Monday, May 25, 2015

The Truth About Zanzibar by Aman Thani Fairuz



http://www.amazon.com/Truth-About-Zanzibar-Thani-Fairuz-ebook/dp/B00W521I6Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1432554251&sr=8-1&keywords=zanzibar+truth

NEWS: Aman Thani Fairuz has passed away a few weeks ago. (1927-2016) in Dubai. His story lives on. We salute his life and recognise the suffering he endured. He survived through the torture inflicted by the regime and escaped to tell the tale. History can now record what happened. 

For many years this book was almost unavailable. The original date of authorship was 1995. It was passed between people as a word document and parts of it were spoken about. Now, fifty years after the Zanzibar Revolution / Invasion, it is available on Amazon. with thanks to the translator, Ali Muhsin Barwani.

Anyone interested in the history of Zanzibar should read it. For Aman Thani Fairuz was there during the years of political wrangling and then during the dark years of suffering under President Abeid Karume. Maybe we should not dwell on those years, maybe we should be looking ahead, but the trouble is the truth of those years is hardly known, hardly acknowledged.

There have been few stories published about them. Luckily for historians Aman Thani Fairuz was a man with an amazing memory and a determined nature. He survived the prisons and the torture and came out determined to tell the story of those that did not survive.

This is how the author speaks in the Preface:

"My gratitude to the Most Merciful God who has enabled me to write this little book in which have tried to describe the events which took place in our country, Zanzibar. In particular I have concentrated on what happened to me and what happened to my fellow countrymen as a result of what is called the Revolution which befell our country on 12 January 1964. What I am writing about is what I myself know. Without there is much more that I did not know. It is my hope that there will be others who will be able to relate what happened to them or what they saw was being done to others. I am doing this for no reason other that relate the truth regarding what took place in our country, so that my fellow citizens (and our Tanganyikan brethren as well as the whole world) and especially the younger generation, may know the facts regarding the so-called Revolution of Zanzibar.

 It is not an easy read, the descriptions are disturbing and distressful. But it must be told for the people that suffered need to be remembered. And most important  - Zanzibar is still trying to work out how to achieve justice and Zanzibaris should learn from the past and not from the sugared lies that are told about the achievements of the Revolution. Only with the truth can they heal the past and go forward. 

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Mr Issa Peera and Mrs Anne Chappel - author of Zanzibar Uhuru


The author, Anne Chappel, with Issa Peera in Adelaide.
Issa grew up in Zanzibar and qualified as a lawyer. He now lives in Adelaide, Australia

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Zanzibar Uhuru (Freedom) now in hard copy - paperback edition



Zanzibar Uhuru is now available in paperback at Amazon & Book Depository.
(as well as an ebook on iBooks through iTunes)

This is the story of Zanzibar's 1964 Revolution and the years since then. It is told through the lives of two women, one Arab Zanzibari, the other a child of a colonial administrator.

The story touches on:
the nature of the mad leader of the revolution: John Okello
the years of the despotic presidents post-revolution - the hunger and suffering of Zanzibaris
the torture within the prisons set up by the East Germans after the revolution
the forced marriages of the Persian girls
the imposition of a system of spies (Volunteers) on the islands
the neglect of the ancient Stone Town
the nationalisation of the homes in Stone Town and the clove and coconut farms
the creeping corruption within the system
the neglect of the sister island of Pemba

http://www.bookdepository.com/Zanzibar-Uhuru-Anne-Chappel/9781505511840
http://www.amazon.com/Zanzibar-Uhuru-revolution-challenge-survival/dp/1505511844/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422766471&sr=8-1&keywords=zanzibar+uhuru&pebp=1422766474079&peasin=1505511844

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Memories of the great Dhows of Zanzibar



A great fleet of dhows rode at anchor for 3-4 months of the year in the harbour of Zanzibar in the early 1960s. As a child, I marvelled at them, they were the biggest wooden boats that I had ever seen. We sailed past them with our dingy taking in their strangeness and gazing at their vast solidness in awe. These were vessels of the wild open sea. Festooned with ropes made of sisal, their masts slanted at an angle, they spoke of journeys by men who knew the sea like no others. Sometimes I would see lithe dark sailors shimming up the masts with their bare feet. We always complained about the smell of the dhow fleet. Later I learnt that they used fish oil to season the wood. Aging fish oil is not recommended for its smell.
Off the stern of the boat hung a large box, big enough for a person to sit in. It had a hole in the bottom and we knew it was the toilet also called the thunder-box. Strange inscriptions and twirling designs were carved as decorations along the hull and over the stern hung the plain red flag of the Sultans of Zanzibar. On their prow would hang an oculus or talisman. The oculus is the ‘eye’ of the boat and was often in the form of a brightly painted eye, rather like a Cyclops eye from Greece. No human or animal replications were portrayed - as the Koran dictates.
I knew that this dhow fleet plied an ancient triangular route, from India to the Arabian Gulf and then on to the East African coast. India was the connection to those fabulous trading countries even further east. From ancient times the monsoon winds had made this route feasible and as boats become more sophisticated its importance grew. The monsoon winds were not reliable further south than Zanzibar and our harbour, tucked into the western coast of the island, was very protected when the northern monsoon was blowing.
The Arab dhow captains were superb seamen. In 1939, Australian adventurer, Alan Vickers, travelled on a dhow from Aden to Zanzibar and back. In his book, ‘Sons of Sinbad’ he recounts how he found a nakhoda or captain of a boum dhow and arranged his passage south with the north-east monsoon on a boat called The Triumph of Righteousness. Alan believed he was living through the last days of sail. He tells of the journey and it is a window into the past. With western eyes he found the filth the accumulated on the overcrowded main deck difficult to stomach but recognised that these sailors were tough men:
‘the constantly cramped quarters, the crowds, the wretched food, the exposure to the elements, the daylong burning sun, the nightlong heavy dews, if they continued to be disadvantages, were far offset by the interest of being there….’
You were always aware of the monsoon in Zanzibar. There was no summer and winter on the islands. It was one monsoon or the other or the time in-between when the rains came. The northern monsoon blows from late November to February and the long rains, or masika, come in March as the winds become variable. If you were a girl child born during the rains, you might be called Masika – born in the time of the rains.
April is the start of the south-west monsoon. This wind is more violent during the months of June and July so the boats leave with the first winds or stay to the last weeks of the monsoon. It was hard to get insurance for your boat if you left during June and July when many seasoned dhow captains would stay put in a safe harbour. By late September the winds become variable again and Zanzibar experiences the short rains or vuli. Monsoon is a word that English has copied from Arabic.
They were not called the ‘trade winds’ for nothing. Zanzibar was a trading nation, perfectly positioned and blessed with the richness of its spices and the produce of the African hinterland. In the 1800s when Zanzibar was the centre of a maritime commercial empire, the cargo used to be gold, gum copal, ivory and slaves. In my days it was spices, predominantly cloves, mangrove poles, Persian carpets, dates and dried fish that plied its way to and from Arabia. In the narrow streets of Zanzibar’s Stonetown could be found a cornucopia of riches. Small open fronted shops or dukas were filled with wares from east and west. The shopkeeper sat cross-legged at the shop front on the elevated concrete ledge talking to his neighbours. On the main street were the gold and silver merchants with worked semi-precious stones from Ceylon and India.
My father wanted to buy some Persian carpets directly from a dhow captain so he put out the word and a little while after the dhow fleet arrived from the Gulf my mother and he went on board to view the cargo. They discussed the weather and the health of their families until much strong sweet coffee or kahawa had been imbibed and general pleasantries had been exhausted.
‘The red dust of the desert was still in the carpets,’ my father said, ‘each one that they brought up from the hold seemed more beautiful than the one before. It was impossible to choose!’

The dhow fleet were intrinsic to the old Zanzibar, when the Omani Sultans ruled and controlled the east African shores. When Sultan Said bin Sultan of Oman and Muscat had moved his capital to Zanzibar in 1840, he travelled with his fleet of dhows to take possession. His family would rule Zanzibar till 1963 and the revolution that ousted the newly independent Zanzibar. Sultan Jamshid escaped while many other Arab Zanzibaris did not. Survivors tell of how many Arab people were forced to embark on overloaded and under provisioned dhows and sent to sea. The revolutionaries wanted them to go back to Arabia. Some of those dhows did not survive the trip.
Recently someone told me of a story he had heard while travelling down the East African coast 50 years ago. The first mate of a large cargo boat woke the captain early one morning and asked him to get to the bridge urgently.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘look at our bow!’ There over the bow was draped a huge sail. Both realised what it was: the tremendous triangular sail of a dhow.
‘Get if off, quickly,’ the captain replied, ‘Throw it away’.
The cargo boat had ploughed down a dhow in the night. They did not turn around to see if they could find any survivors clinging to bits of wooden hull. It was just one more hazard of the open sea.
Some dhows have been converted to motor and still trade along East Africa. Still trading and still involved in smuggling. But the ancient stories of the dhow captains’ bravery and seamanship are lost to us. The great fleet under sail travels no more. The beauty of the lateen sails on the horizon with the monsoon behind them is now a mirage from history.