Indecision 2009

Kenya Threatens Visa Ban on US Officials Blocking Healthcare Reform

Argue, Don't Shout.

In the 1970s Julius Nyerere, then president, issued a thin booklet that he distributed to all his diplomats, titled, “Argue, Don’t Shout,” in which he tried to show how disputation is more effective than name-calling and shouting, even when someone is becoming an irritant. [Tanzanian] “leaders” – I know this word is misplaced — would do well to get a copy and go through it carefully.... Tanzanians have recently witnessed easily the most acrimonious exchanges — let’s not dignify them with the description “arguments” — in their history, all played out in full public view, because the press reported them, utterance after ugly utterance, with surprising accuracy.