Who Are the Indigenous Tanzanians? Competing Conceptions of Tanzanian Citizenship Within the Business Community

Abstract

The indigenization debate in Tanzania provides an excellent example of how one country has dealt with citizenship in a changing political, economic, and cultural environment.' In the 1990s, economic and political liberalization reopened the citizenship debate as societal groups in Tanzania redefined their relationships to the national community. Along with economic liberalization, the international donor community and the Tanzanian government have promoted a liberal conception of citizenship. In this approach, the political rights associated with citizenship-constitutional government, rule of law, and freedom of speech, religion, and associationare intimately linked to economic rights that allow individuals to control productive resources.2 Both political and economic rights act as checks on government power. In Tanzania, however, the national community has not been conceptualized solely by a liberal notion of citizenship (a common national identity, individual rights, equality under the law, and equal extension of economic rights to all citizens). Rather, the debate over citizenship has also been shaped by the country's rich historical and cultural diversity. Tanzania has more than 120 ethnic groups and a long history of trade and interaction with Arabia, the Indian subcontinent, Europe, and other parts of Africa. Historically, the country's regions have experienced a diverse array of governments, which included Swahili city-states, an Omani sultanate based in Zanzibar, a European colonial administration, and an independence-era socialist government. Each political regime had its own notions of political and economic community. For example, after Europe occupied Tanganyika