Inconvenient truths

Abstract

"History has been buried here, deep in the sands, but never washed away. I often went to Zanzibar as a child, with my mum who was born in Dares salaam. We would take a crowded ferry and stay at a hostel for poor women and their kids who wanted a subsidised break by the sea. The women in the local mosque provided lunch and we had a wonderful time. The island, a fabulous mix of Arab, African, Indian, Persian cultures and peoples was utterly unlike my racially divided hometown Kampala, Uganda. Then one day my mum told me about the thousands of black slaves who had been captured in the hinterlands and brought to the island to be sold. She took me to Bagamoyo, the slave port on the mainland - the word means “lay down your heart “. That trade went on from the 7th century to, it is claimed the beginning of the 20th century. Through early history, enslavement was common around the world and East Africa was just one more lucrative location. But here the abomination went on longer than any other time or place. The traders were mostly Arab though some Indian merchants were actively involved. Those who captured and sold the humans to the businessmen were local African chiefs and henchmen. A febrile young child I was distraught when I learnt that Muslims had perpetuated this evil. How could it be? Prophet Mohammed had freed Bilal, a black slave and asked him to make the first ever call to prayer. Surely that meant something? And as the years went on and we learnt to look back with abhorrence at the practice of owning and exploiting humans, how come there was no acknowledgement of this systemic injustice in Zanzibar? The questions circled around in my head obsessively when I was a young teen. Then came 1964 and the island detonated. A revolution led by African soldiers deposed the constitutional monarch, Sultan Seyyid Bin Abdullah."