Friday March 26, late Tanzanian president John Pombe Joseph Magufuli was laid to rest in his home town of Chato in the northwest of the country. He can now have some peace. But it is unlikely he will.
The elite will not allow him to rest in peace. They will say all sorts of things, right or wrong, mostly the latter, as they have done these past six years, from the time he became president and the number one personality in Tanzania.
Commentators in the media, those of us who seem to have an opinion on every subject and burden you with our thoughts, have written a lot on the man and will continue to do so.
The ones who murmur and mumble their thoughts to themselves or a few friends will still do that. It doesn’t matter that not many will hear what they have to say. They will do it anyway.
Those who grumble about everything and everyone whether they know them or not, whether anyone is listening or not will still do so.
They will all have something to say about the man no longer with us. They will still analyse his actions and policies, ascribe motives to them, dissect his character, and in the process do a complete makeover of him. Often the individual they create is nothing like the original.
Then long after he is gone, when the commentating elite are done with him, the historians will pick him up and claim to understand him better than when he was alive. They will re-interpret him for those who were not there when he lived. Those fortunate to live long enough to read that history will likely meet a total stranger.
If the historians do their job well, do their research and not rely solely on contemporary commentary, they may present a more complete person closer to the real Magufuli.
They will show him in all his complexity, in his weaknesses and limitations, his resolve, mettle, and vision, and the potential to make an impact. In other words, as a regular person.
This idea, of one individual but multiple personalities depending on the beholder was in evidence the last few days of President Magufuli’s life on earth, especially after his death but before he was interred. The elite were mostly scathing in their appraisal of the man as president.
To them he was rough and crude in his conduct of public affairs. He trampled on everything they hold sacred. He was no respecter of rank or position, procedure or tradition.
He disturbed their comfort, stepped on their toes non-too-gently and upset their enjoyment of unearned or ill-gotten privileges. He demanded of public servants things they had long forgotten – delivery of service, modesty and accountability, and to discard a growing sense of entitlement.
This class can be unforgiving when their privileged life is threatened or their long-held views are challenged. And so, instead of countering Magufuli’s actions with reasoned responses or even trying to understand his thinking, they resort to name-calling.
That always happens when they have no response or simply don’t like what one is doing, either because it is successful or runs counter to their assumptions. And so they will be unrelenting in their vilification of the man.
We in these parts understand that only too well.
That’s the elite. Ordinary Tanzanians, however, would beg to differ. Only they are often not heard, not having access to the media. This time they showed it in the outpouring of emotion as the country bade farewell to their leader.
They adored their president. Their adulation was clear for everyone to see. They thronged the stadiums and lined the streets in their thousands to pay their last respects. They swept the roads and laid their clothes across them for his cortege to pass. They cried and wailed as they tried to come to terms with his passing.
Clearly he meant something to them.
Where he was labelled intolerant, ordinary people saw a fighter for them. Yes, he was intolerant but of corruption, theft of public resources, waste and wrong doing. That they understand. The elite choose to highlight only intolerance to dissent.
The elite called him a dictator, rigid and inflexible. Ordinary people saw an uncompromising defender of the national interest, a man who put them above those of the individual or class.
And so we are bound to ask: who was the real Magufuli? The one presented by the elite and media as a despot, vilified and caricatured, whose passing they don’t care about or even celebrate? The one adored and deeply mourned by ordinary people for standing up for them and the country? The covid-19 sceptic who may have misled many and led to deaths that could have been avoided? The devout Catholic? The man of action who got things done, often the unorthodox way?
Perhaps bits of all these, some in bigger portions than others. He was more complex than the simple, almost one dimensional figure he was made out to be.
In their farewell to President Magufuli, ordinary people have taught us how to appreciate our leaders and shown us the folly of believing only what the news industry and the intellectual and political elite give us. The reality is often very different as we in Rwanda know.