Sometimes, defending yourself gets
mistaken for aggression. Especially when you're a quiet neighbour who refuses
to shout back. I’ve watched, almost bemused, as a growing list of Kenyan
columnists, activists, and social commentators continue their loud and almost
rehearsed condemnations of Tanzania’s recent immigration decisions.
To hear them tell it, we’ve become some
caricature of repression—throwing out foreign activists like a spooked autocrat
shutting the blinds. But this isn’t the theatre of tyranny. It’s called
protecting your house when guests forget they’re visitors.
I find it curious—no,
disingenuous-how certain Kenyan intellectuals have recently taken to treating
Tanzania as though it were some errant state that has suddenly lost its mind.
The outrage—loud, accusatory, self-assured—over the deportation of Martha Karua
and Willy Mutunga, and the treatment of Boniface Mwangi and Agatha Atuhaire,
has reached a fever pitch. But let’s be honest here. Strip away the
sentimentalism and pan-Africanist theatrics, and what you have is a textbook
case of selective moral outrage.
Tanzania did what many states have
done—and continue to do—to protect its sovereignty. This wasn’t about muzzling
free speech for the sake of it. It was about asserting national dignity in the
face of calculated provocation. No country, no matter how “democratic” its
dressings, permits foreign nationals to walk into its territory, participate in
politically sensitive cases, and then expect to be treated like welcome
observers. That’s not how sovereignty works, not in theory, not in practice.
Look across the globe. The United
States—often the self-declared beacon of democracy—has denied entry to
individuals perceived as undermining its national security or involved in
contentious legal matters.
Just ask Omar Barghouti, the
Palestinian activist denied a U.S. visa in 2019 over his views. Or remember how
Australia swiftly deported Novak Djokovic for breaching COVID protocol in a
politically charged storm. If countries with centuries-old democratic
institutions can wield executive powers to remove perceived threats, however
symbolic, why is it that when Tanzania acts similarly, it’s seen as tyrannical?
I’ve read Professor Kagwanja and
Dr. Muluka for years. Their intellects are not in question. But even the
sharpest minds can become prisoners of ideological echo chambers. Kagwanja’s
framing of Tanzania as a “tin pot dictatorship” feels more like political
theatre than scholarship. His analogy to Kenya under Moi is neither novel nor
entirely accurate.
Tanzania, for all its shortcomings,
has not descended into the sort of predatory state machinery we saw in Kenya in
the 1990s. If anything, Tanzania’s quiet insistence on protecting its
institutional ethos—one that privileges national stability over performative
liberalism—is precisely what has kept it from imploding in the ways some of its
neighbours have.
Let’s not pretend the law exists in
a vacuum. It’s shaped by context, culture, and national imperatives. Tanzanian
law gives its executive immigration authority the power to deny entry or expel
individuals whose presence is deemed a threat to public order or national
interest.
This is not only legal; it is
standard practice. Article 15 of the Tanzanian Immigration Act is clear on this
point. Due process does not require an open trial when foreign nationals are
removed under immigration or national security grounds. It’s a prerogative
exercised in the sovereign interest.
And while we’re discussing rights,
let’s remember that rights are not without limits. International human rights
instruments, such as the ICCPR (International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights), recognise that states can restrict certain freedoms in the interest of
national security, public order, or the rights of others. So even by
international standards, Tanzania acted within the bounds of law. The emotional
response from our Kenyan brothers and sisters, however well-intentioned, seems
to ignore this legal grounding.
But perhaps what’s most frustrating
is the tone—the moral superiority embedded in these critiques. There is a
difference between constructive critique and cultural condescension. Tanzania
is not a Western client state. It does not, and should not, take cues on
governance or diplomacy from opinion columns in Nairobi. And yet, we’re
lectured about democratic backsliding by analysts who themselves come from a
polity that has struggled to hold credible elections since the return of
multi-party democracy. It’s hard not to see the irony.
If the Kenyan establishment was so
consistently committed to democratic purity, where was the outrage when
protesters were shot dead in Nairobi streets over election rigging? Where was
the noise when civil society groups were deregistered under flimsy pretexts?
Let’s not forget, in 2017, the Kenyan government shut down TV stations and
defied court orders—yet no Kenyan intellectual was calling it a “tin pot
dictatorship.”
What I see, instead, is a double
standard rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding—or deliberate
mischaracterisation of Tanzanian political culture. Tanzania was never built in
the image of the colonial nation-state obsessed with mimicry.
From Julius Nyerere’s Ujamaa vision
to Suluhu’s cautious diplomacy, we’ve chosen a different path—one that balances
pragmatism with principle, sovereignty with cooperation. Yes, the journey is
messy. Yes, mistakes have been made. But they are our mistakes, and we will
correct them on our terms.
Now, let’s talk about this
so-called “regional dream.” Dr. Muluka's poetic critique— “Where is your warm
milk of motherhood?”—is moving but misplaced. Suluhu is not Tanzania’s nanny;
she is its President. Her job is not to soothe the sentiments of East Africa
but to safeguard Tanzanian interests. Integration is not an act of charity; it
is a strategic partnership. And strategy demands caution. Kenya’s
confrontational tone, especially from the media and civil society, makes
genuine cooperation harder, not easier.
And let’s not fall for the
nostalgia of pan-African dreams. The East African Community is not a sacred
covenant; it’s a political and economic alliance governed by mutual respect.
When Tanzanian sovereignty is disrespected—by journalists barging into judicial
processes or activists coming to “witness” cases without official status—it is
entirely appropriate for our state to act. Whether that offends Kenyan
newspaper editors or not is irrelevant.
This isn’t isolationism. It’s
discipline. I respect Kenyan thinkers deeply. But this time, many of them have
missed the forest for the trees. They see suppression where there is prudence,
dictatorship where there is determined governance. The real tragedy would be if
Tanzania, in its desire to appease regional sentiment, allowed foreign
political actors to turn our soil into a theatre of protest.
We are not a stage. We are a
sovereign republic. And if defending that sovereignty occasionally means
disappointing outsiders, so be it.
In this era of digital noise and
performative outrage, we must remain clear-eyed. Democracy is not performance
art. It is not open borders for every activist with a camera. It is not
headlines and hashtags. It is careful stewardship of power in a way that
reflects the will and welfare of the people. Tanzania has chosen its model.
Others are free to critique it, but not to control it.
So yes, deport them. Block them if
necessary. And keep building the nation, one decision at a time. Because in the
end, the duty of a state is not to please its neighbours—it is to protect its
own.
