Africa may have been blessed and enriched with many things, but I would presume that one of the continent’s proudest and most valuable blessings is the pure, genuine and remarkable soul and gem, in the name of Dr Salim Ahmed Salim – an indeed proud son of Africa!

As a teen, I was often encouraged to learn and follow in Dr Salim’s footsteps. Upon growing up and gaining consciousness, I would wonder how and what would make one imagine that I had anything within me to walk along the path and steps of this incredible treasure born in the islands of Zanzibar.

Out of sheer curiosity, through all conventional and unconventional means and channels, I explored Dr Salim and definitely became a proud and unashamed fan. Just like how I admired Zinedine Zidane Zizzou’s eloquence, artistry, and touch of finesse on the football pitch, I developed similar, if not extraordinary, admiration for Dr Salim’s brilliance, charisma, and silky and unreal touches within the political and diplomatic fields. Salim is, to me, the Zizzou of Diplomacy, and Zizzou is the Salim of football!

Fast-forward to 2015. Subsequent to Dr Salim’s influence, I graduated from the then Mozambique-Tanzania Centre for Foreign Relations, now Dr Salim Ahmed Salim Centre for Foreign Relations; around the same year, an online landmark issue titled Salim Ahmed Salim: Son of Africa was released and published.

The publication thrilled me for at least two main reasons: one, while the respective publication does not offer an extensive and comprehensive account of Dr Salim, it provides a detailed and consolidated account of his personal and professional journey and encounters.

Secondly, one of the contributors to the book, Dr Lucy Shule, currently the Director of Studies at the National Defence College (NDC), was my very recent supervisor for my post-grad studies at the Centre for Foreign Relations, from whom I learnt a great deal. Hence, I was surprised to realise that we mutually liked Dr Salim. This further extended my interest and desire to read her article, co-authored with the renowned public intellectual Prof Gaudens Mpangala, and the book itself.

Even though Dr Salim has retired from active politics and diplomacy and is said to be ill, the grand and decorated Dr Salim has refused to be inactive, silent, and silenced; his thoughts, lessons, and experiences have not only remained lingering in the minds of the old comrades and dignitaries, but his legacy has remained fresh, active, relevant, and significant amongst us, the youths and ordinaries.

READ MORE: Tanzania Launches Salim Ahmed Salim’s Digital Archive As Centre for Foreign Relations Renamed After Former PM

The memorable unveiling and launch of the Dr Salim Ahmed Salim Digital Archive in 2023 definitely confirmed amongst us that the celebrated diplomat’s voice, legacy, and thoughts shall not be silenced or vanish in vain.

Whereas I have yet to live up to my personal challenge of reviewing the book Salim Ahmed Salim: Son of Africa, two of my colleagues have challenged me to offer a review of this memorable archive of Dr Salim Ahmed Salim.

After about months of embarking on a captivating journey visiting and revisiting Dr Salim’s life and lessons, and after days of deliberating and procrastinating whether this un-trendy challenge is worthwhile pursuing, as I am definitely no influencer, no Tik-Tok or social media sensation, no any celebrity of common sense and nonsense, I have however opted to accept this particular challenge as I maintain my personal challenge of writing a review about Dr Salim’s biography.

The digital archive

My mobile phone’s dictionary app defines an archive as a place for storing earlier, and often historical, materials. It further alludes that such materials contain documents – letters, records, newspapers, etc.- and other media types. On the other hand, Uncle Google defines archives as a collection of historical documents or records providing information about a place, institution, or group of people.

The Dr Salim Ahmed Salim Digital Archive could thus easily be referred to as a resource centre offering a unique insight and account of the former prime minister’s epic life-long journey and experiences. However, unlike any other conventional archive, this is a digital archive, where different records, including photos, videos, speeches, written notes, typed notes, and academic papers, are collected and published digitally.

Scrolling through the archive, one may easily say that it serves as a memoir of a person, an individual, and that is Dr Salim. As much as I may be lured and tempted to subscribe to and second this assertion, I find this particular assertion to account for a very limited scope and significance of the respective memoir.

The authors of the marvellous three-volume biography of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, Development as Rebellion: A Biography of Julius Nyerere, are convinced that the book is not only about the life of the founder of Tanzania but also the history of the East African nation.

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I also believe that Salim’s archive serves as his memoir and also about Africa. For one to understand this, one definitely needs to have a detailed analysis of the archive and Dr. Salim’s life within the context of the African continent.

Salim and his African heritage

In 1970, at the age of 27, Dr Salim, with his youthful look and swag, presented his credentials to UN Secretary-General U Thant as the new Permanent Representative of Tanzania. While at the UN, Salim represented Tanzania and fought and promoted the ongoing liberation struggles across Africa and even internationally.

In one of his famous speeches on the international platform, Mwalimu Nyerere, in his humorous self, teased that he found it amusing when, in Europe, he’d be asked about the status of different African countries, and yet he is only president of Tanzania. To an extent, Mwalimu Nyerere teased that he was questioned as if he were the President of Africa!

Almost similar to Nyerere’s situation, as numerous African countries were yet to regain their independence, Dr Salim, by de facto, had to act as the Permanent Representative of Africa. It is undoubtedly that, due to his multiple roles as a de jure Tanzanian Ambassador and de facto African Diplomat, Dr Salim was elected chairman of the special committee on decolonisation in 1972; and where else was decolonisation predominant, if not in Africa and also in bits of Asia?

Having served in the UN for about a decade, Dr Salim was reintegrated into national politics, but once again, in his first four years in national politics, he was appointed the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Cognizant of Dr Salim’s personal experience, ties, and connection, together with Tanzania’s role in Africa, all these factors facilitated his continued service to Africa, but now from within Tanzania.

In 1989, Dr Salim Ahmed Salim was recalled to the international field. The leaders of liberation struggles, those he fought hand in hand with, particularly then-Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, pushed for his candidacy and for the Tanzanian government to release him to contest the position of the secretary-general of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU).

Salim won the respective position and went ahead to serve at the OAU for over a decade, leaving a massive imprint on the African region as he championed the transformation of the organisation and Africa to what became the AU and to the new Africa, which is free, outside the bondage and shackles of colonialism and apartheid, striving to improve its welfare, determined to forge linkages and unity, and committed to ensure peace, security and sustainability.

READ MORE: Tanzanians Debate Nation’s Future As Union Clocks Sixty Years

Even after his formal appointment in the region in 2001, Dr Salim went on to serve in different positions within and beyond the region, maintaining massive allegiance and offering resounding support to the likes of Koffi Anan, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, and the various other leaders who followed in his footsteps.

This snapshot of Dr Salim and Africa would definitely assist one in unpacking why the word and topic Africa are predominantly featured in most of the documentation, whether in writing or audiovisuals. Just like the marriage and cordial relationship between socialism and dignity, so is the life of Dr Salim inseparable from Africa, or contemporary Africa inseparable from Dr Salim.

Whereas the archive is extraordinarily captivating, I urge everyone, academician or not, diplomat or not, politician or not, African or not, to spare their time and engage with this rich history of Dr Salim Ahmed Salim and Africa. I dedicate my strong plea and urge amongst us, as youths, to utilise this particular monument of a platform, as it is appealing, friendly to use, and altogether insightful.

Need for improvements

But just before I sign out and refrain from boring you with my extensive chatter, I would not do justice if I did not take a slingshot to the family of Dr Salim and the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania.

While I have not gone through the entire archive, I have extensively reviewed the photos and documents and seen Dr Salim surrounded by the “great” male leaders. I wonder if there are no substantive wonderful images of Dr Salim with the “great” female leaders. Or is it that Dr Salim served at a time when the roots of patriarchy were deeply entrenched? Well, I doubt so.

Since the archive explicitly mentions that it will change and evolve over time, to fill any gaps and add new information on and perspectives from Dr Salim, I, therefore, hope that the archive will also find it necessary to use this opportunity to embrace, amplify, and bring to the fold the names, faces, and voices of different “great” female leaders who have long been sidelined through this resource centre.

In the same spirit, I wish to sign out with Dr Salim Ahmed Salim’s remarks he made on December 2, 2014, at Mandela Hall, African Union, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for our deliberation, as quoted on page 93 of the Salim Ahmed Salim: Son of Africa:

“[E]mpowering women to take positions of leadership by itself is not enough. We need to ensure that our societies fully embrace the values of gender equality as central to our democratic progress, as well as human progress. We cannot continue celebrating the modest achievements in this aspect while at the same time allowing the unspeakable dehumanisation of our mothers, sisters and daughters. 

“We have for so long abused both social and religious norms as tools of legitimisation of unspeakable and intolerable indignity towards our women and girls. A developing society need neither tolerate nor understand such indignity.”
Jasper “Kido” Sabuni is a poet, writer and social justice activist based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He can be reached at kidojasper@gmail.com or on X as @JasperKido. The opinions expressed here are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of The Chanzo. If you are interested in publishing in this space, please contact our editors at editor@thechanzo.com.