Tanganyika: Island of Peace

Dar es Salaam, which means "haven of peace" in Arabic, was a haven of tumultuous confusion last week during celebrations marking uhuru (freedom). A British-administered United Nations trusteeship for 15 years, Tanganyika became an independent nation.

Hundreds of thousands of colored light bulbs were strung all over the capital, and the streets were illuminated by graceful arches in the shape of giraffes, Tanganyika's national symbol. At the uhuru ceremonies in the National Stadium, massed bands serenaded Prime Minister Julius Nyerere, Great Britain's Prince Philip, and dignitaries from 65 nations.

One minute before midnight, the stadium was plunged into darkness, the Union Jack was lowered, and up the flagpole was hoisted Tanganyika's new flag—green for the land, black for the people, and gold for its mineral wealth. At the stroke of midnight, the lights went on, and over the loudspeaker came the strains of the new national anthem, Mungu Ibariki [God Bless] Tanganyika.

Planting the Colors. All over the jubilant country, fireworks displays lit the skies. In the snows at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest (19,340 ft.) peak, a lieutenant of the new Tanganyikan Rifles planted the colors of the new nation and lit a symbolic torch of unity, fulfilling a longtime wish of Julius Nyerere. "We would like to light a candle and put it on top of Mount Kilimanjaro," he once said. "It would shine beyond our borders, giving hope where there was despair, love where there was hate, and dignity where before there was only humiliation."

Unlike other African nationalists, Julius Nyerere, 38, educated at Edinburgh University, is a moderate who has kept Tanganyika an island of peace surrounded on all sides by strife and violence, notably the war in the neighboring Congo (see map, p. 21). Firmly in control of the Tanganyika African National Union, which holds 70 of the 71 seats in the new National Assembly, Nyerere believes that multiracialism is a sound policy for the emerging African states, has kept as his closest advisers former Governor Sir Richard Turnbull, who is now Governor General, and Finance Minister Sir Ernest Vasey. "Both the color of a man's skin and his country of origin," says Nyerere, "are irrelevant to his rights and duties as a citizen."