Tanzania

Ethnic and Religious Tensions

The ethnic composition and the religious affiliation of the country vary greatly both on the mainland and Zanzibar, a fact that has provoked overt tensions since the mid-1990s between the two entities. On the mainland, 99 percent of the population is African and, within this group, 95 percent are of Bantu origins, divided into more than 130 tribal networks. On the island of Zanzibar, the population is more diverse, and there is a strong Arab presence that has mixed with Africans. Religious groups are quite evenly distributed on the mainland, with Christianity, Islam, and indigenous beliefs each representing about one-third of the population. However, in Zanzibar, Muslims represent more than 99 percent of believers. This ethnic diversity is mirrored by the different languages in the country. Although Swahili is the official language of communication, the first language of many [Page 843]Tanzanians is their local dialect. Because of their ethnic and religious differences, many inhabitants of the island considered the unification of mainland Tanganyika with Zanzibar to be problematic. Yet, in spite of grassroots opposition, the revolutionary Zanzibar government supported it because it shared the pan-African socialism of the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU), the main political party on the mainland.

Because 75 percent of Tanzanians live in rural areas, traditional social networks are stronger in the agricultural villages and rural tribes, which are based not only on kin but also on an extended family of communities and groups unified by mutual goals. Through these village networks, poor farmers try to modify state policies and market mechanisms with associations based on affectionate social relations. These rural networks target external interventions in their own lives, thus resisting adverse pricing and marketing policies. Yet, an all too common misconception is that these rural networks are homogenous. On the contrary, Tanzanian rural communities are organized along the lines of labor division and exchange networks. According to Pekka Seppälä, rural Tanzanian villages develop their economies on the basis of a division of income sources within each household and a further exchange of the services between the different households. The division of labor implies that each household has income sources that partly overlap but partly differ from those available to the other households in the village. This partial difference allows different households to exchange services. In particular, activities regarding the extraction of natural resources and agricultural processing are central for these rural networks. These activities create the conditions for the exchange of food and consumer goods with the networks. Yet, social networks in the country do not always have a positive impact on its development and image. Because of widespread corruption, access to public services is easier for those who have important family ties. Furthermore, the World Bank has argued that corruption in Tanzania does not entail only a network of low-level public officers who want to increase their salaries but also a higher level that includes decision makers. It is this second level that may negatively affect the country's perspectives of economic growth.

...