ZANZIBAR: THE AGONY OF ITS HISTORY BY SALIM MSOMA

FOR OPINION OR FEATURE COLUMNS:
   Voluminous literature now abounds by researchers and historians who have studied the turbulent history of political development of the islands of Zanzibar (Unguja and Pemba ). Various writers have shown how the multi-ethnic composition of its society that has evolved over the centuries gave rise to a racial diversity which was subsequently accentuated and politicised by both the colonial authorities and the political elites of the Zanzibar society.

   The politicization and institutionalization of ethnicity in Zanzibar political history was also brought about and facilitated by the coincidence of classes, castes with particular socio-ethnic groups. This scenario of coincidence of class-caste formations with racial groups was not unique to Zanzibar. It was to a lesser extent repeated throughout the Swahili city-states that sprang up on the East African littoral and outlying islets (Kilwa) during the Middle Ages.

   The fact that peoples' consciousness, perceptions and culture are moulded by the society in which they are born and reared, (socio-economic formation), does in the final analysis impact and affect their intellectual outlook, political sentiments and ideas. The latter is referred in political jargon as the superstructure of society. It reflects peoples' mindsets and in every society tend to remain behind as a legacy even after the socio-formation that generated it has disappeared.Thus for example, even after the eradication of feudal and caste relations in land ownership in Zanzibar after the 1964 redistribution of land, peoples' mentality is still bogged down in the past and vulnerable to manipulation by political opportunists and scoundrels.

   The point I would like to register in this article is that the writing of the history of the political development of Zanzibar has itself  become a victim of the racial prejudices pregnant in the Zanzibar ideological and political superstructure.Consequently there has arisen the official historiography on the one hand and polemical historiography of political adversaries on the other.The former dominate in the education system and tend to concentrate on explaining how the early immigrant Sultans of the isles grabbed the land of the indigenous and introduced large scale slave raiding and trading.It magnifies how the descendants of those Sultans built a highly patronized semi-feudal society of clans and lower castes.Any other historical events associated with descendants of the immigrants however positive, should be expunged from Zanzibar history or at best distorted.

   On the basis of this ethnicity based history, the contribution of those descendants of the immigrants in arousing nationalism in the struggle for independence from British rule on the isles is totally ignored. Instead the descendants are portrayed as having been a homogeneous layer of Zanzibar society which upheld pro-Sultan sympathies and were beneficiaries of its rule. However the real history on the ground proved quite the contrary.There is historical evidence that a considerable section of Arab descendants had at one time seriously nurtured republican anti-monarchic intentions several years before the anti-Sultan insurrection of 1964.

   In this context I would like to share with readers and particularly historians an episode in Zanzibar political development which has so evaded being mentioned in historical research. Way back in 1958 the leader of one of the political parties in who a descendant of the immigrants, Sheikh Ali Muhsin Barwani visited Egypt and managed to meet the President of that country Gamal Abdel Nasser.The latter who had become an extremely popular leader in the Afro-Asian world due to his defiance against Western incursions in the Middle East as well as his support in the fight against colonialism and imperialism, pledged to assist Zanzibar by providing scholarships to groups of students to study in Egypt and even building a University and a modern hospital in the isles.

  However following the visit a section of the leadership of Ali Muhsin's party thereafter secretly agreed with President Nasser, who was also a staunch anti monarch to recruit a number of young Zanzibaris to undergo military training in the Egyptian Army with the express purpose of forming a nucleus to engineer a republican regime change in the isles.The initial group of youth who joined the Egyptian Army were:

1. Mansour Mohamed from Pemba 
2. Adam Shafi
3. Abdallah Juma Bulushi
4. Hemed Hilal 
5. Shaban Salum 
6. Nassor Issa
7. Ahmed Suleiman Riamy 
8. Salim Ali Ahmed 
9. Ali Sultana
10. Nassor Mohamed Miskry and one other name. 

They joined the Egyptian Army in 1960 for an intensive combat course involving live fire arms Mansour Mohamed was nearly killed when a grenade shrapnel pierced his jaw when he accidentally failed to lie down quickly as instructed.

   No sooner had the commandos returned to Zanzibar than a cleavage developed within the ZNP leadership over whether to continue with the preparations for the forceful abdication of the Sultan. Ultimately the higher echelons of the party reached a consensus to abandon the scheme. All the commandos and other mobilized youth were summoned to a meeting at Kuta la Tembo area where a member of the leadership of ZNP duly informed them that the republican drive was no longer the strategy of the party. This decision engendered the first split, albeit silent, between the so-called Left and Right factions in the party.

   The Left faction never gave up the idea of launching a republican pustch and continued with their plans within the trade union organisation of the party, the Federation of Progressive Trade Unions (FPTU) where they took over its entire leadership. In 1962 the FPTU secretly dispatched another group of youth to Cuba for military training which included some from the previous Egyptian trained cadre. Major Raul Castro dispatched air tickets to ferry the cadres to Revolutionary Cuba. It was one of the earliest act of internationalist solidarity of the Cuban Revolution with the then developing Zanzibar nationalist liberation struggle.The group to Cuba included:

1. Said Meki Kayaya 
2. Abdul Gidemy 
3. Hemed Hilal 
4. Hashil Seif 
5. Ali Abdallah Bafakih 
6. Ahmed Bajabir Tony
7. Suleiman Sisi 
8. Haji Mpemba 
9. Abdullah Juma Bulushi 
10. Said Seif Raha-til Leyl 
11. Ali Yusuf Baalawy 
12. Abdulrahhim Mahmoud Handsome 
13. Amour Dugheish 
14. Shaban Salum 
15. Ali Mshangama 
16. Ali Amran Marhubi 
17. Ali Mahfoudh (18) Salim Saleh.

  On completion of their training they transited Dar es Salaam overnight to return to Zanzibar. A leading figure of TANU arranged for their overnight logistics. The history of the Cuban group has been adequately narrated by various writers as they constituted the core of the Umma militants during the anti Sultan uprising of 1964.

   I have taken pains to elaborate on this historical episode so as to debunk the official historiography that alleges that immigrant descendants of Zanzibar were a homogeneous group of the landed aristocracy and beneficiaries of the monarchy. Time is ripe for serious historians to undertake research on the political development of Zanzibar society so as to come up with unbiased studies that would fill the current vacuum prevalent in our schools. Students who are taught distorted history grow up with distorted minds.