Reading with Xi Jinping | Ujamaa: Essays on Socialism

Ujamaa: Essays on Socialism is a book written by Julius Kambarage Nyerere, the first president of Tanzania.

On March 25, 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a speech at the Julius Nyerere International Convention Center on a visit to Tanzania. Xi said friendly exchanges between China and Africa have had a long history. In the 1950s and 1960s, the first-generation leaders of New China and the older-generation African statesmen together opened a new era in China-Africa relations.

Nyerere was one of the more prominent older-generation statesmen in Africa.

Since the founding of the United Republic of Tanzania, President Nyerere visited China 13 times. He was a good friend and a long-term companion of the Chinese people. President Xi sent congratulatory letters when the foundation for the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Leadership School, named after Julius Kambarage Nyerere, was laid on July 16, 2018, and when the school was finally completed on Feb. 23, 2022.

In an essay titled The Purpose is Man in his book, Nyerere wrote:

There has to be a recognition that there is a job to be done which will often be difficult, and often demand the renunciation of personal comfort. It will offer in return the challenge and the satisfaction of contributing to the building of a socialist society for the benefit of our children and grandchildren.