when they were moved to centralized ujamaa village settlements along the railway line. Both farmers and workers were exhorted by the state to see the railway as 'their' railway through the 1970s and early 1980s. By the mid-1980s, rural communities in Tanzania were beginning to experience the effects of new economic policies based on market liberalization and structural adjustment. Among these effects were changes in the services provided by the TAZARA railway as management sought to make the railway more 'efficient' by cutting costs and increasing revenues. Efficiency was to be achieved in part by reducing the services provided to the smallest railway stations and village-level communities (many of which had become the permanent residences of former TAZARA construction workers). Rumours spread that the railway itself would soon be privatized, with the result that management decisions affecting the communities along the railway line would be further guided by profit-seeking rather than nation-building priorities. Local commentators believed that privatization efforts were driven by the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank, institutions that they associated with exploitation by powerful external interests. …