Pan-Africanism or Pragmatism
Lessons of the Tanganyika-Zanzibar Union
Publication Year: 2008
Published by: African Books Collective
Cover
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book is an outcome of a Senior Scholars Research Grant awarded to me by OSSREA. The grant enabled me to do research in England and Zanzibar. Apart from the grant, OSSREA officials were extremely patient as I extended deadline after deadline. Had they applied the rules bureaucratically, this book would perhaps...
PREFACE
The Pan-Africanist debate is back on the historical agenda. The stresses and strains in the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar since its formation some forty years ago are not showing any sign of abating. Meanwhile, imperialism under new forms and labels continues to bedevil the continent in ever-aggressive, if subtle, ways. ...
INTRODUCTION
The Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar was born in the midst of debates on Pan-Africanism and in the thick of the Cold War. To this day, the Union carries its birthmarks, more of the latter than the former. The Union is the only surviving example of a political association of African sovereign states. Friends and foes alike often cite...
1. RACE, CLASS AND POLITICS ON THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION
On the eve of the revolution, the Zanzibari society was deeply fractured. It was socially divided and ethnically polarised. The period of zama za siasa,1 shattered the hitherto sublime perception of Zanzibar as the islands of peace, tranquility and racial harmony. This was not only the perception of outsiders looking in, but also...
2. THE REVOLUTION
On 12 January 1964, the Sultanate of Zanzibar and his Government, which had come to power just a month before, was overthrown in a bloody insurrection, baptised by detractors and admirers alike as the first African revolution in this part of the continent. There is voluminous literature on how the revolution was carried out and...
3. THE UNION
Julius Nyerere was a great believer in African unity but as a pragmatic politician, he was also prepared for a step-by-step realisation of that unity. It did not matter to him if the process began by regional integration, whether political or economic. In this, he seriously clashed with Nkrumah who argued forcefully for continental...
4. NYERERE’S INTERIM CONSTITUTION AND KARUME’S EXTRA-CONSTITUTIONALITY
Western bloc countries, in particular the USA and UK, were exhilarated at the formation of the Union but kept a low profile preferring to emphasise that the Union was essentially an African initiative.1 Nyerere and Kambona also put out a request that ‘any public statements on Tangovernment–Zanzibar Union be avoided’.2...
5. NYERERE’S VISION AND JUMBE’S CONSOLIDATION: THE BIRTH OF A PERMANENT CONSTITUTION (1972–1977)
Aboud Jumbe was the only ‘educated’ member of the original Revolutionary Council left after Karume had got rid of other Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP) intelligentsia by elimination or forced emigration. Although occupying various ministerial posts in Karume’s regime, Jumbe was not known for any independent initiative or even mild...
6. CONSTITUTIONAL OPENING AND CLOSURE: JUMBE’S DOWNFALL (1979–1985)
The foundation of the 1977 Constitution was the Party whose supremacy and ultimate authority pervaded the whole constitutional structure. The constitutional edifice stood on a tripod: oneparty supremacy, the two-government Union and the ‘imperial’ presidency. Since 1962 when the republican constitution of...
Conclusion: LESSONS FOR PAN-AFRICANISM
The Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar was born at the tail-end of the major continent-wide discourse on African Unity and Pan- Africanism. The first generation of African nationalists were driven and motivated by the ideology of Pan-Africanism. The leading light was Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of the first sub-Saharan...
APPENDIX 2 (i): Constitutional Law Decree No. 5; APPENDIX 2 (ii): Decree indefinitely postponing Constituent Assembly
E-ISBN-13: 9789987081059
Print-ISBN-13: 9789987449996
Page Count: 336
Publication Year: 2008
OCLC Number: 777576770
MUSE Marc Record: Download for Pan-Africanism or Pragmatism
