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Zan·zi·bar (zăn'zə-bär')  |
A region of eastern Africa, comprising Zanzibar Island and several adjacent islands off the northeast coast of Tanzania. Arab and Portuguese traders visited the region in early times, and it was controlled by Omanis in the 18th and 19th centuries. Britain established a protectorate (1890) that became an independent sultanate in December 1963 and a republic after an uprising in January 1964. In April 1964 it joined Tanganyika to form a new republic that was renamed Tanzania in October 1964.
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Former British protectorate. Britain first became involved in Zanzibar in the 19th cent. because the island was one of the main depots for the export of east African slaves. A succession of able British consuls-general exerted an informal protectorate over the island, and the arrangement was regularized in 1890 when Britain became responsible for the administration of Zanzibar on the sultan's behalf. The slave trade was formally abolished in the sultan's dominions in 1897. Zanzibar became independent in 1963 and joined with Tanganyika to form Tanzania in 1964.
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People
The majority of the population belongs to the Bantu-speaking Hadimu ethnic group. Other ethnic groups include the Tumbatu (who live on Tumbatu and in the northern part of Zanzibar) and migrants from the E African mainland and from the Comoros Islands. In addition, a small percentage of the inhabitants is of Arab descent and some are of Indian or Pakistani background. Most Zanzibaris are Sunni Muslims; some follow traditional beliefs, and there are also small numbers of Christians and Hindus. Swahili is predominantly spoken.
Economy
The economy of Zanzibar island is almost exclusively agricultural; fertile soil is limited to the western half of the island. The chief commodities produced are cassava, sweet potatoes, rice, corn, plantains, citrus fruit, cloves (also on Pemba), coconuts, and cacao. There is a sizable fishing industry. The island's few manufactures include clove oil and woven goods. Artisans make objects of wood, ivory, and metal. Lime is the only mineral resource. The main imports are foodstuffs and fuel; the principal exports are cloves and copra.
History
Early History
The first permanent residents of Zanzibar seem to have been the ancestors of the Hadimu and Tumbatu, who began arriving from the E African mainland c.A.D. 1000. They had belonged to various mainland ethnic groups, and on Zanzibar they lived in small villages and did not coalesce to form larger political units. Because they lacked central organization, they were easily subjugated by outsiders.
Traders from Arabia, the Persian Gulf region of modern Iran (especially Shiraz), and W India probably visited Zanzibar as early as the 1st cent.; they used the monsoon winds to sail across the Indian Ocean and landed at the sheltered harbor located on the site of present-day Zanzibar town. Although the islands had few resources of interest to the traders, they offered a good point from which to make contact with the towns of the E African coast.
Traders from the Persian Gulf region began to settle in small numbers on Zanzibar in the late 11th or 12th cent.; they intermarried with the indigenous Africans and eventually a hereditary ruler (known as the Mwenyi Mkuu or Jumbe), emerged among the Hadimu. A similar ruler, called the Sheha, was set up among the Tumbatu. Neither rulers had much power, but they helped solidify the ethnic identity of their respective peoples.
European and Arab Influences
The first European to visit Zanzibar was the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama in 1499; by 1503 the Portuguese had gained control of Zanzibar, and soon they held most of the E African coast. The Portuguese established a trading station and a Roman Catholic mission in Zanzibar, but their cultural impact was minimal. In 1698, Arabs from Oman ousted the Portuguese from E Africa, including Zanzibar.
The Omanis gained nominal control of the islands, but until the reign of Sayyid Said (1804–56) they took little interest in them. Said recognized the commercial value of E Africa and increasingly turned his attention to Zanzibar and Pemba, and in 1841 he permanently moved his court to Zanzibar town.
Said brought many Arabs with him, and they gained control of Zanzibar's fertile soil, forcing most of the Hadimu to migrate to the eastern part of Zanzibar island. The Hadimu were also obligated to work on the clove plantations. Said controlled much of the E African coast, and Zanzibar became the main center of the E African ivory and slave trade. Some of the slaves were used on the clove plantations, and others were exported to other parts of Africa and overseas. Zanzibar's trade was run by Omanis, who organized caravans into the interior of E Africa; the trade was largely financed by Indians resident on Zanzibar, many of whom were agents of Bombay firms.
On Said's death in 1856 his African and Omani holdings were separated, with his son Majid becoming sultan of Zanzibar. Majid was succeeded as sultan by Barghash in 1870, by Khalifa in 1888, by Ali ibn Said in 1890, by Hamid ibn Thuwain in 1893, by Hamoud ibn Muhammad in 1896, by Ali in 1902, by Khalifa ibn Naroub in 1911, by Abdullah ibn Khalifa in 1960, and by Jamshid ibn Abdullah in 1963.
From the 1820s, British, German, and U.S. traders were active on Zanzibar. As early as 1841 the representative of the British government on Zanzibar was an influential adviser of the sultan. This was especially the case under Sir John Kirk, the British consul from 1866 to 1887. In a treaty with Great Britain in 1873, Barghash agreed to halt the slave trade in his realm. During the scramble for African territory among European powers, Great Britain gained a protectorate over Zanzibar and Pemba by a treaty with Germany in 1890. The sultan's mainland holdings were incorporated in German East Africa (later Tanganyika), British East Africa (later Kenya), and Italian Somaliland.
The British considered Zanzibar an essentially Arab country and maintained the prevailing power structure. The office of sultan was retained (although stripped of most of its power), and Arabs, almost to the exclusion of other groups, were given opportunities for higher education and were recruited for bureaucratic posts. The chief government official during the period 1890 to 1913 was the British consul general, and from 1913 to 1963 it was the British resident. From 1926 the resident was advised by a legislative assembly.
Independence and Union
After World War II political activity in Zanzibar increased. In the 1950s three main political parties were established—the Zanzibar Nationalist party (ZNP) and its offshoot the Zanzibar and Pemba People's party (ZPPP), both of which principally represented the Arabs, and the Afro-Shirazi party (ASP), whose followers were Africans. In 1957 popularly elected representatives sat on the legislative council for the first time, and in 1961, they were given a majority of seats. In June, 1963, Zanzibar gained internal self-government, and a ZNP-ZPPP coalition emerged victorious in elections held in July. On Dec. 10, 1963, Zanzibar (including Pemba) became independent, with Sultan Jamshid ibn Abdullah as head of state and Prime Minister Muhammad Shamte Hamadi, also an Arab, as the leader of government.
On Jan. 12, 1964, this arrangement was overthrown by a violent leftist revolt of the Africans led by John Okello. A republic was declared, with Abeid Karume of the ASP as its president and as head of the Revolutionary Council (the country's chief governmental body). The sultan was forced into exile, all land was nationalized, the ZNP and ZPPP were banned, and numerous Arabs were imprisoned. Subsequently, many other Arabs and some Indians left the country. Three months later Zanzibar and Tanganyika agreed to merge, and the resulting republic was renamed Tanzania in Oct., 1964.
Zanzibar retains considerable independence in internal affairs, but its foreign relations and defense are handled by the central government. Zanzibar's chief executive serves as the first vice president of Tanzania when Tanzania's president is Tanganyikan, and as second vice president when Tanzania's president is Zanzibari. In 1979 a separate constitution was approved for Zanzibar.
In 1984, Zanzibar's president, Aboud Jumbe, resigned, as the Tanzanian government appeared to be seeking greater control over Zanzibar. Ali Hassan Mwinyi, a mainland loyalist, took over as president and several secessionists were arrested. Mwinyi went on to introduce liberal reforms in Zanzibar and in the mainland and became president of Tanzania in 1986. In 1990, Dr. Salmin Amour became president of Zanzibar; he was returned to office in a 1995 vote that observers said was rigged.
Amani Karume was elected president in 2000 in an election with such blatant irregularities that international observers denounced it as showing contempt for Zanzibar's citizens; the opposition, which favors greater independence, had been expected to do well. A accord signed in 2001 called for a number of electoral and governmental reforms that were designed to end political tensions. Karume was reelected in 2005 that was criticized for some irregularites and political violence and denounced by the opposition but was also regarded as an improvement over previous elections. Subsequent negotiations to establish a coalition government that would include the opposition, which is especially strong on Pemba, have proved unsuccessful. A 2006 court challenge by Zanzibari activists to the legality of the 1964 Act of Union that formed Tanzania was dismissed by the High Court of Zanzibar.
Bibliography
See J. M. Gray, History of Zanzibar from the Middle Ages to 1856 (1962); F. Cooper, From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labor and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890–1925 (1980); A. Clayton, The Zanzibar Revolution and Its Aftermath (1981); A. Sheriff, Slaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar (1987).
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Islands and coastal land in East Africa.
From the tenth century, many Arabs emigrated to Zanzibar, the 640-square-mile (1,658 sq. km) island of that name (also neighboring islands and the adjacent coast of East Africa). In 1698 Oman seized Zanzibar from the Portuguese, and in 1841 Oman's ruler, Shaykh Sayyid Saʿid, permanently moved his capital there from Muscat. Wealthy Omanis established an extensive plantation economy centered on clove production using African slave labor. After Saʿid's death in 1856, contention between his sons led to Britain's Canning Award (1861), splitting Oman and Zanzibar into separate sultanates. The latter declined, partly because of British suppression of the slave trade in 1873, and became a British protectorate in 1890.
Following Zanzibar's independence (1963) and union with Tanganyika (1964), the Arab population was severely mistreated by the Africans. Several thousand emigrated, mostly to the capital area of Muscat in Oman, after the accession of Sultan Qabus in 1970. In Zanzibar in 2000 and 2001, political tensions and violence followed elections that observers denounced as irregular. The major political parties signed an agreement in October 2001 calling for electoral reforms.
Bibliography
Bennett, Norman R. A History of the Arab State of Zanzibar. London: Methuen, 1978.
— MALCOLM C. PECK
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| Zanzibar | |||
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| Coordinates: 6°8′S 39°19′E / 6.133°S 39.317°E | |||
| Country | Tanzania | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Islands | Unguja and Pemba | ||
| Capital | Zanzibar City | ||
| Settled | AD 1000 | ||
| Government | |||
| - Type | semi-autonomous part of Tanzania | ||
| - President | Amani Abeid Karume | ||
| Area | |||
| - Total | 2,000 km2 (637 sq mi) | ||
| Population (2004) | |||
| - Total | 1,070,000 | ||
Zanzibar (pronounced /ˈzænzɨbɑr/) is part of the East African republic of Tanzania. It comprises the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, 25–50 km (15–30 mi) off the coast of the mainland, and consists of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja (the main island, informally referred to as "Zanzibar"), and Pemba. Zanzibar was once a separate state with a long trading history within the Arab world; it united with Tanganyika to form Tanzania in 1964 and still enjoys a high degree of autonomy within the union. The capital of Zanzibar, located on the island of Unguja, is Zanzibar City, and its old quarter, known as Stone Town, is a World Heritage Site.
Zanzibar's main industries are spices, raffia, and tourism. It is still sometimes referred to, with the islands Pemba and Mafia, as one of the Spice Islands (a term also associated with the Maluku Islands in Indonesia) because of the significance of its production of cloves (of which it used to be the world leader in the 1970s[citation needed]), nutmeg, cinnamon and pepper. Zanzibar's ecology is of note for being the home of the endemic Zanzibar Red Colobus and the Zanzibar Leopard. The word "Zanzibar" probably derives[citation needed] from the Persian زنگبار, Zangi-bar ("coast of the blacks").
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The presence of microlithic tools attests to at least 20,000 years of human occupation of Zanzibar. The islands became part of the historical record of the wider world when Arab traders discovered them and used them as a base for voyages between Arabia, India, and Africa. Unguja offered a protected and defensible harbour, so although the archipelago offered few products of value, the Arabs settled at what became Zanzibar City (Stone Town) as a convenient point from which to trade with East African coastal towns. They established garrisons on the islands and built the first mosque in the Southern hemisphere.[1]
During the Age of Exploration, the Portuguese Empire was the first European power to gain control of Zanzibar, and the Portugese kept it for nearly 200 years. In 1698, Zanzibar fell under the control of the Sultanate of Oman, which developed an economy of trade and cash crops with a ruling Arab elite. Plantations were developed to grow spices, hence the term Spice Islands. Another major trade good for Zanzibar was ivory. The third pillar of the economy was slavery, giving Zanzibar an important place in the Arab slave trade, the Indian Ocean equivalent of the better-known Triangular Trade. Zanzibar City was the main trading port of the East African slave trade with about 50,000 slaves a year passing through the city.[2] The Sultan of Zanzibar controlled a substantial portion of the East African coast, known as Zanj; this included Mombasa, Dar es Salaam, and trading routes that extended much further inland, such as the route leading to Kindu on the Congo River.
Sometimes gradually and sometimes by fits and starts, control of Zanzibar came into the hands of the British Empire; part of the political impetus for this was the 19th century movement for the abolition of the slave trade. The relationship between Britain and the nearest relevant colonial power, Germany, was formalized by the 1890 Helgoland-Zanzibar Treaty, in which Germany pledged not to interfere with British interests in insular Zanzibar. That year, Zanzibar became a protectorate (not a colony) of Britain. From 1890 to 1913, traditional viziers were appointed to govern as puppets, switching to a system of British residents (effectively governors) from 1913 to 1963. The death of the pro-British Sultan Hamad bin Thuwaini on 25 August 1896 and the succession of Sultan Khalid bin Barghash of whom the British did not approve led to the Anglo-Zanzibar War. On the morning of 27 August 1896, ships of the Royal Navy destroyed the Beit al Hukum Palace. A cease fire was declared 38 minutes later, and to this day the bombardment stands as the shortest war in history[3].
The islands gained independence from Britain in December 1963 as a constitutional monarchy. A month later, the bloody Zanzibar Revolution, in which thousands of Arabs and Indians were killed in a genocide and thousands more expelled,[4] led to the establishment of the Republic of Zanzibar and Pemba. That April, the republic was subsumed by the mainland former colony of Tanganyika. This United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar was soon renamed (as a portmanteau) the United Republic of Tanzania, of which Zanzibar remains a semi-autonomous region.
Zanzibar has many animal species from the African mainland who traveled to the island during the last ice age. These included the Zanzibar leopard, which is critically endangered and possibly extinct.
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Zanzibar has its own Revolutionary Council and House of Representatives with 50 seats, directly elected by universal suffrage to serve five-year terms; these make up the semi-autonomous Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar. Unguja comprises three administrative regions: Zanzibar Central/South, Zanzibar North and Zanzibar Urban/West. Pemba has two: Pemba North and Pemba South.
There are many political parties in Zanzibar, but the main Parties are the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) and the Civic United Front (CUF). Since the early 1990s, the politics of the archipelago have been marked by repeated clashes between these two political parties. Contested elections in late 2000 led to a massacre in Zanzibar in January 2001 when the government shot into crowds of protestors, killing 35 and injuring 600.[5] Violence erupted again in 2005 after another contested election, with the CUF claiming that its rightful victory had been stolen from them. Following 2005, negotiations between the two parties aiming at the long-term resolution of the tensions and a power-sharing accord took place, but they suffered repeated setbacks. The most notable of these took place in April 2008, when the CUF walked away from the negotiating table following a CCM call for a referendum to approve of what had been presented as a done deal on the power-sharing agreement.
Zanzibar, mainly Pemba Island, was once the world's leading clove producer during the 1970s, but annual clove sales have since plummeted by 80%. Explanations given for this are a fast-moving global market, international competition and a hangover from Tanzania's failed experiment with socialism in the 1960s and 1970s, when the government controlled clove prices and exports. Zanzibar now ranks a distant third with Indonesia supplying 75% of the world's cloves compared to Zanzibar's 7%.[6]
Zanzibar exports spices, seaweed and fine raffia. It also has a large fishing and dugout canoe production. Tourism is a major foreign currency earner.
During May and June 2008, Zanzibar suffered a major failure of its electricity system, which left the island without electricity for nearly a month. The Mainland, where the fault originated, managed to be restored at the same time, but the Islanders stayed powerless and entirely dependent on alternative methods of electricity generation from May 21 to June 19 (mainly diesel generators). This led to a serious and ongoing shock to the island's fragile economy, which is heavily dependent on foreign tourism.
Generally, Zanzibaris live in worse conditions than in mainland Tanzania. Most people in Zanzibar subsist on incomes of less than US $0.50 per day, with tourism being the only major provider of employment.
Some foreign embassies have relocated to Zanzibar to serve both Zanzibaris and their own citizens, who find it hard to travel to Dar Es Salaam for consular services.
Zanzibar has a total road network of 1,600 kilometers of roads, of which 85 percent are termaced or semitermaced. The remainder is earth road, which is annually rehabilitated to make it passable throughout the year. Zanzibar now has a thriving improved sea transport network, by which public owned ships and private speed boats serve the ports of Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam, Pemba, Tanga, Mtwara and Mombasa. The most recently accident was May 2009 where a cargo vessel sunk before departing to Dar-es Salaam,it is still unclear how many people lost their life as well as the source of the accident,it took more than a week to rescue and lift the vessel, Zanzibar is well connected to the rest of the world. Zanzibar's main airport, Zanzibar International Airport, can now handle larger planes, which has resulted in an increase in passenger and cargo inflows and outflows.
Zanzibar is well served by the newly restructured public telecommunication company (TTCL) and four privately owned mobile systems. Through these systems the whole of Zanzibar (Unguja and Pemba) is widely covered and connected to most parts of the world.
The energy sector in Zanzibar is constituted by electric power, petroleum and petroleum products; it is also supplemented by firewood and its related products. Coal and gas are rarely used for either domestic and industrial purposes. Zanzibar gets 70 percent of its electric power needs from mainland Tanzania through a submarine cable, and the rest (for Pemba) is thermally generated. Between 70-75% of the electricity generated is domestically used while less than 20 percent is industrially used. Fuel wood, charcoal and kerosene are widely used as sources of energy for cooking and lighting for most rural and urban areas. The consumption capacity of petroleum, gas, oil, kerosene and IDO is increasing annually, with a total of 5,650 tons consumed in 1997 to more than 7,500 tons in 1999.[citation needed]
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The island is home to Zanzibar University, the former Institute of Kiswahili and Foreign Language (TAKILUKI) that was transformed to The State University of Zanzibar in 1999 (SUZA). A prominent school in Zanzibar is Lumumba Secondary School, also known as Lumumba College; most of Zanzibar's prominent people have attended the school, including the current President Amani Karume.
The education system in Zanzibar is slightly different than that of the Tanzanian mainland. Compulsory education in Zanzibar is from Standard One to Form Two, while on the mainland it is from Standard One to Seven.[clarification needed] The national examination of Tanzania is shared by both mainland and Zanzibar during O. Level education. Fewer students from Zanzibar pass the exam than students from the mainland.
In the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, national service after secondary education was necessary, but it is now voluntary and few students volunteer. Most choose to seek employment or attend teacher's colleges.
Zanzibar is a conservative, Sunni Muslim society. Its history was influenced by the Arabs, Persians, Indians, Portuguese, British and the African mainland.
The most famous[citation needed] Imams and Scholars in Zanzibar and East Africa include the late Abdullah Farsy, who was the first person to translate the Qur'an into the Swahili language; the late Amir Tajir, the Late Bakathir; Sheikh Ally-ane; and Sheikh Nassor Bachoo, an influential Imam popular in Zanzibar for his lectures and opposition to the government.[citation needed]
In September 2006, a radical Islamic group on the archipelago, Uamsho, forced organizers to abandon plans to mark the 60th birthday of the late Freddie Mercury, who was born Farrokh Bulsara in the Indian Parsi community of Stone Town. Uamsho claimed that Mercury had "violated Islam" with his openly bisexual lifestyle (see
Important architectural features in Stone Town are the Livingstone house, the Guliani Bridge, and the House of Wonders. The town of Kidichi features the hammam (Persian baths), built by immigrants from Shiraz, Iran during the reign of Barghash bin Said.
Zanzibar was the first region in Africa to introduce color television in 1973, but it currently ranks low among African countries due to poor services offered and lack of modern production tools as well as experienced staff. The current TV station is called TVZ. Among the famous reporters of TVZ during the 1980s and 1990s were the late Alwiya Alawi 1961-1996 (the elder sister of Inat Alawi, famous Taarab singer during the 1980s), Neema Mussa, Sharifa Maulid, Fatma Mzee, Zaynab Ali, Ramadhan Ali, and Khamis Faki. The first television service on mainland Tanzania was not introduced until some twenty years later. There is currently no privately owned media in Zanzibar.
Association Football is the most popular sport in Zanzibar, Zanzibar has its own national team that participate in non-FIFA tournaments, their club sides participate in Confederation of African Football organised tournaments.
 A Zanzibar beach |
 Stone Town |
 Stone Town with Sultan's Palace |
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 Cloves have played a significant role in the history of Zanzibar's economy |
 House of Wonders |
 Zanzibar East Coast beach |
 Polluted beach at Mtoni |
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