NEW YEAR’S EVE 1964 AND POST INDEPENDENCE

Earlier in December the government of the country had changed hands. ‘The independence ceremony had been held at midnight on New Year’s Eve. ‘The Gordon Highlanders had fired a last salute, the lights had been dimmed and the Sultan’s red flag had been lowered for good. The lights blazed on again and search-lights beamed upon the new flag of independence. It was red and green and featured a clove. There was applause but no wild cheering. To an uninformed observer it would seem that no real change had taken place. Long Muslim prayers were said in guttural Arabic, rockets blazed and there was precision marching and bagpipe playing. Surrounding the dais on which representatives of the British Crown, the Sultan, the Prime Minister and his cabinet were seated, sat row upon row of Arab nobility, government officials, guests from other lands and prominent African politicians. Further out the main mass of the people stood and sat, a dark multitude in the shadows, relatively silent, not particularly jubilant. During the ceremony there were lulls, the interval for example between one speaker sitting down and another taking his place at the microphone. During these lulls a single voice from the outskirts of the crowd could be clearly heard, shouting expostulation. I could not make out the words, but I had no doubt about the angry and antagonistic tone.

There was a carnival air of music and dancing, but the atmosphere was blended with a sense of uneasiness and danger.

The Club was heavily guarded by two armed policemen. The large crowd which always gathered to watch the revellers was there, but there was a sense of uncertainty. The tension was personified by the Commissioner of Police who was wearing a purple paper hat, tall and conical, the kind that witches wear. The hat incongruously accentuated the heavy, serious expression on his face. I know now that his mind was out under the trees amongst the shadowy men who might be gathering at this moment, silently waiting, grasping their pangas.

An instruction had been passed around that fancy dress – other than paper hats – should not be worn, and that faces should on no account be blackened. Otherwise, some fool might dress himself up as an African or an Arab, provoke an incident, and upset sensitive watchers. On previous New Year parties no such restraint had been imposed. The party had always been like a scene from the Arabian Nights. There were women of the Harem, fishermen, sheiks and banias.

It was quite clear from the withdrawn, jumpy aspect of this man, on whom security depended, that he was in possession of disquieting knowledge, that violence was in the offing. He took little part in the proceedings and would be glad when the evening came to an end.

As the notabilities were ushered to their seats, the shoulder holster made a conspicuous bulge under the dress jacket of the chief security officer. He was very watchful and very nervous.

As the multitude of Africans dispersed, filling all the roads for a time in their passing, the relative silence and the lack of real jubilation were undeniable. Fireworks filled the sky with light and colour until the dawn approached and the new sun of the succeeding day shone upon the departure of the guards, the sailors, the personages, the panoply and all the last overt manifestations of British rule. The country from now on would rule itself. It would be a constitutional monarchy, a Sultanate whose power was really held by the duly and previously elected government (elected with an overall majority of one single seat), the Prime Minister, Sheik Mohamed Shamto and his cabinet. Yesterday it had been a British Protectorate, a Sultanate, ruled in effect by the British Resident and his administrative officers. Its flag had been the blood-red flag of the Sultan. The ruling party was an amalgamation of a large party, the Zanzibar Nationalist Party, and a small one, the Zanzibar and Pemba People’s Party. The latter, led by the now Prime Minister, had split off from the very narrowly defeated Afro-Sherazi Party led by Mohamed Abeid Kharume. A third party, the UMMA party, led by Babu, was eclipsed for the time being.

To a stranger there was little to distinguish any one faction from another in so far as the great mass of its followers was concerned. But it had always seemed to me that the defeated party, the Afro-Sherazi Party, represented the African as opposed to the Arab element. It seemed to me to be the truly popular party and in the election which preceded independence it polled the greater number of votes. It is the familiar story of an overall vote, representing to my innocent eye the popular choice of the people, being negatived by the system of

constituencies. The niceties of proportional representation were lost on the man in the street, no less than they are lost to me, naive though I may be.

On this day of which I write, the first day of Shamte’s thirty days of rule, I was standing at my window looking down at the people passing in the street below. Amongst the crowd I saw Suwena, a rotund figure swathed in the dark blue mantle called a Bui Bui. Her normally fat and jovial face was dark and clouded and her general mien was one of sullen unhappiness not at all characteristic of her. I knew her well because she had been at one time nurse to one of the children.

I leaned out of the window with the object of restoring her customary smile. “Jambo, Suwena” I said. “Jarnbo, bwana” she replied. “Now you have your freedom” I said, speaking in Swahili. At this the listlessness left her face which became transformed. She began a little dance down there in the street below. “Freedom again! Freedom again! Freedom again” she chanted. What she actually sang was “Uhuru tena! Uhuru tena! Uhuru tena!” ‘Uhuru’ is the word for freedom, ‘tena’ is generally translated as again. I have not got a Swahili dictionary by me as I write and may well have missed some nuance of meaning. But the message was very clear. This new freedom was not real freedom, and another attempt would have to be made before Suwena, for one, would regard herself as being truly free.

The forenoon of the day of pseudo-freedom was occupied by a number of ceremonies over and above the departure of the remaining vestiges of British Rule. The Ark Royal, which had taken the representatives of British Sovereignty away, sent a flight of jet aircraft over the island. They came, they dipped in salute, they went away. Siesta time settled over the town and no one stirred; a great and ominous quiet settled down. It was ominous for reasons which I find hard to describe. The silence was too complete, the streets were absolutely, not relatively deserted. The servants in the house were unduly quiet.

Later in the afternoon, at half-past four, the Sultan had been scheduled to make a ceremonial tour through the streets. This was the time when normal activity usually resumed after the siesta, in the cooler time after the worst of the noonday heat. But he made his tour through deserted streets. Many houses on the route were shuttered and the few scattered hand-claps which acknowledged his passage made a feeble contrast to the vociferous recognition which a ruler, however insignificant, may reasonably expect.

My servants did not go to the windows and they did not applaud his passing. This drew my attention to the fact that they had spoken to each other in whispers throughout the day. There was talk of minor clashes between the youth wings of the new political parties. There were many rumours and a sense of suspended activity like the oppression before a thunderstorm.

This juncture in the post-revolution period found me making reflections such as I have written above. I was almost friendless. I spent most of my time in my own company. There was nothing much for me to do in the evenings but to pack my belongings and furniture. My mind often returned to my packing in Buluba. In just the same way I gradually stripped the house of all its character until it became merely a large shadowy warehouse. It would eventually be occupied by Chinese.

At last I sat at a small table under a naked bulb, Hassan prepared my evening meal and went away to his own dwelling in Ngambo. The long hours of solitude stretched ahead. Boredom hung in the shadows waiting to claim me, and in trying to escape I sometimes took unjustifiable risks and exposed myself to the danger of losing my immunity. Because I automatically took the side of the oppressed, and because the oppressed were the beaten ones, my sympathies were with the Arabs and Asians and I sometimes spoke out on their behalf. Because I believed that communism would oppress the little people, the Africans, and because I believe that the ‘freedom’ of the communists is not ‘freedom’ as I know it, I spoke out against the communists also.

I felt that I owed it to myself and to the friends I was to leave behind to declare my position unequivocally. I hated to think, for example, that people were being flogged, that prisoners were being treated with undue harshness, that `freedom fighters’ were now, by a ruse, undergoing a harsh military discipline, that even the children were being turned into ‘mini soldiers’.

“I would very much like you to stay on and help us, Doctor”, said the Minister of Health.

“I am unable to stay if Zanzibar is to become a communist state. I hope you will appreciate that I am being quite frank about this.”

“Many people have asked me whether Zanzibar is going to become a communist country”, said the Minister. “It’s funny how many people have said this, but there is no truth in it I can assure you.”

“Will Zanzibar, then, form a Federation with Kenya, Uganda and Tanganika?” “You need be in no doubt of that at all. That has always been our intention.” The `our’ referred, surely, to the Afro Sherazi Party.

“I hope you were not worried about the shooting last night.” I had not been. This was the first I heard about it. “Some silly fool make a mistake. There was nothing in it. I hope you won’t be worried about it.”

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