Tanzania - CHANGE IS YET

Yona F. Maro · 2009-02-16T18:19:47+00:00

As I walk and talk to the regular folk everywhere, one thing that is clear is that majority of we Tanzanians are very UNHAPPY. Among the things I hear ; I am unhappy because my neighbor is dying of hunger while billions and billions of taxpayers money is disappearing into the pockets of a small clique of people who call themselves leaders just to camouflage their greed for power and money, I am unhappy because my maize or wheat harvest cannot be sold at a break-even price despite of the labor and the money I spent to ensure that the harvest is of the best quality, I am unhappy because despite being a teacher for 15 years, I still cant afford to pay my childs university tuition fees instead I have to remain in debt for the rest of my life to ensure that my children get the best in life, the price of maize meal is so high this year , to avoid overstretching our monthly budget, my children are getting a smaller portion of ugali compared to last year. These are just a few among many problems that we face. But I believe theres light at the end of the tunnel because the end of last year and the beginning of this year, something extraordinary happened. We Tanzanians put aside our differences in race, gender, social status, tribe, religious, beliefs, political affiliation and age to come together to celebrate the Kisutu Sagas. For those of us who are optimists, this restored the hope that positive change will come, if not in our generation but in the next one. This restored hope that Tanzania being a nation of diversity, can come together for a common cause. The desire to unite coupled with other common values and goals that hold the citizens of this country together should be the platform of achieving the change we want. The hard work and the desire to prosper should be harnessed to create the energy to counter attack the negativity created in the society by those who use our differences to create divisions among us. Everywhere I go the dreams and aspirations of every Tanzanians are same. Everyone unanimously agrees that they want price of basic needs to be affordable, leaders to fulfill the promises they pledge before getting into public office, devolution of power from the Central Government, corruption in central and local governments to end, Members of parliament to be more accountable in the way they spend e.t.c. All we Tanzanians want is a government that represents the face of the people and not the faces of the few who hold positions of power. I dont want to sound pessimistic or to go out of line with the above desires, but I want to stress unless WE change ourselves, we will not live to see a better Tanzania. We need to change our attitudes in the way we approach politics and politicians; we need to change the traits we look into an individual before casting our vote for him or her, we need to stop looking at every member of parliament/government officer with skepticism and give the benefit of doubt to those in power that have good and genuine values and motives, we need to stop approaching our problems with bitterness, anger, blame-games and other negative emotions. Instead we should look at the positive lessons that are learnt from the mistakes of the ones before us, we should learn to appreciate that our nation is a multicultural centre and theres so much to learn from your neighbor even though you dont share same background, religious beliefs, language or hometown. We need to replace the fear and divisions created by a few and replace it with it the love, strength and courage that we share with millions of others. We should stop blaming the government for everything that is not right in our nation. We should stop expecting the government to solve every problem that we encounter in our lives. We should stop blaming our politicians for the poor leadership they portray because we had a part to play in that since we are the ones who elected them. Unless you and I work on changing ourselves,

Thread starter Yona F. Maro
Start date Feb 16, 2009

Yona F. Maro

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