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~ The Many Faces of Zanzibar ~

During my summer working in Africa, I managed to pick up a tattered old red paper book with the simple title ‘ZANZIBAR’ written prominently on the front cover. A few pages in the text began as follows;

‘A Guide to

ZANZIBAR

A detailed account of Zanzibar Town

and Island, including

general information about the

Protectorate, and a description of

Itineraries for the use of visitors

1952

Printed by the Government Printer, Zan

Price: Shs. 5/- Post free’

I had found a little artefact of the British Empire’s twilight years in Africa. The booklet was a kind of Rough Guide to travellers visiting

Zanzibar. I, being used to my glossy Lonely Planet Guide that is packed full of quirky facts and legends about the place, was surprised at how this little book described the Island’s ‘points of interest’; ‘It is situated in latitude 6° S. longitude and 39° E. and is separated from the African continent by a channel 22½ miles across at its narrowest part.’. This was then followed with a breakdown of its GDP, a chronological list of the sultans of Zanzibar, and sections on: Language, Climate, Agriculture, Geology and Mineralogy, and also an important section mapping the island’s clove industry. The number of tables and charts was phenomenal! Heaven only knows what was going on in the minds of the author when they thought to include the previous 30 years worth of records on coconut milk production. 

My fascination in the little book was not over its very imperial style, but more the place it was describing. The Zanzibar that was being described in the little paper document was a picture of a completely different world to the one that I was living and breathing this summer. Granted, most of the geographic features were the same, and some of the buildings. But even those buildings described were now being used for completely different purposes. The British Residency which in 1952 stood ‘in attractive grounds containing a varied and interesting collection of trees and shrubs… [which] are not, however, open to the public’. If you were to visit the same building now you would be in the Africa House Hotel, where foreigners pass balmy evenings drinking foreign cocktails  and listen to tinkly renditions of ‘In The Jungle’, and ‘Buffalo Soldier’.

One of the biggest differences between the worlds that I noticed was in the little book’s description of ‘Population’. The breakdown it gave was as follows;

‘(b) Racial populaton:

                  Europeans         …         …                  296

                  Arabs                  …         …                  44,560

                  Indians                  …         …                  15,211

                  Africans         …         …                  199,860

                  Others                  …         …                  4,235

                                    Total         …                  264,162’

That 296 Europeans should come before the 199,860 ‘Africans’ is prettyypical of the British Empire’s notion of racial superiority. It’s odd that the belief that a person’s colour, and heritage should determine their place in society, was still institutionalised during the lifetimes of many of Union Chapel’s congregation.

***

Zanzibar 1964. The British Government continuing with its policy of decolonisation hands power to the traditional ruling Arab elite under the Sultan. There was outcry in response to this decision and in same year there is a bloody uprising by a small militant group led by a young Ugandan named John Okello. Thousands of Indians, Europeans and Arabs flee the country to escape the bloodshed. Having removed the sultanate, the pro-African Revolutionary Council of Zanzibar is established as government.

***

This event is one of the most significant differences between the world I was moving in during the summer, and the little paper book. Imperialism is now gladly dead. Or is it? The legal chains which kept the 199,860 Africans in a state of racial inferiority have been shattered, but are they free to achieve the unlimited potential of the human soul? Could the students I was working with in Chaani N’dogo Secondary become the next Booker Prize winners or become the head of the World Bank? Maybe. But, I think it is far more likely to be a white western educated individual.

Thankfully, the days when distinction between success and failure was drawn by colour are gone. Now we hear terms like ‘The Developing World’ as opposed to our ‘Developed West’, we now talk of economic slavery and 3rd World poverty. What I thought I knew about these tag-phrases and my understanding of poverty was certainly challenged this summer.

Though I would have probably denied it if asked, before going to Africa I had a subconscious view of poverty being a state of unending misery: the classic Oxfam advert. When you think about it, it’s a silly assumption; going to a poor society, assuming that the people you’ll be surrounded by will be miserable. To be around so many smiling happy people who talked freely and with sincere curiosity about anything from Manchester United to how best to climb a coconut tree, went against this subconscious view of mine. To be in a classroom with a stick of chalk, and forty pair of eyes staring at you, fumbling an explanation of the ins and outs of an irregular verb formation was not a scene of misery. They didn’t see themselves as miserable.

So how were these people, who were rich in conversation, enthusiasm, love, and religion, poor?

My partner, Tim, was the cleverer of the two of us. He had already done one degree in engineering and is now currently studying medicine. He offered an amazing depth of knowledge in maths, physics, biology, and chemistry for the school to use. One evening, I had just finished cooking a meal of fish and tomato soup with rice, and was waiting for Tim. Slowly getting wound up by his tardiness, and by my increasing hunger, I went looking and found him with a group of 4th years in a classroom. He was going through some physical equation that looked more like an excerpt from the Qu’ran than any form of mathematical language to me. Anyway, he said he would be right with me, and half an hour later he turned up at the house…

… Tim’s eyes were open but he wasn’t looking, he was too busy wandering in his mind, lost in disillusionment. Trying to understand how it was that these incredibly bright students could not understand the basic maths he was trying to teach them and more worryingly how he - a person not even trained as a teacher – could even begin to make them understand?

D:         Your dinner’s cold.

T:         It’s alright

[we begin to eat]

pause

[D., frustrated, waits for Tim to ask him if he’s okay, or explain why he’s late]

D:         How come you’re late?

T:         I was just doing some work with students… I sometimes wonder why we’re even here.

[D. begins to mellow as the food begins to take effect]

D:         How do you mean?

T:         Well, I was just working with this one lad, Omari, on some basic physics…

D:         What Physics?

T:         Moments

D:         Okay, go on

T:         Well this is basic stuff, but they just don’t understand.

D:         Why do you think that is?

T:         Well I sat in their physics lesson this afternoon and watched the teacher. His standard of teaching was appalling. I mean really, really bad. All he did was write out from his text book a whole chapter, read it through, and read it through again. Then he set them the questions in the text book.

***

This sad case was much more common than not. It was the reason that we were there in the first place. Although, it was by no means absolute.

During my time I met some genuinely sincere and bright teachers. One such star was Bi Jina, a biology teacher. Her job was made particularly hard as the school had no scientific equipment, and she was teaching the equivalent of GCSE level. But this marvellous woman had found that she could use coconut milk in experiments to test for protein. However, teachers like Bi Jina were certainly the exception rather than the rule.

The systemic problem in the Zanzibari education system is that schools are under funded, teachers not taught properly, teachers not teaching properly, all of this is monitored by a government rife with allegations of corruption. So long as this systemic problem exists - teachers not knowing how to teach - students’ minds will be left locked, unable to achieve that potential within. This was the poverty I found in Zanzibar; the poverty of opportunity. For me, this sad reality is one of the biggest barriers from the world I grew up in, and the world I lived in this summer. It was easy for me to become disillusioned by these self perpetuating problems, this massive struggle against a system riddled with fault. But if I learnt anything, through my summer and through my experience in Africa, it is that sitting down and being miserable is not going to fix anything, and more importantly, is no way to live.

                                                                        Dan Hodgkinson