Revolution Day in Zanzibar

Revolution Day in Zanzibar

Day of hit back at injustice

Zanzibar celebrated 54th Zanzibar Revolution Day at Aman Stadium on January 12, 2018. Zanzibaris celebrate every January 12 as a revolution day. On that day government provide a public holiday. But hotel, restaurant and other public area are opened, only government offices and schools are closed on this day. It is also the day when Abeid Karume, the father of the current president of Zanzibar, Amani Karume, took office.

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Modern Tanzania merged  from Zanzibar and Tanganyika in 1964. Tanganyika was granted independence in 1961 from Britain while Zanzibar remained its administrative unit until 1963. Zanzibar was granted independence only in 1963 and the power came to the Sultan of Zanzibar. In July 1963 the Sultanate government held parliamentary elections which resulted in the Arab minority retaining power to an extent of making Zanzibar an overseas territory of Oman despite winning 54% of the votes.

That incident provoked the African majority. To solve the problem, the Afro Shirazi Party (ASP) allied with Umma Party to join force. On 12th January 1964 the ASP, lead by John Okello mobilized around 600 revolutionaries to Zanzibar town and overthrew the Sultanate government. And African minority came to power that followed reprisals against Arab and South Asian civilians. This resulted in death toll with estimates ranging up to 20,000. In April 1964 the independent republic merged with Tanganyika and Zanzibar got status of a semi-autonomous region. During the Age of Exploration, the Portuguese Empire was the first European power to gain control of Zanzibar, and kept it for nearly 200 years. In 1698, Zanzibar fell under the control of the Sultanate of Oman, which developed an economy of trade and cash crops, with a ruling Arab elite and a Bantu general population. Plantations were developed to grow spices; hence, the moniker of the Spice Islands (a name also used of Dutch colony the Moluccas, now part of Indonesia). Another major trade good was ivory, the tusks of elephants that were killed on the Tanganyika mainland - a practice that is still in place to this day. The third pillar of the economy was slaves, which gave Zanzibar an important place in the Arab slave trade, the Indian Ocean equivalent of the better-known Triangular Trade. The Omani Sultan of Zanzibar controlled a substantial portion of the African Great Lakes coast, known as Zanj, as well as extensive inland trading routes.

Sometimes gradually, sometimes by fits and starts, control of Zanzibar came into the hands of the British Empire. In 1890, Zanzibar became a British protectorate. The death of one sultan and the succession of another of whom the British did not approve later led to the Anglo-Zanzibar War, also known as the shortest war in history.

One of the main impacts of the revolution in Zanzibar was to break the power of the Arab/Asian ruling class, who had held it for around 200 years. Despite the merger with Tanganyika, Zanzibar retained a Revolutionary Council and House of Representatives which was, until 1992, run on a one-party system and has power over domestic matters.The domestic government is led by the President of Zanzibar, Karume being the first holder of this office. This government used the success of the revolution to implement reforms across the island.

The bodies of Arabs killed in the post-revolution violence as photographed by the Africa Addio film crew. The scene of a mass killing of Arabs in a cemetery following the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution. This shot is taken by video camera from a helicopter and featured in the 1966 film Africa Addio. This sequence of film is believed to be the only known visual documentation of the killings which followed the revolution. Original film produced by Rizzoli Film who are believed to hold the current copyright

Many of these involved the removal of power from Arabs. The Zanzibar civil service, for example, became an almost entirely African organisation, and land was redistributed from Arabs to Africans.The revolutionary government also instituted social reforms such as free healthcare and opening up the education system to African students.

The revolution itself remains an event of interest for Zanzibaris and academics. Historians have analysed the revolution as having a racial and a social basis with some stating that the African revolutionaries represent the proletariat rebelling against the ruling and trading classes, represented by the Arabs and South Asians.Others discount this theory and present it as a racial revolution that was exacerbated by economic disparity between races.

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Within Zanzibar, the revolution is a key cultural event, marked by the release of 545 prisoners on its tenth anniversary and by a military parade on its 40th.Zanzibar Revolution Day has been designated as a public holiday by the government of Tanzania on 12 January each year.