We were saddened and shocked to hear of the early death of Professor Haroub Othman in Zanzibar on 28 June 2009. He was only 66 and had much more to give. Haroub had been Professor of Development Studies in the University of Dar es Salaam for many years, but was much more than this – he was an intellectual, a writer, a political activist, with a deep commitment to socialism, an intensely warm and decent man who never forgot those he had known many years earlier. When I last met him at the World Social Forum in Nairobi in 2007, he greeted me like a long-lost friend and comrade and we talked as if it were only yesterday we taught together at the University of Dar es Salaam (it was in the early 1970s). He leaves a wife, Professor Saida Yahya-Othman, and a son, Tahir.
In verses of tribute to ‘Professor Ho’ as he was fondly called, Issa Shivji recalls the days when Haroub became active, during the heady era of Tanzanian socialism and the struggles around it.
… Those were the days,
Of the Vietnam war.
Ho Chinh Minh was your uncle,
My uncle, our uncle.
Demos, sit-ins and boycotts,
Petitions, pictures and panels,
Unclothing war criminals.
People's courts sentenced, public opinion enforced.
Those were the days,
Of Bertrand Russell and Stokely Carmichael,
Sitting in Stockholm,
Hearing napalmed men, women and children.
The public gallery wept, students shouted,
‘Down with Uncle Sam,
Long live Uncle Ho.’
Haroub was a teacher whose students, past and present, admired him greatly. Several have contacted us with their tributes to the impact he made on their lives. As one of them recalled:
I remember it was in 2001, the end of the third term for my second year, when I first saw this Professor at Nkrumah Hall … He talked about Human Rights and Democracy. It is difficult to express in words the way I felt that day after the lecture. I had to tell my class mates who missed, so that they attend the next lecture. … Thereafter he kept on inspiring [me]… If there is any burning issue I expected Mwalimu Haroub to humbly intervene either through his writings or public analysis … Conversant with the issues on his fingertips, articulate in his arguments and most important, comfortable with his standpoint. We discussed many issues, and I still remember [him saying] …'You young people are the ones to carry the Pan Africanism movement ahead'… His email signature [was] ‘Transform Justice into Passion’ and this is what I see as the everlasting memory of our comrade and our great Mwalimu [teacher] who has moved on.
always spoke the truth regardless of how bitter it was to swallow. Diligent, informed analyst and renowned Prof Ho! A treasure to Tanzania and Africa, with the wealth of thoughts, insights and scholarly works … International affairs, human rights and law, conflict resolution, democracy and above all, Pan Africanism … Always at the forefront in honouring those who have gone before us; Abdulrahman Babu, Mwalimu Nyerere, Walter Rodney, Seithy Chachage …
An anonymous contributor to the Daily Nation summed up the general feeling of grief at the death of this good man. Haroub was ‘a voice of the voiceless gone silent’.
I am indebted to all those who contributed to this tribute: Chambi Chachage, Mkinga Mkinga of The Citizen, Lucy Shule, Vicensia Shule, Nicodemus Banyukwa, John Kitoka, Zainab Mwatawala and Professor Issa Shivji.
Haroub Othman
Haroub was one of Tanzania's most prominent intellectuals. He also commanded respect across the continent: more than just a presence on Pan-African networks, but as someone dedicated to an all-Africa knowledge and commitment. As one among many examples of how he was valued beyond his own country, he was asked to give the first Nyerere Memorial Lecture at the University of Cape Town in 2005.
Digging out a copy, I found the lecture repaid a rereading as it included some reminiscing on the role of intellectuals in Tanzania and the intellectual life at the University of Dar es Salaam, which had shaped Haroub himself and to which he had contributed so much. But it is when he turns to Julius Nyerere himself, that I realised that the qualities someone chooses to admire about a great leader like Mwalimu also says something about the writer's own values. What Haroub picks out as well as the patriotism and Pan-African commitment are the integrity, the non-racialism and internationalism, and his putting socialism on the African agenda. Those who knew Haroub will not be surprised that these were the qualities he picked out. His own work, teaching, writing and reaching out to a broader constituency sought to generate understanding and debate about such ideas. That is the contribution for which he will be remembered.
What was more of a surprise in the lecture was Haroub flagging up the value of humour. He quotes approvingly Issa Shivji's call that intellectuals should cultivate ‘the ability to laugh at ourselves’. Then he makes a similar reference to Nyerere's characteristic style, ‘full of humour but deeply serious’, when recalling Mwalimu's last appearance at the University of Dar es Salaam on his 75th birthday. All of which reminded me of Haroub's own rich sense of fun, which came out when he was introducing me at a seminar in the University. He started by referring to my contributions to Development Studies there in the old days. Then before I could become too flattered, he added with a wicked little smile: ‘and the most important of these was that he hired me’!
Apart from poking gentle fun at both of us, he was remembering an event of almost 40 years ago. Coming back from USSR with a Masters degree in law, he found it was not recognised by the Law Faculty sufficiently for him to be given anything other than an administrative rather than an academic post. But when the interdisciplinary and socialist-oriented Development Studies course was launched across all faculties, he was one of those who responded with an offer to volunteer. The political economy training he had in the Soviet Union now allowed him to be taken on as a teaching assistant in the core team that was being built up. Once given the opportunity he responded with gusto, working his way up in seniority eventually to a Chair and the Directorship of the Institute for Development Studies, to which he devoted the whole of his career.
When I heard of his passing, I could not help recalling our long association, and comradeship – and his joke about me – a true word spoken in jest. On reflection I feel great pride that facilitating the start of such a life work turned out so productively. In remembering him we cannot do better than go back to the final words of his own tribute to Mwalimu Nyerere: ‘One should live so that in dying one can say “I gave all my strength for the liberation of humanity”’. A worthy guide to anyone, from a person who deserves that epitaph.
September 2009