Julius Nyerere’s song must not die, let freedom reign

Former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere. [Courtesy] 

We grew up on songs and dreams, we who were the children and youth of the 1960s, all the way to the early ‘1980s. We believed in angels and in the goodness of people. We often crooned along with the Swedish troupe they called ABBA, singing about angels, fairy tales and bright futures.

 “I have a dream, a song to sing,” they sang, “To help me cope with anything. If you see the wonder of a fairy tale, you can take the future, even if you fail.” It was so tantalizingly exquisite, so futuristically promising. The world could be a good place, despite the imperfections that we saw everywhere.