Paper short abstract:

Through the political geography of postcolonial Dar es Salaam, this paper explores the interaction between liberation movements, Tanzanian politicians, Cold War diplomats, and the media, demonstrating the destabilising urban consequences of Julius Nyerere’s support for African liberation.

Paper long abstract:

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam housed the headquarters of many exiled African liberation movements. Grouped together in offices along Nkrumah Street, their representatives moved in cosmopolitan circles that formed around favoured bars, cafés, and restaurants, as well as at more official events, like diplomatic receptions. There they associated with journalists, local elites, diplomats, and the subversive operatives of white minority rule. Through both their rent-seeking behaviour and their ideological or ethnic affinities with local elites, the liberation movements became embedded in Tanzanian political affairs. The Tanzanian government became alarmed by the destabilising potential of the presence of these leaders, especially given their constant need for financial support and therefore assumed venality. In response, the authorities placed limits on the numbers of liberation movement representatives permitted in Dar es Salaam, rusticating or imprisoning those who contravened such regulations. This was apiece with the anti-urban animus of ujamaa socialism, which portrayed the city as a site of rumour and moral corruption. In particular, this paper highlights the role played by Potlako Leballo, the leader of the Pan-Africanist Congress of South Africa, in undermining a coup plot against led by dissident Tanzanians. By contextualising the diplomatic activities of multiple exiled leaders in the political geography of Dar es Salaam, this paper complicates existing branches of liberation movement historiography, which tend to focus either on Cold War diplomacy or a particular national(ist) case-study, often at the exclusion of the political 'noise' which surrounded their exile experience.