Not so fast
FaizaFoxy, it is you who is disillusioned and have failed completely to comprehend Professor Karim Hirji's argument. He says it very bluntly, I quote;
This statement in red and its bluntness describes
Mohamed Said and his work in more ways than easily perceived by many with little understanding. It is this group that will come up with simple explanation like you have done above for they are prey to manipulations based on religion under the subject, creed. It is also important to note that while Professor Karim takes note of extremists from both sides of the aisle,
Mohamed Said's half truths are one sided and focus more on issues that divide us.
Kwi kwi kwi kwi teh teh teh, unaleta "hypothetical..data" with "Said's truth converted to half truth" by THE 'professor" halafu unasema hiyo ndiyo critique ya
Seminar: Tanzania A Country Without Heroes? wewe na "Professor" mna vituko vya ajabu sana.
Hebu pata hii:
Karume, ASP, Umma Party: The Zanzibar Revolution Strategists Who Never Were
The political history of Zanzibar is wrought with many events, themes and theories. Popular among Zanzibar revolutionaries are what they refer as the Arab slavery and this is taken as the source of the Zanzibar revolution of January 1964. This is the official history which is taught in schools for half a century and this history has its own ''official heroes,'' which are the Afro Shirazi Party (ASP) of
Abeid Amani Karume and Umma Party of
Mohamed Abdulrahman Babu and the faction of ''comrades'' who claim to have planned, organised and rose up in arms to overthrow the Arab oligarchy. The foundation of party politics and democracy built by Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP) popularly known as Hizbu is hardly mentioned. Again surprisingly little is known of the army of Makonde tribesmen forming a mercenary force from sisal estates in Sakura and Kipumbwi from Tanga in Tanganyika who were smuggled into the isles armed with machetes to beef up ASP. The Makonde fought in the night of the revolution and the day after killing many so called Arabs who they perceived had enslaved Africans for almost three centuries.
Nowhere is this army of mercenaries mentioned in the history of the Zanzibar Revolution or the people who planned, financed and organised the Zanzibar invasion (to borrow Ali Muhisin's and Sultan Jamshid's analogy) from Tanganyika. Fifty years after the revolution members of the ASP deny participation of any force from Tanganyika in the Zanzibar revolution. Surprisingly those who claim to have laid the foundation of the revolution have not documented their participation on how they participated in the revolution. The official hero of the Zanzibar Revolution is Karume though he was in the dark about the plot and came to know of the conspiracy to overthrow the government at the eleventh hour. But the most puzzling piece of jigsaw is John Okello who was seemingly the hero of the revolution. It was his voice which announced the fall of the Zanzibar government. Okello was neither at Sakura nor in the corridors of ASP nor is there any evidence that before the day of the revolution this man was known in the politics of Zanzibar.
The name of
Julius Nyerere, Kassim Hanga and
Oscar Kambona who were the mainstay of the plot do not appear anywhere in the history of the revolution nor the names of Victor
Mkello and
Mohamed Omari Mkwawa the two who with the connivance of the state machinery in Tanganyika recruited the Makondes from the sisal estates in Sakura to participate in the 1963 Zanzibar elections voting for ASP and to overthrow the government in 1964.[9] However these Makondes today remain faceless and nameless after years of denial and suppression of their role in the revolution. Where are the Okello tapes? Are they not part of Zanzibar history? Should they not be played and listened to by the people during anniversary of the revolution? Or are the tapes and Okello's role in the revolution an embarrassment today? Can a nation deny its own existence and therefore its own history?
The names of
Jumanne Abdallah and
Ali Mwinyi Tambwe, the two top government leadership in Tanga region involved in laying the groundwork for the invasion from Kipumbwi are nowhere to be seen in the saga. Throughout his entire life Ali Mwinyi Tambwe refused to talk about his role in the Zanzibar Revolution. But the jewel in the crown is the omission of Algerians and Israelis in the history of the Zanzibar Revolution much as a lot has been written on the role of United States government and Britain. Ben Bella the president of Algeria provided guns which were received in Dar es Salaam and Israeli it is believed played a subtle role through
Moshe Finsilber though it is not clear what Moshe actually did. [10] Further research is to be done to uncover the actual role of Moshe Finsilber in the Zanzibar Revolution. No wonder many political actors are missing in the dramatis personae of the Zanzibar Revolution play.[11] The history of atrocities which were carried out by Zanzibar Revolutionary Council and the ''Committee of Fourteen'' led by the notorious Seif Bakari and his followers is another area yet to be researched.[12]
This notwithstanding there has been attempts by individuals to uncover what happened during the dark days in Zanzibar particularly from 1964 to 1972. Among those who attempted to uncover the truth
Ali Nabwa's name stands out as a lone voice. Jim Bailey the proprietor of the Drum magazine was the first person to come across Ali Nabwa's ''Prison Letters,'' the letters which were seen for the first time by the present author in 1994 of which years later he had this to write in an obituary following Ali Nabwa's death in 2007:
It was through this manuscript[13]that I came for the first time face to face with Nabwa's pen through his Prison Letters. The letters introduced Nabwa's mind to me in a way that I cannot find words to describe. In those letters Nabwa's pen was not writing but weeping and whipping. The words from Nabwa's pen were taking me to a different world which even in my wildest imagination I never thought existed. The first letter written in 1973 from Central Police Station Dar es Salaam shocked me. In that letter Nabwa described intimidation and torture by the police in the style replica of the Ton Ton Macouts of Papa Doc's Haiti. In Nabwa's sense of humour in the letter he says it needs a Dickens to describe the squalor of the cell he was in. The letters which followed were all from Condemned Section of Ukonga Prison. In his analysis of the personalities which people were made to believe were symbols of justice and principles Nabwa's pen removed the charade and the camouflage to reveal their true colours and identity. Nabwa's letters were a potpourri of short biographies, dossiers, profiles, hit list of ‘enemies' and method of their execution. In the Prison Letters Nabwa's pen exposed the atrocities which took place in Zanzibar after the revolution and analysed the arrogance, mediocrity and sheer myopia of the leadership. Now looking back I am happy that I was among those privileged to read Nabwa's revelations of injustices in Zanzibar before he became a celebrity of sorts and his revealing articles major topic of discussion in the corridors of power.
The atrocities which no one had the courage to speak about them publicly for almost forty years were laid bare for all to read through Dira the paper which Nabwa founded in 2004. Dira was the first free newspaper in Zanzibar since the revolution. The ripples from Nabwa's pen were electrifying. Dira became a paper eagerly awaited by the public including Zanzibar leadership each week. Its circulation rose each passing week. Nabwa's pen was lifting the lid in broad daylight. The stories of treachery, rape, murder, homosexuality, forced marriages by members of the Revolutionary Council and their cronies in Zanzibar were all there with names, places and accomplices for all to read and pass judgement. Those who had demonised the Sultan had no tongue to defend their own ‘upright' track record. The young generation began to ask questions and in the answers they saw the leadership in power and the revolution in a different light all together.
On the contrary the sultan left Zanzibar his hands untainted with blood. This cannot be said to the government which came into power after the revolution.[14] Adam Shafi himself a victim of those atrocities has vividly portrayed the times in his novel ''Haini,''[15] thinly and unconvincingly disguising his narration as fiction.
The political history of Tanganyika and Zanzibar remains undocumented to date, save for the efforts by Ghassany and the author of this paper to present respectively a contrary view of the official history. [16] The official version has conveniently omitted the decisive role of many patriots. The corrective version has attempted to insert back into history those forgotten patriots including the unpalatable realities and hard facts. Yash Tandon has lamented on the neglect of patriots who fought for independence of their countries. Tandon called the forgotten heroes like Abdulwahid Sykes and other patriots like Chege
Kibachia, Makhan Singh, Fred Kubai, James Kivu, I.K. Musazi, Erika Fiah and
Gama Pinto as ''veteran leaders of the struggle of the peoples of East Africa... whom our recent historians have forgotten.''[17]
In Tanzania the book, ''The Life and Times of Abdulwahid Sykes (1924 – 1968) the Untold Story of the Muslim Struggle against British Colonialism,''[18]has completely changed the history of Tanganyika's struggle for independence. The work has brought into the fore patriots who were in the struggle many years before Nyerere. But the shocking revelation in the book was the fact that TANU was the brainchild of Abdulwahid Sykes and not Nyerere and that its origin emanates from
Kleist Sykes, Abdulwahid's father who founded the African Association in 1929 and Al Jamiatul Islamiyya fi Tanganyika (Muslim Association of Tanganyika) in 1933 the two associations which later in 1950s provided leadership to TANU. Unique in these two associations is the fact that for many years the office bearers were the same.
Having purposely buried those who fought for independence consequently part of the history of these countries is lost. Students of political history in East African countries are in the dark about important events which took place and carried out by the forgotten patriots. For example few are aware that there was an attempt in 1950 by Kenya African Union (KAU) and TAA through their leaders,
Kenyattaand
Abdulwahid to link the Kenyan struggle during Mau Mau with that in Tanganyika and a secret meeting was held in Nairobi between the two. During the Meru Land case in 1950 Tanganyika sought help from Kenya to assist them in confronting the settler community in Meru.[19]There were also Kenyans in TAA Executive Committee prominent among them were
Dome Okochi Budohi, Patrick Aoko and
C Ongalo. These three Kenyans in the TAA executive committee held office alongside
Abdulwahid Sykes and
Nyerereand were among the early members of the African National Union (TANU) when the party was formed in 1954.[20]
This piece of information here below stands as witness to the rich history which for many years remained unknown:
Abdulwahid and his friend
Ahmed Rashad Ali went to a house in the suburbs which was in darkness and surrounded by Mau Mau guards. He was expected. Kenyatta was informed and came out of the house to receive him. This meeting took place under the cover of darkness probably in Eastleigh in the suburbs of Nairobi where most of the 1950s Mau Mau meetings before the emergency took place. Ahmed Rashad Ali recalls that he heard Kenyatta calling Abdulwahid by name. Kenyatta had known Ally Sykes in Nairobi in 1946 and it is most probable that Abdulwahid's work was made easy by that acquaintance. Ahmed Rashad Ali met Kenyatta and they shook hands. After introductions,
Kenyatta, Abdulwahid, Fred Kubai, Bildad Kaggia and
Kungu Karumba went to another room where the meeting took place. Ahmed Rashad remained outside with a guard.[21]
Another meeting was proposed by Kenyatta to be held in Arusha and TAA was to be presented by
Abdulwahid Sykes, Steven Mhando and
Dossa Aziz. This meeting never took place because ''Operation Anvil'' came into operation soon after.
In 1955
Dome Budohi and
Patrick Aoko and other Kenyans were among Kenyans rounded up in Dar es Salaam following ''Operation Anvil'' which came into operation in Kenya in 1954.
Budohi and
Aoko the two active Kenyans in TANU were remanded at Central Police Station[22] in Dar es Salaam and were all the time kept in chains. Budohi was the first Kenyan to join TANU and was the proud bearer of TANU card no. 6.[23] Budohi and Aoko were interrogated for six months and then sent to a camp in Handeni to be transported to detention camps in Kenya. Budohi was detained in Lamu Island. The Kenyan nationalists were packed in cattle wagons chained and they passed through Korogwe and Taveta on their way back to Kenya. Ally Sykes then transferred to Korogwe as punishment for being among the 17 founders of TANU went to the railway station to see them off.
Among the staff working at the Handeni camp was
Rashid Mfaume Kawawa later to be Vice President of Tanganyika. In Kawawa's biography [24]his stint at the camp in Handeni is not mentioned. Kawawa's book has nothing on these Kenyan patriots who struggled for Tanganyika's independence and about his experience with them at the Handeni Mau Mau camp and what became of them when both Kenya and Tanganyika gained independence. Nyerere has never talked about these Kenya nationalists either. Budohi and Kawawa were both entertainers of their time, the cool, elegant young men of Dar es Salaam of 1950s. Budohi was a talented musician playing with the Skylarks Band with the Sykes brothers and Kawawa was an actor.
How is this so? Budohi and Kawawa knew each other very well. The two had acted together in a movie "Wageni Wema" made by Community Development Department let alone that both were budding young politicians. Kawawa surely must be having a lot of fond memories of those days long gone. It is also strange that Kawawa's book does not have references to his personal papers which are not only important to Kawawa's life history but to the history of Tanganyika as well. Kawawa's book does not mention contemporaries and fellow trade unionists of his time in Tanganyika African Government Servants Association (TAGSA) like
Ally Sykes, Dr. Wilbard Mwanjisi, Thomas Marealle and others. Why this was not in his book one can only speculate. It is now known without any shade of doubt that such kind of information was surpassed because it was not to the interest of those in power it is known that there were efforts to liberate the country before their time. Kawawa's book which should have been a political biography remains drab all the way through the pages.[25]
Chanzo:
Seminar: TANZANIA - A COUNTRY WITHOUT HEROES - Mohamed Said
Did Hirji criticize any of that?