Comments Off Looking forward to seeing the finished movie “Insatiable Moon” this Saturday night. Playing the after movie gig at Cargo at the Viaduct.
If you want to hear what the opening theme of the film sounds like check out my song “The Sound” on You Tube as this is the actual opening music of the film in a different version.
Its looking possible that there will be a soundtrack album for the film and this would give more scope for extended versions.
Comments Off FIRST DEMONSTRATION
It was on the Sunday after the Revolution that the real independence ceremony occurred. I say real because I had no doubt that the colossal turnout of every African on the island, or so it appeared, each in brightly coloured dress, each singing and smiling at the same time was spontaneous. The first groups appeared at ten o’clock chanting the song which was to be the great song of the revolution, stamping their feet in time to its strong hypnotic rhythm with the result that the house vibrated. “Oh Oh Eha ru meh na jen gan chi”. The highpitched voices intoned an extempore calypso-like antiphon and then this refrain with its rhythmic pauses would follow, reinforced by a multitude of rhythmically clapping hands “o oh na geng anchi oh na jeng anchi”.
I looked down upon this sea of colour of head scarves in cerulean blues and vermilions, deep deep blue dresses, and shining stimulated faces with teeth and eyes flashing. Never were the inanimate objects so thrust into the background by the seething life below.
They came in close-packed ranks of ten or more, but there was no military-style pattern. This was a truly spontaneous universal expression of true ‘uhuru’. which was without doubt Suwena’s ‘Uhuru tena’. It was a freedom which noone could deny, or so it seemed to me at the time. People came in such numbers that I visualised the villages empty, the roads silent elsewhere on the island. It was the culmination of the carnival and no day later was so joyous, political or contrived. Background intelligence seemed to be clearly discernible behind subsequent occasions of this sort. No great subtlety was needed – a jeep, Nussa’s friends in their Cuban uniforms, their automatic weapons, the look of concentration on their vigilant faces, a jeep to patrol the procession, the organisation of the procession on the lines of a Catholic confraternity and the polyglot slogans. Fruits of hour-long tongue-between-teeth backroom activity held by persons known to me and known by me to be unable to read or write testify to this.
I stood on my verandah for three hours while the great procession filled the streets below me, passing on its way to the one-time Residence. The capacious grounds proved inadequate to hold the multitude so the procession had to move on through the grounds leaving them full to overflowing. Within the grounds, out of my view, it seemed that the President was visible, probably on a dais or a balcony, because the chant which had political overtones when passing me (“Americans get out” or “down with capitalists”) changed in the vicinity of the Residency gardens to a chant of acclamation for the leader. “0 0 Kha roo meh na jeng anchi.” Two hundred yards back it had been “0 0 Meri cani tokeni” (“Americans get away”).
JAMHURI 1964]
POST OFFICE
THE FLAG
Throngs of Happy Africans
The flag of the People’s Republic of Zanzibar and Pemba is, unlike so many flags, a thing of very great beauty and enough to delight a painter’s eye. The colours are black, blue and green and each has an equal surface area. The rectangle, in its proportions, conforms to the ‘golden number’ of Pythagoras and each of the three subdivisions is of like dimensions.
The flag arrived so early on the scene that it must have been decided and designed before the Revolution. After a few days this flag was to be seen wherever one went. It flew from the flagstaff of the President’s Residence (formerly the Residency), from the flagstaff of the People’s Palace (formerly the Sultan’s Palace), from the poles of official buildings large and small. It appeared as pennants on the official cars which were mostly large black Zephyrs and Zodiacs taken from the showrooms of the Indian Garage which sold them.
Facsimiles of the flag were painted on the outside walls of private dwellings replacing the scarlet red cockerel. Houses so decorated were either proclaiming loyalty or surrender and acceptance. No doubt it was thought that this painted symbol might confer a degree of immunity on the house and its occupants during the days of silent uncertainty when house-to-house searches were being made for arms and wanted persons.
In the absence of a flag or of the colours required to paint the emblem, many houses signified their acquiescence to the new state of affairs by attaching green, black or blue cloths or even bunches of green foliage to their front doors.
All this, no less than the happy throngs of Africans, added to the general carnival air. Africans with their wives began to stroll in the streets, dressed in expensive finery. Their attitude clearly said “the place belongs to us now”. And, as if to agree with this, Indians, Goans and Europeans tended to keep off the streets. Arabs were conspicuous by their absence. There was no clinking of coffee-cups, no street cries. By evening time, however, even the Africans returned to their homes and as the shadows lengthened, the place became sinister and silent.
So far the picture was clear enough. It was an African Nationalist uprising. The Afro-Sherazi Party and its supporters had fought a battle. They won this battle with an ease which may well have surprised themselves. They had accomplished in less than twelve hours what they had planned to do and deeply desired for a great many years.
Drugged with success and driven on by hatred, they carried out reprisals against their beaten enemies. Many old and personal scores were settled too during a time of opportunity. This happened on the second day. The events of the first twelve to twenty-four hours could not be described with certainty as honourable, though they may have met some resistance from organised groups of desperate Manga Arabs.
By the third day, however, I had reason to believe that control of events had begun to slip into other more wily hands. This was the day which saw the reemergence of Mussa and the appearance for the first time of a number of men armed with automatic rifles and dressed in Cuban-style uniforms and sporting Castro-style beards. One of them, in fact, had re-named himself `Fidel”. They were a small corps d’elite.
Certain elements, whose interests were not motivated by Nationalism, appeared to have remained in the background until the outcome was clear, until they knew for certain which way to jump. This period saw the beginnings of recruitment of a new army, the first moves in the creation of a pattern which eventually dominated affairs. On this day also one or two strange faces, Chinese faces, became visible on the streets.
It became relatively safe to move about on the third day. It was only necessary to exhibit a small piece of green cloth – memories of St. Patrick’s day – or to fabricate an armband out of a handkerchief or any suitable piece of white cloth. A Churchillian V sign also helped to ensure one’s safety. Green foliage on a vehicle ensured its safety also — up to a point. Lorries had come and collected the dead and the bodies were buried without count or record, in large communal graves.
Gangs of men roamed about and were justifiably viewable with suspicion. The prison had been thrown open – on what authority no one exactly knew. A threatening voice had ordered the prison in Pemba to be opened too, the voice was never identified, and Kharume was angry when he heard that it had been done. These gangs of men, armed with clubs and knives, might have been criminals or they might have been accredited soldiers of the new regime. There was no way of knowing.
Looting, over and above that which had occurred during the first frenzy, was still going on sporadically – and no longer with the approval of the new authority. Okello’s broadcasts to the looters and the dire punishments with which we threatened them, no less than the appearance of shattered Africans in the wards, shot by `police’, attested to this.
Only the riflemen were likely to be trustworthy. There seemed to be a definite selection in this regard. Riflemen appeared to have the status of N.C.Os. But an added flavour of excitement was related to the fact, easily appreciable on inspection, that the rifles were not handled with knowledge. They were waved about dangerously and sometimes went off, shocking the gunman no less than the bystanders.
Nevertheless, we had Okello’s word for it, twelve rifles were missing and believed to be in unauthorised hands. He called out the number of each rifle, called the holder to give the rifle up to him, and promised in return that he would kill him! I was told that this promise had been fulfilled.
Cars, obviously commandeered, drifted into and out of the hospital grounds. It was queer to sec the small saloon which had once been the property of the D.M.S. and in which he had driven on picnics to Chukwani and about whose merits he had enthused, sprouting with guns and pieces of foliage!
It was at about this time that the nurses changed their uniform. The red flag of the Sultan had become the red rag to the bull. It was inadvisable to wear any red garment whatsoever or to have any piece of red cloth about the house. It was most dangerous of all to have a red flag. The junior nurses had worn a pink uniform but this had to be changed at once, on orders from highest authority. in the house.
I had played my part, as a matter of courtesy, by decorating my house for the Independence Ceremony. The house was so conspicuous, the first house on the principal street of entry to the city, that an absence of decoration might have been construed as a discourtesy. With some reluctance I had bought a red and green clove flag and now this flag was somewhere in the house. On my first return to the house, on the third day of the revolution, I searched for it in vain, one of my servants having disposed of it.
In the General Post Office a young man was gleefully, energetically, and sadistically stamping ‘Jamhuri 1964′ on the effigy of the Sultan.
BOREDOM – NOTHING TO DO
There were a great many public holidays after the revolution. Zanzibar always seemed to have more than its share, but since the revolution May Day had become a holiday, and there was a holiday declared for a victory rally. When holidays were added the others relating to the Muslim festivals were retained.
At any rate there were long hours of boredom. Many of the casualties had been cured, many more had had to have staged reconstructive surgery, many had died. But the hospital routine was back to normal. The only difference was that the patients who occupied the West Wing – Zanzibar’s equivalent of the London Clinic – were now exclusively of African stock. There had not ever been any racialist bias with regard to the West Wing but the privileged people, the people with big jobs and high social positions, had been almost exclusively Europeans, Indians and Arabs.
When the day’s work was over boredom took over. Painting and reading had become, for a time, dull. I found myself with time on my hands and as a result, was constantly in danger of doing something unwise and of getting myself into trouble. As the grip of the government tightened it seemed that there was no aspect of human activity without a political significance. The government stuck its nose in everywhere. I read ‘Animal Farm’ for the first time during these days. It described so many things which were like what was going on around me that I felt a little reckless in having this book.
When I telephoned, I was almost sure that someone, (the operator?) was monitoring the conversation. When I looked at the painting I had been at work on prior to the revolution, I saw the dead figure of a Sultan and wondered whether or not to cover it because I had introduced at least two square feet of flat scarlet vermilion into the design. I was glad Hassan had not thought of this when he burnt the flag!
When I wrote in my journal it was with the knowledge that all persons passing through the immigration prior to departure were searched, and that documents in their possession had been confiscated. My journal might be examined later, hence I wrote in it with a sense of guilt.
When I listened to the radio I recalled someone telling me that a recent order of the Revolutionary Council, promulgated by radio, had forbidden listening to the B.B.C. There was said to be a penalty of twenty lashes.
Even when I sat on the verandah, which I did at dawn as well as dusk and at any time when I was not working, I felt that this activity too might be construed as spying.
There was no relief in the cinema. Patrons were instructed by a large preliminary notice that they were to stand during the National Anthem both at the beginning and at the end of the performance. The names of the cinemas, the Majestic and the Sultana had had to be changed. Even in going to the pictures there was this sense of being a small child constantly overlooked by a severe and
pitiless father, a Mr Barrett of Wimpole Street. There was this large picture of Abeid Kharume, looking anything but benign, staring at me for the interminable length of the new dirge-like anthem before and after each performance.
But I must do something. I must keep fit. I may, eventually, have to swim for it. Swimming at least is a politically neutral activity. So one quiet afternoon I sallied forth with this object in view.
I TAKE A SWIM – I GO SKETCHING
My house was very close to the sea-shore. To reach it I had only to cross the road and pass along the alley into which the ambulance had reversed on the day when it had come to rescue me. Mrs Balucci lived along the same alley.
The alley led, after about twenty or thirty paces, to a pleasant square or piazza which bordered the sea. But to gain the beach it was necessary to pass along another narrow alley between two massive houses. These had belonged, in other days, to the Chief justice and the Attorney General. The latter is illustrated in the book “Isle of Cloves” by F.D. Ommanney, Longmans Green & Co. Ltd, 1957.
I dressed myself in swimming shorts and jacket and, taking a towel, I sallied forth across the road and into the alley. When I reached the alley I found that a wall had been built across it, sealing off several of the houses, rendering them inaccessible from the square and giving them a secretive inhospitable air. This wall dampened by spirits considerably. Suddenly I felt very frivolous and naked in my brightly-coloured shorts, but there was no going back.
I reached the passage between the two houses previously mentioned and found each one surrounded by a large armed guard. One had become the Chinese Embassy, the other had become the residence of one of the Cabinet Ministers. I now had to pass along a very narrow space between these houses under scrutiny of several Chinese who looked down on me unsmilingly from the roof above me to the right.
The guards who had been talking quietly to each other when I appeared became silent as I passed. They were so close that I could touch them along the narrow passage between the two houses. I reached the beach and walked into the water, watched intently by a very large number of very hostile eyes. Then I saw that there were also gunmen on the beach.
There were about six fishing boats with large lamps fitted over the stern. This was a new departure method of fishing which had been introduced by a Greek business family who lived in the Island. As this was my first and only time seeing these boats, it was a moment or two before I recalled having heard that a Greek fishing fleet had been ‘nationalised’ – this must be the fleet.
I had not paused; by the time I had put two and two together I was in the water and swimming out to sea. I then realised with much discomfiture that there was quite a good chance of my being shot at. Might I not be taken for a Greek setting out to recapture the boats? I came out of the water as though I had remembered an urgent appointment. I returned gratefully to my house – I now had recently taken to calling it my warehouse – and never ventured to bathe in that place again.
My swim meant a great deal to me. Before the revolution I swam at least once every day and had an infinite number of choices. The distance to the seashore from any point on the main street was no more than a hundred feet. ‘T’here were innumerable coves all along the main road from the town past Nazi Moja and Mazzizzizi to Chukwani.
Swimming near the hospital, beyond the Chinese Embassy and farther along the beach, was prevented by the armed guard stationed on the sea side of the President’s Residence. Further along there were the sentries and pickets guarding the enclosed estate in whose extensive grounds a part of Mussa’s new army was in training.
So I resolved to go further afield to Chukwani. This meant a drive in the direction of the airport and a right turn at Mazzizini. Swimming here was not congenial either because all the flats had become to all intents and purposes a barracks. This area was reserved for the East Germans. But again they were
quite distinctly unsmiling and unfriendly and it was not an attractive proposition to go and swim under their noses.
I drove on and on through countryside which was always flat and almost empty. Neglected overgrown estates, densely forested, lay on my right. Scattered here and there were the crumbling villas, most of them deserted. There were no bathing beaches along this part of the coast, only sinister reaches of mangroves.
Then the road suddenly straightened out and three quarters of a mile away I saw a roadblock manned by two armed gunmen. The road led only to the beach and to a few isolated homesteads and fishing settlements. So why the roadblock? Should I turn round – it was a four-point turn – or should I drive right up to the two gunmen?
I chose the latter course. It would seem an unduly suspicious action to turn and drive away from them, so I drove closer and closer to them. I noticed that they were in uniform, square flat peaks to their caps, and that their automatic rifles had bright yellow stocks.
They levelled their guns at me. I could go no further because they were standing athwart the road. Would they believe that I had merely come to swim? I had also equipped myself with sketching materials; what purpose would they suspect if they examined these? On the whole I felt rather silly and felt a queasy feeling in my stomach at the point where their guns were aimed.
I attempted to take a jolly conversational line with them, gave them a formal greeting and told them what intention had brought me to the place. But neither one said anything. I told them that I could see that I was not supposed to go any further and that I had not been aware that I was approaching a restricted area. But neither said a word. I turned the car with difficulty and drove away. I half expected a burst of gunfire, with luck, over my head. But nothing happened.
I felt relieved when I had negotiated a bend and there was cover between myself and the silent gunmen. A mile further on I stopped. I still had thoughts of painting a water colour and did not want my expedition to be entirely negative. After a few moments I heard the motor of a Cesna aeroplane and then I saw it. It came from the direction of Dar es Salaam and it landed in the restricted area from whence I had just come.
It was as well, I think, that I abandoned the intention of sketching and resumed my homeward drive because just as I reached the East German quarters in Mazzizini, the big black saloon, the personal car of the President, turned into the road from which I had just emerged. The black, green and blue pennant fluttered, indicating the presence in the vehicle of the leader. But, incongruously, it was towing a large, ocean-going motor launch. I had no idea what to make of this. I drove on and reached my warehouse.
At that time there was talk of two armies, that of the President which would include the police seconded from Tanganika and that which Mussa had been liaison for, and which was being trained under the auspices of the cryptocommunists. My adventure added some fuel to the fire of speculation. ‘T’here was at any rate some reason to expect another war. This may be far-fetched. But it was beginning to look as though some of the tension in the general atmosphere was a result of a conflict which went on behind closed doors.
The crypto-communists had been concentrated in a party called U.M.M.A. which had been formed following a dispute with the party of Ali Mushin. The cryptocommunists, led by Babu, had been supporters of the deposed Z.N.P. The commanding officer of the new army had been in Cuba and was probably trained there for the function which he performed after the revolution. Had he wished to do so he could have freed the imprisoned ex-ministers and deposed Kharume. He would have forfeited African support by so doing, but he was not as likely to lose his grip as had been the leaders of the overthrown regime.
There was, therefore, if not actual, at least theoretical grounds for tense speculation. There were practical issues also in so far as expatriate officers like myself were concerned because, in any renewed fighting, European immunity would not necessarily be maintained. We might find ourselves no longer sitting on the fence.
NASSER’S BIG FOOT
Having been on leave in Mombasa I flew back to Zanzibar, stopping at Tanga – the “milk run’=where there was a long wait. ‘Where was a desolate air about the small concrete room in which I waited with the other passengers. Outside it was exceptionally dark; absence of all light from the sky proved the presence of cloud. Maybe the delay was due to some troublesome weather ahead, maybe it was due to some political complication, maybe the aircraft was defective.
There was very little for sale at the small shop. I succeeded in finding a battered and much-thumbed copy of Time magazine to read. There were sections in it devoted to Zanzibar, a good photograph of Okello looking young, handsome and immature and holding the cylindrical mouthpiece of a microphone to his lips. There was a paragraph which suggested in the peculiar pert, all-knowing manner which Time adopts, that the Communists were in control in Zanzibar and that a very large number of Arabs had been killed. Thousands.
When at length we settled into the plane, I recognised two or three extra passengers. From Mombasa I had had two seats to myself, but now, on reentering the plane, I found I was to have a neighbour, a thick-set African. He was in good humour and seemed anxious to talk. I thought it polite to turn the pages of my magazine to a more innocuous section because he was quite uninhibitedly reading over my shoulder with great avidity. We were, in fact, reading the magazine together.
In the article which I had just concealed, in addition to the reference to Okello, there were speculations about the role of Babu. Everyone wondered about Babu’s role but Time made no bones about staling that he was Peking’s man in Zanzibar. I did not much like the idea of this particular paragraph being read by my neighbour. I wondered whether the magazine had been banned. I could easily have missed the announcement in the welter of regulations, each having immediate force which poured from the radio. it might have been banned during my absence – a single broadcast announcement would have been enough in these days of government by radio announcement, many of which had an impressive character. Events and people were highly unpredictable and it was not impossible that if he read the paragraphs that he might not have reacted violently.
My companion, by contrast, was quite at ease. He was full of that good cheer and exuberance which were the carnival fruits of nationalist victory. He told me very soon, with scarcely any preliminary small talk, that he was the Area Commissioner for Tanga and went on to say that he was a high-ranking officer of the Tanganika African National Union. He had been its General Secretary until a short time ago.
“People think that we” – he referred of course to TANU – “organised the Revolution in Zanzibar” he said. “In fact it came as a complete surprise to us. We had absolutely no knowledge of it beforehand, no knowledge at all. We only
knew a couple of days before.” All these statements followed each other with only a pause for a short intake of breath.
I felt free to comment on this. I had thought that TANU had played a considerable part in instigating the revolution and in supporting it. I said so. “Of course” said the Area Commissioner “we’re very glad about it. We didn’t like the idea of an Arab state on our doorstep. No, we didn’t want that at all.” He paused for a while then he added “Very soon there would have been NBF.”
“You know”, he said, “I was a prohibited person – a prohibited person – me!” He gave a loud laugh of mingled joy and derision. “I could not get into Zanzibar, no not at all, before the Revolution. But when I was passing through last week they didn’t even ask me for my papers. Babu, who is my brother, was standing a little way behind the immigration desk. When he saw me he shouted out my name and ran towards me and embraced me.” He gave another chuckle, this time of pleasure at the recollection.
“What do you think of this?” I asked, thrusting the magazine at him, having opened it again on impulse at the picture of ?keIIo. He read it most attentively and took a long time over it, long enough for me to feel regret at the rashness of my silence, having given way to curiosity. He began to chuckle and the chuckle increased to a laugh which caused other passengers to glance at him. “Oh! This is all nonsense. Babu is not a communist, Babu is a Nationalist. I know him well, he is my friend.” Then he exploded in renewed laughter. “Do you think he could ask the Imperialists to give him money for a revolution? Do you think they’d give it to him?”
At this moment the usual pre-landing announcement was made. Our landing was uneventful. We queued at the Immigration desk for very long drawn-out formalities. My friend was treated no differently from anyone else, though he greeted several people loudly and cheerily. Their response was cold, almost inimical. Then his face became worried and broody.
Note: This is the last of 8 instalments.
Section 8 of 8 in Part 1
Comments Off 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.”
Comments Off MZEE
Africans are fond of nicknames. A very short man becomes known to his friends as ‘Fupi’ and all old men are called ‘Mzee’ (pronounced ‘mzay’). In our house there was an oldish man who did the laundry work. Inevitably he was known to all as Mzee.
He kept his own council, worked assiduously, came and went in his own time and at his own pace. He sometimes talked a little to himself as his iron clinked gently away. He did not acknowledge with the usual ‘jambo’ the coming and going of any member of the household, never said “Good morning”, and never said “Good night”. He spared his words and it was most exceptional for him to initiate a conversation.
He spoke no English but had command of a particularly pure and beautiful Swahili. He was not easy to understand however, because he used words so sparingly that his communications had telegrammatic brevity which brought about a slight degree of incoherency.
On one occasion he approached me with a long account of his difficulties in regard to his registration as a voter. This was prior to the first General Election, an election incidentally, which was won by Abeid Khanxrne’s party by a majority of one seat, and that one seat by a majority of one single vote! Therefore Mzee’s vote, had we known it at the time, might well have been of crucial significance.
For some reason which I failed to fathom, he was apparently not entitled to a vote. He had worked in the country, so he told me, for twenty-three years. Nevertheless, the authorities had turned down his application, and he was very disturbed. I advised him to consult the leadership of whichever party he supported, that, since their interest in his vote would be as great as his own, they could be relied upon to solve his problem.
The subject was not raised again. I always respected his taciturnity and, since he did not tell me how things had gone, I assumed that his problem had been resolved.
The election came and went. The winning party took their seats in Legislative Council and gained the respect of the professional administrators. One of their members, moderate in his views, showed considerable aptitude for constitutional
affairs. The remainder were, it was thought, unsophisticated in matters of statesmanship, men of the people, rather extreme in their views and well to the left of centre.
My assumption about Mzee had been wrong, however. He had not been able to vote. I do not know why. Maybe he had not carried the matter any further, maybe he had been turned down again. I did not find this out until after the Revolution when I had returned to and resumed life in my own house. By then the schools had re-opened and all the workers had returned to their normal jobs.
During the ensuing week which was the decline of Okello, his voice was heard less often, other voices more often. Civil servants were instructed to return to work, otherwise they would lose their jobs. Children were to return to school. All normal activities were to be resumed.
The first person to greet me was Mzee and he had a great deal to say. Words simply tumbled out of his mouth and he was very angry. Grievance had shocked him into verbosity. Ever since the outbreak on January 20 he had been detained in Rahaleo with hundreds of others. It was “very bad” he said, “hunger”. “People lying under the sky with wounds and hunger. Six men” he said “share a single mango.” Food sent for the internees was taken by the guards. “Six people” he repeated, “one mango between them. Men, women and children all lying together without cover, some of them sick, some wounded.”
Poor Mzee! He had risen as usual on the fateful Sunday morning and had set off from his home in Ngambo to his place of work. The guns were “not his shauri” – no business of his. But on his way he had been stopped and questioned, roughly bundled into a truck and taken and interned in Rahaleo.
They had not known him long enough to be able to understand what he was saying to them, nor had they the patience just then. The fact that he was obviously harmless had meant nothing to them. Had he been an Arab, he would probably have been shot out of hand, like the old and wizened petrol pump attendant on Creek Road who had also been harmless and inoffensive.
CAT
This rather light-hearted tale illustrates one of the minor effects of revolution in the domestic sphere.
They were beginning to get me worried about the cat. One evening, seated amongst the packing-cases, Sheila, looking at me in her special way – a sort of vague scrutiny – said “What are you going to do about Smuts?” The question took me by surprise, as most of Sheila’s questions do. It was not that the problem had not occurred to me already, and more than once, but that I had not dared to put it into words, not even to myself.
Smuts had been around for years, waxing and waning in size, depending on whether the boys were at home or away at school. When they were away Smuts was thin and active, and when they were at home he was fat, sleek, and sluggish. But at present, since I was alone and preoccupied, working by day and packing by night, Smuts was in a lean phase, and had, reluctantly I am sure, taken once more to hunting, so as to supplement the erratic meals I provided whenever I thought of him, which was not often. My relationship to the cat was a distant one. It jumped on my book when I was reading and on my papers when I was writing. I had never thought of a cat as a disposal problem. Sheila’s question forced me to do so. How dangerous it is to put things into words!
“Much better to put him to sleep. He’s had a good innings.”
“You mean I should kill him?”
Sheila recoiled from such crudity. The subject was dropped. But she had started the thought process she had intended to start; probably it was for this express purpose she had visited me just then. She left, presumably to resume her own packing, leaving me to muse about the “good innings.” It was a favourite expression of hers, and usually employed in respect of people who had succumbed after a couple of weeks of intravenous saline, surrounded by anxious doctors employing one desperate remedy after the other.
Life went on, the revolution went on; Smuts continued his activities, roamed about, slept, licked his paws, asked for food, met his friends. I continued my activities, painted, operated, discussed politics, worried about Zanzibar, wrote letters.
“Are you going to take him with you?” asked Mrs Potter, a lady whom I knew only slightly, nevertheless better than I would have wished. Her chief attribute was her ability to call her husband “Darling” in a voice that made me quail. But she was a great animal lover. “Sheila is taking Mackenzie and Pat took Joey.” Joey had lost weight while in quarantine and had had a low-grade fever which had caused anxiety for some time. It was attributed to his distaste at being forced to exist in a semi-detached cat house. “I shall certainly not take Smuts with me,” I said. There was a reproachful silence. “His air passage to London and his hotel fees while in quarantine for six months would pay the children’s school fees for one term.”
“Then you must put him to sleep,” said Dorothy.
“You mean kill him?”
“It would be kinder.”
I did not pursue the subject. Hassan, Mzee, Smuts and I went on living our life. But, during intervals between one stress and another, I found myself looking at Smuts, marvelling at, and envying, his peace of mind. I patted him more frequently and went more frequently to the ice-box, Smuts walking at my heels, his tail held high.
“What are you going to do about your cat?” asked Ken Cook. “We put Harry’s away yesterday.”
“You killed Harry’s cat,” I said. “Did he know about it?”
“He was very glad. Can’t have a lot of stray cats about the place.”
I allowed the subject to die. We talked of other things, of Pemba and Tanzan and the Russians. But, by now, Hassan, on my instructions, was buying food for both of us – me and Smuts. We had salmon and steak together regularly. I found that Smuts was becoming more fastidious than I. Soon the menu depended more on his taste than mine. He was getting very large, sleek and glossy and was putting in many extra purring hours daily.
I had not been indoctrinated by the advocates of sleep. I did want the cat to go on living; to die, eventually, otherwise than by my doing a spot of Deus ex Machina. But I did look long and ponderingly upon him quite often, and usually between meals. Hassan and I began to discuss the subject rather frequently. On the first few occasions we explored the various possibilities of disposal in Smuts’ presence. We quickly noticed however, that Smuts became rather agitated; so we confined our discussions to occasions when Smuts was elsewhere. There seemed to be no solution other than the radical one. We had arrived at the point of condemning him to death, in his own interest of course. He had had a good innings. But from now on we were unable to look him in the eye.
Meanwhile, the condemned cat had a daily hearty breakfast, dinner and supper. Unaware, most of the time, of the thoughts in my head he continued to wax fatter, sleeker, more somnolent and more authoritative. I now knew my departure date from Zanzibar, therefore the arrangements for Smuts would have to be given a definite time and place. Then I remembered little Miss Smith. She was the lady who ate my apples while I operated. She had given us Smuts in the first place. We had taken Smuts because she had been going on leave. She had now returned, having become married in the meantime. I approached her at the Sailing Club. “I am glad to say”, I said, feeling very false, “that Smuts is very well. And I am sure you will be delighted to have him back.” “Oh, Mr Hurley!” said she, looking up at me with much concern on her face. “We have three cats, five monkeys and four bush-babies. We don’t know what to do with them, and my husband won’t have another animal in the house.”
Time was growing short. The rooms were becoming more and more empty and desolate as my packing continued. The furniture was reduced to a chair, a table, a transistor radio, a fork, spoon, cup, plate – and Smuts. And then came a little note, not from the Home Secretary, but the nearest thing:
“Dear Mr Hurley,
Mohamed Said Kharusi’s eldest daughter wants to have your cat. She knows she is asking a great favour but promises to look after it well. Could you possibly let her have it?”
Hassan and I got a wicker basket. We packed this full of growls and claws and outraged dignity. Hassan, quivering all over as a result of the transmitted oscillations of this bundle of energy, entered the house of Kharusi’s eldest daughter. He emerged empty-handed. Smuts had entered his new phase – his Arab phase. I trust that he is happy and not too displeased at the change in diet from salmon to kebabs and sherbet.
MUSSA AND THE MINISTER
The telephone rang at 4am on Friday 31 January. I had never known an operator so incoherent. I could make out very little, only the urgent tone. The words tumbled out, the word Mussa repeated, and “come”, “come to the hospital”. I put down the phone hastily and began to dress, but before I had removed my pyjama jacket the bedroom door was flung open noisily and a woman rushed into the room. She was in Cuban uniform and carried a rifle.
She caught hold of me and began to drag me out, and was in a frenzy of urgency. “Mussa has been shot, he’s been shot!” she shouted and made renewed efforts to drag me by the pyjama coat.
I insisted on dressing and while I did so she stood by in a frenzy of impatience and handling her rifle in a most dangerous manner. She was a dark presence; she had very big black eyes, close woolly black hair, yellowish skin, and a thick brooding mouth. She had the same uniform as the Cuban contingent – shortsleeved khaki shirt, khaki slacks with boots and short leggings, but she wore no hat.
When I had put on the minimum of clothing she clutched me again and pulled me down the stairs and out on to the road, where there was a very big black saloon car flying the black, green and blue pennant of the new regime. The rear door of the car was already open and the engine was running. She settled in her corner and I in mine. We kept as far away from each other as possible. She was silent, morose and deeply worried.
I was worried too. “Mussa shot!” I said to myself over and over again, and all sorts of implications presented themselves to my mind. I even saw myself operating, surrounded by the tornrny guns of Mussa’s friends and even found time to wonder what would be my position if his treatment should prove beyond my powers. By this time the car had slewed around the hospital block and been brought up with a jerk which practically threw us on the floor.
She remained where she was. I made quickly for the lift, drew closed the gates and pressed the button. There was no light in the lift – a deliberate economy, the bulb had been removed in the course of an economy drive instigated by the Treasury prior to Independence. It was one of the slowest lifts imaginable so I would not be instantly button-holed by Mussa’s friends and would have time to prepare myself mentally for the coming situation.
When I emerged I had a valuable moment to take in the scene before I was recognised. The figures first appeared as intensely dark shadows in the very bright light from the theatre, an indication that the staff had been alerted and preparations were in progress. There was a very tall, exceedingly pale-skinned African, obviously a stranger, and four of the men whom I have previously described as the corps d’elite, the friends of Mussa. All seemed to defer to a smaller, older man who was evidently in the grip of a great emotion.
91
He was the first to see me approach. He ran towards me and practically embraced me. He had been drinking heavily, but he spoke slowly and sensibly, with a great deal of control. There was something very pitiful about him.
Mussa has been placed on a trolley. He lay prone, both hands clutching his abdomen and his head twisted to one side; his breath came rapidly in gasps, there was cold sweat on his forehead, and his colour was clay white. His expression conveyed pain and fear. He looked up at me and recognition for a moment erased the pain.
In the course of my examination I was aware of people crowding behind me and the sounds of a mute scuffle. Then the man in authority bent under my elbow and brought his face close to Mussa. He was full of anxiety and wanted to do something to help. “How you are you now, Mussa?”
Mussa made a great effort to raise himself from the stretcher the better to direct at the questioner a look of poisonous intensity. I looked to see if his gun was anywhere near. “You should know”, he said.
Mussa’s abdomen was rigid. There was a puncture about an eighth of an inch in diameter, just beneath the left costal margin. Immediate surgery was indicated.
“Tell me, just tell me what I can do”.
“We’ll need blood”, I said, “muster as many donors as you can”. The thought struck me fleetingly as I said this, that it would be no harm at all to immobilise the other gunmen around the place. Their numbers were increasing. If we took a pint of blood from each one, not only would we have enough for Mussa but we would replenish our depleted bank and keep the onlookers quiet as well.
As soon as the blood transfusion was under way it was necessary to wait a little while until the patient had been sufficiently resuscitated to allow major surgery. During this brief waiting period I reflected on the fact that what we did now, under conditions of abnormal feeling and pressure, might well become the subject of a long and leisurely judicial inquiry at a later date. I reflected wryly on the fact that such inquiries frequently take months to decide the rightness or wrongness of a course of action which had to be decided, at the time, in a matter of minutes or even seconds.
“If we seem to be doing very little at the moment”, I explained, “this is calculated. We must show no alarm in our faces or in our gestures lest we convey it to the patient and worsen his state. I can think of nothing more likely to hasten a patient’s demise than the sight of a panicy doctor.”
I had gathered the principals into an ante-room for this harangue. I wanted them to sit down and keep quiet and not get under our feet. I was gratified at the cooperation which I received. The men waited silently while the operation proceeded; it went well. A fairly optimistic prognosis was in order.
When I returned to the room where they were waiting I noticed that protocol had been re-established. The senior man was seated in the only easy chair, ankle deep in cigarette ends. An aide sat by him, silent as his master, deferential to him. Just outside the door, on the verandah, partially in shadow and watching every gesture, stood the figures of the other war-like members of the retinue.
The gun, Mussa’s gun was on the table between us. I took it up, I was being playful. I said ‘I know every bit as much about these guns as you do Mussa’. Mussa made to snatch it from me and it went off. “It was just like that.” I saw no reason to disbelieve this. The only odd thing was that the bullet had travelled with the right trajectory to suggest a very creditable shot by a gunman out of practice.
Again and again I was asked if there was anything I required. This tempted me to ask for a cigarette. There was a general searching of pockets but nobody had any cigarettes. “Send for some”, came the gruff order. Two gunmen broke away and disappeared.
We watched Mussa anxiously for a long period, and during this time a large quantity of cigarettes became available. Eventually the group dispersed and I made my way down to the courtyard.
The black saloon was still in the same place and the female gunman was vigilantly standing by. Both she and the driver showed a marked reluctance to drive me to my house. “Do you expect me to walk?” I enquired. The two conversed together in low voices. Then, with exaggerated slowness, the driver carefully furled the black, blue and yellow pennant and tied it tight with string. Then he got in, and without a word of acknowledgment or acquiescence, he drove me home.
Some days later an acquaintance casually observed that Mussa had been shot and the sailing club and been broken into on the same night. A crate of cigarettes had been removed, stolen, attached, confiscated, or nationalised. Take your pick.
It seemed that for a moment, up there in the operating theatre, I had forgotten exactly how things stood.
EARLY AFTERMATH – RECRUITMENT
The recruitment of an army had the effect of taking the irregulars off the streets, securing them in a camp, and keeping them out of mischief. It was done gradually. Flushed with success and the feelings of well-being and jubilation consequent upon it, individuals readily offered themselves for recruitment, without considering the consequences to themselves.
As recruitment continued, a formidable force was steadily built up. The set-up was distinctly professional. Once a recruit was accepted, he was subjected to strict military discipline and spent his day marching and counter-marching and all the rest of it. Professional instructors who knew how to keep the ‘rookies’ busy were in charge. During leisure periods lectures were given and these lectures frequently referred to ‘paper tigers’.
As recruitment and training progressed, it had the effect of steadily drawing Okello’s teeth. Steadily the forces under his control began to dwindle and it turned out that there was nothing he could do about it. Or, to put it another way, he did nothing about it. I pictured him at this time rather bewildered and increasingly solitary. He had no real support in high councils having subserved his function, and was now an embarrassment.
He had no political skill and he was rather mercenary. I hesitate to think that the subtle, wily minds with whom he had to deal experienced much difficulty in outmanoeuvring him.
As time passed it was less and less certain that the force in question was available even to Kharume, had the latter taken it into his head to act against the extremist leftwing elements who were gradually tightening their grip. It was noteworthy, though opinions might differ about its significance, that his residence was guarded, not by a military force, but by a contingent of Police from Tanganika which had been sent across from Dar es Salaam with the compliments of Julius Nyerere.
It is my view that had a coup d’etat succeeded the revolution, a great nationalist victory would have led to a one party state with Kharume as its head and that a Federation with Tanganika would have eventually ensued. African Nationalism was the motivating force. Hatred of the Arab added fuel to the fire. In short, it was a Right Wing affair. This revolution was quietly succeeded by another, artfully contrived, by which the Left Wing gained control.
RECOGNITION
With the recruitment of an army went the reconstruction of Zanzibar’s own police force. The nucleus was already present and made up of those members of the police who were of Bantu origin and who had always been supporters of the Afro-Sherazi party. It is likely that, when the first blow was struck, these policemen had come out on the side of the Revolutionaries. They may well have connived at the taking of the arsenal and mutinied when the word was given.
The beginnings of this new police force began to appear on the streets towards the end of the first week. The sight of familiar men on point duty was reassuring. All the insignia had been removed from their khaki uniforms, all the red tabs of rank had been replaced by others of green, black and blue, hastily sewn on. They also wore new attractive cap-bands of the revolutionary colours.
By January 18 the new government of Zanzibar had been recognised by the governments of Kenya, China and Russia. No time was lost to implement this recognition. Very soon after this the big black cars which passed contained sombre Chinese and grim-faced East Germans. Soon there was a division of labour: agriculture for the Chinese, finance for the East Germans, with training of the army to be done by the Russians.
Ships arrived in the harbour and were unloaded in secret at night, and not long after, the new army had its first parade through the town. A fleet of armoured cars had materialised from nowhere, brand new guns with bright yellow stocks of unfamiliar pattern had been issued to the fighting men. Their uniforms were those of the Chinese army and the flat hard peaks of their caps were unmistakable. Police from Tanganika helped to patrol the half-empty streets and behind walls and occupying vast areas of coastal land, the new army continued to grow in secret and formidable strength.
There was no longer a carnival air. The clouds seemed to settle low over the island. Everything became grey and workaday. Even the Africans had ceased to smile. Uhuru Tena had been short-lived. Freedom was not quite the word that I would use to describe the situation now.
There came a time when the sound of gunfire could startle once more and give rise to speculation. The only familiar sound to have survived the revolution was the cawing of the crows. The sound of the sea could be heard during the day because it was not obliterated as it used to be by street vendors’ cries, noisy badinage, Arab and Indian music, bicycle bells and all the rest of it.
There came a day when the curfew was lifted. But its abrogation was not a signal, as it had been in 1961, for the resumption of normal life. People went home from their work and stayed at home. Only a stalwart few resumed the evening walk.
The shops remained half-shuttered with their doors ajar ready for instant closure. That they were open at all was due to the fear of disobeying an order of the Revolutionary Council.
Section 7 of 8 in Part 1
Comments Off PAINTING/GLOOM
My great trouble in times of upheaval is that my chief obsession in life, namely painting, appears meaningless and irrelevant. The canvas seems so flimsy, and the paint marks on the canvas seem so inept, so helpless, when the world around is in cataclysm.
I was not myself. I was one infinitesimal apprehension. I felt that I was in a dark, closed tunnel, that I had lost my identity. I had heard of grave misfortunes which had befallen others. One man’s wife was shot before his eyes. Another had been taken away at night, maybe to have been flogged, there was a lot of flogging.
But what I am really trying to say is that during this time I was not the person whom I had known from childhood. Though outwardly calm enough, inside there was a man of new emotions. I experienced a sense of exhilaration and nightmare mixed up with other feelings, but above all I had a sense of being shut up in a dark place. The clouds seemed to be no higher than the trees.
CROWS
Once, dozing on the verandah at midday, I was awakened by hoarse, yet penetrating cries, close to my ear. I opened my eyes and found myself looking into the very bright, predatory eye of a crow. He had been watching my eyelids as he stood there on the balustrade two feet away. The movement of my eyelids would tell him whether I was alive or dead. His cries were such as a crow makes just before he makes his sortie: cries at once intimidating and alarming as though the crow were himself alarmed at the risk he is about to undertake.
During these days the crows looked down and made their weird music, gazed in alarm and greed at the bodies beneath the trees.
ESCAPE TO THE HOSPITAL
Just across the street from our main door there was a narrow alleyway leading to the seashore. This afforded cover for the ambulance. We had opened the double doors and were standing back from the street out of sight of the gunmen who were standing at a distance of about two hundred yards from us. We had to get across the width of the street to reach the ambulance and we hoped we would not be shot down as we crossed. We had to decide whether it was better to run across one by one or in a group. There were six of us, including Hassan, (one son having gone to Pemba on a fishing expedition). Which was the correct
manoeuvre we never came to know but we decided that if we crossed one by one each succeeding person would be in greater jeopardy and the last one might have been hit. Therefore, we all made a sudden dash, got across safely – no shot was fired – and scrambled into the ambulance and kept ourselves close to the floor as it swung into the street and out along the road. We reached the hospital very quickly and there we had another shock coming.
We had rushed from fear to fear. It was swarming with revolutionaries. Both main gates were under heavy guard, armed men were placed at every vantage point. Each had the silent angry aspect of an enemy, eyes cold and watchful. Many had rifles, others had clubs or pangas. One carried an axe. We were completely in their power. It remained to be seen how they would use this power.
One point at least was speedily made clear. No ambulance was to leave the hospital. The wounded were to be left to lie where they fell and no attempt was to be made to reach them.
The telephone in the theatre office rang again and again with scarcely a pause between calls. Each appeal for assistance added a fragment to the developing pattern of events and told of a gradual penetration of terror into the depths of the town. It was a picture of unbridled violence, of suspension of law, of liquidation of the police forces.
The first call was from the wife of a bank official. Her message made it clear that the forces I had seen from my own home, the group of seven followed by the truckload of irregulars who gave the Churchillian V sign, were penetrating deeper into the town. This message was succeeded immediately by a phone call from the Reverend Mother of the Convent. The tide was partly in and partly out and on the strip of sandy beach beyond the jetty she said she saw the body of a European, dead. The next message was from another area in the denser portion of the town, a place called Darajani where it seemed that looting was in progress. A man found in the street, unconscious and bleeding from the head, had been carried into the house. What should they do? We gave first-aid instructions in reply, feeling unhelpful and inadequate.
Yet another call, a boy, shot through the legs, had been taken to the home of our anaesthetist. It was the voice of his wife. Could her husband come and see the boy, or failing this an ambulance must be sent at once or he would die. This boy had been a passenger in the Anglia I had seen swerve away from the group of seven. It had been shot at as it swerved. The bullet had penetrated the coachwork and struck this little boy. It had been an inoffensive family party merely returning home from Mass, the same Mass to which Mrs Balucci had been going when I had dissuaded her. Another boy had been shot dead as he emerged from church; terrified by this, the remainder of the congregation spent the rest of that day cowering in the buildings of the Mission.
Then, in the midst of these distress messages, amongst urgent and angry calls for an ambulance, came a strange request for water for Malindi. This was a police station situated on the outskirts of the town at an opposite point from where the hospital was situated. It had been built to withstand attack and was manned by a small, well-equipped force under the Commissioner of Police. This post had been under attack and in a state of siege since the early hours of the morning.
They were holding out but were without water. “Could we send some by ambulance?”
No sooner was the telephone set down than it rang again, diverting our minds from this extraordinary message. Early calls began to be repeated, the voices more anxious and angry because the casualties in their cars were going downhill, and there was no sign of an ambulance or of any assistance from the hospital. It looked as though we did not care.
Abdullah the bank watchman was still lying on the road. The dead European body witnessed from the Convent was still on the beach, now lapped by the incoming tide.
The next message was from another area in the denser portion of the town, a place called Darajani where it seemed that looting was in progress. A man found on the street, unconscious and bleeding from the head, had been carried into the house. What should they do? We gave first-aid instructions in reply, feeling unhelpful and inadequate.
The unconscious man had died.
The Goan boy, his femoral artery severed, was getting worse and worse. He had been a passenger in the white Anglia returning from Mass and had been fired on as it turned away from the group. The remainder of the congregation at the same Mass were taking refuge in the mission. Others had been shot dead in the narrow street outside. This meant that the irregulars had reached Saks Mahogo and were meeting no resistance. Bank, Convent and Mission were each further than the other on the way into the centre of the town.
Several streams of violence flowed from the outer to the inner portions of the town along all the principal lanes and alleys of the maze of Zanzibar. And so it continued throughout the day, each message weaving a strand, adding to the pattern. In the hospital at regular intervals we walked along the rows of injured people, examining and re-examining, supervising resuscitation, selecting and categorising cases for the operating rooms.
The wards, balconies and corridors were filling up, and every inch of space was being utilised – the ambulance must have been released. Fourteen doctors were at work, and they were already showing signs of strain. While they worked on their patients they worried about their families, most of whom were defenceless and in the thick of the trouble. Most of the doctors were Arabs and it was becoming clear that the police barrier had been beaten down and that there was nothing to stand between the exuberant victorious African and his hereditary enemy. Rumour had it that a house to house massacre of Arabs was going on. judging by the unabated gunfire there was substance in this rumour. It was
feared that the Africans would go berserk and kill as many Arabs as possible without reference to age, sex or political expediency.
When injuries are multiple and when the full extent of the causative violence is not known, it is necessary to evaluate the patient at frequent and regular intervals. For example, a man admitted with head wounds may later develop an internal haemorrhage from a concomitant rupture of spleen or kidney. Physical signs in the nervous system may overshadow, or even temporarily hide serious damage in other systems.
When casualties are numerous, it is necessary, in the first instance, to make a quick survey to pick out those patients in need of most urgent attention. Otherwise, while you attend to injuries which can wait an hour, a patient further down the ward or in another ward may slip away through your fingers.
It is also necessary to make a severely injured patient fit for surgery by treating shock, for example, and to decide theatre priorities. Cases in need of operation were distinguished by a large card on which was printed a big red ‘T’. Cases capable of being dealt with in the ward were marked with a large ‘W’. Next time round a figure was written in beside the capital letter to indicate the individual priority. For example T1 meant ‘first in this ward for theatre’, W1 meant ‘first in this ward for treatment in ward’.
It was during the frequent ward rounds, continuing around the clock, that information about the state of affairs outside could be gleaned. During this time also an operated patient would be moved from the theatre and his place taken by the next. I shuttled from one theatre to the other operating on case after case. It was like an endless conveyor belt. While changing bloody gowns for fresh ones, I could hear the most recent, usually ghastly, rumour and there was a new rumour for my ears when I emerged yet again. The scaring thing about the rumours was that they were reported, not as suppositions, but as facts. For example, we heard “They want the wounded to die. They won’t let the ambulances out.” And in this emotional atmosphere one gave instant credence to those `facts’ and one’s fears were intensified.
In any one ward there were at times ten or twelve cases each normally requiring two or three hours of reconstructive surgery. The rule had to be made – ‘close the skin, do it in the ward, reconstructive surgery must wait. We can only stand back and choose carefully so as to select for operation only those cases which would otherwise die.’
Even so, how do you choose between two patients when each requires immediate operation and one will die while you work on the other? It happened more than once. Junior surgeons were working too. Theatres were working to maximum capacity and not a moment was wasted. Nevertheless, we could not work quickly enough. We were in a veritable sea of casualties and we could not keep pace with the incoming tide.
A nurse came to the ward where I was sorting priorities. “Doctor Maitra says the abdominal case is ready, Sir.”
I know which one it is. It is a gentle old Arab with a gunshot wound of the upper abdomen. The bullet has probably damaged the stomach, possibly lung as well.
“Tell him to intubate and place him on his right side. We’ll have to go in through the chest.”
“Very well, Sir.”
I followed presently. There he lay, an elderly man with kindly eyes. I remember his hurt, questioning look, the early cataract. I remember thinking “What harm could this old gentleman, this devout Muslim, have ever done to anyone?” His hands bore the callosities of years of toil. But now he was asleep and I took up the knife and began.
One after the other they were wheeled in. Anaesthetic, incision, repair, out. This went on all night until all awareness of time was lost.
“Next case please.” “Don’t waste time.” “Yes, yes, two pints at least.”
“When, oh when will the bastards lay off? They’ve achieved their object. Why can’t they stop?”
CAPITULATION
The. revolution was brilliantly successful. Within a mere twelve hours the government had changed hands, the popular leader had become Prime Minister and the overthrown government were under lock and key.
Some time during Sunday the radio had come to life again. There were announcements interspersed with music. Several portable transistor sets were in the hospital and small groups, idle for a moment, listened avidly for news of what was going on. The noise of shooting had by then become, like the cawing of the crows, something to which one scarcely adverted. Periodically the radio music would stop, often in mid-strain, a voice would speak, and everyone within earshot would fall silent.
In the general atmosphere of chaos and uncertainty, a voice of someone in authority was welcome. The voice of the new leader, Abeid Kharume, a gruff, stern voice, slightly hoarse, was heard for the first time in this capacity late on Sunday afternoon. He declared himself to be the President of the People’s Republic of Zanzibar and Pemba and stated that the overthrow of the former regime had been accomplished. He introduced the overthrown leaders one by one. They had driven themselves to his headquarters and given themselves up.
The first to speak was Sheik Mohamed Shamte, leader of the Zanzibar and Pemba People’s Party, ex Prime Minister of the constitutional sultanate whose government had lasted a mere month. He had been leader of the splinter smaller party in the coalition government, a man of relatively small popularity who had split off from the Afro-Sherazi party and its leader, the same Abeid Kharume who now held him captive. Had he not made the split, there is no doubt that there would have been no revolution. The voice of this old man was broken and hesitant, suggesting fear, bitterness and absence of hope. It was impossible not to be moved. He confirmed that he had resigned in favour of the new President Abeid Kharume. Mohamed Shamte’s coalition with the second largest party, that of Sheik Ali Mushin, the Zanzibar Nationalist Party, had won but the smallest of majorities in the recent elections, a majority of a single seat. Without his aid, Ali Mushin, the stronger, more popular of the two, would not have won sufficient seats to form a government.
Ali Mushin was the most powerful leader after Kharume. It was widely thought that the Presidency was the bribe which led to the coalition, and it was on this account that Ali Mushim did not assume the title of Head of Government.
After the voice of the new Father of the People, we heard the voices of the overthrown leaders one after the other. They confirmed the truth of Kharume’s words and, speaking in tones of the utmost dejection, they adjured their followers to give loyalty to the new regime. If Ali Mushiin had surrendered, the revolution was at an end.
Therefore, the atmosphere was tenser than ever as his voice came over the radio. His power was broken for good.
Speaking in tones of the utmost dejection and with a vibration which conveyed itself to me as fear, he told his followers to give allegiance to the new head of state. It was almost as though he were talking at gun-point, as though he expected to be shot, out of hand, the moment he had finished speaking. He explained that his reason for surrendering was the desire that there should be no further violence. He urged them to transfer their loyalty to the new regime., and to accept the new situation with calmness and resignation.
His motives were altruistic, if the face value of his words were any indication. Rumour had it, on the other hand, that he had been stoned by his own followers, as he drove to give himself up. Possibly they felt betrayed; maybe they attributed his surrender to cowardice and condemned his acceptance of an offer of safe conduct.
At any rate there was no life in his voice, and the known followers who were listening with me were visibly smitten by the sound no less than by the content. I felt sorry for them because I thought that they had been betrayed.
Suddenly, startling everybody, the music began again, abrupt and irrelevant. After a pause to digest the momentous news, many earnest conversations began.
The revolution was at an end. The long supremacy of the Arabs in Zanzibar was over. But the firing continued unabated. But surely not for much longer. Victory and defeat had come about, so it now remained merely to bury the dead and to collect the wounded. Nevertheless, the firing continued as the darkness closed in.
I had been no admirer of the decadent regime which had golthere by a trick. A trick which had been cynically permitted by a group of officials who must have been well aware that the so-called constitution sowed the seeds of civil disturbance. Otherwise it would have lasted longer.
As the night wore on I found myself reflecting that the continuation of violence during the succeeding day depended only on the degree of control which the leaders could maintain upon the forces under them. The leaders were responsible men, not unlettered, who might be expected to draw the line at a general sack of the town and of the dwellings in the shambas. I had heard some of their speeches, heard Kharume himself declare that the intention was to achieve a genuine multi-racial society. An unbridled display of animosity towards the vanquished would be of adverse political significance. If humanitarian grounds weighed little, which was by no means proven, political grounds weighed much. Can an African Government seeking diplomatic recognition afford to appear racist?
I reflected on the previous civil disturbances. The Makonde had run amok and killed many Arabs. They attacked the vulnerable dwellings of the poorer Arab families. They encircled the huts during the night and as the first light appeared, threw burning faggots on the roofs of the houses. When the occupants were driven out by the smoke and flames, they ran blindly into a circle of flashing pangas and were mercilessly cut down. This terror raged for several days even in defiance of the fully intact police force and units of the Kings African Rifles drafted hurriedly from Kenya to control it.
‘How must these families be feeling now at this very moment as I lie surrounded on every side by wounded men, women and children? Now there is nothing to stop the same violent tribesmen from continuing this massacre. How must they feel, cowering in their flimsy homes?’ `But’, I continued to myself, ‘there is an authority, there is the strength of Abeid Kharume. As a fellow of the people, his authority should be greater than that of any power imposed from outside. Will he control his forces? Can he control his forces?’
A new and popular leadership had been established – the obvious man who should have been assisted rather than outmanoeuvred by the British Administration. But he was in the saddle now and apart from outside intervention, his position was quite unassailable.
Therefore, the quietness was open to an optimistic interpretation. The voice of Arab notabilities in the shambas, the village chieftains that is, the concentration of effort, judging by the broadcasts and the note of retribution not only in the content but in the very inflection of Okello’s voice all pointed at mayhem in the coconut plantations. The absence of rebels from our immediate environment pointed the same way.
* * * * *
That night the wards were in a state of utter confusion. Only the selected worst of the cases could be accommodated on beds. Those less severely wounded lay on blankets on the floors. Repeatedly we searched through these recumbent figures to ensure that no serious cases were being overlooked.
Those who had been injured in a particularly grave manner were re-examined regularly throughout the night and treatment was modified as necessary. Additional injuries, either previously overlooked or recently come to light in new severity, were sought in those whose treatment appeared to be progressing favourably.
This routine made sleep for the hospital staff available only in small doses. It became necessary to insist that some should go off duty and have a more generous period of rest so that there would be, at all times, a leaven of fresh and rested personnel. Most of the workers were resistant to this instruction and wanted to carry on without cessation. But this could not be permitted because
the collection of casualties from the shambas would bring about a fresh influx in the morning whether the violence was over or not.
(Author’s note: 2a somewhere here.)
There was no indication that the violence had ceased. Even in the dark shooting continued, and the shots sometimes came from so close at hand that I started up several times thinking that a gun had been fired in the hospital itself. Cars and lorries, their headlights bright in the darkness, came and went all through the night. There was often only a sole occupant.
I slept on the floor of an office, directly under a ceiling fan, trying to snatch some rest between my regular patrolling of the wards. Whenever I did doze off, the sound of this fan simulated the approach of an aeroplane with so real an effect that I got up and scanned the sky several times during the night. I was overtired and my imagination was playing me tricks.
Fear held universal sway in the beginning, fear of the rebels by their enemies and their potential enemies, fear on the part of the victors of reprisal and reverse of fortune. Sorrow succeeded fear, the sorrow of bereavement, sorrow of failure. Despair was the lot of some, captivity without an end in sight, the end of hope of power. These effects could have been foretold.
One ingredient of the emotional cocktail I have left to last. It is absent from a natural calamity such as flooding or fire or earthquake. It was there, from the beginning, it motivated the circumstances, it modified the gaiety giving it an edge of sadness. It mixed into despair and rendered it gall, it inflicted wounds to fester, it liberated the fumes of tyranny. This ingredient was hatred. Natural calamity is impersonal and rallies humanity in a common cause. Man-made calamity, however justifiable by political sychophancy, liberates forces of diabolical destructiveness to body and spirit alike.
Fear was universal in the beginning. It affected everyone, irrespective of their situation. Those who faced the violent ones in a helpless and unarmed condition had every cause for fear. But the revolutionaries themselves were not immune. No one group could have known how the fighting was proceeding elsewhere. There was the apprehension associated with the uncertainty of outside reactions – at any moment a fleet might appear on the horizon or a battalion might drop from the sky. Nearer at hand, and of more immediate concern, was the danger of a solitary act of revenge, a knife in the back, a shot from a high window.
The gaiety which gradually made its appearance was associated with the accumulating evidence of success. The revolutionaries gained confidence and became elated. They laughed and cheered, fired random shots at crows and windows, and shook each other by the hand.
All this was natural. It contrasted with the increasing despondency of their political opponents and with the personal sorrow in many a home. This gaiety pervaded the atmosphere, and caused an uplift in the spirits in defiance of anger and misgiving at all the death and suffering on every side. For a time I, too, felt a
lightening of the spirit. Though surrounded by the grim results of the butchery of war, I vicariously shared the feeling of ‘Uhuru tena” foretold by Suwena when she did her little dance in the street below me not many days before.
Then, gradually, I became repelled by the lack of any evidence of feelings, of pity for a helpless, beaten country. The gaiety and joy became unholy as the elemental hatred obtained unbridled control. It inflicted wounds destined to fester, it liberated the fumes of tyranny from the emotional cocktail and it sullied the bright victory of the long oppressed.
Section 5 of 8 in Part 1
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