Ustaadh
JF-Expert Member
- Oct 25, 2009
- 413
- 19
NOWADAYS, most women chose to keep their maiden names and not take on their husbands surnames when they get married, it may have become a fashionable thing to
keep our names or even use both names, but I am sure for most is for identity reasons.
If you take on your husbands name, you may miss the boring, Do you know Aliko of ?
-- which I always get, and being introduced to some distant relative, the one you have never heard of. If you have common first name, your former class mates will not look twice at the name in front of them, since they do not recognize it.
More importantly, people may forget who your father is or of which clan or tribe you belong to, actually people will start thinking that you belong to your husbands clan or tribe.
There is nothing bad about that, after all, it may be your way of bonding with your husband, but as a name is an identity, changing the last name may mean losing your identity as a daughter of someone through a name, and becoming a wife of someone.
That is what exactly happened to my beloved Tanganyika; when it lost its name to acquire Tanzania after its marriage with Zanzibar.
Reading though the independent day celebration stories last week, I was amazed at how I could not find the word Tanganyika in the first paragraphs.
Zanzibar kept its name, which makes me wonder if Zanzibar the husband in this marriage. Tanganyika is referred to as Tanzania mainland, even when marking its independence day; the papers were like President Kikwete led Tanzanians to mark the 49th anniversary
of the Mainland independence from the British colonial administration.
Just talk about Tanganyika to anyone who is not a Tanzanian and they may think you are talking about a newly-discovered dinosaur species that become extinct 65 million years ago; maybe that is what it has become, a long lost dinosaur!
But we have not become extinct, nor has our country. We are proud of being Tanzanians; but I know I am tired of being a Mainlander; I happened to have been born in a country called Tanzania, and so is every Zanzibari born after 1964, so someone please explain
why I am not a Tanganyikan as much as I am a Tanzanian.
Only 49 years after, which is very young for a nation, Tanganyika as a name, as an identity
has already become extinct? The first recorders of history; the media, is leading people to forgetting that the December 9, celebrations are to mark the Tanganyika Independence
Day, just another strong reason for a new constitution!
That is on top of having two presidents, two VPs, two PMs (even if they call theirs a chief),
two attorney generals, the list is endless, who are just adding to our rich nations expenditures.
Who you and I, the walalahoi, are paying for untill they die, -- how I wish Prez JK would have mentioned my name as a Premier, even if it would have been for one day, I
wouldnt have to work ever.
In this case, I support the shepherd-without-sheep; Mtikila, I want my beloved Tanganyika, not that I do not want the union or I hate being a Tanzania, but come on, lets have equal rights in this marriage -- if there are Zanzibaris inside Tanzania, then surely there must be Tanganyikans, am one of the millions!
Source: Daily News | Tired of being a Mainlander, I want Tanganyika Uhuru Day back
keep our names or even use both names, but I am sure for most is for identity reasons.
If you take on your husbands name, you may miss the boring, Do you know Aliko of ?
-- which I always get, and being introduced to some distant relative, the one you have never heard of. If you have common first name, your former class mates will not look twice at the name in front of them, since they do not recognize it.
More importantly, people may forget who your father is or of which clan or tribe you belong to, actually people will start thinking that you belong to your husbands clan or tribe.
There is nothing bad about that, after all, it may be your way of bonding with your husband, but as a name is an identity, changing the last name may mean losing your identity as a daughter of someone through a name, and becoming a wife of someone.
That is what exactly happened to my beloved Tanganyika; when it lost its name to acquire Tanzania after its marriage with Zanzibar.
Reading though the independent day celebration stories last week, I was amazed at how I could not find the word Tanganyika in the first paragraphs.
Zanzibar kept its name, which makes me wonder if Zanzibar the husband in this marriage. Tanganyika is referred to as Tanzania mainland, even when marking its independence day; the papers were like President Kikwete led Tanzanians to mark the 49th anniversary
of the Mainland independence from the British colonial administration.
Just talk about Tanganyika to anyone who is not a Tanzanian and they may think you are talking about a newly-discovered dinosaur species that become extinct 65 million years ago; maybe that is what it has become, a long lost dinosaur!
But we have not become extinct, nor has our country. We are proud of being Tanzanians; but I know I am tired of being a Mainlander; I happened to have been born in a country called Tanzania, and so is every Zanzibari born after 1964, so someone please explain
why I am not a Tanganyikan as much as I am a Tanzanian.
Only 49 years after, which is very young for a nation, Tanganyika as a name, as an identity
has already become extinct? The first recorders of history; the media, is leading people to forgetting that the December 9, celebrations are to mark the Tanganyika Independence
Day, just another strong reason for a new constitution!
That is on top of having two presidents, two VPs, two PMs (even if they call theirs a chief),
two attorney generals, the list is endless, who are just adding to our rich nations expenditures.
Who you and I, the walalahoi, are paying for untill they die, -- how I wish Prez JK would have mentioned my name as a Premier, even if it would have been for one day, I
wouldnt have to work ever.
In this case, I support the shepherd-without-sheep; Mtikila, I want my beloved Tanganyika, not that I do not want the union or I hate being a Tanzania, but come on, lets have equal rights in this marriage -- if there are Zanzibaris inside Tanzania, then surely there must be Tanganyikans, am one of the millions!
Source: Daily News | Tired of being a Mainlander, I want Tanganyika Uhuru Day back
