On 1st September 2024, the Tanzania People’s Defence Force (hereafter TPDF) celebrated its 60th anniversary. As the TPDF was celebrating its anniversary, a book on the evolution of the army in Tanzania was in print: Ujamaa’s Army: The Creation and Evolution of the Tanzania People’s Defence, 1964–1979 (henceforth Ujamaa’s Army), written by Charles G. Thomas, a seasoned historian of military history.
Ujamaa’s Army examines the transformations of the TPDF from a colonial-inherited army to an effective, stable and modern army. It argues that the TPDF from 1964 to 1979 was an effective and stable guardian of the nation and adapted to changes in local, regional and global contexts.
The book is divided into four chapters structured around the watershed events that shaped the nation’s and the army’s development from 1964 to 1979. Chapter one explores the demise of the colonial order and its military as it discusses Tanganyika’s transition to independence. Chapter two traces the new TPDF’s mission and soldiers’ recruitment from all ethnic groups in Tanzania, hence making the TPDF a ‘people’s army’. The aforesaid changes happened in the contexts of Ujamaa (African socialism) and the Cold War, which gave Tanzania an opportunity to get assistance for modernising the army from across the East-West blocs. Chapter three focuses on the regional events, especially the civil war in Mozambique, continued Southern Africa liberation struggles and Idi Amin’s military coup in Uganda. The last chapter discusses domestic developments, including villagization and workers’ protests, which led to state repression and a change of leadership in the army by appointing the political party’s royal leaders in the army. Moreover, the chapter summarises the Kagera War, 1978–1979, to demonstrate the success of the army in defending the nation. The volume concludes by summarising the post-1970s army’s roles in disaster management and UN peacekeeping missions.
This book offers several notable contributions; two are worth mentioning here. The book contributes to African military historiography. Indeed, the book breaks new ground as it examines the evolution of African armies from colonial armies to postcolonial modern armies, an inquiry many historians have neglected or silenced. Furthermore, the book’s makes a methodological contribution. Thomas has penetrated the shield of secrecy of the army’s records by tapping into records inaccessible to historians of military history. It is worth noting that informants and records are normally inaccessible to researchers coming from outside the military, as such records are deemed part of national security services and thus classified. Yet, Thomas overcame the barriers by securing the TPDF’s permits to access the records. Indeed, he was given rare access to the documents of the Organisation of African Unity-Liberation Committee (OAU-LC). He was also privy to senior army officers who gave him testimonies regarding the transformation of the army. In addition, he overcame the problem of accessing documents by consulting documents deposited in archives outside Tanzania, where the army had interacted with various state partners. The end result of all this is a book rich in oral sources and archival records, an aspect that is rare in many military history works.
However, there are some important omissions. One is the participation of the army, especially the National Service-Jeshi la Kujenga Taifa (JKT), in nation-building activities such as the construction of social and physical infrastructures. Another missing issue is the discussion about the hostility in the 1960s and 1970s between Tanzania and Malawi, which was centred on the border dispute of Lake Nyasa and ideological differences. The animosity resulted in Malawi’s deployment of gunboats in Lake Nyasa on many occasions. For its part, Tanzania hosted the Malawian President Banda’s dissidents. Moreover, Tanzania sent its army units to the Tanzanian regions bordering Malawi. No doubt the aforesaid security situation had a bearing on the TPDF’s structural transformation. The final omission is the views from the rank and file of the army. Yet, in his apologia, the author argues that such views need a separate history, but their inclusion in this work would have watered down a too-elitist account of the evolution of the army.
The weaknesses, however, do not detract from the book’s objective – to analyze the structural and social transformation of the army – and its outstanding contribution to scholarship. It is because of its contribution to African military historiography that this work will find its place in the databases and on the bookshelves of the general public, students and academics of African military history.
