One defining aspect of Tanzania's on-going liberalization program is the consensus that exists behind financially necessary but painful measures. This sense of unity can be largely traced to the nation-building efforts of one man, Julius Nyerere, the country's first post-independence president.

Revered as the father of the nation (Baba wa Taifa in Swahili), and with his portrait still adorning every office wall, Nyerere was responsible for forging the 1964 union between what was then mainland Tanganyika and the islands of Zanzibar to create the Republic of Tanzania.

Yet not only did Nyerere geographically delineate the country, he also cemented a sense of national identity through the promotion of Swahili as the country's national language. An alumnus of Scotland's Edinburgh University, he is noted for translating two Shakespeare plays into Swahili.

The result is a high level of national consciousness among Tanzanians, which has significantly contributed to neutralizing tribal rivalries; Tanzania has none of the acute tribal conflict that convulses nations such as Nigeria or neighboring Burundi.

Indeed, after he stepped down from the presidency in 1985, one of his significant roles was acting as one of the continent's elder statesmen and arbitrating in Burundi's ethnic instability in the 1990s, a position that was later assumed by Nelson Mandela.

However, on an economic front, he was less successful. Socialist-inspired policies centering on the village community and the family dominated the agenda for two decades with negative economic consequences. A former finance minister, Edwin Mtei, has said that Nyerere wanted to give his people "fish rather than fishing nets" and so ultimately finished up by "doing the wrong things for the right purposes".

The dependency culture that this fostered is a legacy that Minister for Finance, Basil Mramba, is determined to end. Mramba is passionate about educating the populace in the basics of financial self-sufficiency by encouraging micro-finance initiatives. Private businessmen, such as Ernest Massawe of Akiba Commercial Bank, are following this lead, extending credit to thousands of small entrepreneurs.

Yet President Mkapa is one who admits that changing the mentality of the people has been more difficult than expected, a sentiment echoed by local businessmen such as media owner Reginald Mengi. "The first liberation we need is from mental poverty," says Mengi.

But all this has had little impact on the affection with which Nyerere is held in the minds of the people. His death in 1999 was mourned nationally and highly emotionally and his funeral attended by a host of foreign dignitaries, including former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, who laid a wreath at his funeral.

The nation mourned because it was very much his nation. Mwalimu, or teacher as he is often called, might no longer be there but his shadow still falls squarely over the country he brought into being.