What is embarrassing about Tanzanians protesting an American president’s visit?

While addressing journalists about two weeks ago, Commander Kova flashed his charmingly snaggle-toothed smile as he proudly announced one of the greatest achievements of our local government and security forces.

Due to their efforts, there wasn’t a whiff of protest seen anywhere. No marches, no placards, nothing but a well-orchestrated love festival for the POTUS and his FLOTUS (First Lady of the United States).

Apparently, Tanzania can boast that we provided one of the most sycophantic presidential sojourns of the decade.

And, of course, let us not forget that some lucky roads in Dar es Salaam, so stubbornly impervious to cleanliness and general driveability on normal days, managed to lose all their potholes and become dust repellent!

Just when it was starting to look as though my government had given up on efficiency and impressive feats of mobilisation, this happens. Political will shows up in the strangest places, doesn’t it?

Of course all the necessary jokes have been made, what with people inviting Obama to visit their neighbourhood or village in the hopes that his presence would come with a near-miraculous improvement in infrastructure.

Alas, we haven’t been as vocal about the government’s efficiency in making sure nothing so embarrassing as a protest would occur.

I have to admit my puzzlement — what is embarrassing about protesting an American president’s visit? Frankly at this point in history it’s almost insulting not to stage a protest.

Protests mean that the citizens of the host country have been paying attention to current affairs and would like to use their limited window of opportunity to share a few thoughts with the POTUS, should he care to look out the window of the most heavily fortified car in the world.

Thanks to our security folks, sadly we were not able to offer anything piquant this time round, not even a small and tasteful march to welcome the Leader of the Free world.

Instead, Tanzanians who felt like it stood in rows of grinning adoration to watch him whizz by.

I suspect that those of us who may have been inclined to wave a placard or two stayed home over his 24-hour blitz, complaining to each other about how ridiculous traffic would be and keeping ourselves far from the reach of police batons.

When the government makes up its mind that it wants to get something done, it gets it done admirably.

In the lead up to POTUS’s visit, we were repeatedly lectured about putting our Sunday best on, sitting still and minding our manners during this most important of historical occasions.

Because it is such a sweetly mellifluous language, threats that are delivered in Kiswahili can be surprisingly chilling and effective.

Aside from the fact that’s it’s so 1960s to whip citizens into displays of obedient adoration, it was yet another sinister display of how good The Establishment is at repression.

There is a saying, from the bad old days when parenting seemed to encourage the psychological torture of minors, that went something like “children should be seen, but not heard.”

In silencing voices of dissent, the government is doing nothing more than acting like a throw-back by infantilising folks whose taxes pay their salaries. Hard to imagine anything more insulting.

There has been a marked escalation in force against civilians over the past few years, or at least it seems that way now that a free-ish press and widespread social media have made it impossible to keep secrets.

I hear that the Ujamaa villagisation process wasn’t a picnic in the park of Human Rights... but that’s a sore topic for another day.

I don’t think it comes naturally to us to smack each other, and part of me feels sorry for Tanzanians who work in the state’s security organs.

What is done to them to turn them into such monsters must be truly awful. Either that or we’re hiring too many persons of dubious character to begin with.

What is unclear is what the government hopes to gain with this hostility towards we the people. Another saying that’s illuminating, if a little organic, is “better out than in.” In politics, as in nature, this one holds true.

American presidents quite aside, the things that rumble in the belly, causing passions noxious or otherwise, do need to be released for the general health of the organism involved.

That’s the therapeutic idea behind freedom of speech, and a good reason to let a little protest slip out from time to time. You’d think that an establishment that’s been around for a while would know that.

Elsie Eyakuze is an independent consultant and blogger for The Mikocheni Report, http://mikochenireport.blogspot.com.
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