The role of National Museum of Tanzania in fostering national identity in post colonial period: a Pan-African perspective.

Museum institutions in Africa are known to be colonial products. For instance, in Tanzania, the museum concept was imported by colonialists in the early 1900s as a colonial propaganda tool. It was a cultural institution designated to instill western culture to legitimize colonisation by shattering “Africanity,” the African socio-cultural identity. At independence, decolonisation of the museum was inevitable. The aim of the study was to evaluate the role of the National Museum of Tanzania (NMT) in fostering national identity in the post-colonial period in Tanzania. Specifically, the study examined historical development of the NMT from the colonial period to the present, evaluated response of the NMT to a Pan-Africanism perspective toward Africanisation; and examined programmes of the NMT designed to accomplish the role of fostering national identity and finally, provided the future of cultural heritage management by the National Museum of Tanzania. The study concentrated on two representative regions of Dar es Salaam and Ruvuma by focusing on the National Museum and House of Culture (NMHC) together with its extension, the Village Museum in Dar es Salaam and the Maji Maji Memorial Museum at Songea. Data were collected through reviews of national related polices, legislations, regulations, museum publications and other historical documents about the NMT's role in fostering national cultural identity. It also employed field observation and interviews as primary data. Results indicated that ontologically, epistemologically and methodologically, the NMT retained the colonial philosophy. The NMT is neither de-colonised nor Africanised. It abandoned the national agenda of fostering national cultural identity and pride, “Tanzanianity.” Hence, the study then proposes the way forward, including repeal and replacement of the NMT Act Number 7 of 1980, establishment of Pan-African Courses in Higher Learning Institutions in Tanzania, engagement of such institutions with public education and inculcate Pan-African Centred methodology of Cultural Heritage Management and pertinent management of museums, in particular.