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| Hashil Seif Hashil |
About Living under the shadow of terror: Zanzibar caught off guard:
No one could imagine that beauty of a Zanzibari Swahili lady after the Zanzibar Revolution of 1964 could lead to the destruction of her family. In the Living under the shadow of terror: Zanzibar taken off guard one follows the destruction of a family or families in an environment choked off by a political culture that turned out to be a pressure cooker to its own people. The political pressure cooker and the lady´s beauty caused a young man, Fikirini Tabu Mjaki and his family living in Zanzibar, to look for their security and protection in their business. The family members were successful in their work but their civilian rights were abused by those who never observed the rules of Human Rights. The family was paralysed when they were taken off guard when the claws of injustice attacked them in the midst of their successful day to day chores. The story pivots around themes of: 1. student-teacher relationship and patriarchalism, 2. the role of culture and its power on individuals, 3. the place of religion in a secular society, 4. misuse of political powers and abuse of Human Rights and 5. negative effects of regression from Abraham Harold Maslow´s hierarchy of needs. Topics covered: patriarchalism, culture, religion, secularism, human rights, Maslow´s hierarchy of needs
For centuries, Zanzibar and many cities along the coast of Kenya and present Tanzania had trade links with the Arabs, Persians, Indians and even Chinese. These trade links, resulted into development of settlements of many ethnic groups in Zanzibar and its neighbours. Subsequently, assimilation and inter marriage between foreign groups and the local people of Zanzibar gave birth to what we today refer to the Swahili people of East Coast of Africa whose language is Swahili; a bantu language with a lot of borrowed words from Arabic, Persian, and Indian. With further contacts with Europeans, mainly the Portuguese, Germans and English more borrowed words from European languages got into the Swahili language.
Zanzibar has gone through several, important, historical milestones in its political history with the Portuguese and Omanis first struggling to take control of the region. This was later followed by British and German eras; and subsequently Zanzibar became officially a British protectorate between 1890 and 10 December 1963 during which the sultan, with birth roots from Oman was retained for ceremonial purposes. Soon after independence from the British, on the 12 of January, 1964 Zanzibar, after a very short period, the first independent government of Zanzibar was overthrown in a bloody revolution led by a Kenya John Okello. Sheik Abeid Amani Karume (1905-1972) became the first president of the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar which soon after formed a union with Tanganyika to form The Republic of Tanzania. Zanzibar ended to be a sovereign state. It is now a region of Tanzania.
Zanzibar is a very popular tourist region with wonderful beaches, beautiful Indian Ocean water, fantastic underwater adventures like diving and snorkelling. Its marine parks has a lot of coral and limestone scarps that are natural habitats to dolphins, morays eels, lion fish, lobsters and many tropical fish, including white tip reef sharks, humpback whales, bottlenose dolphins, green turtle, octopus, etc.
The book, Living under the shadow of terror: Zanzibar caught off guard gives background to the turbulence history of Zanzibar. The story in the book pivots around themes of: 1. student-teacher relationship and patriarchalism, 2. the role of culture and its power on individuals, 3. the conflict between development of secularity in a religious society, 4. misuse of political powers and abuse of Human Rights and 5.chaos because of lack of application of Maslow´s hierarchy of needs. Themes covered: patriarchalism, culture, religion, secularism, human rights, and Maslow´s hierarchy of needs.
Tourists, historians and post-colonial literature enthusiasts wishing to visit Zanzibar for a peaceful holiday are highly recommended to read the book to understand the cultural set up of Zanzibaris and their way of thinking.
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Author Bio:
Following the assassination of the first President of Zanzibar Sheikh Abeid Amani Karume on April 7, 1972, Hashil was arrested and held as a political prisoner due to non-substantiated allegations of involvement in the assassination of the president. Hashil was detained without trial in various prisons on mainland Tanzania between 1972 and 1978. He was routinely tortured and humiliated. Hashil is a Danish citizen today and lives in Copenhagen. Hashil has worked with the Danish Institute of Human Rights in Copenhagen. He has written four books. In contrast to Hashil, Ahmed Faris is a Microbiologist/Bacteriologist and has published scientific articles in international journals. He was born in Kenya but now lives in Sweden.
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