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Party Conflict in Zanzibar
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2008
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The British Protectorate of Zanzibar, comprising the two islands of Zanzibar and Pemba and a number of small adjacent islands, is progressing from Protectorate status towards self-government. In strict constitutional terms, Zanzibar is a multi-racial state with an Arab Sultan under the protection of the Government of Great Britain. Though the concept of protectorate implies a limited domestic role on the part of the protecting power, Great Britain has—through usage, agreement, and concession—come to occupy a position of decisive ascendancy within Zanzibar. The present policy of the British administration is to devolve full political power into local hands through a process of constitutional development which will result in a fully representative system of government. This policy has expressed itself in Zanzibar, as elsewhere in the British African territories, in the expansion of the unofficial side of the Legislative Council, in the gradual replacement of nominated and ex-officio members of the Legislative Council by members chosen on the basis of nation-wide common roll elections, and in the introduction of a ministerial system, which is now to be followed by internal self-government.
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References
page 186 note 1 Notes on the Census of the Zanzibar Protectorate, 1948 (Zanzibar, 1953), p. 2. Hereinafter referred to as ‘1948 Census’. The utility of a more recent census, taken during 1958, was seriously diminished by the refusal of one of Zanzibar's major political parties, the Z.N.P., to allow any differentiation between Africans and Arabs. The result was an all-encompassing category ‘Afro-Arab’. This census estimated the total population at 300,000.Google ScholarReport on the Census of the Population of Zanzibar Protectorate (Zanzibar, 1960).Google Scholar
page 188 note 1 There have been Arabs in Zanzibar and on the East African coast since ancient times. The present Arab dynasty of Zanzibar had its origin in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, when the Imam of Muscat and Oman defeated the Portuguese and established Arab hegemony along the East African coast. The rise of Zanzibar as a shipping centre of the slave trade, the establishment of a separate Sultanate government in Zanzibar between 1832 and 1840, and the creation of a clove industry by Sultan Seyyid Said were all attended by waves of Arab immigration from Muscat and Oman to Zanzibar. The descendants of these Muscat and Omani Arabs today form a landed and urban aristocracy whose position is based on clove growing, commerce, and government employment. More recent Arab migrants have tended to go into shopkeeping, peddling, and various trades. See Middleton, John, Land Tenure in Zanzibar (London, 1961), p. 7,Google Scholar and Prins, A. H. J., The Swahili Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast (London, 1961), pp. 13–14.Google Scholar
page 191 note 1 East Africa and Rhodesia, 27 October 1955.
page 191 note 2 Methods of Choosing Unofficial Members of the Legislative Council (Zanzibar, 1956).Google Scholar
page 194 note 1 In the clove and coconut plantation areas of Zanzibar, squatters are generally allowed to live rent-free on the land and to cultivate their own food crops provided they perform certain services for the landlord.
page 196 note 1 Afrika Kwetu, 3 January 1957.
page 200 note 1 The Tanganyika Standard, 18 July 1957.
page 201 note 1 Stonetown, the heart of Zanzibar Township, is the centre of government and commerce in the Protectorate and is also the domicile of more than 90 per cent of Zanzibar's Asian population, and approximately one-half of its Arab population. In the Ngambo area of Zanzibar Township, there resides basically the urbanised portion of the mainland African community, and a number of Shirazis who have left the rural areas.
page 201 note 2 For the full results, see The Report of the Supervisor of Elections on the Elections in Zanzibar, 1957 (Zanzibar, 1958). However, this erroneously reported the two victorious candidates in Pemba as members of the Afro-Shirazi Union. Ali Sharif Musa, who was opposed in his constituency by a candidate of the African Association, defeated his Z.N.P. opponent by only some 200 votes out of more than 7,250 cast. The Z.N.P. received 30 per cent of the popular vote in Pemba, as opposed to 16 per cent in Zanzibar.Google Scholar
page 202 note 1 For extensive official comment on these matters, see The Proceedings of the Commission of lnquiry into Civil Disturbances on the 1st June, 1961, and Succeeding Days (mimeographed, 1961); also, Annual Report of the Provincial Administration, 1958 (Zanzibar, 1959).Google Scholar
page 202 note 2 SirGray, John, Report of the Arbitrator to Enquire into a Trade Dispute at the Wharf Area of Zanzibar (Zanzibar, n.d.).Google Scholar
page 203 note 11 Annual Report of the Provincial Administration, 1959 (Zanzibar, 1960).Google Scholar
page 205 note 1 See Report of the Constitutional Commissioner (Zanzibar, 1960).Google Scholar
page 205 note 2 See Reports of the Supervisors of Elections on the Registration of Voters and the Elections held in January, 1961 (Zanzibar, 1960), pp. 60–3.Google Scholar
page 206 note 1 See Report of the Supervisors of Elections, June 1961 (Zanzibar, 1961), pp. 27–9.Google Scholar
page 206 note 2 See Report of a Commission of Inquiry into Disturbances in Zanzibar during June 1961 (London, 1961), Colonial No. 353.Google Scholar
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