Let’s look back to get perspective on the future

A young man airs his views before the Constitutional Review Commission. PHOTO | FILE

London.Issues of re-writing our Constitution and of the future of the Union with Zanzibar have been so dominant in our national life recently and so wrapped up in self-serving emotional sentiments to a point where one can easily get lost as to what is really the issue.

In this process serious matters vital to the livelihood of the masses, who form more than 85 per cent of our population, like land control are being overshadowed by questions that largely serve the interests of politicians.

If we are to get a proper perspective on where we want to take the country, we need to have a hard look at where we have come from. It is also imperative to be honest with ourselves. Confucius, the Chinese philosopher from the 5th century advised: “Study the past, if you would divine the future.” This is an approach our leaders would be well advised to adopt.

What future for the Union?

In order to get a clear perspective on the future of the Union issue, which is dominant at present, we need to go back to the early 1960s when both Tanganyika and Zanzibar were still under the yoke of colonialism. Tanganyika gained independence in December 1961 followed by Zanzibar in December 1963.

But Zanzibar’s independence did not change the exploitative, colonial situation on the ground in the Islands, which is why there was the popular Revolution of January 12, 1964.

However, reliable intelligence confirmed that the Zanzibar Revolutionary Government was under the clear and present danger of a counter-coup from the deposed Arabs, who under Sayyid Sir Jamshid bin Abdullah Al Said, dominated the Islands’ politics and the economy.

To forestall that threat the Zanzibar Government, under the late Sheikh Abeid Amani Karume, approached the Tanganyika Government under Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere with the idea of Union.

The Union was, therefore, not Tanganyika’s idea, although judging by current sentiments coming from Zanzibar, one can be excused for thinking that Tanganyika invaded Zanzibar to impose this Union.

History is witness to the fact that this was clearly not the case.

The same forces that made the formation of this Union imperative in the first place attempted to dissolve it using a technicality in 1984 which resulted in the dramatic resignation of the then Zanzibar President and the Vice President of Tanzania, Sheikh Aboud Jumbe.

Is it too far-fetched to suggest that a hidden hand could now be at work, under the camouflage of the constitutional review exercise, to try to achieve the dissolution of the Union which they failed to do in 1964 and 1984? The masses from Zanzibar and the Mainland stand to lose greatly through a break-up of our Union and are advised to be vigilant, if not sceptical, in this matter.