The Awakening

In Zanzibar a few weeks ago some Catholic churches were firebombed. We had no problems and Salum assured us that no one would ever harm us. 

On our way in to Stone Town on Sunday we drove past hundreds of people walking towards what I assume is normally a soccer field. This day they were walking towards a political rally of Zanzibarian nationalism. They have a word for it which I can't recall but it's "the awakening".

This is the history as I understand it: Zanzibar was a part of Oman until 1962. At that point there was a violent revolution. The violent revolution involved killing and beating between the Arabs (Omanis) and Africans (mainlanders and those that had been on Zanzibar). A lot of this hard feeling between the two groups would be that Oman had run a very profitable slave trade of Africans before the British Navy shut it down. Once the revolution happened, the new leaders of Zanzibar were eager to quickly legitimize what they had done and proposed a union between Z and Tanganyika. They combined to become Tanzania.

Ever since that time, Zanzibarians have generally felt that they have gotten a raw deal in the union. Now the Imams (Zanzibar is 98% Muslim, compared to the mainland which is 50%) are leading the Awakening to try and become their own country. The churches were destroyed because they are a symbol of the mainland.

Someone might say, but the country of Tanzania has 44 million and Zanzibar has 1 million but a third of the seats in the house and all sorts of political clout so they would actually have less power as an individual nation and maybe the Imam's are interested in being in control rather than doing what's best for Zanzibar.