Taarifa muhimu hiyo

Dear Friends, colleagues and comrades:

I hope this email finds you in good health.

We are in the final stages of preparing our 4th Julius Nyerere Intellectual Festival. Some of you would recall that at the last Festival we had announced that it had been decided to have the Festival every two years. However, that decision was changed because the Steering Committee of the Chair felt that people had come to expect Nyerere Festival every year in April; therefore, we should continue the tradition even if it means that we have a kind of mini-festival.

So our forthcoming Festival has been planned for two days, 12-13, April, 2012. I would like to welcome you all to the 4th Festival. 

The theme of the Festival is 'ARTISTS IN LIBERATION' ('Wasanii katika Ukombozi').  The proceedings of the second day (which is co-sponsored by our Institute of Kiswahili research) of the Festival will be in Kiswahili. Unfortunately, we have very limited facility for translation into English. The highlights of the Festival are:

== Nyerere Annual Lecture will be delivered by Professor Micere Mugo on the first day followed by launching of Mwalimu Nyerere's new three volumes of speeches and writings published just last year by Mwalimu Nyerere Foundation.

== Our VC's Palaver in the afternoon will be on the theme: Nationalism vs. Neo-liberalism.

== On the second day, [...] Abdilatif Abdalla will deliver a lecture in Kiswahili on the theme of the Festival followed by launching of books published by our Institute of Kiswahili. We will then have an interactive dialogue with artists to reflect on their role as they see it. This will be led by Professor Penina Mlama.

== In the afternoon, we will have a conversation on ‘Hali ya Dunia ilivyo leo na Mustakabali wa Afrika' (The World Situation today and the Future of Africa). The chief participants in the conversation are: Mhe. Benjamin Mkapa (in his capacity as the Chairman of the South Centre), Professor Issa Shivji and Dr. Ng'wanza Kamata.

Of course we wil have some very interesting performances.

So once again, I have great pleasure to invite you to the Festival. If our friends from outside of the country cannot make it, we will understand given the short notice. However, we are planning a GRAND 5th Festival for 2013 and it is my personal wish that our friends, colleagues and comrades can come; it will also be a kind of reunion and perhaps the last Festival of my tenure as the Mwalimu Nyerere Professor. We will keep you posted on the arrangements.

Let me take the opportunity once again to thank you all for the continued moral and intellectual support that you have been giving to the Mwalimu Chair since its establishment in 2008.

with best wishes

Issa Shivji