BY ALI NASSOR
8th November 2015.
“We will never give out what we achieved with the use of machetes and clubs in exchange for a mere piece of paper,” is typical of repeated remarks by Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) stalwarts in Zanzibar in a show of their uncompromising stance against relinquishing power to anyone who does not belong to CCM, a successor to Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP) in the Isles through balloting.
The remark is central to defining political dynamics in Zanzibar. It is a remark that reflects on the nature of the revolution and those who carried it out, the pre- and post-revolution past; it defines the ongoing political impasse in Zanzibar and an apparent political future.
The slogan advocates are referring to the bloody event of January 12, 1964 in the history of Zanzibar, a revolution that toppled the one-month-old post-independence parliamentary government of Zanzibar under a constitutional monarch reminiscent of the English, locally known as ‘Sultan’.
Depending on the source of information, the death toll in the six-hour event ranged between 4,000 and 13,000 in Zanzibar town alone, then a city of about 60,000, but the higher figure was given by the self-annointed “Field Marshal” John Okello, a man who went over Radio Zanzibar at Raha Leo station to declare that he was the mastermind of the revolution and that he was leading the massacre of Arabs.
The revolution, whose critiques call a ‘coup d’etat’, as it overthrew what they believe was a constitutional government, was the mastermind of Abeid Amani Karume’s ASP that supposedly resorted to violence on losing multiparty election involving Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP) led by Ali Muhsin Barwan, Umma Party (UP) led by Adulrahman Mohammed Babu, and Zanzibar and Pemba People’s Party (ZPPP), headed by Mohamed Shamte.The remark is central to defining political dynamics in Zanzibar. It is a remark that reflects on the nature of the revolution and those who carried it out, the pre- and post-revolution past; it defines the ongoing political impasse in Zanzibar and an apparent political future.
The slogan advocates are referring to the bloody event of January 12, 1964 in the history of Zanzibar, a revolution that toppled the one-month-old post-independence parliamentary government of Zanzibar under a constitutional monarch reminiscent of the English, locally known as ‘Sultan’.
Depending on the source of information, the death toll in the six-hour event ranged between 4,000 and 13,000 in Zanzibar town alone, then a city of about 60,000, but the higher figure was given by the self-annointed “Field Marshal” John Okello, a man who went over Radio Zanzibar at Raha Leo station to declare that he was the mastermind of the revolution and that he was leading the massacre of Arabs.
ZNP had formed a merger with ZPPP to win over a coalition of ASP and UP after the elections, leading to Zanzibar independence from British trusteeship on December 10,1963, after which Shamte, who had been to Lancaster House in England for independence negotiations, became prime minister of the new government.
It was a revolution that was marked with an imposed hatred of the so-called “Africans” on the ruling class of “Arabs” and an apparent vengeance of the former over the latter.
The words that were once used to identify ethnic identity adopted a new twist associated with hatred immediately after the revolution owing to the political agenda of the day.
The deposed Sultan Jamshid bin Abdulla, who sought refuge in England on the day of the revolution, was branded a foreign Arab ruler by virtue of his Oman ancestry, though his Al-Busaidy family had been in the Isles earlier than fourteenth century. His great-great grandfather, Seyyid Said bin Sultan, the first Sultan of Zanzibar, is the one who in 1804 brought cloves to Zanzibar, the hitherto Isles’ economic backbone.
When his grandchild later merged Zanzibar with Oman to form the Sultanate of Zanzibar and Oman, Zanzibar became the seat of the Sultanate (Kingdom), implying that it was Zanzibar which ruled Oman, and not vice versa.
But these facts were overlooked by a society that was already divided on ethno-political grounds amid an informal debate between the two warring factions, namely the Afro-centric ASP-aligned bloc and the “nationalistic” monarchy aligned ZNP faction, locally known as Hizb, meaning the “Friends of the Sultan.” The two sides were divided in their understanding of a “Zanzibari” as an identity.
While the former regarded native Zanzibaris as “black with Mainland ancestry, and with little or without considerable cultural and blood intermingling” with other ethnic communities, the latter regarded a Zanzibari as someone who had been living in Zanzibar for generations, regardless of ethnic background.
Therefore, the ASP group regarded the Sultan and his rule as foreign and Karume and his comrades as natives, while ZNP regarded the Sultan in line with Karume as a native Zanzibari; only that Sultan was “more native than Karume” as the latter’s ancestral history was a mystery to many Zanzibaris, though it was widely known that his mother had migrated to Zanzibar from Nyasaland earlier in the century.
The controversial nationalistic sentiments grew to extremes with the onset of the revolution and the immediate period that followed.
The then president of the revolutionary government, Karume, banned all other parties, dismissing them as colonial; jailed leaders who did not flee the country including Shamte, and even persecuted his former comrades-in-arms in whom he had lost trust.
Jus to mention a few, they include Othman Shariff, a popular broadcaster; Mdungi Ussi, and vice-president Abdulla Kassim Hanga, who had earlier participated in authoring the post-independence constitution of Zanzibar under whose law was the formation of the toppled government.
The country was ruled with the rod of iron by Karume and members of the Revolutionary Council, which was composed of 15 die-hard nationalists, saw an enemy in anyone who did not share their political conscience, hence were eradicated.
Former literary works and history were branded colonial and banned or destroyed and changed, to be replaced by manipulated ones suiting the political system of the day.
Schools and public rallies were used as major platforms to spread the revolutionary culture that finally changed the history of Zanzibar into the prevailing myths revolving around a ‘monster’ Arab and an ‘intimidated’ African.
There could be no election in such a society where the government of the day had resorted to a revolution after it failed in every election.
“Elections are steps back to colonialism,” said Karume, President of Zanzibar and Chairman of the Revolutionary Council, who was also the First Vice-President of Tanzania, in his public rally at Maisara grounds in Zanzibar in 1967. It was a speech that was published into a booklet under the same title and was distributed in schools and other public places.
“There will be no elections in Zanzibar until after 50 years,” is another title of a booklet on Karume’s speech that was also used as a reference in schools.
The revolutionary council was reputed for having been dominated by members who had not gone to school, save for a few, including Aboud Jumbe and Idriss Abdulwakil. In such a council and a government it led, intellectuals would be branded as enemies because they were a threat to its existence.
“Intellectuals are the worst enemies of our nation,” said Karume in one of his speeches that was also followed by a booklet. Soon in schools, children would be routinely instructed to learn by heart and recit the “Words of Wisdom uttered by Hon.
Abeid Amani Karume” that included a parable, saying “We read but did not know; we learned and became aware,” implying superiority of those who did not go to school over Zanzibar intellectual world in bringing about true liberation to the people of the Isles.
Famous scholars including Sheikh Omar bin Addulla (Msaada), Hassan bin Ameir and Sheikh Abdulla Saleh Farsy had to flee the country, while Sharrif, Hanga and Ussi were just a few learned politicians who became victims of this ulterior policy, hence disappeared without trace.
Babu was secured by President Julius Nyerere in the Union government, but later became the mastermind of an abortive coup, leading to the assassination of Karume on April 7, 1972.
It was the 12th coup attempt on the revolutionary government in its eight years of existence. Karume had foreseen the defence challenges ahead of him right in 1964 owing to the enemies surrounding his revolutionary government, one of the major reasons why he was quick to initiate a union with the Republic of Tanganyika only three months after the revolution.
But it was a failed coup that marked a new era in Zanzibar politics. Karume was succeeded by Aboud Jumbe Mwinyi, amid protests by the hard-core conservative and semi-illiterate members of the Revolutionary Council. He would loosen the iron-rod style of ruling, reform the educational system and entertain some liberal figures into his government.
For the first time in eight years, he initiated entry of seven Zanzibaris from both islands into the University of Dar es Salaam. Among others, it was Maalim Seif Shariff Hamad who became Minister for Education in Jumbe’s government in the late 1970s, later becoming a leader of the mainly intellectual group fighting conservatives in government . It was also the start of the people of Pemba, Maalim’s native island, joining the political wagon that was dominated by people from the sister island of Unguja since 1964.
This is the man who initiated the fall of Jumbe in 1984 when the former was head of the Economic Planning Unit of the CCM National Executive Committee at very close range with President Nyerere, who was also chairman of the supreme party.
Back in Zanzibar in the same year Seif became Chief Minister in the government of Zanzibar led by Ali Hassan Mwinyi as Interim President.
Maalim Seif’s star as a politician of the people started shining when he engaged himself in a rather open fight with internal conservative elements and Nyerere in the Union government.
But it was not until in the early 1990s when the gates were open for a multiparty system that he shifted the unilateral rebellion to an organized endeavour by co-founding a party, whose neo-conservative opponents in Zanzibar would look at as a recurrence of the pre-revolutionary “Hizbu” party.
Giving power to such a party, according to them, is reminiscent of going back to a bitter history, re-instatement of the Arab sultanate, a betrayal of the glorious revolution and its central creed that “election is a colonial way to stay in power.”
Therefore, it is not a coincidence that CCM stalwarts in Zanzibar, including Special Seats member of the House of Representatives, Asha Bakari, would repeatedly insist: “if CUF really believes that we will give them the government that we secured through machetes and clubs, they are day-dreaming.” She would be loudly applauded every time she uttered the phrase to which she was addicted.
“I tell you, (Ismail) Jussa; we won’t give you the government; unless you take it through a coup. A revolutionary government is never taken over through pieces of paper. Have I made it clear to you?” she thundered in the Constituent Assembly last year, amid applause from supporters, mainly from the Isles.
Another maker of the new constitution from Zanzibar took the microphone to tell the assembly: “They are the agents of Arabs; they want to break the Union and open doors for their Arab masters to return. But we won’t give you our country; forget about it for good… show us the union contract between Unguja and Pemba or else we wont let you set foot on (Zanzibar) port on your way (to Pemba) from the Mainland.”
But Salimin Awadh Salmin, CCM lawmaker from Magomeni Constituency, made it clearer on February 19, this year, at a meeting with party leaders in Zanzibar, when he said; “We’ll not give the opposition the government, regardless of whether they win with a large majority. We have tanks and missiles to take care of them.”
Salmin died on the spot about 10 minutes later. But he was careful to tell the participants of the meeting, including big wigs like Ali Juma Shamhuna and Shamsi Vuai Nahodha, to get out of the room before giving an extremely hateful speech.
“Those who fear God should get out of this room, because today I’m going to talk dirt and all kinds of blaspheme,” Shamhuna, Nahodha and the handful left the room, only to collect his corpse 10 minutes later.
Therefore, it is not a coincidence that ZEC’s chairman Jecha Salim Jecha nullified the October 25 election results on finding out that Maalim Seif had emerged the winner, and that it was impossible to repeat the past election tricks to install CCM’s choice.
One wonders if Karume was wrong when he said there would be no elections in Zanzibar until after 50 years, and whether Asha Bakari was not right when she told CUF that they were day-dreaming!
SOURCE: GUARDIAN ON SUNDAY
No comments :
Post a Comment