Ameandika Advocate: Othman Masoud

KAMARA KUSUPA NA MTAMBO WA KASUMBA JUU YA ZANZIBAR

Nimesoma katika Gazeti la An-nuur la tarehe 11- 17 Novemba, 2016, Makala ya Mwinjilisti Kamara Kusupa isemayo “Kabla ya kudai “Fungu Baraka” Ulizeni nani aliitoa Zanzibar UN?  Makala hiyo imeshereheshwa na maneno “tusisahau kila zama na kitabu chake”.  Mwandishi wa Makala hiyo ameeleza wazi kuwa nia yake ni kujibu Makala niliyoandika kuhusu umiliki wa Zanzibar wa kisiwa cha Latham (Fungu Mbaraka) na kusambazwa katika mitandao ya kijamii na magazeti mbali mbali.

Nitangulie kueleza kwamba baada ya Makala hiyo kuchapishwa na mitandao na magazeti mbali mbali nilipigiwa simu na Watanzania wengi kutoka Tanzania Bara na Zanzibar na takriban wote walishukuru kwa utafiti wa kina niliofanya na kuiweka bayana historia yetu katika suala la kisiwa hicho.  Watanzania hao sio wa kwanza kukiri kwamba walikua hawajui historia hiyo.  Hata viongozi wengi wa Serikali wakati nilipowasilisha utafiti huo walikiri kwamba walikuwa hawajui historia hiyo kwa kina kiasi hicho zaidi ya kujua tu kwamba kisiwa hicho kiko upande wa Zanzibar.

Katika Makala yake Mwinjilisti Kusupa ameeleza mengi na kutuhumu mengi ambayo yanaonesha kwamba yeye ameichukulia Makala yangu kuwa ya kisiasa, ya kiuchochezi na kwamba ni ishara ya kupinga Muungano.  Fikra zake hizi potofu ndio zilizonifanya niweke kumbukumbu sawa.  Aidha, fikra zake hizo potofu zina kila dalili kwamba Mwinjilisti Kusupa ni miongoni mwa mafundi waliobebea wa Mtambo wa Kasumba kuhusu Zanzibar.  Unachojua Mtambo huo ni kupotosha kila kitu kuhusu Zanzibar kwa kutumia wino wa usultani na uarabu na kalamu ya Muungano.

CHANZO CHA MAKALA YA FUNGU MBARAKA

KWANZA, Mwinjilisti Kasupa anakiri kuwa haelewi madhumuni ya Makala yangu lakini badala ya kuuliza kama walivyofanya waungwana wengine walionipigia simu kutoka Kigoma, Simiyu, Iringa, Shinyanga, Arusha na Dar yeye ameamua kuchukua wino wake wa usultani na kalamu ya Muungano kuchakata Kasumba.

Napenda kumfahamisha kwa ufupi historia na madhumuni ya Makala hiyo.  Mwishoni mwa mwaka 2011, Wizara ya Mifugo na Uvuvi Zanzibar ilitoa leseni ya uvuvi kwa Kampuni ya Open Water Adventures LTD kwa ajili ya uvuvi wa “sports fishing” katika maeneo ya Zanzibar isipokuwa katika maeneo ya hifadhi ya bahari.  Miongoni mwa maeneo ambayo Kampuni hiyo ilikusudia kuvua ni eneo la kisiwa cha Latham (Fungu Mbaraka). Kampuni hiyo waliomba kuthibitishiwa na Idara ya Uvuvi Zanzibar kuwa eneo la Latham sio sehemu ya hifadhi ya bahari.  Idara ya Uvuvi iliwajibu kwa barua yao DFD/2124/II/Vol I ya tarehe 22 Sptemba, 2011 kwamba eneo la kisiwa cha Latham sio eneo la hifadhi ya bahari.

Kampuni hiyo ilipeleka wateja wake ambao ni raia wa nchi mbali mbali ikiwemo Marekani na Afrika Kusini kuvua katika kisiwa cha Latham tarehe 16 Novemba, 2011.  Wakiwa katika kazi hiyo walikamatwa na watu ambao baadaye walikuja kufahamika kuwa ni maofisa wa Uvuvi wa Tanzania Bara na wakapelekwa Dar es salaam na kuwekwa ndani.  Kampuni hiyo pamoja na kutaka ufafanuzi wa uhalali wa kitendo hicho kutoka Wizara ya Maendeleo ya Mifugo na Uvuvi ya Tanzania Bara lakini walijibiwa kuwa Wizara hiyo ndiyo yenye mamlaka ya kutoa leseni za uvuvi na kwamba kisiwa cha Latham pia kimo katika mamlaka yao.

Baada ya tukio hilo ndipo hatua za Serikali ya Mapinduzi Zanzibar kuwasiliana na Serikali ya Muungano juu ya kadhia hiyo zilipochukuliwa.  Ni kwa kupitia kadhia hiyo ndipo Serikali ya Muungano ilipoamsha rasmi mzozo wa umiliki wa kisiwa cha Latham kwani Waziri Mkuu Mizengo Pinda alieleza wazi kwamba kisiwa hicho kwa mujibu wa kumbukumbu za SMT ni cha Tanzania Bara.

Mzozo mwengine wa wazi baina ya pande mbili za Muungano kuhusiana na kisiwa hicho kisiwa ni katika suala la utafutaji na uchimbaji wa mafuta na gesi asilia.  Ni wazi kwamba suala hili hasa ndio lilopelekea madai ya ajabu ya Waziri Mkuu, Mizengo Pinda kuhusiana na kisiwa cha Latham.  

Kwa mujibu wa kifungu cha 2 cha Sheria ya Petroli iliyotungwa na Bunge ya mwaka 2015, mafuta na gesi asilia yatasimamiwa na vyombo vya SMT kwa upande wa Tanzania Bara na vyombo na taasisi za SMZ kwa upande wa Zanzibar.  Na kwa mujibu wa kifungu cha 4 cha Sheria hiyo mafuta na gesi vitachimbwa katika maeneo ya kijiografia ya Zanzibar na Tanzania Bara.  Hata hivyo si sheria hiyo wala nyengine yoyote iliyofafanua maeneo ya kijiografia ya pande mbili za Muungano.  

Kisiwa cha Latham mbali ya kuwa kituo kilichotumika kupima eneo la ukanda huru wa kiuchumi wa bahari kuu (baseline point) lakini kwa ugawaji wa sasa wa vitalu kinaviweka vitalu namba 7, 8 na kitalu cha Latham Kimbiji katika utatanishi mkubwa wa umiliki kwa mujibu wa kifungu cha 4 cha Sheria ya Petroli.  Hivyo kupatiwa ufumbuzi wa kitaalamu suala la umiliki wa kisiwa cha Latham sio suala la kasumba ya Kusupa, kwamba ni siasa, bali ni lazima kwa mujibu wa matakwa ya sheria zetu.

Jambo la pili muhimu naomba kumrejesha Mwinjilisti Kusupa katika Katiba ya Jamhuri ya Muungano ya Tanzania.  Tokea katika Mkataba wa Muungano suala la kuwepo pande mbili za Muungano na kuwepo Serikali mbili na kuwepo mambo ya Muungano na yasiyo ya Muungano ndio umekuwa mhimili wa Muungano.  Ibara ya 4 ya Katiba ya sasa ya Muungano imeliweka jambo hilo bayana sana.  Kama unatambua kuwepo mamlaka Zanzibar inayoongozwa na Serikali yenye mihimili yote mitatu ya dola, itawezekanaje usibainishe mipaka ya kijiografia ya eneo hilo la kiutawala.  Ni kwa mantiki hiyo ndio mana hata Jimbo la uchaguzi, Kata, Shehia, Wilaya na Mkoa yote inayo mipaka ya kijiografia (territorial or geographical boundaries).  Nashindwa kupima nadhari za Mwinjilisti Kusupa anapoona ni dhambi kueleza mipaka ya Zanzibar na anaposema kwamba kusema kwamba kisiwa cha Latham ni cha Zanzibar ni dalili ya kutaka kukitoa kisiwa hicho mikononi mwa Tanzania ili wapewe wageni wafanye wanavyopenda na kuidhuru Tanzania.

Jambo la tatu la kumtanabahisha Mwinjilisti Kusupa ni kuwa kwa mujibu wa Sheria za sehemu zote mbili za Muungano, mtu aliyefanya kosa Zanzibar iwe la jinai au madai hawezi kushtakiwa Tanzania Bara na kinyume chake.  Hivyo, kwa mfano mtu akitenda kosa la jinai katika kisiwa cha Latham hoja ya mwanzo ni kuwa ashtakiwe katika Mahkama za upande upi na mamlaka ipi ina uwezo wa kumshtaki, DPP wa Zanzibar au wa Tanzania Bara.  Hoja hii ipo pia 

kwa mamlaka za Mahkama na za kiserikali kwa mambo ambayo si ya Muungano.

Ni vyema akina Kusupa wakaelewa kwamba hoja ya umiliki sio hoja ya kisiasa wala ya kizayuni bali ya kikatiba kwa mujibu wa Katiba zetu za Tanzania na ya kisheria kwa mujibu wa sheria zetu za Tanzania.  Aidha, hoja ya umiliki wa Latham si ya akina Othman bali ni ya Jahmhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania.  Serikali ya Zanzibar mara kadhaa imetoa tamko la wazi na bayana ndani ya Baraza la Wawakilishi ambalo limekuwa likidai ufafanuzi wa umiliki wa kisiwa hicho.  Katika maelezo yake, Serikali imekuwa siku zote ikiwatoa hofu Wazanzibari kuwa kisiwa hicho ni cha Zanzibar na hakuna anayeweza kukidai.  Matamko ya karibuni yametolewa na waliopo sasa madarakani kupitia Bwana Mohamed Aboud na Bwana Issa Haji Ussi Gavu wote wametoa kauli hizo katika Baraza la Wawakilishi.  Wote hao wawili ni mawaziri katika utawala uliopo Zanzibar na ambao naamini akina Kusupa hawana mashaka nao juu ya utii wao kwa TANZANIA.  Mbali ya matamko hayo ndani ya Baraza la Wawakilishi, hivi karibuni, ndani ya Bunge la Muungano Waziri katika Ofisi ya Makamu wa Rais Bwana Januari Makamba alijibu suali kuhusu kisiwa cha Latham.  Kituko alichofanya ni kuwa alisema kuwa kisiwa hicho ni cha Muungano wakati aliulizwa kuwa jee kisiwa hicho kipo upande gani wa Muungano.  Naamini kama angeulizwa kuhusu kisiwa cha Mafia asingesema kuwa kisiwa hicho ni cha Muungano.  Waswahili wanasema “mwenye macho haambiwi tazama”.  Kwa wenye macho wanaona bila kuambiwa kuwa kuna mgogoro baina ya pande mbili za Muungano.  Lakini kama kawaida Tanzania ya zama za kitabu cha akina Kusupa kila kitu kinafichwa, kinapotoshwa na kupambwa kwa siasa za dahri na zama.  Ni baada ya majibu hayo ndipo nilipoamua kuwaeleza ukweli Watanzania juu ya suala hilo.  Hivyo, ni dhahiri mtambo wa kasumba wa akina Kusupa haufurahii na ukweli huo na wanatafuta kila njia kuzalisha kasumba za kupotosha ukweli.

HOJA YA MIKATABA YA ZAMANI NA MIPAKA YA WAKOLONI

Mwinjilisti Kusupa amepotosha kiasi cha kupotosha au niseme amejipotosha mno kuhusu suala la mikataba ya kikoloni na mipaka ya leo ya nchi za Afrika.  Kwa fikra zake kwamba mikataba ya kikoloni iliyoigawa Afrika haina nafasi sasa hivi.  Na haifai kutumika kujenga hoja.  Ameenda mbali zaidi kwa kusema kuwa akina Othman hawana tofauti na wenye chachu ya kizayuni wanaotumia maandiko ya kale kuhalalisha anayofanya sasa hivi.  Nasema amejipotosha kwa vile katika Makala hiyo anakubaliana na Tamko la OAU la 1963 kuhalalisha mipaka ya kikoloni.  Suala ni kuwa jee Mwinjilisti Kusupa anajua kuwa mipaka ya kikoloni ilitumia maandiko ya kale zaidi kuliko 1898 wakati Zanzibar ilipotangaza rasmi kuwa Latham ni ya kwake?  Aidha, Kusupa anajenga dhana kwamba ni mipaka ya Zanzibar tu ndiyo iliyoundwa na Sultani lakini ile ya Tanganyika ni ya kizalendo na imeakisi matakwa ya Watanganyika wenyewe.

Labda nimtanabahishe Mwinjilisti Kasupa tu kwamba kwanza mipaka ya eneo la Afrika Mashariki ambalo baadaye lilikuja kuwa Tanganyika kama nchi moja, ilianza hasa na utashi wa mtu mmoja, Carl Peters kinyume hata na matakwa ya viongozi wa nchi yake ya Ujerumani.  Wanahistoria wanaelewa vizuri kwamba Kansela wa Ujerumani wa wakati huo, Bwana Otto von Bismark ambaye alikuwa na ushawishi mkubwa kwa mfalme wao William II hakuwa na hamu na sera ya makoloni Afrika.  Ni baada ya ushawishi wa Carl Peters na wenzake na kuonesha kwa vitendo kuwa tayari wanazo sehemu wanazoweza kuzifanya makoloni Afrika ndipo ramani ya iliyokuja kuwa Tanganyika ilipoanza  kuchorwa kuanzia tarehe 3 March, 1885 wakati Emperor William wa Ujerumani alipokubali kuyatambua maeneo yaliyopatikana kwa mikataba ya ghilba ya Carl Peters na machifu wenyeji.  Maeneo yaliyotambuliwa yalikuwa manne tu nayo ni Usagara, Naguru, Useghu na Ukami [inawezekana maeneo hayo sasa yamebadili majina].  Kutambuliwa huko kulipata nguvu baada ya Waziri wa Mambo ya nje wa Uingereza Bwana Glanville, alipomueleza Waziri wa Mambo ya Nje wa Ujerumani Count Herbert von Bismarck kwamba Uingereza inatambua maeneo hayo ya Ujerumani katika bara ya Afrika Mashariki.  Wakati Tanganyika inaanza kuchorwa na Wajerumani Zanzibar tayari ilikuwa na mikataba ya kibalozi na Marekani, Uingereza, Italy, Ufaransa na Ubelgiji.  Takriban nchi zote hizo zilikuwa na Balozi zao Zanzibar.  Marekani kwa mfano chini ya Balozi wao ambaye alikuwa pia mfanyabiashara Bwana Richard Waters ilikuwa ikifanya biashara kubwa na Zanzibar wakati huo.

Ni baada ya hatua hiyo ya Mfalme William na hatua ya Uingereza kutambua mbegu iliyozaa Tanganyika ndipo Balozi wa Ujerumani aliyekuwepo Zanzibar Dr Gerhard Rohlfs alipomtaka Sultani naye atambue rasmi maeneo ya Ujerumani ya Bara.  Sultani alipokataa ndipo mwezi wa August, 1885 kikosi cha Wanamaji cha Ujerumani kilipopelekwa Zanzibar kumtishia Sultani kuitambua mipaka ya Ujerumani Bara au watatumia nguvu.  Hatua hii iliifanya Uingereza iingilie kati na kumshawishi Sultani akubali mipaka hiyo. [ingawa kumbukumbu zinaonesha Ujerumani na Uingereza shauri lao lilikua moja].  Tarehe 14 August, 1885 Sultani alikubali mipaka hiyo na Tume ya kuainisha mipaka ikaundwa na kuanza kazi Oktoba mwaka huo wa 1885.  Hatimaye, baada ya Tume ya Mipaka kumaliza kazi ilipelekea Mkataba wa 1886 baina ya Uingereza na Ujerumani kuhusiana na kuainisha mipaka ya Ujerumani Bara na Mipaka ya Zanzibar. Ujerumani ilichukua takriban eneo lote ambalo leo ndio Tanganyika na Zanzibar ikabakishwa na ukanda wa pwani wa Bara wa maili 10 tokea Mto Ruvuma hadi Mto Tana. 

Sina hakika kama Mwinjilisti Kusupa itapotokea mzozo wa eneo la Tanganyika ataukubali mkataba huo wa 1886 au kwake utakuwa ni uzayuni kutumia maandiko ya kale kuhalalisha haki yako ya sasa.

Baada ya mkataba huo wa 1886, Tanganyika ilikuja kuwekwa bayana zaidi na mkataba wa Heligoland- Zanzibar wa July, 1890.  Mkataba huu pia ndio uliweka bayana zaidi mipaka ya Kenya na Uganda za leo.

Ukifatilia harakati na matokeo yaliyopelekea mkataba wa Heligoland ni wazi kuwa ulizingatia zaidi maslahi ya Wajerumani na Waingereza sio ya makabila kadhaa ambayo kwa wakati huo yalikuwa bado hayajawa nchi moja.  

Ni baada ya kuondoka Kansela Otto von Bismark madarakani March, 1890 ndipo Waingereza walipoingia hofu kuwa Mfalme William atafuata ushawishi wa wafanyabiashara na wanasiasa wanaopenda Ujerumani iwe na sehemu kubwa ya makoloni Afrika.  Ushahidi wa hofu hii ya wazi ya Waingereza ilioneshwa  na jarida la TIMES la March 20, 1890 ambapo lilieleza kuwa Waingereza wengi wanapenda iwepo suluhu ya mipaka ya makoloni Afrika baina ya Uingereza na Ujerumani ili kuepusha ugomvi baina ya Uingereza na Ujerumani utaotokana na uchu wa makoloni wa Ujerumani baada ya Bismark kuondoka.  Ni kutokana na hilo ndipo Sir Percy Anderson wa Wizara ya Mambo ya Nje ya Uingereza alipotakiwa aende Berlin, Ujerumani kuanzisha mazungumzo na Serikali ya Kansela Leo von Caprivi aliyeshika madaraka baada ya Bismark.  Kabla ya kwenda Berlin, Anderson alionana na Balozi wa Ujerumani nchini Uingereza Count Hatzfeldt na hatimaye akaenda Ujerumani May 3, 1890 na kuanza mazungumzo tarehe 5 May, 1890 na Dr. Krauel wa Wizara ya Mambo ya Nje wa Ujerumani.

Mazungumzo hayo yalizaa majadiliano ya miezi 2 ambapo kila upande ukieleza kile inachotaka.  Ujerumani ikikubali kuitoa sehemu ya ziwa Nyanza upande wa kaskazini lakini ikishikilia nayo kuachiwa ukanda wa Pwani uliopo chini ya Zanzibar na kisiwa cha Heligoland.  Mjadala mkali katika Bunge la Uingereza wa May 22, 1890 unatoa ufafanuzi wa kutosha juu ya maslahi ya wakoloni kwa mipaka waliyochora.  Hatimaye mkataba wa Heligoland- Zanzibar ulitiwa saini July 1, 1890 lakini ulihitaji kuidhinishwa na Mabunge ya Uingereza na Ujerumani.  Mkataba huo ndio uliokuja kuiondoa Ruvuma, Mtwara, Lindi, Mafia, Dar es salam na Tanga na sehemu ya mwambao wa pwani wa Tanganyika kutoka mikononi mwa Zanzibar. Mjadala mkali katika Bunge la Uingereza wakati wa kujadili Mswada wa Sheria ya Kuiondoa Heligoland Uingereza (Heligoland Cessation Bill) uliofanyika July 3, 1890 na hotuba ya Kansela Leo von Caprivi katika Bunge la Ujerumani la Reichstag tarehe 28 Julai, 1890 ni ushahidi wa kutosha kwamba Afrika Mashariki iligaiwa kwa kuzingatia maslahi ya kiuchumi na kimkakati ya Wakoloni.  Aidha, ni ushahidi kuwa mipaka ya Tanganyika na Zanzibar haikuwekwa na Sultani bali na Waingereza na Wajerumani.  Ni ushahidi pia kwamba mipaka ya leo ni ajali ya kihistoria ambayo tumekuja kuikubali kama ilivyo na kuilinda kwa Katiba, Sheria na nguvu zetu za kijeshi kama tulivyofanya kule Kagera.  Ni vyema pia akina Kusupa wasome kwa makini kitabu cha Map of Africa by Treaty kilichoandikwa na Sir Edward Hertslet ambacho ndicho kinachotumiwa kama rejea ya kuthibitisha mipaka ya Afrika katika Mahkama za kimataifa na Mabaraza ya Usuluhishi ya mipaka.  Sina hakika kama Kusupa atawaita wanaotumia kitabu hicho ni Wazayuni kama anavyowaita akina Othman.

Jambo la mwisho kuhusu mikataba ya zamani na mipaka ya Afrika na dunia napenda kumtanabahisha Kusupa kuwa hata Sheria za kimataifa zimetambua Treaty law kama msingi mkuu wa kuamua mipaka baina ya nchi mbali mbali duniani.  Na katika mikataba inayotambulika na Sheria za kimataifa ile mikataba ya zamani inapewa uzito wa aina ya pekee.  Aidha, sheria za kimataifa zinatambua mipaka iliyowekwa wakati wa ukoloni kuwa ni msingi mkubwa wa uhalali wa mipaka ya sasa.  Chini ya Kanuni ya Uti Possidetis, hata Mahkama ya Kimataifa ya ICJ mara kadhaa imeipa uhalali mipaka ya kikoloni katika kuamua migogoro ya mipaka Afrika, Amerika ya Kusini na Asia.

Kwa hili la Latham lipo jambo la ziada la kuzingatia.  Katiba ya Zanzibar ya mwaka 1963 ilieleza wazi kwamba mipaka ya Dola ya Zanzibar ni visiwa vya Unguja, Pemba na Latham.  Katiba hiyo ndiyo iliyotumika na Zanzibar kuomba na kukubaliwa uanachama wa Umoja wa Mataifa.  Aidha, wakati huo Tanganyika ilishatangulia kupata uhuru kwa angalau miaka miwili.  Haikutokea hata siku moja Tanganyika kulalamika rasmi au kwa njia isiyo rasmi kwamba mipaka hiyo ya Zanzibar inaingilia Tanganyika.

Akina Kasupa wanapojaribu kutuuzia kasumba kwamba mipaka hiyo ni ya Sultani kwa vile tu inahusu Zanzibar kama kwamba ile ya Tanganyika na nchi nyengine za Afrika ni mipaka ya kizalendo ni kudhihirisha kwamba wanadhani Watanzania na hasa Wazanzibari hawawezi kupambanua ajali hiyo ya historia ambayo tumeihalalisha na madam tumeikubali na kuihalalisha ni lazima tuilinde kama tulivyoilinda Kagera bila kujali udugu wa Waganda na Watanzania wa Kagera.  Aidha, ajali hiyo ya kihistoria kama tulivyobainisha imetambuliwa na sheria na Mahkama za kimataifa na pia Umoja wa Nchi Huru za Afrika na Tanzania ndio iliyokuwa kinara wa azimio hilo la OAU la kutambua mipaka ya kikoloni. 

HOJA YA SULTANI NA UMILIKI WA ZANZIBAR

Kusupa anajaribu kutuuzia kasumba nyengine ya ovyo zaidi anaposema kwamba Latham ni ya Sultani sio ya Wazanzibari na hivyo hawawezi kuidai.  Nasema hii ni kasumba ya ovyo kwa vile kwa ushahidi nilioeleza hapo juu Tanganyika sio tu kwamba ni ya Wajerumani lakini kwa ajali hiyo hiyo ya historia ilikuwa ya Zanzibar na ikachukuliwa kwa hila na nguvu na Wajerumani.  Hivi kuna mtu yeyote wa Tanganyika au Mtanzania wa leo aliyehusika kuweka mipaka ya Tanganyika?  Kama ni hivyo, msingi gani uliotumiwa na Tanzania kupigania Kagera? Na ni msingi gani unaotumika na Tanzania leo kudai eneo la ziwa Nyasa?  Na ni msingi upi unaotumika leo na nchi za Afrika kuweka pasi za kusafiria ndani ya Afrika na vikwazo vya viza na vyenginevyo.  Kusupa atueleze kama uzalendo, uafrika na udugu ndio chanzo cha umoja wa Afrika kipi kinachoipa Tanzania kuhofia Kenya kuhusu ardhi na kufanya kazi bila kizuizi.  Ni vyema tukawa wakweli na kuzitendea haki taaluma na nadhari zetu.  Ni vyema pia kuwa na heshima kwa wenzetu kwa kutowauzia kasumba za ajabu za uzalendo pori kiasi hichi.

Jambo jengine nnaloomba kuwatanabahisha akina Kusupa ni kuwa asiwatishie nyau Wazanzibar kwa Sultani kama kwamba ni jinni linaloishi kuimeza Zanzibar wakati wowote ule kutapokuwa na mabadiliko katika siasa za Muungano.  Anachojaribu kueleza ni kasumba iliyochakaa mno.

Kwanza ni ukweli wa historia ambao akina Kusupa na hata wale walionunua na kutandika kasumba za akina Kusupa katika ofisi zao za mamlaka ya siasa Zanzibar kwamba baada ya suluhu ya Governor Canning ya 1860, Zanzibar na Kwanza ni ukweli wa historia ambao akina Kusupa na hata wale walionunua na kutandika kasumba za akina Kusupa katika ofisi zao za mamlaka ya siasa Zanzibar kwamba baada ya suluhu ya Governor Canning ya 1860, Zanzibar na Oman zilitengana rasmi kiutawala.  Sultani wa Zanzibar hakuwa tena na mamlaka Oman na wala Sultani wa Oman hakuwa tena na mamlaka Zanzibar.  Kilichobaki ilikuwa historia ya udugu sawa na vile Mmasai, Mjaluo, Mngoni, Mhindi, Muarabu au Mzungu wa Tanzania anavyojua kuwa asili yake ni pahala fulani na inawezekana ana udugu na watu wa pahala fulani.  Ndio maana Sultani alipopinduliwa hakwenda Oman bali alikimbilia Uingereza.  Hivyo kudai leo Sultani atarudi Zanzibar ni sawa na hadithi ya alfu lela ulela.  Kwa sababu Sultani wa Zanzibar hayupo kimamlaka wala kiaila.  Sultan wa leo wa Oman siye aliyekuwa Sultani wa Zanzibar na hivyo hana mamlaka ya kudai chochote Zanzibar wala hana sababu ya kufanya hivyo.

Pili, hata Sultani alipokuwepo Zanzibar ni ukweli wa kihistoria kwamba baada ya Mkataba wa kimahamia (Protectorate Treaty) wa June, 1890, Sultani alibaki pambo tu katika utawala.  Dola na Serikali iliendeshwa na Uingereza.  Waingereza walimleta Gerald Portal Zanzibar tarehe 6 Agosti, 1891, ambaye kwanza alipelekwa Misri kujifunza mila za kiarabu, ili kuja kuanzisha rasmi Serikali. Sultani mwenyewe akawekwa katika orodha ya kulipwa mshahara tu (Civil List).  Waingereza ndio walioanzisha Mahkama za Kadhi 1897, Kamisheni ya Wakf mwaka 1907 na ndio waliotangaza kuwa Sheria za Kiislamu ndio zitakuwa Sheria mama za Zanzibar mwaka 1897.  Mfumo wa Serikali ulioasisiwa na Gerald Portal ulibadilishwa mwaka 1906 baada ya Bwana Edward Clarke kuletwa Zanzibar akitokea London kuja kuangalia mfumo wa Serikali Zanzibar na namna ya kuuboresha.  Mapendekezo ya Edward Clarke yaliidhinishwa na mfumo mpya wa Serikali uliasisiwa Julai 1, 1906.  Chini ya mfumo huo Brigadier-General Rakes aliteuliwa First Minister, Bwana Peter Grain ambaye alikuwa Hakimu Mkazi aliteuliwa kuwa Mwanasheria Mkuu wa kwanza wa Zanzibar na Bwana C.E. Akers aliteuliwa kuwa Waziri wa kwanza wa fedha na biashara.

Nimetoa maelezo haya kwa kina ili akina Kusupa waelewe kwamba Serikali wala dola haikuendeshwa na Sultani.  Mambo yote yalipangwa London, kuamuliwa London na kutekelezwa Zanzibar bila hata baadhi ya wakati Sultani kushauriwa.  Ndio mana katika Serikali mpya ya 1906 hamkuwa na muarabu hata mmoja.  Ushahidi mkubwa kuliko wote kwamba Zanzibar pamoja na Sultani mwenyewe ikiendeshwa na Uingereza ni pale mwaka 1913 pamoja na kuwepo mkataba wa umahamiya wa June, 1890 lakini Uingereza waliamua kuiendesha Zanzibar chini ya Ofisi ya Makoloni sawa na koloni jengine badala ya chini ya Wizara ya Mambo ya Nje ambapo ndipo ilipostahiki.  Aidha, mwaka 1962 Uingereza ilimteua Bw. Robertson kuandaa taarifa ya utaratibu wa kuiendesha sehemu ya pwani ya Kenya ambayo Uingereza ilikuwa imeikodi kutoka kwa Sultani tokea mwaka 1895.  Mapendekezo yake ndiyo yaliyopelekea sehemu hiyo kurejeshwa kuwa sehemu ya Kenya kuanzia tarehe 5 Oktoba 1963, bila ya shaka kwa maslahi ya kiuchumi ya Uingereza.

Ni kutokana na ushahidi huo wa dhahiri ndipo kasumba za akina Kusupa zinapowasuta.  Kama Sultani ndiye aliyekuwa na mamlaka Zanzibar ni vipi Uingereza ingetamalaki katika kila mamlaka ya Zanzibar.

HOJA YA ZANZIBAR KUTOKA KATIKA UN

Mwinjilisti Kusupa analeta hoja ya kituko kwamba eti Zanzibar ilitolewa katika UN kwa sababu Sultani wa Zanzibar angekuwa kikwazo kwa uhuru wa kweli wa Afrika.  Hivi ni Sultani yupi huyo? Huyu ambaye tumemuonesha kwa ushahidi wa hapo juu kama hakuwa na mamlaka ya mambo yake mwenyewe na ya nchi yake awe na mamlaka ya kuzuia uhuru wa Afrika kiasi cha kuogopwa na mataifa makubwa?  Huu ni uongo hadhir shahir ambao akina Kasupa wamekuwa wakiwauzia wale waliowatawala akili zao.

Sababu ya Muungano na hatimaye Zanzibar kutoka katika UN zimeelezwa kwa ufasaha na kwa ushahidi katika taarifa ya Shirika la Ujasusi la Marekani (CIA) ya mwaka 1967 ambayo iliondolewa katika kiwango cha taarifa ya Siri ya kitaifa mwaka 2007.

Taarifa hiyo imeeleza wazi kwamba kiini cha Muungano wa Tanganyika na Zanzibar ni hofu ya mataifa makubwa juu ushawishi wa nchi za mashariki hasa China na Ujerumani Mashariki walizokuwa nao kwa Zanzibar.  Aidha, imetaja wazi kuwa urafiki wa karibu sana wa akina Abdulrahman Babu, Ali Sultan Issa na hata Hassan Nassor Moyo na mataifa hayo ulileta uwezekano mkubwa wa nchi hizo kuitumia Zanzibar kueneza ukomunisti Afrika Mashariki na kuigeuza Zanzibar kuwa Cuba ya Afrika Mashariki.  Imefafanua pia mbinu zilizotumika kumlazimisha Rais wa Zanzibar hayati Mzee Abeid Amani Karume kuingia katika mkataba wa Muungano.  Napenda nimuhakikishie akina Kusupa na mafundi wenzake wa mtambo wa Kasumba kwamba Wazanzibari wengi hasa wa kizazi cha vijana wanaelewa vizuri historia hiyo ya Muungano na Zanzibar kutolewa katika UN.  Weledi hawapati shida.  Labda kimya chao kinawafanya akina Kusupa kuamini kwamba Wazanzibari wanaweza kuuziwa kasumba hiyo na wakalewa nayo mpaka milele.  Nikubaliane na maneno ya Kusupa hapa kwamba KILA ZAMA NA KITABU CHAKE.  Sasa ni zama za ukweli kujulikana.  Lakini sio lazim kila ukweli utasemwa hadharani.  Tabaan, kwa zama za sasa ukiuchokonoa ukataka usemwe hadharani utasemwa.  Jitayarishe tu na ushujaa wa kuusikiliza. 

HOJA YA ZANZIBAR NA MAADUI WA MUUNGANO

Mwinjilisti Kusupa ameonyesha dhahiri kuwa yupo jikoni katika mtambo wao wa kasumba.  Anahusisha hoja ya umiliki wa Zanzibar wa Latham na maadui wa Muungano.  Hii ni nyimbo ya kale na bahati mbaya pamoja na kuwa ya kale haikuingia katika “Zilipendwa” na wala haikuingia katika ule msemo wa zamani wa “Old is Gold”.

Moja kati ya nguzo za udhaifu wa Muungano ni akina Kusupa kugombana na ukweli na kuufanya Muungano kuwa roho yake ni siasa tena siasa za kale ambapo wananchi waliamini na kufata kila lisemwalo na viongozi wa siasa.  Siasa ya wakati ambapo maoni ya umma yalifata taasisi za siasa.  Zama hizi kitovu cha maoni ya watu na sera za umma sio tena siasa wala taasisi za siasa.  Kitovu ni mawasiliano kwa vile watu wanaelewa mengi, taarifa zinasambazwa kwa haraka kuliko kasi ya siasa na taasisi zake.  Wanaomiliki maoni ya watu na sera za umma sasa hivi ni wanaomiliki mawasiliano.  Hivyo kasumba hizi za kina Kusupa ni lazim ziwekwe pembeni kama Muungano wa kweli na endelevu unatakiwa uwepo.

Kama kuna Muungano wa kale ambao uliundwa kwa njia za mashauriano na ridhaa ni ule wa Uingereza na Scotland ambao ulianza mwaka 1603 wakati James Stuart aliposhika ufalme wa nchi mbili za Scotland na Uingereza lakini nchi hizo bado zikaendelea kuwa nchi mbili tofauti kwa zaidi ya miaka 104.  Pamoja na juhudi kubwa za Mfalme James Stuart kuziunganisha nchi hizo kwa matamko ya kifalme lakini hakufanikiwa.  Ni hadi mwaka 1707 wakati Mabunge mawili ya Scotland na Uingereza yalipoidhinisha Mkataba wa Muungano.  Hata hivyo, Muungano huo umekuwa katika majaribu mara kadhaa na hadi sasa umo katika majaribu.  Muungano huo umevuuka majaribu kwa watu kuwa huru na wakweli kujadili udhaifu wa Muungano wao na kurekebisha kasoro zake sio kwa kuuza kasumba zilizochoka na kuwaita wabaya wanaokosoa Muungano. 

Kwa miaka 52 sasa ya uhai wa Muungano, kumekuwa na kutuhumiana na kutiliana shaka baina ya nchi mbili zinazounda Muungano huu. Hakuna kuaminiana. Ukisoma historia ya Muungano, utaona mvutano ulianza mapema sana mwaka ule ule wa 1964 kuhusiana na Sera ya Mambo ya Nje (Foreign Policy) ya Muungano kuhusu uwepo wa Balozi za Ujerumani Magharibi iliyokuwa ikitambuliwa na Tanganyika na Ujerumani Mashariki iliyokuwa ikitambuliwa na Zanzibar. Mwaka 1965 kukaibuka mvutano mkubwa kuhusiana na uanachama wa Zanzibar katika Bodi ya Sarafu ya Afrika Mashariki. Na tokea wakati huo, tumekuwa hatumalizi mwaka bila ya mvutano kuhusiana na uendeshaji wa Muungano huu.

Ni maoni ya wengi kwa upande wa Zanzibar kwamba sababu kuu ya mizozo na mivutano hiyo isiyokwisha ni msingi wenyewe wa Muungano na jinsi ulivyoanzishwa kama nilivyogusia kwa ufupi sana hapo juu.  Bado wapo akina Kusupa kadhaa wanaodhani kwamba Muungano ni nyenzo ya kuidhibiti Zanzibar hasa kwa sababu ya imani ya dini ya wazanzibari walio wengi.  Sina haja ya kuwataja kwa sababu tumepata fursa ya kuwasikia wakiyasema hayo hadharani kadamnasi.  Wapo pia wanaodhani kuwa kwa sababu ya udogo wake, Zanzibar ni tegemezi tu wa Bara na itaendelea kuwa hivyo.  Tumeshindwa kujifunza historia na yanayotokea ulimwenguni.  Singapore ilifukuzwa kutoka katika Muungano na Malaysia mwaka 1965 ikiwa hahe hohe; fukara, haina mbele wala nyuma kiasi cha kumfanya aliyekuwa Waziri Mkuu wao wa mwanzo kuangua kilio.  Miaka chini ya 30 baadae Singapore ilikuwa ngome ya uchumi wa Malaysia hasa katika kuuza bidhaa zake nje na soko la fedha.  Wakati wa mtikisiko wa fedha (currency crisis) si siri kwa vile yapo maandiko ya Mshauri wa Waziri Mkuu Mahathir Bwana Sulong Wong katika kitabu chake “Notes to the Prime Minister” yanayobainisha ni kiasi gani Singapore ilisaidia ringeti ya Malaysia isianguke.  Aidha, tukiwauliza Wachina hii leo, hawafichi kwamba Hong Kong, Taiwan na Macau, visiwa vidogo vya China vilivyosaidia kuibadili China kiuchumi kupitia mitaji yao na umahiri wao kiuchumi.  Bahati mbaya Muungano wetu hadi leo unapimwa kwa mezani ya kisiasa na wakati mwingi mezani ambayo tayari imeshatangulizwa mawe ya kasumba za akina Kusupa.

Wengi tuliona kuwa mchakato wa kuanzisha Katiba Mpya ungekuwa nafasi nzuri ya kufanya hayo. Ni bahati mbaya sana kwa kuongozwa na kasumba za watu kama Kasupa na siasa za kale ambao msingi wake umekuwa ule ule wa mmoja kutaka kumdhibiti mwengine, fursa hiyo tumeivuruga.

Hata hivyo, kama kweli pana nia njema basi bado fursa ipo. Marekani na Japan zilikuwa mahasimu wakubwa lakini leo ni washirika wakubwa. China na Japan walikuwa maadui wakubwa lakini leo wanashirikiana. Ujerumani imepigana vita na mataifa mengine ya Ulaya lakini leo wote ni wanachama wa Muungano wa Ulaya (EU).  Mifano ya aina hiyo ni mingi. Tanganyika na Zanzibar hazikufikia uhasama kama uliokuwepo katika mifano niliyoitaja. Kuna haja ya kizazi kipya cha 

 viongozi wa Zanzibar na Tanganyika kukaa pamoja na kuzungumza na kisha kukubaliana mfumo mpya wa Muungano utakaohakikisha haki za washirika wote wawili zinalindwa na pia mfumo utakaohakikisha Zanzibar na Tanganyika zinafaidika kwa pamoja na ushirika wao.

Lakini bahati mbaya Kasumba ya akina Kusupa ndio imeufikisha Muungano hapa ulipo.  Unalindwa kwa nguvu za jeshi na sio ridhaa ya watu.  Unaekewa mwega kwa kuvunja Katiba, ubabe na kuwaandama wanaoukosoa.  Muungano uko mahtuti na kama wataachiwa waganga wa kienyeji akina Kusupa watumie kasumba kuutibu utakufa sawa na ulivyokufa ufalme wa Tsar wa mwisho wa Urusi alipoamua kumtii mganga wake wa kienyeji Ras Putin badala ya washauri wake wa kitaalamu wa kiutawala na wa kijeshi.

HITIMISHO

Ni maoni yangu ya dhati kwamba mahusiano baina ya pande mbili za Muungano hayajaimarishwa kwa misingi ambayo inaufanya Muungano kuwa endelevu na unaoweza kuhimili mabadiliko ya kidunia na ya kisiasa.  Sababu kubwa ni kwamba tunatumia mbadala wa uwazi, ukweli, usawa na uadilifu katika kujenga Muungano.  Tumesahau kwamba sasa hivi dunia haipo katika vita baridi ya kisiasa ya miaka ya 60, sasa hivi dunia ipo katika vita ya wazi ya kiuchumi; kudhibiti rasilimali, masoko na mitaji.  Tanzania ya leo ijengwe katika msingi huo na sio udalali wa kasumba za akina Kusupa.

OTHMAN MASOUD OTHMAN

ADVOCATE AND NOTARY PUBLIC

SIMU: +255777411175

Zanzibar police watch over a group of men in Stone Town in Zanzibar

Tundu Antipas Lissu, the man who tussled with John Pombe Magufuli in the presidential election last October, has left the country to go into exile, claiming his life was in danger.

His departure was preceded by some daylight Dar drama, including: Lissu running to the embassies of European countries to seek asylum; security forces grabbing him and taking him to a police station; European diplomats following them and demanding Lissu be handed to them; Lissu getting protection in the residence of the German ambassador for a few days; the German ambassador personally escorting Lissu to the airport. Talk of the proverbial Chinese curse about living in interesting times!

Lissu claims that he had a tipoff from someone in the security apparatus who told him an order had been given for him to be done away with ‘for good’, which is a serious claim to all except the government spokesperson who suggested that it is ridiculous for someone who has just participated in an election campaign for two months to claim that his life is in danger.

I do not know how some people want us to think they think, but if someone told you that they had been shot 16 times in a government compound in broad daylight and that his assailants had not been found three years later, what level of incredulity will you need to believe he is joking if he now tells you that those same people are stalking him?

At any rate, Lissu is reportedly in Belgium. Whatever political action he will choose to be undertaken while there is not clear, but the fake news that he is slated to address the European parliament is just that, fake news because such a privilege is reserved for heads of state, and Lissu was thwarted in his quest to become one last October, remember?

INTO KENYA    

He is not alone. A number of opposition politicians are apparently on the move to somewhere else because they say their lives have been threatened, including the former Arusha MP, Godbless Lema, who crossed into Kenya at about the same time and has seemingly obtained a status that allows him to live there. Others may soon follow.

It is not the first time that Tanzania is producing political refugees.

In 2001, under the presidency of Benjamin Mkapa, scores of Tanzanians in Zanzibar found themselves being mowed down by police fire as they protested what they deemed to be electoral fraud.

It looks like we are settling down into a disquieting pattern of electorally fuelled centrifugal tendencies so that every time there is an election we would be expecting large numbers of people to be leaving on unplanned excursions for unknown periods of time, and that is not a healthy thing to admit in your body politic.

It will help nobody at all if our elections are organized by state agents who take every lever they hold in their hands to pull a fast one on their competitors because they have an opportunity to earn an unmerited advantage.

If one is incapable of winning fair and square in a loyal contest, then one is incapable of winning anything whenever one finds oneself in a contest in which one does not control the playing field.

For anyone to think that the results that have been made public by the electoral commission handpicked by the government will have satisfied even half the people that took part in the electoral exercise is to try to make people believe that they can extract blood from a cactus, which to me is a no-brainer.

Furthermore, for anyone to think that the near quiet that has descended on the country after the conclusion of the election means acquiescence in what went down is to engage in dangerous levels of self-deceit.

ONE STRAND

Tanzania belongs to all Tanzanians, whatever their political creeds and beliefs; no one strand of opinion should have the right to arrogate to itself the right to be always right, because that does not proceed from anything the people of this country agreed upon.

We had a single-party dispensation which lasted almost 40 years and it was found wanting, the reason for which it was disbanded as we opted for competitive politics.

If after 25 years or so there is a paradigm shift and the belief is that we should go back to what we used to have, let us be frank and say so.

According to reports by the authorities, we have security issues close to our southern borders that suggest some of the more nefarious geopolitical players may have an interest in us. This is no time to give them succour by refusing to listen to legitimate calls for greater political inclusion.

It is my ardent hope that President John Magufuli will listen to some of our better angels who will, I am certain, whisper in his ear that magnanimity goes a long way toward healing the bruised soul of a society that is struggling to find itself.

This will take courage, and I believe Magufuli has that by the tonne. It only needs redirecting.

Jenerali Ulimwengu is now on YouTube via jeneralionline tv. E-mail: jenerali@gmail.com

On Tuesday 3 November I was arrested, beaten and tortured by police. Shortly after registering my candidacy to challenge President Yoweri Museveni in next year’s election in Uganda I was pulled from my car and thrown into a van. The entire event was captured on television cameras.

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 t was just a week ago that the President was pardoning the former National Security Advisor who pleaded guilty to felonies, basically wiping the slate clean of the crimes the fallen-from-grace official in Trump’s early inner circle had positively confessed to. That case wasn’t ambiguous either. Here we had a man who confessed to the crime who suddenly did a turnabout, replacing his defense team with lawyers he hired from Fox News, suddenly recant his confessions that were made on multiple occasions, facing what seemed to be insurmountable evidence against him.

Judge Emmett Sullivan who handled the Flynn case said of the Flynn case, “I’m not hiding my disgust, my disdain, for this criminal offense,” and also queried whether or not Flynn may have committed treason, even going so far as asking prosecutors if such a crime as treason may have taken place.

Flynn’s fall from grace was anything but, well, graceful. On the Fourth of July, America’s Independence Day, the former military general soluted a debunked (and crazy) Internet conspiracy group, Qanon, by posting a video of himself reciting the slogan, “Where we go one, we go all.” Cryptic stuff.

This all came as the election season was ramping up and Trump warned of a government takeover by the Democrats. Meanwhile, Trump himself was hatching plans to try to steal the election by forcing critical swing states to not count the mostly Democratic mail-in ballots, thus giving him an advantage where he needed it most.

Trump at one point demanded they stop counting ballots while the election was underway, with poll workers and local governments handling the operations of counting all the votes, but only in states where Trump was winning. In the states where he was behind, he demanded that they finish the count and count every vote so he would have a chance to catch up. The duplicity is a sure sign of a man and an enabling party lacking any sort of guiding principles or allegiance to the offices or constitution they’ve sworn to serve, men who have nothing more than their own self-interest at heart, even if it means they’ll burn down the Republic to get their way.

All of this reminds me of an African proverb: “Children who are not embraced by the village will burn it to feel its warmth”

And as Trump’s long-shot hopes are being quelched one-by-one, with Georgia Governor rejecting Trump’s calls to “overrule” the voters’ voices that propelled Democratic Challenger Joe Biden to a surprise victory in the traditionally red state, Trump’s watching each of his angles to cheat and steal the election vanish. In desperation, he and his goons are asking for increasingly dangerous and undemocratic measures to be taken.

That reached its pinnacle a few hours ago when Mike Flynn openly called for the Constitution of the United States to be suspended and for martial law to be implemented when he retweeted calls by an Ohio organization for that very thing. We the People Convention created the video that openly calls for martial law to be installed and dictatorial powers enacted, claiming to be following in the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln.

We must remember, this battle has been going on since April. Trump has been at war with the election since before it began, and now his own Attorney General and Trump loyalist is saying that there’s no evidence of fraud in the latest election. Trump also fired Christopher Krebs, the former DHS official who said that this election was the “most secure in US history.”

It seems Trump and his remaining band of loyalists simply cannot accept the fact that they lost. And they’ll go to scary lengths to try to prove this fact, including calls to nullify the election that’s already taken place in retrospect, and advocating implementing martial law, in other words, carrying out a military coup to do it.

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans sit back silently, knowing they can’t risk taking a stand against the Trump base and losing the vital Senate runoff races coming up in Georgia. If they lose both of the runoff races, they’ll lose the Senate and the Democrats will have all three Houses of Government, the House, the Senate, and the Presidency.

Currently, Turkey’s military—NATO’s largest after the U.S.—is actively involved in a number of theaters, including Syria, Iraq, the South Caucasus, Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean, with the intention to either steer the outcome of a dispute in its favor or alter the existing order. This behavior represents a radical change from Turkey’s earlier predilection for a foreign policy that embraced the status quo and that mostly eschewed foreign adventures.

The chief engineer of this shift is Recep Tayyip Erdogan, first as Turkey’s prime minister, from 2003 until 2014, and then as president. While the transformation of Turkish foreign policy under his leadership did not follow a linear trajectory, it was dominated by two overriding features: first, Erdogan’s ambition to thrust Turkey, and by extension himself, into a global leadership role; and second, to always utilize Turkey’s new activist foreign policy as a method to enhance the regime’s domestic legitimacy and ensure its survival.

Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party, or AKP, first took power in the 2002 elections, capturing 34 percent of the vote. From the outset, they faced skepticism, if not outright hostility, from the country’s secular elite and hard-line military leaders because of the Islamist leanings of the AKP’s founders. The party’s early years in power were thus marked by a conscious effort to improve human rights practices and press freedoms while encouraging a vibrant civil society, so as to gain acceptance in the West, especially in Europe, as a means of containing and gaining leverage over Turkey’s powerful military establishment. This surge of democratization provided additional benefits. The blending of a democratic narrative with Islamic piety, demonstrating that Islam and democracy could coexist, captured the imagination of countless Middle Easterners, conferring on Turkey a measure of soft power it never before enjoyed.

Erdogan, however, would often rail against what he perceived to be an unjust world order. Ahmet Davutoglu, who was Erdogan’s main foreign policy guru for many years before falling out and leaving the AKP last year, laid out a vision for Turkey as a “central power,” destined to play an influential role in its region and beyond. Ultimately, Erdogan’s vision would culminate in his mantra that “the world is larger than five,” a reference to the United Nations Security Council, which Erdogan wanted reformed to reflect the postwar diffusion of power around the globe. Unstated was the expectation that Turkey would assume its proper role as leader of a much-maligned Muslim world.

The real changes to Turkey’s foreign policy started around 2010, some three years after the country’s top military brass publicly challenged Erdogan by trying, and failing, to veto the ascension of the AKP’s Abdullah Gul to the presidency—a humiliating ordeal that forced the military out of politics. This allowed Erdogan to consolidate power at home by reconfiguring Turkey’s institutions, eventually bringing them under his direct control and, with a hotly contested 2017 referendum, replacing the parliamentary system with a presidential one that centralized all powers in his office. Civil society, from the press to universities and independent associations, was eviscerated; dissent was no longer countenanced.

As he was subduing the military and domestic critics, Erdogan’s assertiveness in foreign policy took shape. His first foray was in 2009, when he upbraided Shimon Peres, then the prime minister of Israel, during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, before storming off the stage. The following year, he linked up with Brazil to try to preserve an agreement with Iran over its nuclear program, to the great annoyance of the Obama administration, which favored new sanctions on Iran at the time. A year later, he brought Turkey into the Syrian civil war by throwing his support fully behind the armed opposition to Bashar al-Assad, including jihadists. Turkey and the U.S. also clashed over the campaign against the Islamic State, as Erdogan refused Obama’s entreaties to fight the militants, even though many of them had traversed through Turkish territory to join the conflict. Erdogan even ordered an invasion of northeastern Syria last year, attacking the same Kurdish forces that had been fighting the Islamic State alongside U.S. troops.

More recently, Erdogan’s behavior has assumed a far more revisionist stance. In Libya, Turkish drones and military advisers, not to mention thousands of Syrian militants recruited by Ankara to fight as mercenaries, succeeded in turning the tide of the battle in favor of the internationally recognized government in Tripoli. In the South Caucasus, Turkey was instrumental in planning and supporting Azerbaijan’s assault on the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Just as in Libya, Turkish drones and Syrian mercenaries have played a critical role in the latest round of fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.

In the Eastern Mediterranean, Erdogan has forcibly challenged Greek and Cypriot sovereignty by sending seismic research vessels accompanied by the Turkish navy into their Exclusive Economic Zones in pursuit of hydrocarbon resources. Even when Erdogan agreed, under European pressure, to give negotiations with Greece a chance and thus avoid sanctions, he quickly reverted back to aggressive tactics by ordering the return of the research vessels into the Aegean Sea, defying a Western consensus on the matter. Despite the inherent risks of his brinkmanship, Erdogan assumes that other NATO members would step in to defuse any crisis, calculating that he can in the meantime advance his position by changing the facts in the Mediterranean.

In all of these cases, the domestic response in Turkey has been fully supportive. Erdogan has been able to neutralize any opposition by appealing to Turkish voters’ nationalist predisposition, while the largely domesticated press praises every one of his “successful” endeavors. The emerging narrative is one of Turkey’s rightful return as a great power complete with government-produced videos linking the present to past Ottoman glories. French President Emmanuel Macron has described this as Turkey having “fantasies about the past.”

The most puzzling of Erdogan’s foreign policy ventures has been his purchase of S-400 antiaircraft missiles from Russia, despite vociferous opposition by NATO and the U.S. Fearful that Russian technicians would gain access to the advanced technology of the American-made F-35 fighter jets in Turkey’s fleet, the Pentagon and Congress repeatedly warned Erdogan that he risked losing Turkey’s access to the F-35 jets and its place in the multinational consortium that was building them. Erdogan still went ahead with the $2.4 billion purchase, forsaking billions of dollars in future export revenues from the F-35 program. While the S-400 system has yet to be formally deployed, Turkey recently tested the missile system for the first time, openly challenging Washington and risking the imposition of American sanctions.

The S-400 purchase conforms with Erdogan’s pattern of conduct. He takes risks to push his own agenda, with the expectation that he will be insulated from any geopolitical turmoil because of Turkey’s important role in NATO and the general reluctance by powers large and small to contest his moves. So far, it has worked. It also allows him to continuously dominate the news cycle at home where he gets portrayed as the courageous leader fighting for Turkey’s national interests. At a time when the Turkish economy is suffering from mismanagement and problems related to coronavirus pandemic, this helps ensure Erdogan’s survival.

That said, it would be wrong to attribute Turkey’s foreign policy changes to domestic politics. Erdogan has gained international notoriety as an enfant terrible, becoming a leader whose whims and demands must be checked. In this sense, he has achieved what he had set out to do: transform Turkey and himself into consequential global actors. He has even entered Western political discourse, invariably mentioned, along with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, as one of the three most visible leaders lodged on the world’s authoritarian dais.

Erdogan is calculating and pragmatic when necessary, but, problematically for Western leaders, he is not done yet. There are no guardrails at home to rein him in—surrounded by sycophants, no one dares to contradict him. He will continue to push as long as he can, until he hits a roadblock. Even if sanctions or other obstacles force him to compromise on one issue—the S-400, for instance—he will quickly open another front somewhere else. Like all populist leaders, Erdogan takes the fight to others and always tries to stay  compelling rivals and allies alike to remain on the defensive.

  Hussein Ali Mwinyi ameshika uongozi wa Visiwa vya Zanzibar kwa miaka mitano. Ni muda wa kikatiba kwa nafasi hiyo. Ila naamini itakuwa miaka yake mitano mirefu kabisa katika umri wake. Najua ameshika vipindi kadhaa vya ubunge vya miaka mitano mitano. Ila muda huu utakuwa mrefu na kutamani  uishe. Lakini nina hakika pia itakwenda polepole sana, mpaka itamkirihi. Ni kama kusema usiku wake utakuwa mrefu sana.

Nasema itakwenda polepole kwa sababu naona kuna vitu vingi sana vitamkabili katika kipindi chake, vitamuelemea kupita vile vilivyowaelemea viongozi wengine wa Zanzibar ambao tunajua kwamba katika kipindi hiki cha mfumo wa vyama vingi, ushindi wao au uingiaji wao madarakani, umekuwa wa kuuliza, tuseme wa kubishaniwa.

Si kwa Dk Salmin Amour, si kwa Dk Amani Karume, si kwa Dk Ali Muhammed Shein na wala si kwa yeye Dk Mwinyi ushindi umekuwa wa kutizama mwezi, ushindi wa kusubiri taarifa ziso na uhakika kwa maneno mengine. Pamoja na Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM) kuwa chama kishika dola, lakini ushindi wake katika chaguzi za Zanzibar una masuali mengi. Upinzani Zanzibar kwa kweli umepunjwa chaguzi zote.

Ushindi usiokuwa na mabishano

Dk Mwinyi alipochaguliwa kuwa mbeba bendera wa CCM mwaka huu wa 2020 alisema anataka apate “ushindi ambao hauna mabishano.” Ukweli ni kwamba ushindi wake wa asilimia 76 una mabishano makubwa na utaendelea kuwa na mabishano. Yaani kwamba Maalim Seif Shariff Hamad, mgombea uraisi wa Zanzibar kupitia tiketi ya ACT-Wazalendo, amepata asilimia 19 hilo jambo litabishiwa sana.

Hiyo ni sawa pia kuwa tutaendelea kutoamini kuwa ushindi wa CCM wa majimbo 48 Unguja na Pemba, au wa majimbo 14 huko Pemba tunaubishania sana. Tukianza kwa hila za ushindi wa mezani wa pingamizi na kumalizia kwa  yaliotokea Oktoba 27 na 28, 2020. Kuwa Kura ya Mapema ilitumika kupata ushindi wa mapema nalo pia litaendelea kubishaniwa maisha yote ya siasa za Zanzibar.

Na hilo ndiyo la kwanza litakalofanya usiku wa Dk Mwinyi uwe mrefu maana sisi wapinzani, husuani sisi wa ACT-Wazalendo, kwa miaka yote mitano atayokuwa kitini tutakuwa tunaendelea kusema, akipenda asipende, kwamba ushindi wake umetokana na kupokwa sisi wapinzani. Hilo la usiku mrefu litaanzia hapo.

Maana sisi tutaendelea kuamini kuwa kila njia imefanywa kuibeba CCM katika uchaguzi wa mwaka huu. Hapatakuwa na yeyote wa kutunyamazisha kulisema hilo, kila tutakapolipatia fursa au kila tutapoona inafaa. Kwa hiyo usiku wa Dk Mwinyi utakuwa mrefu na itamlazimu ajifunze kuvumilia hili au kutustahamilia maana tutakuwa na uhuru wetu wa kikatiba.

Upinzani hauwezi kufa

Au asipoutaka au kuweza kuvumilia atataka kutumia nguvu au nafasi yake ya dola, na hilo pia litakwenda kupelekea usiku wake uzidi kuwa mrefu.  Au atataka kuchagua kutufunga midomo kwa kuzuia mikutano ya hadhara kwa kipindi cha miaka mitano. Kumbe tusiposema ghadhabu inazidi kuwa kubwa.

Usiku utakuwa mrefu maana anaweza Dk Mwinyi kuchagua kutunga sheria za kutunyamizisha kwa sababu chama chake kina wingi wa Wawakilishi katika Baraza la Wawakilishi, lakini akichagua hilo basi pia usiku wake utakuwa mrefu maana hatutanyamaza.

Pengine pia inawezekana akashawishika kukubaliana na wenziwe ndani ya CCM kuwa upinzani kote Tanzania haufai kuendelea kuwepo, na kwa hivyo kutungwa sheria katika Bunge la Muungano kuwa vyama vya siasa vikatwe uhai wao. Hilo pia litakuwa na furaha ya muda, maana pia usingizi utakata na usiku utakuwa mrefu.

Hata hivyo, upinzani hauwezi kufa na zaidi huku Zanzibar ambako siasa imo ndani ya damu ya wananchi. Utakuwa mtihani mkubwa kwa CCM kujaribu kuamini kuwa kilichotokea 2020 ni kwa kuwa wamekubalika na kura walizopata ni za kukubalika kwao, na wakadhani wanaweza kubaki peke yao katika rubaa za siasa kote Bara na Zanzibar. Zanzibar upinzani ni jadi, na  bado utaendelea kuwa hivyo.

Usiku wa Dk Mwinyi utakuwa mrefu pia kama ataona mateso makubwa waliopitia wapinzani mwaka huu wa 2020 kwa sababu ya nia yao ya kuzuia walichohisi ni kuporwa uchaguzi uliokuwa na mwelekeo mkubwa wa kushinda. Hili hakuna la kuwageuza.

Watu 13 wanadaiwa kupoteza maisha. Watu kadhaa wamedaiwa kupigwa risasi. Watu kadhaa wamefanyiwa mateso kadhaa wa kadhaa. Akikaa peke yake katika usiku wake haya yatampitia Dk Mwinyi na hapana shaka usiku wake utakuwa mrefu.

Matumizi ya nguvu dhidi ya raia

Akiwa katika usiku wake Dk Mwinyi anaweza kuwaza sababu kadha wa kadha za kuhalalishwa matumizi ya nguvu dhidi ya raia, lakini kila atakapotafakari zaidi ndipo usiku wake utapokuwa mrefu zaidi, maana yaliyopita ni makubwa sana, sema basi tu na atawaza iwapo roho hizo au mateso hayo, yapite tu bila fidia?

Dk Mwinyi anaweza akaona picha ya Ismail Jussa, mjumbe wa Kamati Kuu ya chama cha ACT-Wazalendo, alivyopigwa mikononi mwa polisi na kujeruhiwa bega na akiuguza mguu akiwa Nairobi, Kenya. Picha ya yule mama wa Garagara, Daraja Bovu, wa miaka 75 tena mgonjwa wa baridi, ambapo bomu la machozi lilorushwa ndani ya nyumba na chumba na kitanda chake na kujeruhiwa vibaya Au habari ya Nassor Mazrui, Naibu Katibu Mkuu wa ACT-Wazalendo, aliyekamatwa na kushikiliwa pamoja na wanachama wengine wa chama hicho wapatao 15 kwa zaidi ya siku ishirini bila kufikishwa mahakamani, na baadaye kuachiwa kwa dhamana.

Atakuwa akifikiria miaka mitano ijayo kama anataka kurudi, hivi kweli haya yaliyofanyika mwaka huu yataweza kurudiwa tena? Au ACT-Wazalendo watasokotwa kama kilivyosokotwa Chama cha Wananchi-CUF na wakibaki watakuwa na nguvu zilizoiziba pumzi CCM mpaka wakaja na mbinu walizokuja nao, wakijua kuwa kwa njia hio ndio wamepona?

Upinzani Barazani, Serikalini

Pale 2015 mbinu ya CCM ilikuwa ni kubatilisha matokeo, 2020 ikawa ni kuchukua mchana kweupe na bila ya shaka mbinu za 2025 zitaanza kupangwa na usiku wake utakuwa mrefu hayo yakienda katika akili yake, maana atakuwa na mawazo kuwa atataka kugombea muhula wa pili, penye uhai na uzima.

Wala urefu wa usiku hautapungua kwa kuwa ACT-Wazalendo  wataingia kwenye Baraza la Wawakilishi au pia kwenye Serikali ya Umoja wa Kitaifa. Tutaendelea kukosoa Serikali yake kwa maslahi ya umma, sio lazima ya kisiasa.

Hilo la kuingia Serikalini, ambalo ni la kikatiba, halitabadilisha urefu wa usiku wa Dk Mwinyi maana ACT-Wazalendo wakiwemo ndani ya Baraza la Wawakilishi na nje ya Baraza au ndani ya Serikali wataendelea kudai uchaguzi wa 2020 umeibiwa kutoka kwao na watakuwa wakiendelea kujipanga kwa 2025, maana bado wengi tunaamini kuondoka CCM ni suala la wakati tu.

Tuombe Dk Mwinyi apate usingizi wa amani na kama kutakuwa na malepelepe yawe ya afueni maana atakuwa na kazi ya kuiongoza Zanzibar katika muda huo pia.

Ally Saleh ni mwandishi wa habari wa zamani, mchambuzi wa masuala ya kisiasa na mwanachama wa ACT-Wazalendo. Saleh pia alikuwa Mbunge wa Malindi kwenye Bunge la 11 kupitia tiketi ya Chama cha Wananchi – CUF. Anapatikana kupitia anuani yake ya barua pepe ambayo ni allysaleh126@gmail.com. 

Located in the Stone Cross district of Zanzibar City. The Rotyal Cinema Theatre was opened in the 1920’s and was designed in a Moroccan/Oriental style by Scottish architect John Sinclair. It was later re-named Majestic Cinema theatre. It was destroyed by fire in 1953.

The 60s, 70s and 80s are often described as the Golden Age of Indian cinema and Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu had a large number of cinemas devoted to showing films made in Bombay.

At a time when “social distancing” is becoming the norm due to the coronavirus pandemic, it may appear self-indulgent to reminisce about a period when going to the cinema was a regular feature of East African Asians’ lives. But perhaps now that the world is changing – and many more people are watching movies at home on Netflix and other channels – it is important to document the things that have been lost in the war against COVID-19 and with the advent of technology. One of these things is the thrill of going to the cinema with the family.

What has also been lost is an urban culture embedded in East Africa’s South Asian community – a culture where movie-going was an integral part of the social fabric of this economically successful minority. Those who pass the notorious Globe Cinema roundabout, which is often associated with pickpockets and street children, might be surprised to learn that the Globe Cinema (which no longer shows films but is used for other purposes, such as church prayer meetings) was once the place to be seen on a Sunday evening among Nairobi’s Asian community. I remember that cinema well because in the 1970s my family used to go there to watch the latest Indian – or to be more specific, Hindi (India also produces films in regional languages like Telegu, Bengali and Punjabi) blockbuster at 6 p.m. on Sundays. Sunday was movie day in my family, and going to the cinema was a ritual we all looked forward to. The Globe Cinema was considered one of the more “posh” cinemas in Nairobi; not only was it more luxurious than the others, but it also had better acoustics.

As veteran journalist Kul Bhushan writes in a recent edition of Awaaz magazine (which is dedicated entirely to Indian cinema in East Africa from the early 1900s to the 1980s), “Perched on a hillock overlooking the Ngara roundabout, the Globe became the first choice for cinemagoers for new [Indian] releases as it became the venue to ogle and be ogled by the old and the young.” Indian movies were – and are – the primary source of knowledge about Indian culture among East Africa’s Asian community. The early Indian migrants had little contact with the motherland, as trips back home were not only expensive but the sea voyage from Mombasa to Bombay or Karachi took weeks. (At independence in 1947, the Indian subcontinent became two countries – India and Pakistan – hence the reference to Indians in East Africa as “Asians”.) So they relied on Indian films to learn about the customs and traditions of the country they or their ancestors had left behind. Exposure to Indian languages and culture through films was one way Indians abroad or in the diaspora retained their identity and got to learn about their traditions and customs. I got to learn about the spring festival of Holi and goddesses such as Durga from watching Indian films. I also learnt Hindi, or rather Hindustani – a mix of Hindi (which is Sanskrit-based) and Urdu (which is also Sanskrit-based but which borrows heavily from Persian and Arabic) –  which is the lingua franca of Northern India and Pakistan, and which is the language most commonly used in the so-called Hindi cinema.

On the other hand, the sexist culture portrayed in the majority of Indian films also reinforced sexual discrimination among East African Asians. The idea that women are subservient to men, and that it is the woman who must sacrifice her own needs and desires for the “greater good” of the family/community, were – and still are – dominant in Indian cinema. Love stories portrayed in films – where young lovebirds defy societal expectations and cross class, religion or caste barriers – were not supposed to be emulated; they were considered pure entertainment and not reflective of a society where arranged marriages were and still are the norm. I heard many stories of how if an Asian woman dared to cross racial, religious or caste barriers she was severely reprimanded or stigmatised. Watching Indian movies was also one way of keeping up with the latest fashions.

Men and women often tried to copy the hairstyles and clothes of their favourite movie stars. When the hugely successful film Bobby was released in 1973, many girls adopted the hairstyle of the lead actress (who was barely 16 when she starred in the film) Dimple Kapadia. (I used to have a blouse at that time that was a replica of the one the actress wore in the film.) When the famous film star Sharmila Tagore dared to wear a revealing swimsuit in the 1967 film An Evening in Paris, she opened the door for many Indian women to go swimming without covering themselves fully. Since music often defined the success of a film, top playback singers, such as Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar and Muhammad Rafi, were held in high regard, and people flocked to watch their live concerts in Nairobi. Wealth and opulence were in full display at these events. The Golden Age The 60s, 70s and 80s are often described as the Golden Age of Indian/Hindi cinema.

Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu, where there were large concentrations of Asians, had many cinemas devoted to showing films made in Bombay (now Mumbai) – often referred to as Bollywood. This was the time when actors and actresses like Rajesh Khanna, Hema Malini, Amitabh Bachchan and Sridevi became superstars. Cinemas in Nairobi were always full, especially on weekends when Asian families flocked to the dome-like Shan in Ngara, to Liberty in Pangani, or to the Odeon or the Embassy in the city centre. (except for Shan cinema, all the others are no longer cinema halls but are used for other purposes. Shan was rescued from decrepitude by the Sarakasi Trust, which changed its name to The Dome; it is now used for cultural activities.) Over the years, an increasing number of Africans began watching Indian films. Oyunga Pala, the chief curator at The Elephant, recalls going to the Tivoli cinema in Kisumu, where he first got to see Amitabh Bachchan in action.

“Right next to the Liberty Cinema was situated the clinic of a very popular Indian doctor,” recalls Neera Kapur-Dromson in an article published in the Indian cinema edition of Awaaz. “The small waiting room was always crammed with patients. But that never deterred him from taking ample breaks to enjoy a few scenes of the film being screened…” But for Asian teenage girls and boys in Nairobi, the place to be seen on a Sunday evening was the Belle Vue Drive-In cinema on Mombasa Road. Young Asian men would show off their (fathers’) cars and young women would display the latest fashions – all in the hope of catching the attention of a potential mate. Food was shared – and sometimes even cooked – on the gentle slopes of the parking spots. Going to the Drive-In was like going for a picnic. And as the lights dimmed, the large bulky speakers were put on full volume so that everyone (usually father, mother, and three or four kids in the back seat) in the car – and beside it – could hear the dialogues. Fox Drive-In cinema on Thika Road was also a popular joint, but mainly with the younger crowd who preferred watching the Hollywood movies which were a regular feature there. It was the same in Kampala. Vali Jamal, recalling his youthful days in Uganda’s capital city, says that the Sunday outing to the Drive-In was the only time there was a traffic jam in Kampala. “Idi Amin got caught in one of them, driving back to Entebbe with his foreign minister Wanume Kibedi,” he writes. “‘Where are we?’ quoth the president, ‘In Bombay?’ And the expulsion happened.” He continues: “Well, let me not exaggerate, but South Asian wealth was on display on the Sundays accompanied by their notions of exclusion, and let us not forget that those two variables – income inequality and racial arrogance – figured heavily in Amin’s decision to expel us.” (In August 1972, President Idi Amin expelled more than 70,000 Asians from Uganda.) Urban conversations  In her book, Reel Pleasures: Cinema Audiences and Entrepreneurs in Twentieth Century Urban Tanzania,  Laura Fair describes how the Sunday evening shows became a focal point of urban conversations among Tanzania’s Asian community. They were meeting points, like temples, mosques or churches, where people sought affirmation. As in Kenya, Sunday shows in Tanzania were family and community bonding events. “Cinema halls were not lifeless chunks of brick and mortar; they resonated with soul and spirit.

They were places that gave individual lives meaning, spaces that gave a town emotional life. Across generations, cinemas were central to community formation,” says the author.  Indian cinema thus played an integral role in the social lives of the South Asian community in East Africa. It all started in the 1920s when Mohanlal Kala Savani, a textile trader, imported a hand-cranked projector and began showing silent Indian films in a rented warehouse in the coastal town of Mombasa. In 1931, when two brothers, Janmohamed Hasham and Valli Hasham, built the Regal Cinema, he began renting the venue to show Hindi films.

Two years later, he built his own 700-seat Majestic Cinema in Mombasa, which showed Indian films and also hosted live shows. The late Mohanlal Savani was a man of vision, recalls his son Manu Savani in an article chronicling how his father expanded movie-viewing in East Africa. “As time progressed Majestic became an established cinema on the Kenyan coast. The owners of Majestic also became fully fledged film distributors with links stretching, to start with, to Uganda and [what was then known as] Tanganyika.” Famous Indian movie stars began gracing these cinemas in order to increase their fan following. Notable among these were the legendary Dilip Kumar, a 1950s heartthrob whose portrayal of jilted lovers set many a heart fluttering, and Asha Parekh, who made her name in tragic love stories such as Kati Patang.  Indian cinema had wide appeal not just in Kenya, but also in neighbouring Zanzibar, where the urban night life was dominated by Indian movies.

Many a taraab tune came directly from the hit songs of Indian movies. As opposed to Western movies (often referred to as English movies), Indian films appealed to Swahili sensibilities, with their focus on values such as modesty, respect for elders and morality. In Zanzibar, Lamu and other coastal areas where segregation between the sexes was strictly observed, there were special zenana (women-only) shows, where women dressed up in their finest to join other women in watching Indian and Egyptian films. For many Asian and Swahili women, the zenana afternoon show was a rare opportunity to leave their cloistered existence and let their hair down, and also to meet up with friends outside the confines of their homes. (I once went to a women-only show at Nairobi’s Shan cinema on a Wednesday afternoon with my grandmother when I was about eight or nine years old and I can tell you there was less movie-watching and more talking and gossiping going on during the show.) Unfortunately, the old cinemas in Zanzibar are no more, which is surprising because the island is host to the Zanzibar International Film Festival.  Cine Afrique, the only standing cinema in Zanzibar when I visited the island in 2003, was a pale shadow of its former shelf, with its cracked ceiling and broken seats. I believe it has now been demolished to pave way for a mall.

The Empire, another famous cinema on the island, is now a supermarket and the once impressive Royal Cinema is in an advanced stage of decay. The decline of the movie theatre  There are many reasons for the decline of Indian movie theatres in East Africa, among them piracy, declining South Asian populations and technologies that allow people to watch movies from the comfort of their homes. The introduction of multiplex cinemas in shopping malls has also lessened the appeal of a stand-alone cinemas, and made movie-going less of an “event” and more of something that can be done while doing other things. Indian cinema has also evolved. Unrequited love, family dramas, good versus evil and the “angry young man” genre popularised by Amitabh Bachchan – constant themes in the “masala” Indian films of the 70s and 80s – have been replaced by more sophisticated and nuanced plots, perhaps in response to a large Indian diaspora in the West which is more interested in plots that are more realistic and reflective of their own lives.

The escapism of the Indian cinema of yesteryear has given way to realism, which makes cinema-going less “entertaining”. Indian actors and actresses are also getting more roles in films made in Hollywood, and American and British films are increasingly finding India to be an interesting backdrop or subject for their movies, as evidenced by the huge success of films like Slumdog Millionaire. This has expanded the scope and definition of what constitutes an “Indian movie”. Some would say that Indian cinema has actually deteriorated, with its emphasis on semi-pornographic dance routines and plots revolving around upper class people and their angst. So-called “art cinema” produced by award-winning directors like Satyajit Ray and Shyam Benegal, which portrays the lives of the downtrodden and addresses important social issues, or distinctly feminist films like Parama (directed by Aparna Sen), which explores the inner worlds of Indian women, are few and far between. But as any Indian movie buff will tell you (and I include myself in this group), the experience of watching an Indian film in a cinema cannot be matched on a TV or computer screen. Indian cinema in its heyday was a feast for the eyes. If you wanted to enter the magical world of Indian cinema, complete with elaborate and well-choreographed dances, heart-stirring music and emotion, you saw Indian films in a movie theatre.

Alas, those days are fast disappearing thanks to terrorism, technology and now COVID-19. And along with this, a distinctly East African urban culture has been lost forever.

By Rasna WarahRasna Warah is a Kenyan writer and journalist. In a previous incarnation, she was an editor at the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat). She has published two books on Somalia – War Crimes (2014) and Mogadishu Then and Now (2012) – and is the author UNsilenced (2016), and Triple Heritage (1998).

JAMES R. BRENNAN

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and SOAS, University of London

On 17 December 1961, Ronald Ngala faced an audience of some five hundred

supporters in Malindi, a town on the East African coast of the Indian Ocean.

The crowd had come to watch Ngala lower the flag that symbolized colonial

rule along the coast. This was not the Union flag of Great Britain, but the red

flag of the Sultan of Zanzibar. It flew over a number of towns located along

the ten-mile coastal strip “Protectorate” of what was then Kenya Colony and

Protectorate. The flag symbolized this latter legal distinction, representing

the sovereignty that the Sultan of Zanzibar retained over the coastal strip of

Kenya after leasing its administration to Britain in a treaty signed in 1895.

The flag’s lowering was an act of political theatre—Ngala’s supporters had

hastily arranged the flag and flagpole, while the Sultan’s real flag flew over

the Malindi courts office nearby. The crowd celebrated its lowering with

loud and wild cheers. Anxious onlookers later complained that Ngala had per-

formed an act of treason.1 In Zanzibar, tense with the specter of racial violence,

local press expressed outrage at this insult to the Sultan.2

The ceremony celebrated the just-released findings of the Robertson Commis-

sion, which recommended that the coastal strip be detached from the Sultan of

Zanzibar’s nominal sovereignty and legally joined to mainland Kenya before

the country reached independence. This would happen in October 1963,

Acknowledgments: Earlier versions of this article were presented at University of North Carolina-

Chapel Hill, Johns Hopkins University, and Zentrum fu ̈r Moderner Orient (ZMO), Berlin. I thank

Mohamed Bakari, Sara Berry, Jeffrey Brooks, Andy Eisenberg, Bruce Hall, Kai Kresse, Pier

Larson, Lisa Lindsay, Christopher Lee, Hassan Mwakimako, Jeremy Prestholdt, Abdul Sheriff,

Farouk Topan, Justin Willis, and four anonymous CSSH reviewers for their comments. I also

thank the British Academy for its Small Research Grant (SG-41863) that funded research visits

to Kenya in 2006– 2007, and Kenya National Archives staff for their invaluable assistance. 1 Mombasa Times, 18 Oct. 1961, and subsequent letters. 2 Acting British Resident, Zanzibar to Maudling, 20 Dec. 1961, Colonial Office, British National

Archives, Kew [hereafter CO] 822/2046/200. An investigation was later launched against Ngala,

but no charges were brought. Deputy Governor Kenya to Maudling, 18 Dec. 1961, CO 822/

2150/178.

Comparative Studies in Society and History 2008;50(4):831 –861.

0010-4175/08 $15.00 # 2008 Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History

doi:10.1017/S0010417508000364

831

shortly before Kenya’s independence. The politics surrounding this 1895 treaty

between Britain and the Sultan of Zanzibar stands at the center of a largely for-

gotten chapter in the history of Africa’s decolonization. It was the legal point

upon which the mwambao (“coastline” in Swahili) movement seized to argue

for autonomy, and even outright independence, from mainland Kenya as East

Africa moved towards self-rule. The pursuit of mwambao (c. 1953–1963) was

led by Arab and Swahili residents of the Kenyan coast who feared political dom-

ination by Africans living along the coast and immigrating from “upcountry.”3

Mwambao supporters sought to protect a number of privileges—the position

of sharia, local elite control over land, staffing of bureaucratic posts, to name

a few—that had been secured by, or at least associated with, the Sultan’s position

as nominal sovereign. Conversely, the lowering of the Sultan’s flag symbolized

to coastal Africans such as Ronald Ngala the end of a deviously schemed “auton-

omy,” and with it the imminent end of Africans’ squatter relationship with absen-

tee Arab landlords, as well as a haughty ulama’s domination over local

institutions of law and education. It also represented the opening of opportunities

for both coastal Africans and African immigrants from upcountry, who were

engaged in bitter political competition to gain control over the coast’s bureau-

cratic machinery. The politics of mwambao resembled those of Zanzibar—an

Arab and Swahili political movement’s attempt to identify with the Sultan to

protect a number of privileges resented by Africans. But unlike Zanzibar,

where upwards of ten thousand Arabs and Indians were massacred in the

islands’ political revolution of January 1964, mwambao died a relatively peaceful

death as the coast came under formal control from Nairobi. Earlier studies inter-

preted mwambao as a doomed strategy of coastal elites to protect a set of

colonial-era privileges in the face of African nationalism, and portrayed its

failure as a disguised blessing that spared the coast from the horrific violence

that engulfed Zanzibar.4

This article does not seek to refute these arguments. Rather, it proposes to

frame mwambao differently, not as a small flash in the regional pan of racial

and religious politics, but as part of an extended struggle over the meaning

3 The terms “Arab” and “Swahili” raise thorny issues of coastal identity. To abbreviate an inter-

minable debate, the identity of “Arab” in coastal East Africa may indicate ancestral origins in

Arabia, but certainly marks a claim to high social status. “Swahili” is predominantly an “etic”

term that classifies (however problematically) people who have adopted coastal culture, including

not only Swahili language and Islam, but also plausible membership in local lineages. In identifying

with coastal culture, “Arab” and “Swahili” categorically differentiate themselves from mainland

Africans. 4 A. I. Salim, The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Kenya’s Coast (Nairobi: East African Publishing

House, 1973), 220– 46; idem., “The Movement for ‘Mwambao’ or Coast Autonomy in Kenya,

1956–1963,” Hadith 2 (1970): 212–28; Richard Stren, Housing the Urban Poor in Africa:

Policy, Politics and Bureaucracy in Mombasa (Berkeley: Institute of International Relations,

1978), 74–87; and Hyder Kindy, Life and Politics in Mombasa (Nairobi: East African Publishing

House, 1972), 184–91.

832 JAMES R . BRENNAN

of sovereignty. The central position of the 1895 treaty facilitated an unusual

volume of discussion about sovereignty, so to some extent the case of

mwambao is sui generis. But such profuse popular debate over sovereignty

also offers a rich opportunity to place the event within wider contexts—a

regional one of ideational continuity along the Swahili coast and Indian

Ocean littoral, and a temporal one of major ruptures which accompanied

British colonization, decolonization, and the emergence of a post-war inter-

national order. I argue that efforts to secure coastal autonomy represent a

regionally and historically specific type of sovereignty pursued by mwambao

activists not simply to guard political and material privileges, but more

broadly to express a language of political legitimacy that still resonates today.

THE IDEA OF SOVEREIGNTY IN INDIAN OCEAN SOCIETIES , ISLAMIC

SOCIETIES , AND DECOLONIZING AFRICA

Examining the history of sovereignty in a non-Western context raises methodo-

logical questions of comparison and connection. Sovereignty in coastal Kenya

can be approached as a regional site where analogies to a possibly universal

idea were produced, as well as a colonial site upon which metropolitan

notions were imposed and appropriated. But is it first worth asking if there

has ever been a stable notion of sovereignty? Studies proposing a stable

form and linear history trace its modern gestation in the Augsburgian and West-

phalian systems of early modern Europe, where sovereignty refers to the final

political authority within a given territorial unit; one is sovereign if one can

plausibly deny recognition to any higher authorities.5 Among sovereignty’s

attributes are a ruler’s right to determine a given territory’s religion (cuius

regio, eius religio), the territorial integrity of a singular sovereign’s power,

and the normative legal equality between sovereigns. Westphalian language

anchors typologies of international relations studies on sovereignty, which dis-

tinguish between “international legal” sovereignty (mutual recognition between

territorial entities with formal juridical independence) and “Westphalian”

sovereignty (exclusion of external actors from authority structures within a

given territory).6 These widely held understandings have recently come under

fruitful criticism. Seeking to liberate sovereignty from its Eurocentric teleologies,

5 The authoritative study in this vein remains F. H. Hinsley, Sovereignty (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2d ed., 1986). Also working within a European framework but alive to

sovereignty’s instability is James J. Sheehan, “The Problem of Sovereignty in European

History,” American Historical Review 111 (2006): 1– 15. 6 These typologies, as well as “domestic” sovereignty (the exercise of control within borders)

and “interdependence” sovereignty (the control of borders), are from Steven Krasner’s influential

Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999). Krasner admits

that “Westphalian” sovereignty relates little to the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, and emerges only

in the late eighteenth century; he adopts the term because of its common usage. Ibid., 20.

LOWER ING THE SULTAN ’ S FLAG 833

Radhika Mongia and Antony Anghie argue that its modern forms are the consti-

tutive outcome of nineteenth-century imperial encounters.7 Working within a

European framework, Bruno Teschke throws Westphalian histories and typolo-

gies into fundamental question by demonstrating the “overwhelmingly dynastic

nature of the Westphalian order” that sets this absolutist form of sovereignty apart

from subsequent modern (impersonal, bureaucratic, capitalistic) forms.8 Such

criticisms reveal modern sovereignty to be less the pluralist product of religious

conflict and more the dominative products of imperial and class conflict. These

debates also demonstrate the historically instable nature of an idea whose essence

is the claim to stability.9

Analogies to sovereignty certainly existed along the Indian Ocean littoral

before British rule. In his study of the littoral, Sugata Bose offers a useful

way to provincialize sovereignty:

Precolonial states and polities generally possessed a shared and layered concept of

sovereignty, which had helped create certain autonomous spaces for the inhabitants of

port cities. Surat and Aden, for instance, had been part of the great land-based

Mughal and Ottoman Empires, “yet they had autonomy enough not to be unduly har-

assed by their inland masters.” The notion of indivisible and unitary sovereignty

imported under colonial conditions from Europe represented a major break from ideas

of good governance and legitimacy that had been widespread in the Ottoman, Safavid

and Mughal domains and their regional successor states. Moreover, the British juxta-

posed with their own monolithic sovereignty a particularly fake version of sovereignty

invested in reinvented ‘traditional’ rulers in post-1857 India (such as that in Kashmir),

and extended it to coastal polities in the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Bay of

Bengal around the turn of the century.10

This “layered and shared” idea of sovereignty suggests itself for the Swahili

city-states of pre-colonial East Africa, bound not by state power but through

7 Radhika Mongia, “Historicizing State Sovereignty: Inequality and the Form of Equivalence,”

Comparative Studies in Society and History 49 (2007): 384–411; and Antony Anghie, “Finding the

Peripheries: Sovereignty and Colonialism in Nineteenth-Century International Law,” Harvard

International Law Journal 40 (1999): 1 –81. 8 Benno Teschke, The Myth of 1648: Class, Geopolitics, and the Making of Modern Inter-

national Relations (London: Verso, 2003), 245. For Teschke, sovereignty was literally the family

business of rentier royals; its modern transformation only came about with the international dom-

ination of the Hanoverian British state controlled by capitalist landed classes. 9 This paradoxical quality of sovereignty emerges in Krasner’s historical realist account (“orga-

nized hypocrisy”), and more explicitly in Schmitt’s metaphysical tract Political Theology, which

asserts that the sovereign is “he who decides on the exception,” for “the legal order rests on a

decision and not on a norm.” Carl Schmitt, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of

Sovereignty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 5, 10. Agamben elaborates: “The sover-

eign is, at the same time, outside and inside the juridical order.” Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer:

Sovereign Power and Bare Life (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), 15. Agamben’s

paradox is illuminated in William Rasch, Sovereignty and Its Discontents (London: Birkbeck

Law Press, 2004), ch. 5. 10 Sugata Bose, A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire (Cam-

bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006), 25. He quotes from Ashin Das Gupta and M. N.

Pearson, India and the Indian Ocean, 1500– 1800 (Calcutta: Oxford University Press, 1987), 13.

834 JAMES R . BRENNAN

family ties, ideologies, and trade. The Muslim patrician lineages that controlled

these towns through royal courts or councils greatly elaborated their extra-

continental genealogies and superior civilization to non-Muslim neighbors,

but relied heavily on hinterland clients for trade and protection.11 Portuguese

first arrived in East Africa in 1498 and exercised an uneven colonial presence

along the Swahili coast until the eighteenth century. They maintained the title of

sultan (“king” to the Portuguese) for leaders appointed to city-states in Portu-

guese control, while arrogating control over city trade.12 The BuSaidi Sulta-

nate, which physically relocated from Oman to Zanzibar in 1832, similarly

retained for itself control over city trade, and represents the first attempt to

impose the sovereignty of a single sultan along the entire coast. But Zanzibar

was less an “empire” than a commercial enterprise loosely bound by political

agents and mercenary debt collectors, heavily reliant upon the consent of

local Arab and Swahili elites in the major coastal towns.13 Coastal sovereignty

both before and during BuSaidi rule implied suzerainty, or control over a vassal

state’s foreign affairs, while allowing the vassal state to control its own internal

affairs. The Ottoman Empire epitomized such a suzerain or vassalic system—

indeed, northern parts of the Swahili coast had fallen under nominal Ottoman

suzerainty in the latter’s struggle against the Portuguese in the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries.14 Spheres of local autonomy persisted along the coast

throughout these imperial developments, and the Sultan of Zanzibar himself

formally acknowledged claims by the Twelve Tribes of Mombasa for

“Swahili home rule.”15

But Bose’s model also implies that newly imposed juridical claims of Euro-

pean empires equated with the historical experience of colonial subjects, and

that this development subsequently divides pre-colonial and colonial subjectiv-

ities along the Indian Ocean. Bose, like authors who stress the constitutive

nature of sovereignty produced in the interactions between metropole and

colony,16 necessarily privileges the colonial moment. By framing colonial-era

sovereignty as another “derivative discourse,” such approaches risk overlooking

11 For useful overviews, see Randall Pouwels, Horn and Crescent: Cultural Change and

Traditional Islam on the East African Coast, 800–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1987); Mark Horton and John Middleton, The Swahili: The Social Landscape of a Mercantile

Society (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000); and Derek Nurse and Thomas Spear, The Swahili: Reconstruct-

ing the History and Language of an African Society, 800–1500 (Philadelphia: University of Penn-

sylvania Press, 1985). 12 See, inter alia, G.S.P. Freeman-Grenville, The Mombasa Rising against the Portuguese 1631

(London: Oxford University Press, 1980), xxii–xxv. 13 For an overview, see Jonathon Glassman, Feasts and Riot: Revelry, Rebellion, and Popular

Consciousness on the Swahili Coast, 1856– 1888 (Portsmouth: Heinemann, 1995); for Mombasa,

see F. J. Berg, “Mombasa under the Busaidi Sultanate: The City and Its Hinterland in the 19th

Century” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1975). 14 See Horton and Middleton, The Swahili, ch. 4. 15 F. J. Berg, “The Swahili Community of Mombasa,” Journal of African History 9 (1968), 54. 16 Cf. Mongia, op. cit.

LOWER ING THE SULTAN ’ S FLAG 835

the quieter but resilient continuities of local political legitimacies. In this sense,

what is remarkable about mwambao is its expression of what might be termed a

“coastal Islamic sovereignty” that predated and postdates the political episode

itself.

“Islamic sovereignty” is no less resistant to definition than its modern Euro-

pean analogue. Normative-minded accounts locate Islamic sovereignty in

Allah, whose names exhibit his sovereign powers (Arabic, al-Hakimiyya).17

Neither kingship nor popular sovereignty has any proper Islamic basis;

people retain only the right of subordinate legislation to laws of the Qur’an

and Sunnah.18 The term sultan, Bernard Lewis argues, had become “the

usual Islamic title of sovereignty” by the eleventh century, and was the “stan-

dard title used by a monarch claiming to be the head of a state and not recogniz-

ing any suzerain or superior.”19 The Swahili coast had long had its self-titled

sultans—Ibn Battuta met such figures in Mogadishu and Kilwa in 1331—

and the Sultan of Zanzibar to some extent inherited the glow of religious auth-

ority attached to these local Islamic offices. The 1895 treaty and subsequent

years of colonial rule preserved explicitly Islamic elements of sovereignty

through a political panoply of kadhi courts officially endorsing Islamic

family law, state-endorsed and unitary maulid and idd festivals timed by a

singular authority, and a cadre of administrators theoretically accountable to

the Sultan. The figure of the Sultan lent a symbolically important and regionally

unique religious continuity to the coast’s colonial history upon which

mwambao advocates would fasten.

Mwambao’s emergence in the 1950s coincided with a major shift in the

nature of sovereignty within the international system. The geo-legal transform-

ation that narrowed the possibilities of Africa’s decolonization centered on the

shift from what Robert Jackson terms “positive” sovereignty before the Second

World War to “negative” sovereignty in the post-war system. The “positive” or

empirical sovereignty that dominated the pre-war era referred to a set of posi-

tive conditions that a state would need to have—sufficient force to defend itself

from outside intervention, sufficient control over its population and resources to

evidently self-govern—in order to join the exclusive club of sovereign states.

Post-war “negative” or juridical sovereignty, guided by the Atlantic and

United Nations Charters that conferred sovereign rights on all nations to self-

determination, ended the exclusive sovereign club by globalizing sovereignty

as an international entitlement; all nations were now to enjoy freedom from

17 Islamic notions of sovereignty begin with recognition of the sovereignty of God (Al-Malik)

over man, expressed in the tellingly redundant name Al-Malik-ul-Mulk, while man’s deputized

sovereignty on earth is Al-Hakimiyya or “governorship.” M. A. Muqtedar Khan, “Sovereignty in

Islam as Human Agency,” Ijtihad 1, 10 (1999), at www.ijtihad.org. 18 Ilyas Ahmed, Sovereignty in Islam (Karachi: Allies Book Corporation, 1963), 11, 20, 23. 19 Bernard Lewis, The Political Language of Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988),

43–53.

836 JAMES R . BRENNAN

intervention regardless of their positive conditions.20 Sovereignty was now

granted rather than won, particularly in Africa’s decolonization. Jackson

writes: “The revolt against the West ceased to be a credible rebellion against

colonial power and became instead a worldwide moral campaign against the

ideology and institutions of colonialism. The doctrine of negative sovereignty

in post-war decolonization is therefore seen most clearly in the international

emergence of Black Africa and Oceania. Before this sea change of international

legitimacy the complete independence of these areas was rarely contem-

plated.”21 States, Jackson argues, could no longer be deprived of sovereignty

as a result of “war, conquest, partition, or colonialism such as frequently hap-

pened in the past. ... The juridical cart is now before the empirical horse.”22

Mwambao thus occurred at a juncture when universal principles of self-

determination trumped historical prerogatives of collaborative sovereigns;

when colonial-era boundaries sanctified a new cohort of final authorities

regardless of each juridical state’s effectiveness. But neither mwambao activists

nor British officials should be seen, by their failure or design, to be simply facil-

itating this geo-legal shift, largely because “atomic” nation-state sovereignty

was one option, not yet victorious, in a late colonial world where the layered

sovereignty of federalism—in British East Africa, the Central African Federa-

tion, European Economic Community, British Commonwealth, and French

Union—seemed equally plausible. East African federalism offered a potential

structure to meet several mwambao claims, and harmonized with larger British

thinking about layered Commonwealth sovereignty, embodied in the second-

class but not inconsequential citizenship granted to Commonwealth subjects

in the 1948 Nationalities Act. The failures of federalism and circumstances

that produced “atomic” nation-state sovereignty across Africa’s jagged sover-

eign landscape varied, but they often involved Britain or France retreating

from obligations of labor compensation that were a consequence of their

empire’s universal claims, to hand over sovereignty to African nationalists

who subsequently buried labor claims beneath state projects of nation-

building.23 Also abandoned by retreating European empires were collaborative

sovereigns, whose legal status had earlier facilitated the empires’ emergence

20 Robert Jackson, Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Third World

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), esp. 23–31, 86–91. Jackson’s “positive” and

“negative” sovereignty roughly equate to Krasner’s “domestic” and “international legal” sover-

eignty, respectively. Critics of Jackson decry the hypocrisy, manipulation, and inequality that

infuse the post-war sovereignty system, but do little to refute his core arguments. See Siba

N’Zatioula Grovogui, Sovereigns, Quasi-Sovereigns, and Africans: Race and Self-Determination

in International Law (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996). 21 Jackson, Quasi-States, 85. 22 Ibid., 24. 23 Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and

British Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 468.

LOWER ING THE SULTAN ’ S FLAG 837

but now posed thorny questions of legal heterogeneity that fueled local debates

over sovereignty.

The coast’s nominal sovereign figure, Sultan Khalifa bin Harub (r. 1911–

1960), was by the 1950s a mild-mannered closet drinker and tennis enthusiast

well into his seventies.24 He enjoyed great prestige, but wielded little of the

“originary” transcendent power of the sovereigns theorized by Schmitt and

Agamben. The Sultan’s power lay in his symbolic appeal among supporters

of mwambao. His office, body, anthem, and flag symbolized and sanctified a

separate coastal social order. It was through such symbols, above all the

Sultan’s flag, that an Arab and Swahili elite theorized the contours and

content of coastal sovereignty.

THE 1895 AGREEMENT AND COASTAL SOVERE IGNTY BEFORE

MWAMBAO

The mwambao movement (1953 – 1963) based its claims for autonomy firstly

on the coastal strip’s “exceptional” legal status expressed in the 1895 treaty.

This two-party agreement between Britain and the Sultan of Zanzibar was

one of several treaties designed to secure international recognition for state

claims to political control during Africa’s partition. It enabled the British Gov-

ernment to take over administration and protection of the ten-mile strip from the

Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC), to whom the Sultan had leased

this territory in 1888.25 In return, Britain agreed to pay the Sultan £17,000 per

annum indefinitely—£11,000 in rent (the amount paid by IBEAC), and £6,000

in interest (3 percent per annum) on £200,000 the Sultan “lent” to Britain in the

treaty.26 Realizing the loss of local autonomy, some coastal leaders in 1895

took up political resistance against IBEAC and British encroachment after

the latter clumsily intervened in a local office succession dispute.27 Sheikh

Mbaruk bin Rashid, the aggrieved party, launched the two-year “Mazrui” (or

“Mbaruk”) Rebellion against the British in Mombasa and along the southern

24 Khalifa bin Harub died on 9 October 1960 at age eighty-one, succeeded by his less popular

son Abdallah bin Khalifa. He in turn died on 1 July 1963, succeeded by his still less popular son

Jamshid bin Abdallah, who was overthrown on 12 January 1964 and fled to exile in Britain. 25 An 1886 Anglo-German agreement delineated the Sultan’s sovereignty from the coastline to

ten miles into the interior. 26 The text of the 1895 treaty is in The Kenya Coastal Strip: Report of the Commissioner, Cmnd.

1585 (London: HMSO, 1961). Unlike Germany, which purchased outright the Sultan’s rights to the

coast of modern Tanzania, Britain leased Kenya’s coast from the Sultan. £200,000 was Germany’s

purchase price and therefore estimated to be the Sultan’s interest in IBEAC. Britain theoretically

“borrowed” this sum—quite literally the same £200,000 paid to the Sultan by Germany—in a

loan repayable at 3 percent interest, without reference to principle repayment. Rent was reduced

to £10,000 per annum in 1924 after the Sultan ceded Jubaland to Italian Somalia. Salim,

Swahili-Speaking Peoples, 73; Annexe II of EAC(57)3 entitled “Zanzibar and the Kenya Protecto-

rate,” Sept. 1957, CO 822/1810/3. 27 T.H.R. Cashmore, “Sheikh Mbaruk bin Rashid bin Salim el Mazrui,” in Norman Bennett, ed.,

Leadership in Eastern Africa (Boston: Boston University Press, 1968), 109–37.

838 JAMES R . BRENNAN

coast. While some Arab and Swahili joined, others held back, and British forces

defeated the disunited coastal community. These unsettled circumstances led

conciliatory Britons to draft statements that emphasized the privileged position

of sharia on the coast, and to promise implicitly not to abolish slavery, at least

not immediately.28 People living within the ten-mile strip were technically

British-protected persons and subjects of the Sultan, not subjects of the

British crown as the rest of Kenya’s population became. From the time the

mainland formally became a colony in 1920 until independence, the adminis-

trative unit of what is today Kenya would bear the awkward title “Kenya

Colony and Protectorate.”

The treaty exemplified the expedient nature of Africa’s partition. Britain took

over the IBEAC on the cheap, and the Sultan remained an important figure to

legitimize regional agreements, even after coming under formal British protec-

tion himself in 1890.29 The treaty also represented Britain’s ubiquitous reliance

upon collaborative authorities. It had relied in similar formal fashion upon the

Kabaka of Buganda in the 1900 Uganda Protectorate, and innumerable other

agents in East Africa not recognized by international treaty—either internally

formalized through “Native Authorities” of indirect rule in Tanganyika, or ter-

ritorialized through “Native Reserve” chiefs in Kenya Colony. Pre-colonial

Zanzibari titles such as liwali (governor), mudir (lieutenant), and kadhi

(court judge), which had been fluid appointments along the coast, became for-

malized administrative offices within the new Protectorate, remaining nomin-

ally part of the Sultan’s civil service. The Kenya colonial government, which

relocated its capital from Mombasa to Nairobi in 1905, exercised ultimate

power at the coast through its control over customs and the administrative

apparatus to which the Sultan’s officers answered. Among British policy

changes for the coast, none was more dramatic than the 1907 abolition of

slavery. Abolition in part acknowledged the institution’s already visible

decline, and transformed local systems of surplus extraction from one based

firstly on human ownership to one based firstly on land ownership in a

largely unsuccessful attempt to realize a capitalist rural economy in coastal

Kenya.30

In the years leading up to the Second World War, the 1895 treaty stood

mainly as an awkward administrative measure, its annual payments a nuisance

for Nairobi and an economic safeguard for Zanzibar. Britain had considered

outright annexation of the strip in 1917 to override nagging legal questions

of naturalization for military service. When the Zanzibar Resident proposed

28 Salim, Swahili-Speaking Peoples, 73. 29 Britain brought its Malaya protectorate model to Zanzibar, where the British Resident ran the

government in the name of the prince. Thomas Metcalf, Imperial Connections: India in the Indian

Ocean Arena, 1860– 1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 42. 30 Frederick Cooper, From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar

and Coastal Kenya, 1890– 1925 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981).

LOWER ING THE SULTAN ’ S FLAG 839

to the Sultan that he simply hand over the coast to Britain in 1919, he “received

the proposal complacently saying that he was the child of H.M.G. and was

always ready loyally to carry out its wishes.” Britain, however, dropped the

matter, fearing diplomatic difficulties with France in securing the treaty’s abro-

gation.31 In 1930, the Sultan of Zanzibar—then in personal financial

difficulty—offered to sell the coast to the Kenya for £250,000, but the latter

unwisely refused, never again to have a similarly simple opportunity.32 Some

fictive rights of “layered” coastal autonomy withered away during this

period. The Kenya Government stripped the “Twelve Tribes” of their annual

customs annuity paid in lieu of their long-standing right to collect customs

under the Sultan during the First World War.33 Indeed, three of the treaties

with the Sultan, dating from the 1830s, held a totemic quality among the two

sections (“Three Tribe” and “Nine Tribe”) of the Twelve Tribe Swahili commu-

nity of Mombasa, since their tamim (leaders) used the treaties to assert their

communities’ latent sovereignty. They championed this argument during the

inter-war period when the “Arab” community sought to restrict communal

voting membership to immigrant Arabs and exclude “Twelve Tribe” Swahili.34

Such colonial-era identity politics represent a break with the past, when iden-

tities were negotiated through more fluid relations of clientage and intermar-

riage. Arab, Swahili, and Mijikenda35 affiliations hardened through colonial

categorization by race and tribe that formalized prevailing status hierarchies,

a process reinforced by political organizations confronting colonial power.36

After the Second World War, the coast’s Arab population launched a lobbying

effort to help Arabs “catch up” with other groups in Kenya. Mixed together

with demands on colonial improvement schemes were bolder claims about

the nature of the Sultan’s sovereignty over the coast, led by Arab politicians

31 Note of Bronney[?] to Buist, 24 Oct. 1960, CO 822/2163/42. 32 “Note on Sovereignty of the Sultan of Zanzibar in the Protectorate of Kenya,” 21 Jan. 1953,

by EJAL/JEA [Kenya Attorney General], KNA GH/32/62/28; Annexe II of EAC(57)3, Sept. 1957,

CO 822/1810/3. 33 “A Short Description of the Twelve Tribes” by Hyder Mohammed, n.d. [c. Dec. 1944], KNA

DC/MSA/2/1/172/77. In fact, these customs allowances had ended by 1900, though certain recipi-

ents retained grants until their death, and a few mistakenly paid after death, until the liwali advised

ending all payments in 1921. Minute, 16 Aug. 1934, CO 533/442/13. 34 Photographs of treaties in KNA DC/MSA/2/1/172/78. On this conflict, see Salim,

Swahili-Speaking Peoples, ch. 5. 35 Mijikenda, literally “nine towns,” refers to the nine ethnic groups (Chonyi, Digo, Duruma,

Giriama, Jibana, Kambe, Kauma, Rabai, Riba) that live near the Kenyan coast, maintain ceremonial

shrines or kayas, and share a common descent myth. Mijikenda far outnumber Swahili and Arabs,

who had pejoratively termed Mijikenda as “Nyika.” 36 Justin Willis, Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda (Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1993), 74–76, 109 –12; Margaret Strobel, Muslim Women in Mombasa 1890–1975 (New

Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), 41. Whereas Willis maintains that ‘Mijikenda’ identities

were largely products of colonial-era patronage networks confronting state power, Spear argues

they have a deeper pre-colonial history. Thomas Spear, The Kaya Complex: A History of the

Mijikenda Peoples of the Kenya Coast to 1900 (Nairobi: Kenya Literature Bureau, 1978).

840 JAMES R . BRENNAN

in Zanzibar. When coastal Arabs lobbied for a second elective seat in Kenya’s

Legislative Council,37 the Coast Provincial Commissioner pinned blame on

Hadhrami immigrants. He explained: “I do feel it is very important that we

should never forget that the Kenya Protectorate is a part of H.H. the Sultan

of Zanzibar’s domain. These Hadramis are not his subjects; they are an immi-

grant race who are now seeking to establish themselves as the dominant Arabs

of the Protectorate. This is in the opinion of the local Arabs an insult to His

Highness and I feel that we must be very careful that we do not cause

offence to His Highness.”38

This suggestion of the Sultan’s sovereignty disturbed Philip Mitchell,

Kenya’s Governor, who responded that “the P. C. clearly needs some guidance:

the Sultan of Zanzibar has no ‘domains’ on the Kenya Coast.” Rather, the

Sultan has merely “leased a strip of his territory sine die to us; it is true that

as a matter of courtesy we, probably mistakenly, agreed to fly his flag over

Fort Jesus.”39 Rich and potent projections of coastal sovereignty flourished

upon such mistaken courtesies.

SUBJECTIVE SOVEREIGNTY AND SYMBOLS OF THE SULTAN

Symbols of the Sultan proliferated along the coast after the Second World War.

None was more important than the Sultan’s flag, as Governor Mitchell had

intuited. This plain red flag flew over Fort Jesus and other administrative

offices in Mombasa and other coastal towns. The Coast Provincial Commis-

sioner ultimately sanctioned this practice, which dated from 1895, to symbolize

continuity with the past, and it became progressively standardized over the

1930s and 1940s. The Provincial Office subsidized this bedecking of coastal

centers even during the war’s financial deprivations. Shortly after the war,

the Provincial Commissioner instructed officers to take better care of this

vital symbol: “Our flying of the Sultan’s flag in the Protectorate is a courtesy

much prized by the many Arabs on the Coast, and, incidentally, any lapses

we make in this connection are immediately noticed and commented on. The

condition of the flag, whether it is promptly raised and lowered at sunrise

and sunset, etc., are matters of importance to them.” Special large flags of

the Sultan were flown on Fridays, Islamic holidays, Empire Day, the King’s

Birthday, and Christmas Day, “and other suitable important occasions.”40

37 President, Central Arab Association to Kenya Governor, 5 Mar. 1950, KNA OP/1/546/43/1.

Representation in Kenya’s Legislative Council was defined racially, with Arabs holding one elected

seat and one appointed. The colonial administration felt Arab elected representatives functioned

badly in office because of their poor English, and preferred to retain the appointed position. 38 Provincial Commissioner [hereafter PC] Coast to Chief Secretary, 10 Mar. 1951, KNA OP/1/

546/151. 39 Minute of Mitchell, 24 Mar. 1951, KNA OP/1/546/155. 40 Acting PC Coast to all District Commissioners, 21 Feb. 1946, KNA DC/Lamu/2/11/19/49.

Small flags were flown over all district headquarters on the coast. Acting PC Coast to District Com-

missioner [hereafter DC] Kilifi and Lamu, 10 Mar. 1947, KNA DC/Lamu/2/11/19/59.

LOWER ING THE SULTAN ’ S FLAG 841

Mudirs throughout the Protectorate seized this opportunity and regularly reor-

dered Sultan’s flags paid for by British administration funds.41

A subtle but important distinction separated the flying of the Sultan’s flag

from that of the Union flag. In the Protectorate, only the Sultan’s flag could

be flown from poles affixed to the ground; the Union flag could only fly

from British buildings. In declining a request from a Briton to fly the Union

Jack from the ground of his own home, the Coast Provincial Officer stated

that he knew “of no one in this Province who flies the Union Flag from the

ground.”42 In Nairobi, administrators were regretting this extension of sover-

eign courtesy. Lawyers determined, “The practice whereby the Zanzibar flag

is flown from Fort Jesus and Lamu Fort is an act of courtesy which does not

appear to have any basis in protocol.”43 When the King’s African Rifles

doubted the Sultan’s sovereign status and refused him a twenty-one-gun

salute, the British Resident in Zanzibar protested, noting that the Sultan had

always been accorded this, and that if any doubt remains, “it can be overcome

by saluting his flag.”44 Subsequent legal research into this topic in Nairobi was

haphazard and characterized by wishful thinking. The Solicitor General con-

cluded that the wider distinction between Protectorate and Colony meant

little because the Sultan had already surrendered critical elements of sover-

eignty in the 1895 agreement.45 As the legal issue grew more urgent,

however, Whitehall lawyers determined that the Sultan retained substantial

sovereignty over the coast. Sidney Abrahams found that the agreement’s recog-

nition of the Sultan’s sovereignty was not simply “invented to soothe ruffled

Sultanic pride,” but was legally substantial because “Protectorate” expressed

both the protector’s interest in the protected territory and, crucially, “the oppor-

tunity of abandoning the Protectorate without the complications that would

arise from the cession or relinquishment of territory being a part of the domin-

ions of the Crown.”46 Colonial Office legal opinion concluded that should

Britain give up administering the Protectorate and transfer its responsibilities

either “to a self-governing Kenya Government or to an East African Federal

Government, a new Agreement would be required.”47

If Nairobi officials were dull to the status of sovereignty, coastal observers took

careful note of its symbols and meanings. The Kenya Protectorate Nationalist

Party, one of several mwambao parties, explained: “The flying of a red flag at

all Government stations in the Kenya Protectorate is not without historical

41 See correspondence in KNA DC/Lamu/2/11/19. 42 PC Coast to DC Lamu, 14 Nov. 1952, KNA DC/Lamu/2/11/19/158. 43 “Note on Sovereignty,” loc. cit. 44 British Resident, Zanzibar to Governor Kenya, 21 Jan. 1953, KNA GH/32/62/22. 45 Ag. Solicitor General to Chief Native Commissioner, 26 June 1951, KNA OP/1/546/167. 46 Opinion of Sydney Abrahams, January 1951, Annexe III of EAC(57)3, entitled “Zanzibar and

the Kenya Protectorate,” Sept. 1957, CO 822/1810/3. 47 “East African Conference,” Colonial Office, Dec. 1960, CO 822/2163/49.

842 JAMES R . BRENNAN

background in a bona fide recognition of the distinctive separate state of

Mwambao from the Kenya Colony. The red flag or any other flag hoisted with

its pole pitched to the ground signifies in international law ‘Sovereignty.’”48

Local histories ascribed great significance to distinctions in flag-flying prac-

tice. A Lamu historian wrote, “The Sultan’s flag flew every day from a mast

planted in the ground. The English flag [instead] flew above English officer

buildings to show it was not their colony.”49 In 1949, Arab politicians and

administrators, working alongside British officials, launched a veritable cam-

paign of symbols to revive the Sultan’s position on the coast in celebration

of his seventieth birthday.50 The assistant liwali in Mombasa reported,

“Every house and shop occupied by His Highness’ subject the Sultan’s flag

was seen waving” on his seventieth birthday.51 By this time the political

language of flags on the coast had largely transformed from earlier understand-

ings of the 1880s, when the Sultan’s banner represented not national sover-

eignty but rather “the prestige of the Busaid dynasty and the personal

patronage of the sultan.”52 Indeed, it was the German lowering of the

Sultan’s flag that sparked the 1888 Abushiri rebellion along the mrima coast

of modern Tanzania. It revealed to rebels not a new order of European imperi-

alism but rather the Sultan’s failure to live up to his obligations as patron.53 By

the 1950s, however, the symbol of the flag no longer simply communicated the

figure of the Sultan as patron, but also the Sultan as territorialized national auth-

ority figure fully recognized by Britain. This was acknowledged even by

mwambao opponents, who contested the legality of the 1895 treaty but

implicitly accepted the political language of flag sovereignty. A coastal

branch of the Kenya African National Union (KANU) opposing mwambao

declared, “The Arab imperialism must go and the red flag must disappear.”54

Other symbols marking the Sultan’s sovereignty crested during the

mwambao years. Programmers at Sauti ya Mvita (“Voice of Mombasa”), the

provincial radio station funded largely to counter hostile broadcasts from

Radio Cairo, ensured that the flag’s acoustic equivalent, the Sultan’s national

anthem, began each morning and evening broadcast.55 Recordings of the

48 KPNP to Robertson, 25 Sept. 1961, CO 894/12/20. 49 Ahmed Mohammad Ahmed Al-Jahadhmy, Tarekhe ya Amu (written 1968, self-published

1985), 24; my emphasis, author’s translation. I thank Jamal Mahfoud Al-Jahadhmy and Andy

Eisenberg for providing access to this work. 50 A year later, a reporter wrote, “It took some effort to be cognizant of the ties attaching this

coast to the Sultanate,” but noted that the seventieth-birthday celebration “drove home to those

who had been ignorant the fact that Mombasa still holds on its shores a community cherishing

an affectionate regard for the Sultan of Zanzibar.” Mombasa Times, 29 Sept. 1950. 51 Azzan to DC Mombasa, 6 Sept. 1949, KNA CA/16/63/11. 52 Glassman, Feasts and Riot, 202. 53 Ibid., ch. 7. 54 KANU Kwale Branch to Robertson, n.d. [c. Oct. 1961], CO 894/13/15. 55 Coast Broadcasting Advisory Sub-Committee minutes, 14 June 1957, KNA AHC/30/8/3.

LOWER ING THE SULTAN ’ S FLAG 843

Sultan’s speeches sent from Zanzibar were played regularly, as were his greet-

ings to open and close Islamic festivals such as idd and maulid. This medium

enjoyed enormous expansion during the mwambao years, as radios became

regular features in public squares, coffee shops, restaurants, and Mombasa

homes. They were particularly common in homes of mwambao supporters;

53 percent of “Arab-Swahili” households in town had a radio, against the

town average of 15 percent.56 Growth in sovereign dress complemented this

sonic expansion. The liwali or Sultan’s deputy for the coast, Sheikh Mbarak

Ali Hinawy, conveyed the Sultan’s symbolic martial power by opening the

Idd al-Hajj baraza dressed in “traditional Arab costume ablaze with colour, cer-

emonial sword at his side and a jeweled dagger in a silken sash.”57 Some Pro-

tectorate civil servants wore a red fez with star to symbolize the unitary figure

of the Sultan. Mwambao advocates expanded this dress to non-government

workers by designing and distributing hats and ties dyed in red with three

stars rather than one. Passing through Kenya in 1958, Ali Muhsin al-Barwani

noted, “A group of friends and well-wishers waited to meet me at Mombasa

airport, some of them ostentatiously displaying their red three star tie, denoting

the two islands and the coastal strip of Kenya, which was part and parcel of the

Sultanate of Zanzibar.”58 Some ten thousand people arrived to welcome him

that day, not just with ties but red flags, badges, and party banners, eliding

symbols of the Sultan, the coastal Protectorate civil administration, and Ali

Muhsin’s Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP).59

The significance of the Sultan’s sovereignty lay not in the exercise of

autonomous administrative power, but in the emotion-laden aspirations of

his self-chosen “subjects” or raiya—the Swahili term used also to denote

“citizens.” The figure of the Sultan himself imparted immense local prestige.

After successfully inviting him to visit the Arab Women’s Institute at

Mombasa in 1957, Shamsa Mohamed Muhashamy recalled, “This was the

first really beneficial thing we did, and all women now knew that we had

become equals.”60 By the late 1950s, the Sultan’s birthday ranked alongside

maulid and idd as the coast’s principal festivals. Cries of “long live the

Sultan” filled coastal towns during this celebration. In Mombasa, massive

torch-lit processions through crowd-thronged streets included stick dancers,

banners of the Sultan, and lorries carrying brass bands. Famous poets

offered verses of praise over loudspeakers.61 In trying to determine the

56 Question and Answers, Mombasa Social Survey, G. M. Wilson, 7 Nov. 1958, KNA DC/MSA/

2/1/3/p. 12. 57 Mombasa Times, 11 Aug. 1954. 58 Ali Muhsin al-Barwani, Conflict and Harmony in Zanzibar (Memoirs) (Dubai: self-published,

2000), 106. 59 Zanzibar Intelligence Report, June 1958, CO 822/1377/52. 60 Strobel, Muslim Women in Mombasa, 189. 61 See Mombasa Times, 8 Sept. 1954, and 27 Aug. 1957.

844 JAMES R . BRENNAN

substance of the Sultan’s sovereignty, the Robertson Commission observed,

“The only manifestation of it on the coast of Kenya is his flag, which flies

everywhere in the Strip and even in the Witu lands which are outside it.”

It concluded, “His sovereignty is, therefore, very nebulous and little more

than a vague sentimental idea. Even so, many of the Arab inhabitants look

as much to the Sultan as to the British Government for protection of their

interests and, although the Sultan’s sovereignty means little in its practical

effect, I was convinced by my many interviews with Arab and other

Muslim inhabitants of the Coast that emotionally it is a factor which

cannot lightly be put aside.”62

Sovereignty existed above all in the minds of the Sultan’s willing subjects.

It represented a bundle of claims with historical roots that coastal autonomists

asserted in the face of an ascendant African nationalism that explicitly sought to

overturn coastal political structures. These claims faced overwhelming

obstacles in the partisan landscape of Kenya’s decolonization.

FRACTURED PARTY POL IT ICS AND THE ROBERTSON COMM ISS ION

While the mwambao movement united around reinvigorated symbols of the

Sultan’s sovereignty, it fractured under stress of coastal party factionalism,

united Kenya African opposition, and Britain’s desire for expedient decoloni-

zation. Unlike Zanzibar, where the two principal parties—ZNP and

Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP)—fairly represented two powerful and contrasting

ideological viewpoints, both mwambao and anti-mwambao parties were too

numerous and divided to allow for a straightforward political history.63

These parties represented not only the multiple social divisions along the

coastal strip, but also the multiple territorial units upon which political ambi-

tions were projected: the ten-mile strip (mwambao); the much larger Coast

Province, whose own autonomy, captured in the term majimbo-ism, was cham-

pioned by mainly Mijikenda supporters of the Kenya African Democratic

Union (KADU); and a centralized, Nairobi-dominated Kenya supported pri-

marily by KANU upcountry immigrants. The Kenya Government proscribed

African political parties in 1953 during Mau Mau, and when the ban was

lifted in 1955 only district-level parties were permitted.64 The four major

parties involved in fighting either for or against mwambao all formed branches

in Mombasa and other coastal towns only in late 1960. The two main political

parties to support mwambao were the Coast Peoples Party (CPP), the most

articulate and aggressive coastal party led by Swahili and Arabs in

62 Kenya Coastal Strip, 13. 63 The best political history for Zanzibar remains Michael Lofchie, Zanzibar: Background to

Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966); for mwambao, Salim, “The Movement

for ‘Mwambao.’” 64 A. J. Hughes, East Africa: The Search for Unity (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963), 123; Keith

Kyle, The Politics of the Independence of Kenya (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), 70.

LOWER ING THE SULTAN ’ S FLAG 845

Mombasa; and the more conservative, Arab- and European-dominated Coastal

League.65 They were joined by the Lamu-based Shungwaya Freedom Party,

a Bajuni-dominated party concerned not only with mwambao but also the emer-

ging border crisis with Somalia, and the Malindi-based Kenya Protectorate

Nationalist Party (KPNP), an Arab-led party that resented Mombasa’s leader-

ship of mwambao. Several other smaller and short-lived parties followed.

One CPP activist recalled, “When we opened our eyes there were here at the

coast about thirty parties competing with CPP.”66 CPP leader Abdullahi

Nassir offered the most progressive political vision among mwambao parties.

He attempted to distance the movement from its widely-perceived Arab

elitism by mobilizing a wider “Swahili” population to include those Africans

who identify with coastal culture, and thereby better capture the sociological

complexities of coastal society beyond its binary caricature of Arab landlord/

ex-master and African squatter/ex-slave.67 But such caricatures could also

mobilize support, and the popularity of mwambao often turned on fears of

African domination. The comic picture of European planters in Malindi cham-

pioning the Sultan’s sovereignty while mumbling distrust of CPP urban radicals

revealed the considerable opportunism and ultimate socio-economic incoher-

ence of mwambao party politics.68 Party leadership was mostly weak, for

highly talented Arab and Swahili civil servants on the coast, who all supported

autonomy and were the movement’s natural leaders, were prohibited from par-

ticipating by dint of their positions.69 Generally speaking, the more “royalist”

Coastal League sought union with Zanzibar, while the CPP sought an auton-

omous or independent coastal state detached from the Sultanate, in both

cases based on the coast’s “exceptional” historical sovereignty from the

mainland.

The first sustained calls for coastal autonomy were led by Arabs in Zanzibar

and Kenya inspired by political events in the Middle East. In 1948, two leaders of

Zanzibar’s Arab Association and liwali of the Kenya coast, Mbarak Ali Hinawy,

visited London to petition the Colonial Office for ‘Arab independence’ on

65 Kindy, Life and Politics, 188–89. 66 Sarah Mirza and Margaret Strobel, eds., Three Swahili Women: Life Histories from Mombasa,

Kenya (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 111. 67 Nassir’s most articulate expression of political leadership is captured in his cyclostyled peti-

tion to the Coast Provincial Commissioner that attacks the elitism of Mombasa’s Arab bureaucratic

and political leadership, entitled “Pwani ya Kenya,” 4 Feb. 1960, in KNA CA/10/126/11. The

Kenya Government had in 1952 ‘promoted’ the Twelve Tribes to Arab status. 68 See minutes of Malindi European Association, 27 Sept. 1961, in Malindi European Associ-

ation Papers, Rhodes House (Oxford University), Mss.Afr.s.564, vol. II. 69 Liwalis, Mudirs, and Kadhis of Kenya Protectorate to Maudling, n.d. [c. Feb. 1962], CO 822/

2151/84. Hyder Kindy, for example, did not publicly express his views on mwambao and later dis-

missed it as a “fiasco” in his memoir Life and Politics in Mombasa, written while employed by Ken-

yatta’s government. But in fact he was a staunch supporter of autonomy; see his petition to

Robertson Commission, 19 Oct. 1961, CO 894/13/10.

846 JAMES R . BRENNAN

Zanzibar.70 Mombasa Arabs used the pages of Mwongozi, the main Zanzibari

nationalist newspaper, to proclaim their loyalty to the Sultan in fulsome

terms.71 Arabs from all four British East African territories met at Mombasa in

1953 to form the East African Arab Union, which sought “the realization of

unity of the dominions of His Highness the Sultan of Zanzibar.” Seeking to

confirm the Sultan’s “ownership” of the coast, the organization also sought to

revise the 1895 treaty to increase the £10,000 annual rent, since this amount

did not match “the present and potential value of this land, economically, politi-

cally, and strategically,” and thus the Sultanate was not “enjoying the full benefits

of its sovereignty over us.”72 Arabs from Zanzibar had established important pol-

itical links with Egypt after the Second World War, and they used these ties to

broadcast anti-colonial polemics on Egypt’s radio airwaves. Ahmed Said,

Egypt’s “Voice of the Arabs” program announcer, celebrated mwambao as an

anti-colonial struggle: “O! Arabs. News has reached us that an Arab Islamic

Nation is being established in Zanzibar and the Coastal Strip of East Africa ...

It is our duty then, to assist this blessed movement, so as to glorify it,

support it and bring it up to join our Arab Procession... . Arab Nationalism

is penetrating the East African Jungle and Central Africa. The Arab League

of Nationals on the one hand and the Arab Nations extending from the Atlantic

to the Arabian Gulf, on the other hand should help our Brothers in Kenya and

Zanzibar.”73

Swahili-language broadcasts from Cairo remained sympathetic to mwambao

until 1960.74 A. I. Salim dates mwambao’s start to 1956, when, amidst the

growing Suez crisis, Kenya’s two Arab Legislative Council members contested

a proposal to establish a British naval base at Mombasa, claiming that the

Sultan’s sovereignty and Arab consent were being trammeled.75

This internationalization of mwambao provoked African nationalist hostility

that led to a Zanzibari retreat. Robust opposition to coastal autonomy first

emerged in Francis Khamisi’s Mombasa Democratic African Union

(MADU) party. MADU pursued its own newspaper war against Mwongozi

by insisting that there was only one mfalme (sovereign) in East Africa—the

Queen, not the Sultan.76 Khamisi launched a 1958 campaign to oppose

70 S.L.O. Intelligence Survey for period ending 10 Nov. 1948, CO 537/4340/1. Before this trip,

Hinawy had requested official papers documenting the relationship between the Sultan and Britain.

Glenday to Cohen, 16 July 1948, CO 537/4706A/1. 71 See, inter alia, letter of “Four-Of-A-Kind,” Mwongozi, 30 Jan. 1953. 72 Mombasa Times, 29 Dec. 1953; 1953 Mombasa District Annual Report, KNA DC/MSA/1/5. 73 Saut el-Arab broadcast, 30 June 1956, Foreign Office [Kew] 371/119222/E1433/76. 74 On Radio Cairo’s Swahili-language broadcasts, see James Brennan, “Radio Cairo and the

Decolonization of East Africa, 1953– 1964,” in Christopher Lee, ed., Bandung and Beyond

(forthcoming). 75 Mombasa Times, 28 May 1956; Salim, “Mwambao,” 216–17. 76 Sauti ya MADU, 10 Aug. 1958.

LOWER ING THE SULTAN ’ S FLAG 847

mwambao by enrolling support of more powerful upcountry politicians. Contra

the East African Arab Association, Khamisi argued Kenya should cease paying

any rents to Zanzibar.77 MADU was quickly overshadowed by national organ-

izations, and by late 1960 opposition to mwambao was shared by the two major

political parties: the Kenya African Nation Union (KANU) supported by

upcountry Luo and Kikuyu, and the Kenya African Democratic Union

(KADU) led by Ronald Ngala and supported by Mijikenda and other “minority

tribes.” KANU favored a powerful unitary government in Nairobi; KADU

feared national domination by the former and preferred a system of regional

autonomy, but pointedly refused to extend this principle to support coastal

autonomy. Both parties were equally hostile towards mwambao, for it rep-

resented the continuation of coastal Arab and Swahili privilege over Africans.78

This strikingly unified opposition to mwambao among African nationalist

parties otherwise at odds convinced Zanzibari nationalists to abandon the

cause. In April 1960, ZNP dramatically broke from its earlier unconditional

support of mwambao and its demand that the coast be reunified with Zanzibar,

and left it to the coastal people to decide their own future.79 This became one of

the few points of consensus between ZNP and ASP in their otherwise bitter pol-

itical competition. A year later, Zanzibar’s Sultan Abdallah bin Khalifa meekly

agreed to this consensus of non-interference.80 Despite this abandonment,

mwambao supporters continued to travel to Zanzibar to petition the Sultan

for autonomous government in the Kenya Protectorate, appealing to fears of

domination by “up-country peoples.”81 In 1963, ZNP Prime Minister

Mohamed Shamte politely explained to the Tamim of Mombasa’s “Three

Tribes” that there was nothing more Zanzibar could do for mwambao.

82

Only when mwambao became a national issue did the Kenya Government—

now committed to an orderly decolonization—fully face the implications of the

1895 treaty. Mwambao had gained sustenance in the ambiguity of East Africa’s

constitutional future. Although no British official ever considered full indepen-

dence a possibility, the coastal strip could have conceivably gained some

measure of autonomy if it had remained within a Federated East Africa

77 Scotsman, 16 June 1960, in CO 822/2163/28. 78 On KANU-KADU competition, see Kyle, Politics, ch. 7; and David Anderson, “‘Yours in the

Struggle for Majimbo’: Nationalism and the Party Politics of Decolonisation in Kenya, 1955 to

1964,” Journal of Contemporary History 39 (2005): 547–64. 79 Mooring to Macleod, 27 Apr. 1960, CO 822/2163/18. 80 Note on visit to Sultan of Zanzibar by W. T. Hull, Robertson Commission Secretary, 7 Oct.

1961, CO 894/3/7. Hull found “that Zanzibaris of all kinds are fearful of taking any line which

will antagonize up-country African opinion.” Hull to Kitcatt, 25 Oct. 1961, CO 894/1/125. 81 Petition enclosed in Mooring to Webber, 19 May 1960, CO 822/2163/20. 82 Sheikh Ali bin Mohamed bin Yunus, Tamin of “Three Tribes” to Sultan of Zanzibar, 7 Oct.

1961, KNA CA/26/5/1; Muhamed Shamte to Sheikh Ali bin Mohamed bin Yunus, 26 Aug. 1963, in

private collection of Abdulkarim Yunus, Mombasa. I thank Jeremy Prestholdt for providing a copy

of this document.

848 JAMES R . BRENNAN

bound by a fully integrated customs and transport policy.83 Federation enjoyed

an odd constituency of pan-African idealists and calculating British administra-

tors. Created in 1948 to coordinate inter-territorial services, the East African

High Commission had been a popular target of hostile African nationalists,

but Julius Nyerere pressed for continued inter-territorial cooperation, and

thus kept open this constitutional door as each territory approached self-

government and independence.84 In June 1960, Kenya’s Governor finally

asked the Colonial Office to consider “to what extent the Protectorate,

should it become an autonomous province, could be a viable entity,” while

instructing Treasury to ascertain the Protectorate’s financial position. He

offered two possibilities: that the Protectorate retain its autonomy in a federa-

tion with guarantees that Mombasa provide services to Kenya and Uganda, or

that Mombasa alone fully join Kenya. Treasury determined neither scenario

was viable.85

To resolve these mounting legal questions, the Colonial Office appointed

Sir James Robertson, ex-Governor of Nigeria, to lead a commission to determine

whether the 1895 treaty should be amended or abrogated in light of the consti-

tutional futures of Kenya and Zanzibar. In correspondence that led to the com-

mission’s formation, the Colonial Secretary Ian MacLeod indicated that a

timely decision was required, since both he and the Kenya Governor had

agreed to prioritize discussions with the major political parties (KANU and

KADU) that would include internal self-government. In a striking and unex-

plained turnabout,86 MacLeod abandoned federation as a solution, calling it

“open to serious question,” for “the Strip, as it stands, is not a viable administra-

tive unit.” Therefore, like so many before it, this commission’s conclusions were

reached at the start. MacLeod instructed the British Resident in Zanzibar:

The only practical solution is that the Strip as a whole can only be administered as part

and parcel of Kenya. ... The best in my view one could then aim for would be virtually a

maintenance of the status quo but with Kenya taking over the role of H.M.G. under the

1895 Agreement. Our problem therefore would be to make this change-over with proper

regard for the Sultan’s sovereignty and the legitimate interests of the Arabs in the Strip,

83 Even Philip Mitchell, Kenya’s most pro-Arab governor since Hardinge, had admitted the

coastal strip had “no political future” detached from mainland Kenya. Mitchell to Creech Jones,

24 Feb. 1948, CO 537/5911/8. 84 Joseph Nye, Pan Africanism and East African Integration (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni-

versity Press, 1967), 133. Nyerere had founded the Pan-African Freedom Movement of East and

Central Africa (PAFMECA) in 1958, and worked to establish the East African Common Services

Organization in June 1961. Ibid. 85 Renison to Webber, 10 June 1960, CO 822/2163/27. The Robertson Commission later found a

£955,000 shortfall between revenue and expenditure on the coastal strip. Kenya Coastal Strip, 10. 86 At an East African Governors’ meeting held on 16 June 1961, consensus emerged that it would

be best to establish the strip as a High Commission territory, so that it could later become a federal

territory after Kenya reached internal self-government. Extract note at CO 822/2164/70. The East

African High Commission was renamed the East African Common Services Organisation that

same year.

LOWER ING THE SULTAN ’ S FLAG 849

particularly in land rights, and the protection of Islamic personal law.... I see presenta-

tional disadvantage therefore in leaving the initiative in this matter to the politicians in

Nairobi and return again to the idea of the Commissioner.87

The heads of Kenya and Zanzibar were sympathetic to this conclusion, but

feared igniting a regional political conflict in its implementation. Mooring,

the British Resident at Zanzibar, warned that it “will be difficult to obtain

His Highness’s agreement to a solution which does not (repeat not)

command the support of the majority of his subjects inhabiting the coastal

strip.”88 Kenya’s Governor concurred. “Such a solution,” Renison explained,

“would be unacceptable to non-African inhabitants of the Protectorate and

there is reason to suppose that many coastal Africans though unwilling to

voice their views in the present atmosphere of political intimidation,

would, in the last resort, resist rule by predominantly up country African gov-

ernment.”89 For their part, both KANU and KADU made it clear that the

coastal strip had to remain an integral part of Kenya, and they feared that

an appointed commissioner might reach a different conclusion.90 Petitioners

from across the political spectrum bombarded the Robertson Commission

when it arrived on the coast in October 1961. Tensions sharpened wherever

the Commission traveled. KANU, KADU, and the Kenya Federation of

Labour jointly called for a boycott of all Arab shops for the days the Com-

mission met in Mombasa. Gangs of supporters threatened Arab traders and

hotel owners, demanding they close shop before the Commission met; seven-

teen arrests followed and the traders agreed to close to prevent further intimi-

dation.91 By the autumn of 1961, veiled and open threats of violence had

become a ubiquitous part of anti-mwambao rhetoric among African political

leaders.92

SOVEREIGNTY ’ S BUNDLE OF CLAIMS : RELIGION , IMM IGRAT ION ,

LAND , AND H ISTORY IN MWAMBAO

Composed at this tense moment but summarizing years and decades of political

thought, petitions to the Robertson Commission richly illustrate how coastal

political activists envisioned sovereignty.93 Discernible patterns of claims

and counter-claims emerge. James Sheehan argues that sovereignty was not a

legal “chunk” but a practical and functional “basket” of claims that “are

87 MacLeod to Mooring, 4 July 1961, CO 822/2149/9. 88 Mooring to MacLeod, 7 July 1961, CO 822/2149/11. 89 Renison to MacLeod, 15 July 1961, CO 822/2149/15. 90 Renison to MacLeod, 8 Sept. 1961, CO 822/2149/52. 91 Provincial Information Office, Mombasa, 10 Oct. 1961, KNA CQ/9/3/7; Saleh Omar Salmeen

[President, Arab Traders Association] to DC Mombasa, 11 Oct. 1961, KNA CQ/9/3/9. 92 These public threats are chronicled in Memorandum of Coastal League to Robertson, App. E,

7 Oct. 1961, CO 894/12/6. 93 Petitions are in CO 894 series.

850 JAMES R . BRENNAN

always made with reference to someone else.”94 To pursue this analogy further,

sovereignty on Kenya’s coast was as a cord twining together related claims to

land, political office, religious authority, and immigration control grounded in

nineteenth-century norms of coastal Arab and Swahili power.95 Arab and

Swahili administrative power had withered while its symbols proliferated,

British officials having gauged the latter an expedient concession to maintain

local consent. Within the colonial-era power shift from coast to upcountry,

there is an instructive contrast between the popular sovereignty of African

majority rule that won out in East Africa, and the dynastic sovereignty of the

Sultanate that found itself superseded. Popular sovereignty was the political

extension of modernization paradigms of the day, universal programs for

change that mistakenly assumed co-variation of multiple social elements

over time—ascribed to achieved status, subsistence to market economy,

extended to immediate family households, subjects to citizens. The dynastic

sovereignty of mwambao, by contrast, mistakenly assumed co-stasis of such

social elements over time within a sovereign territory, and sought to resist

larger forces then visibly overtaking coastal politics during East Africa’s

decolonization—regional racial politics, international nation-state imperatives,

and powerful migrant labor networks. Mwambao supporters fought to remain

subjects of the Sultan to resist being overwhelmed by an emerging Kenyan

citizenry.

Religion emerged as a vital element of sovereignty championed by the

Sultan’s subjects. Ceremonial baraza, or public meetings, held by British

consuls in 1895 at Mombasa and Lamu and long recalled by coastal residents

proclaimed that Islam “would remain the public and established creed” in the

Sultan’s dominions, and that sharia would be maintained.96 Staffed by the

Sultan’s nominal employees, kadhi courts adjudicated personal status law,

that is, cases of inheritance, marriage, and divorce.97 Mwambao activists

argued that Islam itself was under threat by mainland Kenya. A Lamu sheikh

warned that if Britain left, an African Kenya government will neither “safe-

guard our customs or our religion which will be interfered with ... Ngala

has stated that he would pull down our mosques and will not allow our

fasting as required by our religion after their independence.”98 CPP took

upon itself the role of defender of the Islamic faith. Its Women’s Section

94 Sheehan, “The Problem of Sovereignty,” 2– 3. 95 These norms color the historiography of the Swahili Coast. See Salim, Swahili-Speaking

Peoples; and Pouwels, Horn and Crescent. For a critical perspective on the meaning and contesta-

tion of these norms along the nineteenth-century coast, see Glassman, Feasts and Riot. 96 Salim, Swahili-Speaking Peoples, 73. 97 Hassan Abdulrahman Mwakimako, “Politics, Ethnicity and Jostling for Power: The Evolution

of Institutions of Muslim Leadership and Kadhiship in Colonial Kenya, 1895– 1963” (Ph.D. diss.,

University of Cape Town, 2003), ch. 5. 98 Translation of letter of F. Athman and O. B. Basheikh [Lamu] to Governor’s Private Secretary,

22 Aug. 1963, CO 822/3073/E17(ii).

LOWER ING THE SULTAN ’ S FLAG 851

warned: “Political agitators, mostly from upcountry have very often tried to

throw mud on Islam by blaming its teachings as the cause of the backwardness

of certain Africans. Threats have been made in public and in private that as

soon as independence came the purdah system will have to be discontinued.

Mosques will be defiled and the sheria courts discontinued. A number of

women have been threatened at bus stops and elsewhere and some forcibly

to unveil their faces.”99

Fueling this panic were the competing curricula of Islamic and Christian mis-

sionary schooling. Coastal Muslims feared, with good reason, that Christian

schoolrooms demonized Arabs as slave traders whom Europeans had

removed from power for the benefit of Africans, yet they also recognized

that such schools were far better at preparing students for higher education

and competitive bureaucratic posts. The KPNP petitioned that “the muslim

[sic] schools syllabus and/or curriculum be arranged in such a way as to incor-

porate religious instructions and Arabic language in a manner that would not

hamper a student in attaining a ... pass.”100 Islamic autonomy thus offered pro-

spective shelter from educational as well as legal trends that visibly benefited

aspiring Christian bureaucrats over their Muslim counterparts in wider Kenya.

Behind these religious fears lay the terrors of demographic imagination. By

the late 1950s, roughly four thousand new African immigrants were arriving

each year in Mombasa alone.101 For mwambao advocates, sovereignty meant

immigration control.102 The Coastal League stipulated on its enrollment form

that the State of Azania (its name for independent mwambao) “shall be gov-

erned by the principle that preference shall be given to Wenjeji wa [natives

of] Mwambao, and that it is the duty of the State to replace expatriate labour

with indigenous labour as soon as the latter can be made capable of assuming

the required responsibility.”103 In a decidedly less ecumenical instance of lea-

dership, Abdullahi Nassir sought to delimit the rights of citizenship to only

those born within the ten-mile strip:

We would like to explode the fallacy that is very prevalent in this part of Africa, that as

long as one has a black pigmentation and fuzzy hair, one has citizenship rights in Africa.

Might was right in 1885 and in 1961 Black is right. These people swarming from

upcountry in busloads and bogey loads come to earn a living or to shelter from the

famine that ravages their country from time to time. They never regard this as their

home and they have got their roots firmly entrenched in their own homes. ... To

grant political rights to such a people, who have no patriotic sentiments to the Coastal

99 Memorandum of Womens’ Section of CPP, by Mwanawangu Mzee and Somoe Bausi to

Robertson, 20 Oct. 1961, CO 894/13/8. 100 Petition of Mohamed Husein Jongoo [President, KPNP] to Zanzibar Sultan, encl. in Husein

to Zanzibar Sultan, 29 Aug. 1963, CO 822/3073/E17(iii). 101 EAC(57)3, CO 822/1810/3. 102 A rough 1961 coastal strip census found (by race): 300,000 Africans; 48,000 Asians; 37,000

Arabs, Swahilis, and Bajunis; and 7,000 Europeans. Kenya Coastal Strip, 7. 103 Enrollment form for Coastal League, CO 894/2.

852 JAMES R . BRENNAN

Strip or who have dual loyalties is a mockery of democracy and a direct threat to the well

being of the true nationals of this country. This threat looms very large on our heads, the

true sons of Mwambao.104

The first issue the CPP raised in its meeting with the Robertson Commission

was the overabundance of up-country Africans and paucity of coastal people

in the Coast Police Force. This posed the danger “that they might just stand

by in the event of trouble, such as had happened in Zanzibar.” The party

requested that the pass system be reactivated. “At present,” they argued,

“there are about 5,000 unemployed up-country people in Mombasa, and they

thought that every up-country person should be returned to their homes, and

a barrier set up so that they could not re-enter.”105

As elsewhere in Kenya, the most contentious and intractable conflicts on the

coast occurred over land. The connection between land and sovereignty was

clear in the political imaginations of both sides of the mwambao debate.

Despite recent entries of some European and Indian investors, land ownership

patterns of the late 1950s were much like those of the 1910s following the abol-

ition of slavery. The coast remained an undercapitalized agricultural belt

dealing in crops (coconut, maize, millet, cassava) marginal to Kenya’s export

economy.106 Lacking any decisive economic transformation, legal pluralism

prevailed, with consequent contestations of jurisdictional boundaries. As

Hamadin Abd Hamid notes, land matters on the coast were “administered

under several forms of law notably Shari’a law, mila [Swahili customary

law], and customary law. ... [t]he problem was that the geographical bound-

aries of these legal spheres were not defined, in fact the spheres of influence

of these laws always overlapped.”107 Although the ten-mile strip was theoreti-

cally within the realm of the Sultan’s sovereignty and therefore under sharia

law, all “un-owned” land along the same strip had been declared Crown land

in the 1902 Crown Land Ordinance, which along with the 1908 Land Titles

Ordinance served as a concessionary mechanism to encourage European plan-

tation settlement. Furthermore, land rights grounded in sharia commonly tailed

off into “customary” land practices among Swahili and Mijikenda house-

holds.108 Economic realities often determined the legal systems invoked; in

104 Memorandum of CPP to Robertson, 20 Oct. 1961, CO 894/13/2. 105 Note of meeting between Robertson and CPP delegation, Mombasa, 20 Oct. 1961, CO 894/2.

Robertson deemed it impossible to expect a mwambao state to “be able to prevent infiltration and

invasion by further and successive waves of up-country tribes-people in search of work, land

and facilities.” Moreover, “if a hostile up-country Kenya Government wished to excite agitation

and disorder, the new State would not be in a position to defend itself from attack,” creating a situation

that would jeopardize “the safety and the peaceful development not only of the new State itself, but of

the whole of East Africa.” Kenya Coastal Strip, 23. 106 See Cooper, From Slaves to Squatters, ch. 5. 107 Hamidin Abd Hamid, “Unfinished Business: The Implementation of the Land Titles Ordi-

nance in Coastal Kenya, 1908– 1940s,” (Ph.D. diss., University of London, 2000), 57. 108 Ibid., 47, 34– 37.

LOWER ING THE SULTAN ’ S FLAG 853

the plantation economies of Malindi and Takaungu, sharia and European

freehold claims predominated, while less monetized districts in the north

tended to be governed by customary laws. Mwambao represented a political

effort not merely to protect the privileges of a certain class of landowners,

but also to privilege one legal system amongst other vying contenders.

Post-war demographic and political changes strained coastal land tenure

arrangements. By the 1950s, unprecedented numbers of squatters filled the

lands of absentee landlords, whose main recourse for rent enforcement and

removal was the colonial state. Mwambao advocates feared further encroach-

ment by African squatters on coastal strip land, one-fifth of which had been

alienated to private owners.109 By the late 1950s, violence over the collection

of rent arrears and squatter evictions had become more frequent, and certainly

far more public.110 A sharp rise in world cashew nut prices in 1959 led directly

to a number of violent clashes on the cashew farms of Malindi between Giriama

squatters and Arab and Indian landlords, the former exercising their growing

political power while the latter stubbornly refused to make formal tenancy

agreements.111 Mwambao opponents feared that absentee landlords would con-

tinue removing African cultivators from their land. One school teacher wrote,

“Coast Autonomy seems to be a foreign instigated move to preserve discrimi-

natory privilages [sic] which we are fighting to eradicate. ... It must be very

clear that the owners of these lands are not demanding independence from

the British in exchange for Arab or any other imperialism.”112 Because so

much Arab-owned land had remained undeveloped, mwambao supporters

feared—correctly as it turned out—that an independent Kenyan government

would not defend their land rights against squatters.113 Squatters continued

to flock to the Protectorate, particularly Malindi, over 1960– 1961.114 The

KPNP demanded that the colonial government act against squatters before its

departure115: “Many of your Highness’ subjects though holding proper titles

to their land find themselves faced with a serious situation because of a large

number of Miji Kenda squatters who have illegally settled on their land and

109 In 1957, nearly half of the protectorate land was Crown land, a third “native land units,”

a fifth alienated land, and the remainder settlement and communal lands. EAC(57)3, CO

822/1810/3. 110 In one such case, a public rent strike meeting among African squatters was followed by an

“assault by squatters of an Arab family following agitation to refuse to pay rent,” which “caused

great alarm and resulted in a deputation from local Arab landowners.” Malindi Intelligence

Report, Mar. 1959, KNA CB/18/18/28. 111 Malindi Intelligence Report, Dec. 1959, KNA CB/18/18/37. 112 Memorandum of Yuda Komora to Robertson, 14 Oct. 1961, CO 894/1/94. 113 Note of meeting between Robertson and Sheikh Salim Mohamed Muhashamy, Coast Liwali,

9 Oct. 1961, CO 894/2; note of meeting between Robertson and Hall, PC Coast, 21 Oct. 1961, CO

894/2. 114 Jan. 1961 Report, encl. in District Officer Malindi to PC Coast, 8 Feb. 1961, KNA

CB/18/18/49. 115 Stren, Housing the Urban Poor, 163.

854 JAMES R . BRENNAN

refuse to pay rent or move.”116 The struggle for and against coastal

sovereignty was a power contest over land, and was at its rawest in these

“squatter” areas.

Deep forays into coastal history stood at the center of mwambao claims, for

their legal case rested on pre-war concepts of historical sovereignty arbitrated

by the few great powers. Pursuing a historical notion of sovereignty based on

legal norms of nineteenth-century partition, the Coastal League declared that

sovereignty could be legally acquired through settlement, conquest, or

cession. Settlement on the East African coast had occurred in the decades fol-

lowing the advent of Islam: “Thus were formed along the Coast small states, or

sultanates ... largely owing allegiance to Arabia or Persia.” The coastal strip

was then “re-acquired through re-conquest” after local Arabs and Omanis

ousted the Portuguese by 1730. Since the 1895 treaty showed no “cession”

of sovereignty had occurred, the Coastal League concluded that separate

coastal sovereignty was established in every way.117 Mwambao supporters

and opponents put forward well-rehearsed if often implausible historical argu-

ments in their fight over the turf of first-comer status and the nature of first

encounters. The Central Bajun Association asserted, “We brought Islam to

East Africa in 77 A.H. [696 – 697 C.E.], we are NOT and never have been

loyal to any rule except that of the Sultan and the British.”118 Other

mwambao supporters grounded first-comer status on identifiable material

antiquities. Shamsa Muhamad Muhashamy recalled, “We have the right to be

here. ... The date on our door is 275 year ago, the date of our house. ...

Without a doubt this is my home.”119 The Mijikenda Union, a mwambao

opponent, described first encounters with Arabs as “very good” relations

based on equal trade. Then, mysteriously, land alienation occurred:

We do not remember any wars between the natives and the Arabs. We do not remember

any of our forefathers selling any land to the Arabs. We are surprised to see that they

have now so much land hold freely. We lived on our land without any meetings

(barazas) being held to discuss anything about the so-called agreement of 1895. None

of our forefathers was consulted. The Kaya elders know nothing about anything that

was going on between the British and the Sultan of Zanzibar. If agreement was made

it was made very much behind our backs. If we had been consulted we would have bit-

terly rejected it as the Arabs did not at any time tell us that they had immigrated into our

country to rule us.

The petition concluded, “As the Union jack leaves us so should the red flag

of the Sultan. ... We want peace with the Arabs so let not your decision or

116 Petition of KPNP to Sultan of Zanzibar, n.d. [c. 29 Aug. 1963], encl. in Husein to Sultan,

29 Aug. 1963, CO 822/3073/E17(iii). 117 Memorandum of Coastal League to Robertson Commission, App. C, 7 Oct. 1961, CO 894/

12/6. 118 Memorandum of Central Bajun Association [Mombasa] to Kenya Boundaries Commission,

7 Aug. 1962, CO 897/1/28. 119 Mirza and Strobel, Three Swahili Women, 112.

LOWER ING THE SULTAN ’ S FLAG 855

advice force us to a war with them.”120 A Kwale District chief argued that since

Africans were illiterate in 1895 any treaty would be non-binding. Moreover, he

dismissed any Swahili claims to the coast as illegitimate, on grounds that racial

impurity belied authentic autochthony: “Their mothers were African and

fathers were some Arabs, some Indians including Pakistanis and others

Chinese etc... Could a young ‘coloured’ in South Africa, for instance, who

does not even know his father claim more birth right than a ZULU; or an

Anglo-Indian in India more than a typical Hindu?”121 Mijikenda and other

Africans regularly pointed to the questionable nature of “half-caste” birthrights

of Twelve Tribe Swahili as self-evidently demonstrating their shallow roots and

nullifying their “indigenous” status on the coast.122

The specter of slavery loomed large over debates about coastal history.

Rumors that an independent coastal state would reintroduce slavery circulated

through anti-mwambao circles.123 The KADU Mombasa branch opposed the

Robertson Commission’s tour plan, stating, “The majority of the present town-

ships selected on the programme are looked upon as OLD SLAVE TRADE

MARKET CENTRES where foreigners—Arabs—have established themselves

under the sufferings of the Africans.”124 One well-versed African mwambao

opponent reminded Britain it had allowed slavery to continue well past its take-

over of the coast in 1895, “whereby hundreds of thousands of our people were

enslaved for the benefit of a few score thousands of Arabs,” and said he hoped

Britain would not “repeat this injustice” by allowing coastal autonomy. He con-

tinued, “Though the people do not forget nor forgive, yet our people are not

seeking any revenge or reparation for all the millions of our forefathers that

were murdered and enslaved by the Arabs.”125 A less articulate KANU suppor-

ter declared his first reason for opposing mwambao: “I do not want Sultan

Soveregnty [sic] to administer us ever, fearing Slavery Tradition.”126 Such

rhetoric—commonplace in Zanzibar and a rich accelerant for political violence

there in the early 1960s127—did spark small-scale violence among various

120 Memorandum from Kilifi District [Mijikenda Union] to Robertson, 5 Oct. 1961, CO 894/14/2. 121 Memorandum of Chief Johnson Mwero of Kalaloni, Mariakani Location, Kwale District to

Hull, 14 Oct. 1961, CO 894/3/6. 122 R. Mbwana Marachangoma [Digo National Union] to Robertson, 4 Oct. 1961, CO 894/12/11;

Secretary, KANU Kwale Branch to Robertson, n.d. [c. Oct. 1961], CO 894/13/15; and memorandum

of Wadigo (Shimba Location) to Robertson, 18 Oct. 1961, CO 894/12/59. 123 See, inter alia, CPP memorandum to Robertson, 20 Oct. 1961, CO 894/13/2. 124 J.S.J. Mambo, S.R.D. Msechu, and J. J. Mugalla [KADU Mombasa Branch] to Robertson,

9 Oct. 1961, CO 894/1/35. 125 Memorandum of Wanjohi wa Waciuma to Colonial Office, 24 Sept. 1961, encl. in Fry to

Hull, 17 Oct. 1961, CO 894/11/3. 126 Rashid Mbwana Mwachangoma to Governor’s Private Secretary, 24 Aug. 1963, CO 822/

3073/E17(iv). 127 On rhetorical violence and racial thought in Zanzibar, see Jonathon Glassman, “Sorting Out

the Tribes: The Creation of Racial Identities in Colonial Zanzibar’s Newspaper Wars,” Journal of

African History 41 (2000): 395–428.

856 JAMES R . BRENNAN

political youth leagues on the coast. KANU’s branch leader in Mombasa

referred to Zanzibar’s anti-Arab riots in June 1961 to nakedly threaten the

CPP chairman with similar violence should he continue to pursue coastal

autonomy.128 But the real force of political power lay far away in Nairobi.

By its very provinciality, the coast was spared violence on the scale of Zanzibar.

Its legal claims were too far removed, both geographically and metaphorically,

from the stakes over coercive force in the new Kenyan nation.

MWAMBAO AFTER INDEPENDENCE

Echoing Weber, James Sheehan argues that all sovereign claims have “a blend

of legitimacy and efficacy, legality and force.”129 KANU and KADU activists,

otherwise bitterly divided but united in their opposition to mwambao through

the voice of a generic African nationalism, easily mustered the efficacy and

force necessary to convince practical British officials to abandon the

awkward 1895 treaty and other legal aspects of coastal autonomy, over the

objections of mwambao advocates. African nationalism, however, was a

limited and most unstable political project in Kenya. Following KANU’s

resounding electoral victories in May 1963, KADU supporters scrambled to

save regionalism (majimbo-ism) as a viable project, and even briefly supported

coastal strip autonomy through its local CAPU branch, previously mwambao’s

most hostile opponent. Mwambao thus exited the political stage amidst scenes

of desperate political opportunism by Mijikenda activists seeking any legal

recourse to prevent domination by Kikuyu and Luo KANU politicians.130

Such “tribal” competition and opportunism has characterized post-colonial

Kenyan politics ever since.

The bundle of claims among disaffected coastal inhabitants expressed in

mwambao did not disappear after the treaty’s abrogation on 8 October 1963,

Kenya’s independence on 12 December 1963, or the overthrow of the Zanzibar

Sultanate on 12 January 1964. At the Coastal Strip Conference held at Lancas-

ter House in March and April 1962, Colonial Office mandarins expertly man-

euvered delegates from Zanzibar and Kenya to associate with Kenya national

government talks and obtained a final consensus that the Sultan would be con-

sulted about Kenya’s constitutional proposals to the extent they affected his

coastal subjects.131 The Mwambao United Front (MUF), an umbrella group

128 Msanifu Kombo, Organising Secretary, KANU Mombasa Branch to Chairman, CPP,

Mombasa, 3 June 1961, KNA DC/MSA/2/1/93/9/A. 129 Sheehan, “The Problem of Sovereignty,” 4. Krasner similarly distinguishes authority from

control. Krasner, Sovereignty, 10. 130 “Coast Region: Autonomous/Secessionist Trends,” by Deputy Director of Intelligence,

25 June 1963, KNA GO/3/1/12/8. On the KANU’s 1963 electoral victories, see Kyle, 171–78. 131 See minutes of F. D. Webber, 22 Mar. 1962, and W.B.L. Monson, 26 Mar. 1962, in CO 822/

2157. Records of the four Lancaster House meetings held on 8, 9, and 12 March and 7 April 1962

are in CO 822/2159 and CAB 133/198 (National Archives, Kew).

LOWER ING THE SULTAN ’ S FLAG 857

led by Abdullahi Nassir that formed after the Robertson Commission report,

publicly refused to discuss “any proposals for the absorption of our territory

into a Kenya under a Unitary Government”132 at Lancaster House. Two

MUF delegates, Nassir and Omar Bassadiq, refused to sign the conference’s

published statement, reserving their position until they consulted coastal strip

subjects. Upon their return they were vilified as sell-outs among mwambao sup-

porters; such was their unpopularity that both soon quit politics and left

Mombasa to pursue careers in Nairobi and Jeddah, respectively. The following

year, on 8 October 1963, the coastal Protectorate was simply transferred to

Kenya in an agreement between Colonial Secretary Duncan Sandys, Sultan

Jamshid, Kenya Prime Minister Jomo Kenyatta, and Zanzibar Prime Minister

Mohammed Shamte. This followed the signing of letters by Kenyatta and

Shamte on 5 October that guaranteed five safeguards for the Sultan’s subjects

in the coastal strip: the free exercise and preservation of Islamic worship, the

retention of kadhi jurisdiction over Muslim personal status matters, the appoint-

ment of Muslim administrators in predominantly Muslim areas, Arabic instruc-

tion for Muslim children, and the protection and continued registration of

freehold land.133 Despite these safeguards, the subsequent domination of

Kenya’s government by upcountry Christian politicians of KANU has dis-

placed coastal Muslims not only from local political offices (the posts of

liwali and mudir were immediately abolished) but also from huge tracts of valu-

able rural land and urban property.134 In Kilifi District as elsewhere along the

coast, political patronage has increasingly determined land access since the

1980s, deepening the coast’s squatter problem and raising broader tensions

between coastal squatters and upcountry immigrants.135 Political ties within

the ex-Sultanate also persevered. Mombasa was home to an informal Zanzibar

“liberation committee” in the late 1970s and early 1980s as Ali Muhsin took up

residence there with other ZNP exiles. Though these figures were anxious to

effect change in Zanzibar, they wisely declined schemes for military interven-

tion repeatedly offered by entrepreneurial coup-makers.136 Legal shadows of

sovereignty, such as symbols of the Sultan’s authority that remain in some

Mombasa living rooms and popular restaurants, continue to be nurtured

132 Statement of Mwambao United Front, 17 Mar. 1962, CO 822/2158/7. 133 CO 822/3111/23– 25, printed as Kenya Coastal Strip: Joint Statement, Cmnd. 1971

(London: HMSO, 1963). 134 See Thomas Wolf, “Contemporary Politics,” in Jan Hoorweg et al., eds., Kenya Coast Hand-

book (Hamburg: Lit Verlag, 2000), 129–55; and Lisa Misol, Playing with Fire: Weapons Prolifer-

ation, Political Violence, and Human Rights in Kenya (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2002).

Two of the five safeguards—provisions for Muslim Administrative Officers and Arabic

education—have largely not been met since independence; the remaining three largely have. 135 Karuti Kanyinga, “The Land Question in Kenya: Struggles, Accumulation and Changing

Politics,” (Ph.D. diss., Roskilde University, 1998), 119, 154–56. 136 Ali Muhsin al-Barwani, Conflict and Harmony, 287–88.

858 JAMES R . BRENNAN

among younger listeners of Islamic radio stations such as Radio Rahma, and

among older men passing through the city’s several Swahili social clubs.

Obscure details of nineteenth-century colonial treaties and alleged backroom

deals struck at Lancaster House in the early 1960s still have surprising reson-

ance in the memories of Kenyan coastal people. There is a sharp sense that the

work of the Robertson Commission and its adoption by the Zanzibar Govern-

ment, which led to the 1895 treaty’s abrogation, was done either incompetently

or in sinister invisibility. One mwambao supporter argued that it was well

known that Governor Renison had traded the Sultan’s coastal rights to Kenyatta

in return for his promise not to expropriate white settler lands.137 In Mombasa,

the specter of betrayal hangs, most unfairly, around the most important political

figure of mwambao, Abdullahi Nassir. In a local radio show with Nassir, callers

repeatedly asked if he had “sold” the coast during negotiations at Lancaster

House; one asked if it was true that Lancaster House attendees had eaten

pork, a familiar metaphor for religious betrayal. Nassir himself regards the

Robertson Commission as illegitimate because it considered the opinions of

those living beyond the ten-mile strip but within Coast Province.138 Debates

over mwambao and the 1895 treaty continue in the Kenyan press. One interven-

tion argued that, despite guarantees made to protect coastal institutions with the

transfer of sovereignty in 1963, “provisions on Kadhis courts and the madras-

sas have not received the recognition they deserve.”139 Mwambao claims figure

in the religious-political battles over the constitutional status of Kenya’s kadhi

courts.140 Mombasa’s mayor, Taib Ali Taib, raised the Kenyatta-Shamte agree-

ment assuring protection of Islamic education in his criticism of the govern-

ment’s failure to include Islamic schools in the Ministry of Education’s

budget.141 Arguments are repeatedly made on the coast that Kenyan immi-

grants from Central Province collectively repatriate enormous sums—up to

two million Kenyan shillings per annum—from their coastal enterprises.142

Feeling is widespread that the upcountry has, since independence, lived para-

sitically off of the coast. Hazy appropriations of mwambao have entered the bri-

colage of Mijikenda forest oaths that seek to remove upcountry immigrants by

violence. In June 2007, police disrupted a youth military training camp of the

137 Interview with Abdalla Mbwana, Mombasa, 20 July 2006. 138 Interview with Abdullahi Nassir by Stambuli Abdillahi Nassir and Hoka wa Mwahoka

entitled, “Mkataba ina Mwambao wa Pwani Mnamo 1962– 1963 Lancaster House,” Pwani FM

(Mombasa), 8 Apr. 2004, tape recording in author’s possession. On Nassir’s role in mwambao,

see Kai Kresse, Philosophising in Mombasa: Knowledge, Islam, and Intellectual Practice on the

Swahili Coast (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), 186–87. 139 Letter of Seif Mohammed Seif, Daily Nation (Nairobi), 14 Feb. 2004. 140 The Standard (Nairobi), 8 Apr. 2004. For a recent account, see Ru ̈diger Seesemann, “Kenyan

Muslims, the Aftermath of 9/11, and the ‘War on Terror,’” in Benjamin Soares and Rene ́ Otayek,

eds., Islam and Muslim Politics in Africa (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 163 –68. 141 The Standard (Nairobi), 16 May 2005. 142 Mohamed Bakari and Saad Yahya, eds., Islam in Kenya (Nairobi: Mewa Publications, 1995), 238.

LOWER ING THE SULTAN ’ S FLAG 859

“Republican Council of Mombasa” in Kwale District, and among the machetes

and magical charms found was a book “thought to contain the history of the

Kenyan coast,” Nigel Pavitt’s Kenya: The First Explorers.

143 Given this

sharp sense of coastal dispossession, memories of mwambao will likely con-

tinue to shape future claims and debates.

Unlike their Arab counterparts, most traditional sovereigns in sub-Saharan

Africa failed to survive decolonization. Instead, modern nationalist parties

dominated by bureaucrats established republics based on nominal popular

sovereignty in most every country. The Zanzibari Sultanate was caught on

this regional cusp, and bowed to African nationalist demands on coastal

Kenya before being overthrown itself by these same forces in Zanzibar.

Although the Sultanate of Zanzibar lacked real administrative powers, it had

grown in regional significance during the years of decolonization because the

Sultan’s self-chosen subjects had seized upon the institution as an expression

of coastal sovereignty. This “subjective” sovereignty twined together a series

of legal, political, and economic claims that were collectively threatened by

African nationalist projects. The mwambao movement, which had its legal

basis in one British expediency—the 1895 treaty—and summoned its symbolic

strength through another—flying the Sultan’s flag—was undone by a final

British expediency: the Robertson Commission’s predetermined conclusion

to unite Kenya Colony and Protectorate into a single nation-state led by elec-

toral victors. Nonetheless, the sense of a coastal sovereignty separate from

mainland Kenya has survived, and offers coastal residents an emotionally

attractive if thus far impractical alternative to the ignoble patronage compe-

titions of Kenyan national politics.

The dead ends of Africa’s decolonization grow fecund as triumphalist meta-

narratives of nationalist victors desiccate into brittle ritual.144 Examining the sub-

jective and contested meaning of sovereignty held by these various dead-end

movements offers a fruitful way to recapture the geo-legal imaginations of his-

torical actors confronting an international legal framework shifting from a

143 Daily Nation (Nairobi), 20 June 2007. This “council” is led by Omar Mwamndwazi and is

comprised principally of young Digo men seeking to establish local land rights against “upcountry”

expropriation. It springs from the “Kaya Bombo” group which—then in the name of majimbo—

raided Likoni police station in Mombasa in August 1997, killed six police officers, and stole

over forty guns. They then turned their violence to “upcountry” people and businesses, killing

over a hundred and displacing some one hundred thousand people. Noel Mwakugu, “Kenya’s

Coastal Rebels,” BBC News, 8 Apr. 2005; Amos Kareithi, “Revisiting Ten-Mile Strip Contro-

versy,” Sunday Standard (Nairobi), 30 Sept. 2007; Misol, 24–64. 144 Jean Allman, The Quills of the Porcupine: Asante Nationalism in an Emergent Ghana

(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993); Luise White, The Assassination of Herbert

Chitepo: Texts and Politics in Zimbabwe (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003). For

East Africa, see Anderson, op. cit.; Gregory Maddox and James Giblin, eds., In Search of

a Nation: Histories of Authority and Dissidence in Tanzania (Oxford: James Currey, 2005);

and Sauda Barwani et al., eds., Unser Leben vor der Revolution und Danach: Autobiographische

Documentartexte Sansibarischer Zeitzeugen (Cologne: Ko ̈ppe, 2003).

860 JAMES R . BRENNAN

colonial system of sovereignty based on an arbitrated recognition of sovereign

figures to a post-war system of sovereignty based on territorial entitlement to self-

determination. To understand typology-defying conceptions of sovereignty

articulated by local historical actors, we must move our analytical lens freely

among typologies that delineate sovereignty variously as an atomic unit of inter-

national law, a final figure of authority within a territory, and a right to external

non-interference. In this way, we can shed light not only on ideational assump-

tions and aspirations that shaped the give-and-take of political

Ukimsikiliza Ndugai wa leo sio yule wa miezi miwli nyuma kipindi Mama Samia anashika madaraka, huyu wa sasa amerejea kwenye jeuri na kejeri zilezile za utawala wa Magufuli, Anauhakika na anakokwenda. Ukimsikiliza Mwigulu wa sasa, sio yule wa mwanzo wa utawala wa Mama Samia, Mwigulu wa sasa ana jeuri, kibri na dharau iliyovuka mipaka ya siasa za Dar es Salaamu. 

Sasa mwangalie na msikilize mpiga filimbi mdini na mkabila aliyekubuhu wa utawala uliopita bwana Josephat Gwajima, huyu si kwamba anampinga tu Rais Mama Samia, Bali amevuka mipaka na kumtuhumu Rais wa nchi kwamba kahongwa pesa na Marekani ili Marekani iuze chanjo nchini. Genge la utawala uliopita wanaamini Samia ni rais wa Mpito sio rais wa "Awamu". Wanaamini rais wa mpito anakoma 2025 na kwamba mipango yao ya kuwania urais haitaharibiwa na urais wa mpito wa Samia.

Awali kabisa tulionya tukitaka Rais mpya Mama  Samia aunde serikali yake badala ya kuendeleza serikali ya mtangulizi wake ambayo ilijengwa mfumo hatari na wa kiharamia kwa miaka zaidi ya mitano  hakusikiliza ushauri wa Sukuma gang sasa chanjo ya Mzungu ndio tutakayomnyongea  sikiliza hapa chini hamana chanjo hapa.  Mfumo huo huwezi kuubomboa kwa kubadili mtu mmoja ambae ni rais tu, bali kuivunja serikali nzima na kuunda serikali mpya.

Kwakuwa siasa ya Dar es Salaam ambako kuibuka kwa nguvu na mtu na kuanguka ni jambo lisiloshangaza, Mfumo uliounda serikali iliyopita bado unanguvu kubwa sana ya kimaamuzi, Pengine lilikuwa kosa kubwa sana la karne kwa Mama Samia kuamua kuendesha nchi kwakutumia mfumo wa serikali iliyopita, Huenda ilikuwa kwa nia njema ama kosa la kimahesabu, kwasasa ni vigumu kujinasua, kinyume chake unajikuta umezungwa na ma spinning doctors  hata kama una mamlaka kikatiba lakini wenzio wanakukamata kisiasa, michezo kama blackmails ndio inayouteka utawala mpya. Kundi la wahafidhina limefanikiwa kubaki kwenye mfumo, 

Juhudi za Rais wa nchi kupambana na corona kwakufuata masharti ya Shirika la Afya dunia, sasa zinapingwa waziwazi na kundi la utawala uliopita ambalo msimamo wao juu ya janga la corona ulikuwa ni wa kijadi zaidi hali iliyopelekea watu wengi kupoteza maisha katika nchi. Kuhusu Chanjo kwa Tanzania inatakiwa serikali isimame wima itoe elimu ya haraka na ya lazima umuhimu na usalama wa chanjo husika.Kitendo cha Mchungaji Gwajima kuwaambia watu hawana haja ya kujikinga wakati shemegi yake ambae ni Waziri wa Afya anawahimiza watu kujikinga lakini Mchungaji Gwajima amethibitisha wazi wazi Kumpinga Rais na Serikali yake juu ya Chanjo ya kupambana na Corona .

Jamii iliharibiwa vibaya sana na Rais Magufuli alipotangaza hadharani kuwa chanjo ya corona haifai, Wazungu hawawapendi Watanzania na tuhuma nyingi lukuki, Leo jamii inamwamini Magufuli kuhusu chanjo, sifiriki kwamba Watz wengi watajitokeza kuchanjwa. Badala ya serikali kutangaza tu kuleteta chanjo, iingie mtaani kutoa elimu na kuhamasisha watu wakachanjwa haraka iwezekanavyo. 

Mama Samia, vita vya ndani yako ni vikubwa kuliko hivi vya nje ulivyovianzisha, Wenzio wanakusakizia upigane na wapinzani nje huku wanakumaliza ndani, Ya Joyce Banda yanakugonja. Patana na wapinzani ili ushinde vita vyako vya ndani kirahisi. Vita vya nje hutapigana na Chadema tu, utapigana na dunia nzima hata wanaofadhili bajeti yako watakupiga pia na HAUTASHINDA, wewe ni shahidi wa namna Magufuli alivyopitishwa katika magumu alipoamua kutaka kuua upinzani nchini, hakupigana na Chadema tu, alipigana na dunia nzima akaliumiza taifa na akashindwa yeye. Chadema ipo na itaendele

Idara ya Usalama wa Taifa, Jeshi la Polisi na vyombo vingine vya ulinzi, inakuwaje mtu kama GWAJIMA anamtuhumu RAIS @SuluhuSamia kuhongwa PESA na Marekani ili kupigia CHAPUO Chanjo ya COVIDE19? Mko busy kuhujumu vyama vya upinzani na kumbambikia kesi ya Ugaidi  @freemanmbowetz na kuacha huyu anayehatarisha usalama wa nchi?

Tatizo kubwa katika nchi hii ni kwamba sayansi inageuzwa kuwa siasa. Hakuna jamii iliyowahi kuendelea kwa kubeza sayansi na maarifa. Hakuna sababu ya kugomea chanjo huku ukiendelea kufa, lakini ieleweke kwamba chanjo zote duniani hata za watoto chini ya miaka 5 zina madhara. Kuna wengine hupata hadi vilema lakini tunaendelea kupeleka watoto clinic kwani tunaamini kwamba madhara kama yako chini ya asilimia 0.01 sio shida sana. Pili hawa vurusi  wa Covid kwamjibu wa wataalamu wamagonjwa na tiba wanasema vinabadilika- mutate. Hivyo chanjo zinaendelea kuboreshwa kadri wanavyobadilika. 

Tuheshimu sayansi na tusikilize wataalamu wanachosema na tuheshimu taalama za wenzetu, tusisikilize wanasiasa na matapeli wa kiroho aina ya Gwajima.