Tanzanian Affairs 116 - Book Reviews by Martin Walsh of Cambridge University: Zanzibar Uhuru & Time Past in Africa

TIME PAST IN AFRICA: MERVYN SMITHYMAN AND FAMILY RECOLLECTIONS. Anne M. Chappel. CreateSpace, 2015. 222 pp. (paperback). ISBN 978-1517172275. £7.85.

ZANZIBAR UHURU: A REVOLUTION, TWO WOMEN AND THE CHALLENGE OF SURVIVAL. Anne M. Chappel. CreateSpace, 2015. vi + 314 pp. (paperback). ISBN 978-1505511840. £10.00.

Anne Chappel, the author of these two self-published books, is the daughter of Mervyn Vice Smithyman (1911-2008), best known to historians for the way in which his all-too-brief tenure as a Permanent Secretary came to an abrupt end on the day of the Zanzibar Revolution, when he was forced to flee by swimming out to a boat in the harbour. In their very different ways, both of these books, one a memoir and the other a historical novel, help put that unforgettable incident into proper perspective, not least by providing the personal details and context, real and imagined, that are absent in the cursory published accounts. For Mervyn Smithyman was not alone that day, but before making his own escape, made sure that his family and others were safe offshore, among them the 16-year-old Anne. These complementary works of fact and fiction can be read as her own reckoning with the past and the shocking events of that day. The first embeds it in family history; the second is a sensitive reflection on its consequences for the lives of others, including those less fortunate than herself.

As a memoir, the richly-illustrated Time Past in Africa is also much more than this. Its first half traces Mervyn’s family roots and early life in South Africa, where he was born, and Nyasaland, where he spent the second half of his childhood. His parents, Fred Milner and Catherine Jessie Smithyman (neé Vice) worked their way up in colonial society from relatively inauspicious beginnings; the last of their ten children was born in 1933 and by the start of the Second World War they owned both a large family house with stables and a separate holiday home, and were running a hotel, a mineral water factory, and a brewery in Zomba. Mervyn had a job as a junior clerk in the Department of Agriculture, and repaired typewriters for the government in his spare time, work which gave him the time and means to travel around the world in the year before the outbreak of conflict. During the War itself he served as an officer in the King’s African Rifles, rising to command a battalion in India, and this experience stood him in good stead when he applied to join the British Colonial Administration.

The second half of the memoir details his subsequent career in Tanganyika and Zanzibar. His first posting was as Assistant District Officer in Mwanza; he went there in 1947 with his wife Audrey and son Michael, and they were soon joined by baby Anne. He was then posted to Bukoba and soon after to Biharamulo, where he was District Commissioner. In 1949 he was transferred to Same in Pare District, and stayed there until moving to the Secretariat in Dar es Salaam in 1953, where he worked in the District Administration Department and got to know the Governor, Sir Edward Twining. In 1955 he was appointed Senior District Officer in Mbeya, and that was his last tour on the mainland before being offered the post of Senior Assistant Commissioner in Zanzibar, a job he began in September 1956 by serving for six months as District Commissioner of Pemba, based in Wete. In early 1957 he moved to Zanzibar town, and began the period of his career that has attracted most scrutiny by researchers, coinciding as it did with the zama za siasa, the ‘time of politics’ and series of hotly contested elections that preceded Zanzibar’s Independence in December 1963. Smithyman agreed to stay on for a time as Permanent Secretary under the new Prime Minister, Mohammed Shamte. But, as we now know, this lasted for little more than a month.

The most gripping parts of this memoir are his and other family members’ recollections of what happened on that fateful day. They differ somewhat from previously published accounts, and add new details, for example about the disagreements between different expats and members of the government over how they should respond to the rapidly evolving crisis on the morning of 12 January 1964.

The novel, Zanzibar Uhuru, takes off from a fictionalised version of the same events. Like the memoir, it is written in different narrative voices. The first section, which focuses on the first weeks of the Revolution, even includes a few harangues and mad rambles in the hectoring and self-justifying tones that were typical of the speeches and writings of the self-styled Field Marshal John Okello. But the real stars of the story are two women who relate their struggles with the myriad consequences of the events that Okello set in train. The suffering of the first of these, a Zanzibari Arab orphaned during the Revolution, is very persuasively told in the middle section of the book, and carries the tale. The third and final section takes us back to the life of the daughter of a British official whose flight from Zanzibar recalls that of the real-life Smithyman, and brings us forward to the present, when the lives of the two women become intertwined again. Like all good historical novels, Zanzibar Uhuru leaves you wanting to know more about the events it is based on, and which of them might be true. It has been carefully researched, and includes references and a list of further reading for good measure. I only noticed a few minor slips.

Zanzibar Uhuru is boldly conceived and compellingly written. Critics aware of Time Past in Africa and the author’s background will accuse her of reproducing the worldview and political prejudices of her own family and class. But as a survivor of the Zanzibar Revolution herself, she has every right to tell and re-imagine her tale. Although more than half a century has now passed since the Revolution, the wounds it opened are still raw, especially for the women who live with painful memories of the brutality they and their loved ones suffered when their worlds were turned upside-down. Anne Chappel is to be congratulated for bringing part of that story to us, and I hope it will encourage others to do the same, in whatever narrative or creative form.
Martin Walsh

ZANZIBAR RECOLLECTIONS By Bhadra [nee Kapadia] Vadgama

Zanzibar Government Girls Secondary School (before 1964)

This photo shows my school, half of the brown building. We didn't have any labs there so we didn't study physics or chemistry. We studied Biology and Health Science only. For sport girls went to the fort where they played netball. We didn't have PE either. Until Mrs Shukla started teaching there, Mr Nayak used to come to our school to teach Gujarati in the afternoon, three times a week. For domestic science, which was taught as an extra subject without an exam at the end. Art was also taught as a recreational subject.

My dad Vallabhdas Hirji Kapadia, better known as Manubha Kapadia, had a motor car and accessories business called Kapadia Motor Mart Ltd. in Zanzibar and because he had been a prominent figure in the socio-political life of the Island, our family was well known among wide range of communities and officials.

I went to Govt. Girls Sec School near the seafront close to Customs Office before going to Makerere College. Rozina Visram and I were the only 2 girls in 1956 to get a 1st grade in Cambridge Overseas SC Exam. I went to the World Centenary Girl Guides Camp to UK in 1957. I also taught at Seyyida Matuka School.

We, as children of 40s & early 50s, went to see 1 shilling all round Indian film shows on Sundays and at the Forodhani with 10 cents we could buy a stick of roasted mohogo, a handful of jugus, 2 pieces of ganderi and a slice of pineapple or mango, or a matufa or chana bateta.

In 1999 August, my sister Kanak from Mumbai, my younger daughter Jaanki & I went to Zanzibar. We went to visit the Palace Museum. I had never been inside the palace before, so for me it was quite an experience. I was delighted to see royal portraits painted by our art teacher Maalim Farhan. We had a teenage boy as our guide and some Australian tourists in the group. The poor lad had probably learnt by heart what he was supposed to tell us. He found himself taken over by Kanak, who talked about the first ever lift in Beit-el-Ajayab and how as young children we used to go up and down in it just for fun, and what the word Beit-el-Ajaib meant and that it was a palace before etc. etc. She described what it was like when Seyyid Khalifa had died and how she had come to pay her respect to the dead Sultan and express her condolences to Bibi Nunu.

We saw the special room of the Princess Sayyida Salme [Seyyid Barghash's sister] who had eloped with a German officer. I came to know about her when I had visited the museum in Muscat. I had not known anything about her in Zanzibar. At one point the poor lad who was our Guide, frustrated by our interruption, stopped us and said, 'Please let me talk about it.' The Australians were of course delighted to hear all our anecdotes. They told us we had made history alive for them.

Talking about Bibi Nunu, I remember when I was 8 or so (1948) I had been chosen to present a bouquet to her for an occasion (I can't remember what it was)that was held in the assembly hall of Government Boys Secondary School. I wonder if there will be a photo somewhere in the archives of Zanzibar Museum!

As mentioned earlier, I was chosen as the best Girl Guide from 7th Zanzibar Company [which ran as part of the extracurricular activities for the pupils of Hindu Kanyashala]to attend the World Centenary Camp to be held in Windsor Park in UK. So suddenly I was prepared to take all sorts of tests so I could have lot more badges on my sleeve. To be chosen for the Camp, I had to compete with the Guides from other Zanzibar Companies and attend a camp with Guides and Guiders from Dar.

My first encounter with racism and awareness of my citizenship happened during this trip to UK while I was attending the Camp. Initially, I was chosen to be presented to the Queen. I was even taken for the rehearsal and taught how to curtesy and so on. However, later in the day a very worried looking Guider came to me and said, 'I am extremely sorry, but we have just received a telegram from Zanzibar and they have asked us to replace you by Saada Khamis [an Arab Guide from Zanzibar who was also attending the Camp] to be presented to the Queen.' The Guider thought I would burst into tears, but I was not much upset by missing the opportunity. I suppose I was too young to realize the implication.

Also, perhaps I wasn't bothered, as in Zanzibar I had the opportunity of seeing at close range many celebrities like, Rita Hayworth & Prince Alikhan, Dr S. Radhakrishnan, Princess Margaret, etc. at garden parties held in the British Residency grounds or Victoria Gardens where we served food to the guests in our Girl Guide uniform.

I also became aware for the first time, that although I had gone to the camp as a Zanzibari, I had chosen to wear chania-choli & odhani as my national dress. I taught other Guides a song in Gujarati, and not in Swahili. I was a Zanzibari BUT culturally I felt totally Indian. At the Camp, nobody wanted to know me as an Indian, as there were about 30 Girl Guides from India [and I didn't belong to them] who performed Indian dances in the evening as part of our entertainment. Saada and I, as Zanzibaris, had not prepared anything in particular to represent our island's identity. So here I was a young 16 year old with no awareness of the implications of my citizenship or identity. I realized all this much later in my life.

On arrival back to Zanzibar, a reporter had asked me if I had seen the Queen, and my reply was, 'Yes, I saw her clearly as being short, I was in the front row.' I didn't even think of telling him about the last minute swap.

PAINTED DEVILS AND THE LIVES OF ORDINARY PEOPLE - Review in Tanzanian Affairs no 116

PAINTED DEVILS AND THE LIVES OF ORDINARY PEOPLE. Tuan Marais. Storyline Studio, Western Cape, South Africa, 2016 (paperback). ISBN 978-6-620-60019-4. R185 (and various prices online) http://www.tuanmarais.co.za/.

This memoir is prefaced by Shakespeare’s ‘tis the eye of childhood / That fears a painted devil’ (Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 2). Memoirs are precious stories, carrying the words of ordinary people living through historically interesting times. Young Tuan Marais went to live in Zanzibar with his mother and her new husband. This was Zanzibar of 1956, when the popular Sultan Seyyid bin Khalifa still ruled a diverse population before the rush to independence had taken hold. Painted Devils is Tuan’s profoundly sensitive story of his childhood and young adulthood.

Tuan became immersed in the island’s exotic life. His halcyon days were spent learning the life of the seas. Local Zanzibaris befriended him and guided him in the traditional ways of fishing and negotiating the coral reefs. Soon he was a natural, weaving fishing traps and speaking Swahili. The family home was next to the Sultan’s Kibweni country palace and one of his memories is of rescuing the Sultan’s yacht during a storm. He recalled seeing the great dhow fleets arriving with the monsoon.

The English culture of Tuan’s family prescribed formal education and religious passage as necessary steps to adulthood. Most colonial children suffered the wrench that was boarding school. It was profoundly formative. It would be interesting to know what reflections those children would later have if, instead, they had been enrolled into local schools. Zanzibar before the Revolution had excellent primary and secondary schools based on the British system of O- and A-levels, and a rich and diverse cultural milieu. 

Tuan’s parents were not part of the British colonial administration and had no sense of the pull of ‘back home’ that characterised those families regarding their sojourn in Zanzibar as temporary. Tuan became conscious of racism, both in Zanzibar and at his Kenyan boarding school. Racism was taught to him through shame and ridicule. This was also the time that emerging political parties in Zanzibar, and across Africa, were demanding independence – Uhuru! The Cold War intensified this struggle. Tuan was hardly aware of the political wrangling, the escalating violent rhetoric as opposing sides grappled for the popular vote. The presence of Swahili, Shirazi, Manga Arabs, Goans, Indians and mainland Africans was taken as natural by his young self. Meanwhile the British were slipping away, having lost the will to invest in a troubled island. 

Tuan planned his future in Zanzibar: to offer diving and deep-sea fishing tours from a traditional fishing dhow. This was not to be. The Revolution of 1964 intervened. His parents were attacked on the day of the revolt when the infamous John Okello directed brutal mobs. They were taken to Okello’s headquarters and bound. Around them were the bodies of murdered Arab Zanzibaris. It is likely that they were saved by Okello’s order that no whites were to be killed – for fear of British intervention. Instead Okello whipped up his supporters into a genocide of Zanzibari Arab people. This is the dark history that the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar has never acknowledged.

The last section of the memoir is the story of Tuan’s life in South Africa. He was conscripted into the army and for a brief while groomed to be a South African spy. The Apartheid secret police wanted information on the Frelimo camps supposedly located in Zanzibar. He turned down this offer but did visit Zanzibar in 1966, finding the island miserable under the grip of its own brand of oppression.

In 1997, in his late middle-age, Tuan returned to Zanzibar but his Eden had disappeared and he struggled to find acceptance and resolution. Tuan’s memoir is poetically written, filled with the sense of those magic years when anything seemed possible. His years of youth were in Zanzibar and his depiction of life in the pre-revolutionary Sultanate is a charming tale of self-discovery. And perhaps it is with nostalgia that we might imagine how Zanzibar might have been had it not suffered the violence and despotism of those years.
Anne M. Chappel

Anne M. Chappel was born in Mwanza, Tanganyika, in 1947 and moved to Zanzibar in 1956 when her father worked for the British colonial administration, finally occupying the position of Permanent Secretary to Mohammed Shamte, the Prime Minister for the brief period of Zanzibar’s independence. Anne has written a novel, Zanzibar Uhuru, covering the last 50 plus years of Zanzibar’s history, as well as a biography of her father, Time Past in Africa. Anne lives in Adelaide, Australia.