ECHOING SILENCE AND NARCISSISTIC VIOLENCE: (SUB)NATIONAL STRUGGLES IN ZANZIBAR
By
KIMBERLY PFEIFER
A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN THE PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
2000 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
the National The research and writing stages of this project were supported by
of Liberal Arts and Science Foundation, the Center for African Studies, and the College
financial support, the Sciences at the University of Florida. Apart from generous
support, and completion of this dissertation was possible only with the participation,
gratitude appreciation for encouragement of many people. Thus, I must express my and
involved. the various ways in which family, friends, and colleagues have been
through the I begin with Dr. Goran Hyden, who has patiently supported me
general difficulties of graduate studies. His intellectual insights, wisdom, talent with puns, spirited humor, and gentle advice and encouragement have made it possible for me to
Tanzania, endure in my pursuit of my doctoral degree. Both Goran and Melania were in
family just around while I was conducting my research. Their presence was like having the comer. Dr. Michael Chege has also enthusiastically encouraged me during the writing
of my dissertation. His support and thoughtful comments indeed assisted me to refine my
ideas. I thank Les Thiele for his encouragement during the formulation of this project and
his efforts to refine the writing of my dissertation. I express my gratitude to Barbara
McDade for energetically joining my committee late in the dissertation process. She
offered warm encouragement and sincere expressions of interest. I express my appreciation to Ofelia Schutte for her multi-faceted assistance. Ofelia's philosophy classes
ii so exciting. Her enticing intellectual reminded me of why I found intellectual inquiry
interpretations of texts. Finally, contemplations have always compelled me to rethink my
the time to listen to my concerns and in her extension of friendship, she has always found offer astute interpretations of the academic experience.
thanks to a close friend, Ng'wanza I had a pampered arrival in Dar es Salaam,
and Kamata. Our endless discussions about politics, feminism, post-structuralism,
through the postcolonialism have played a critical role in my intellectual growth
acquiring a dissertation process. Ben Mongula worked painstakingly to assist me in
of Dar research associateship with the Institute of Development Studies at the University
person es Salaam. He and his family took me into their home simply as another who
Institute for belonged in their lively household. I express my gratitude to the director of
Development Studies, Ibrahim Shao, for his generosity in providing me with the
in institutional support to conduct my research along with his advice and encouragement
my studies in Zanzibar. Finally, at the University of Dar es Salaam, I thank Penina Mlama
for expressing an interest in my work and facilitating the most important introduction I
received in Zanzibar.
Upon my arrival in Zanzibar, I was again warmly welcomed into my new home by
Abdulla Mzee. I was fortunate to have the gracious hospitality and friendship of Abdulla
and his wife Pili. Throughout my stay in Zanzibar, Abdulla engaged in reflective
conversation with me. He was always willing to find time in his tight schedule to educate
me about Zanzibar society and to critically reflect on my research as it unfolded. Abdulla
iii the director the Zanzibar National also labored, in collaboration with Khamis Hamad,
Zanzibar. I thank them both. Archives, to acquire research clearance for me in
I could have not conducted Without the generous assistance of two institutions,
Department of Land in the my research with such ease. First, AH Khalil, Director of the
research. Commission of Land and Environment, enthusiastically took an interest in my
Salum Simba, an He generously handled the logistical needs of conducting my research.
with translation. Second, officer in the Department of Lands, graciously agreed to help
for me to Fatma Alloo, Director of the NGO Resource Centre facilitated an opportunity
work with the organization under the direction of the Aga Khan Foundation. NGORC
and AKF were very generous in their support of my research in exchange for my work
coordinating a collective memory to analyze the process of organization building. The
of life staff at NGORC cordially welcomed me into the office and shared their knowledge
Said, and in Zanzibar with me. I thank Maria de Costa, Sanjay Raja, Omar Jecha, Khamis
Dula Said for their assistance and friendship. I also extend a particular thanks to Dula for
his assistance with translation during my research in the coral rag towns. Finally, I thank
Suhail Sheriff for his friendship and endless brotherly conversations that endured when we
both returned to the United States.
Khamis Said's assistance extended to facilitating my stay in Pemba. He generously
made important official introductions, handled the initial logistical arrangements for
conducting research, and shared his rich knowledge of resource management. Khamis and
Biubwa also graciously took me into their home during my stay in Pemba. In Pemba, a
number of people helped me to conduct my research and enjoy my visit. I am grateful to
IV Shaame, and Ali Abdulla. Finally, I Salim Rhasid, Mbarouk Ali, Mwalimu Hamisi, Omar
Nungwi, Paje, and Fimiba for express my deepest gratitude to the citizens of Msuka,
and for sharing their experiences of allowing me to conduct research in their communities
people in the text of my dissertation because struggle with me. I chose not to cite specific
any conflictual feelings within of the sensitive nature of some issues and to avoid creating
However, in the appendix, I the communities as a consequence of expressed opinions.
discussions with me. have listed everyone who agreed to have interviews and
Once again, My good fortune endured upon my return back to the United States.
return home easy and good friends extended their support and encouragement to make the
and Antonio Martinez for enjoyable. I express my deepest gratitude to Carlos Muina
discuss setting up a new home for us in New York. Carlos and Tony's willingness to
Zanzibar politics, distract me from my work with good food, and remind me of my
ambitions helped me through the rougher moments of the dissertation process. Hao Phan,
Ravina Aggarwal, Dorthey Doudrick, and Leander Schneider offered intellectual
engagement, support, and the pleasant distractions that I needed while vmting.
I express my gratitude to Martha Cade, Jackie Klopp, Bob Uttaro, and Amanda
Wolfe for their patient readings of chapters and warm extensions of encouragement and
friendship through the writing process. I also thank Arun Agrawal, Michelle Seif, and
Elke Zuem for providing insightful comments in the early stages of writing.
I returned to Florida in the final stages of writing to begin preparations for my
defense. Two close friends gave me their devoted, unconditional support in this final
stage which I think was perhaps the most taxing mentally and emotionally. I express my discussions to energize my appreciation to Diana Smillov for her capricious and insightful
ability to paint exuberant and writing. I give Michael Pruitt my gratitude for his
never tire of empowering pictures of the most seemingly impossible experiences and to philsophizing with me.
perceptive commentary on Finally, I turn to my family. Ken Traynor provided nation-building and energized encouragement during his visit in Tanzania and at home.
stay in her home in Fatma Alloo is a new member of my family, as I am in hers. During my
the Zanzibar, we cultivated a friendship that, for me, extended beyond this relationship to experience of having our souls entwined long before we met. It is not possible for me to
has too often express my gratitude to Fatma, but I make the attempt because she wholeheartedly given of herself in intellectual pursuits without receiving the expressions of appreciation she deserves. She has overwhelmed me with her love, intellect, and zest for
parents, Michael and life. It is also beyond my capabilities to express my gratitude to my
Dolores. My parents willingly served as my pillars of strength. My father never failed to
I felt that I re-instill within me the confidence and motivation to continue my studies, when
had lost them. He has always been willing to intensely discuss the ideas I have attempted
to contemplate in writing this dissertation. As my mother showered me with her love and
encouragement, she also helped me to remember that I could complete my dissertation.
Both have assisted me to refine my feminist perspective. I do not know how they made it
through this process; but I do realize they are still wondering why I insisted that we remain
committed to this academic pursuit. It is because they put aside their opinions and
selflessly supported mine that I can never thank them enough.
vi 11
TABLE OF CONTENTS
page ACKNOWLEDGMENT "
ABSTRACT xi
CHAPTERS
^ 1 EXORDIUM
2 The Issues Material Conditions °o Identity Construction Materiality in the Web of Power 1 13 Power in Comparative Perspective 1^ The Politics of Reinterpretation Method Research Narcissus and Echo ^-^ The Myth of Echo and Narcissus 30 An Interpretative Comment on Echo and Narcissus 32 An Overview of the Chapters 37
2 CHORUS OF PROPERTY, CITIZENSHIP, AND HEGEMONY 42
Ethno-nationalism The National and the Ethnic 46 Citizen, Property, and Hegemony for the Context of the Nation-State 56 Citizen Property Hegemony Melodious Harmony or Dissonance? 109 The Colonial Citizen in Modernity 109 Postcolonial Coloniality? 1 14 Echoing Citizen and Narcissistic Property 1 2
vii 1
124 3 EPIC: BRACING HISTORY IN ZANZIBAR
Bracing in Zanzibar 1^4 Moments of Alliance 1^9 Moments of Imposition The Rise of an Imperial Force 133 The Dilemmas of Re-structuring Zanzibar 1 37 Contestation over Races and Classes 140 Social Control through Land Policy 143 Moment of Departure 147 The Pressures of Changing Land and Production Relations 1 5 Moment of Manoeuvre 1^2 The Deployment of the Union 158 The Manipulation of Land 160 Moment of Arrival 1^3 The Role of the Union 170 The Legacy of Land Reform 172 Moment of Re-arriving 177 The Questionable Role of the Union 1 83 Land Reform Revisited through Economic Liberalization 1 87 The Color, Gender, and Soil of History 192
4 POPULAR PROTASIS: THE MATERIAL BASIS FOR STRUGGLE IN THE CORAL RAG 202
Popular Protasis 202 Neglected Histories: A Historical Consideration of the Coral Rag of Unguja and Pemba 202 The Coral Rag of Unguja 206 Pemba 215 Land and Natural Resources 217 Forests 224 Agriculture 227
The Sea and its Resources 232 Fishing 233 Seaw^eed Cultivation 239 Tourism 242 The Case Studies 245 Fumba 246 Paje 256 Nungwi 265 Msuka 274
viii TERRITORIALITY OF 5 EPONYMOUS EPITASIS: DEFINING THE NATIONALITY
„ . 282 Epitasis Land in Territoriality Territoriality as Citizen and Property 290 The Different Wenyeji and Wageni 294 Coexisting as Wenyeji and Wageni 309 Negotiating the Rights of Wageni and Wenyeji 321 Territoriality on National Property Incomplete National Change for Complicated Local Land 324 335 Coexisting Land Understandings as Competing Narcissisms 341 National Territoriality and Partisan Citizen Political Parties ^^"^ Land and Politics The Echoing Citizen
6 CLIMAX AND OR INTERPOLATION: WHOSE NATION UNDER ELABORATION? 354
The Meaning of Interpolation 354 The Bipartisan State 365 The (Sub)national Dilemmas of the Multi-Party System for the Nation 356 Suspicious Partisan Intentions 369 The Substate, Policy, and Citizens 376 The Theoretical Conceptualization of Property Rights as Institutions 378 Forestry and Land Policies 381 Tourism Policy 406 Export Processing Zones 418 (Sub)national Policy Frustrations 445 The Northern Grasp 426 Donors and Government 426 Donors, NGOs, and CBOs 431 The Imperfect Echo 448
7 EPILOGUE: PERPETUAL PERIPETEIA 454
From Zanzibar, with Amour 454 The Illusion of Echoing in Epistemic Struggle 468
ix APPENDIX
REFERENCES
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Graduate School Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Fulfillment of the of the University of Florida in Partial Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
ECHOING SILENCE AND NARCISSISTIC VIOLENCE
By
Kimberiy Pfeifer
May 2000
Chair: Goran Hyden Major Department: Political Science
contestation. The This study offers a reflection on nation-building as a process of
consideration. concepts of citizenship and property constitute the contested arenas under
epistemic positions and deploy It is contended that as multiple actors assume different
and different understandings of national development, they enter into struggles
imposing negotiations in the attempt to control national development and to coexist with
national agendas. This process involves attempts to subordinate and silence particular
perspectives to acquire dominance. However, this study highlights that subordinated
positions endure in the process of contestation, consequently frustrating possibilities of
hegemony.
In the consideration of these issues, this study focuses on the nation-building
experiences of Zanzibar. The 1964 revolution resulted in the acquisition of independence
for Zanzibar. The leaders of the revolution embarked on the process of nation-building
xi was to radically alter the socio- based on socialist principles. Their main objective
of a Union between Zanzibar economic structure through land reform. The negotiation
altered the possibilities of a sovereign and Tanganyika (to form Tanzania) in 1964 abruptly
national agenda from the position Zanzibar. Regardless, Zanzibar continued to pursue a
undergone economic and political of a subnation. Over the past fifteen years, Zanzibar has
re-writing of policies for the liberalization. This transitional stage has included the
contestation over management of land and natural resources. In the transitional process,
intensified. This study focuses the meanings of land, property, citizenship, and nation has
(in rural towns), state on the struggles over land and natural resources between subalterns
shape the institutions, and foreign aid institutions to highlight how subalterns
understandings of land, property, citizenship, and nation; and the outcomes of state
policies and external agendas.
The myth of Echo and Narcissus is deployed as an allegory to serve two purposes.
a to First, in the realm of theorization, the re-reading of Narcissus and Echo provides way
highlight the neglect of epistemic positions and acknowledge dominating knowledge,
Second, the while it offers the possibility of re-theorizing from subaltern positions.
reinterpreted Echo and Narcissus provides a frame to consider national struggle by
listening to subaltern perspectives as they interact with state and external ones.
xii CHAPTER 1 EXORDIUM
Transition resonates through Zanzibar. It rings through policies as reform, along
the city streets as restoration, and across rural towns as revitalization. However, vibrations flow unevenly over Zanzibar. Transition has assumed the form of tension between two contending political parties over the results of the transformed election process and the direction of political development in Zanzibar. Transition surfaces on the
question land as contested development and resource management, while the atavistic land remains persistent. Alterity can be understood to arise out of transition. Whether alterity
revised version of a is the condition of being changed, of being marked as different, or the
Consequently, structure of identity, it is neither understood nor received perfectly. transition involves repeating or recreating an ideal or imposition (or both) that will not occur as a pure replication, thereby creating frustrations. In Zanzibar, frustrations inflame struggles emerging out of a history of transition and alterity from city-states, to colonization, to independence, to economic and political liberalization. Three historically unresolved issues travel through these struggles and compose the topics of this study: the distribution and management of material conditions, identity construction, and the power complex in which the consequential claims articulated are inscribed. Together they form
1 account of colonial and post-colonial the basis for an allegorical narrative that provides an sub-national struggle in Zanzibar to establish an alter-nation.'
articulation of This introduction will first present these issues in greater detail. An
the purpose of the approach how this study will be approached along with a comment on
research conducted will will follow. A more specific discussion on the method and the
approach is further highlight the purpose of this study. Once the relevance of this established, the myth of Echo and Narcissus will be told and interpreted for the purposes
the context of of critically considering the issues of identity, materiality, and power within a (sub)national project. Finally, the introduction will conclude with an overview of the chapters comprising this study.
The Issues
Material Conditions
Material has a rather long and particularly interesting Latin etymology. Material is
to matter. Matter derived from materia derived from materialis . meaning, of or belonging
refers to the woody part of a tree and substance (more generally). Materia derives from
nation subnation. 1 . Alter-nation highlights the issue of change and transition in the and On the one hand, alter acknowledges the attempt not only at change but to make (force) different. On the other hand, alternation denotes the act or state of change between acts
or states, that is, the act or state of repetitious interchange. The proceeding chapter will take up the significance of these ideas as they relate to sub-national and national politics. Subnation will be used to highlight that the national identity of Zanzibar has been subordinated since the creation of the Union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar. However, within the subnation, as the word suggests, resides national sentiments. within it the idea of being of human the word mater, or mother? Material also holds
and independent of humanity. The creation, despite attempts to define it as objective
creation (or defining) of the material material world with which people create and the
resources constitute materials world can motivate identified struggle. Land and natural
define and control land and over which people continue to struggle. In the attempt to
for are understood as the constraints and possibilities resources , material conditions
century, development has productive activities and (identified) relations. In the twentieth
material world. become a concerted global enterprise to condition the objective
between natural A growing concern in social science inquiry is the relationship
consensus that a resource use and environmental change. There seems to be a growing
resource use, multiplicity of definitions, perceptions, and expectations exist over natural
and distribution with and that it is worthwhile to begin addressing issues of management
resources the ideas of the actual users.^ In colonial discourse, the appropriation of natural
was the right of the civilized jusfified in the name of progress." Progress and improvement
constituted justifications as uncivilized peoples were characterized as not understanding
2. Tracing material to mother brings to mind a very basic binary opposite articulated in ancient Greek philosophy: the realm of the ideal and the realm of the material. This opposition constitutes a basis on which to divide masculine (located in the realm of the ideal) and the feminine (assigned to the material realm) and to establish the concept of a (masculine) citizenry.
3. Piers Blaikie, "Environment and Access to Resources in Africa," Africa 59. no.l(1989):25.
4. See David Spurr. The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism. Travelwriting and Imperial Administration (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993), 29. 4
them.' Appropriation served as a the value of the land and natural resources surrounding
uncivilized into the international system of strategy to incorporate the people identified as
production. Colonial surveillance of the exploitation of natural resources for capitalist
management in development natural resource use has assumed the contemporary form of
sustainable use of and conservation. Appropriation is now linked to the concern for
rate through the later half of natural resources and has gained supporters at an increasing
conceptualization from many the twentieth century. Land, in particular, has undergone
Despite the theoretical and policy perspectives across the colonial/postcolonial rupture.
contestation various relational fields in which land is posited, it continues to provoke
it, should it be globally in terms of the following: how it should be used, who should use
owned and how, what types of rights should accompany it, should it be protected or
exploited?
Land holds many purposes for many people. Not only is land used to produce
material conditions, but to gain power and to define a multiplicity of identities.* Shipton
and Goheen have enumerated some questions I believe are critical to consider in
contemplating issues of land.^ These include: What does land mean, and to whom? What
kinds of land resources do people use? How are land and its resources defined? This
study is concerned with the multiple ways in which, not only land, but also natural
5. Ibid., 30.
6. Parker Shipton and Mitzi Goheen, "Understanding African Land-Holding: Power, Wealth, and Meaning," Africa 62, no.3(1992): 307.
7. The proceeding questions are taken directly from "Understanding African Land- Holding." 5
communities, communities as a resources in general receive definition. Individuals within
government officials, and extra- collectivity, NGO practitioners, local and (sub)national
that are situational. state agents all perceive land in different and overlapping ways
possessivity. Differences in perception can lead to contestation over land, its uses, and its
Shipton and Goheen also ask: what kinds of social affiliations affect land use and control?
Various individuals and groups interact within the context of land, sea, and natural resource use. In these interactions, the attempts to define land use and control play out on
diverse intricate graphs of family, gender, class, race, ethnicity, and national relations. The communities of Zanzibar provide rich examples of how all of these relationships intertwine in the struggle to control land. A final question of significance asks, who controls the discourse on land? This question will be addressed at multiple levels. While the question
holds relevance at the local level, it will be deployed to consider understandings of land and other natural resources by the state, NGOs, and scholars. The literature on natural
resource management is of particular interest because I wish to illustrate how various discursive acts intersect and how certain practices attempt to control the forms discourse can take.
In the research on land issues in Africa, customary land tenure constitutes a commonplace term in the conceptual landscape for understanding social relations.
Customary land tenure is depicted as varied and intricate. The attempt to establish a centralized system of land tenure—which sets a standardization to be used across the land over which it reigns—gives the state a way of knowing the land under its jurisdiction in many senses and opens possibilities to manage it or control it. The project of assimilating .
6
land understandings is indeed a difficult varying complex customary land tenure systems or
attempts to impose a uniform land one.' The history of the land and government
the nuances and perplexity of classificatory system in Zanzibar provides a vivid case of
systems of land tenure exist.' such difficulties. At present, in Zanzibar about seven
existed simultaneously Before the 1964 revolution, a number of land tenure systems
value to the economy including the most significant being family plantations in terms of
relations. Even this system of and its influence in structuring social relations as property
land holding varied between Unguja and Pemba—the two main islands composing
revolution as Zanzibar. This variation had detrimental implications in the aftermath of the
land. Some the revolutionary government attempted to radically change understandings of
of these land tenure systems survived the revolution just as others were destroyed by it,
varied though their remnants may endure in understandings of land. Within the surviving,
land tenure systems, different defining rights accompany the land and other natural
resources. Scott asserts that understanding customary land tenure as laws is a distortion;
customs are more lucidly comprehended as "a living, negotiated tissue of practices which
are continually being adapted to new ecological and social circumstances—including . .
power relations."'" In Zanzibar, struggles over land certainly illustrate that understandings
8. Such projects and their difficulties are the subject of James Scott's book titled Seeing Like a State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998).
9. This can be more or less depending on which government accounts are referenced and whether or not the dialects of land understandings—which can vary from place to place—are considered.
10. Seeing Like a State . 46. 7
translate into the language embedded in customary land tenure remain and do not always
of law.
tenure as simulacra to Straying from Scott's suggestion, I prefer to think of land
of land as they change visualize how complex land tenure systems provide understandings
metaphorically and endure." Land tenure systems can pose as simulacra like poems can
represent the ideas represent thoughts and feelings. On the one hand, land tenure systems
land. On the and meanings of land to the point of becoming the image (or definition) of
it only be a other hand, a land tenure system cannot be the idea or meaning of land, can
representation that can only be imperfect. As a consequence, there is always a remainder
It is this or something that is different and cannot be incorporated into this process.
acceptance of what might appear as ambiguity through the lens of law that I believe gives
land tenure customary land tenure its endurance. Such a conceptualization of customary
outside does not permit its romanticization (as Scott warns against). Rather, what remains
or what disrupts the possibility of absolute replication can appear within a system of
power relations and receive critical consideration (be it in the everyday or academic
realm). This complexity constitutes a source of frustration for state officials who desire to
It is a representation and as such can only 11 . A simulacrum is a superficial likeness. offer an imperfect likeness which leaves a trace of difference that cannot be accounted for by what the image represents nor the system of representation. Simulacrum has also been defined as a representation for which there is no original.
12. See Jacques Derrida, "Differance" and "The Supplement of Copula: on the Phenomenology of Language" Margins of Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), for nuanced discussions of difference and the concept of the remainder. Derrida's essays provide the inspiration and guidance for this sketch of customary land tenure. have a homogeneous administrative system. However, state officials are not the only ones frustrated by the complexities of local property and resource systems as Scott seems to suggest. While those who are part of a community with a customary land tenure system may know how to interpret and use the subtleties of it, frustrations and struggles are experienced in intricate ways by different people within systems of property relations and the power relations in which they are embedded. The government in Zanzibar is now confronted with the modem liberal state's solution to land tenure anxiety, that is,
individual freehold tenure.'^ It remains to be seen how the idea of land, as individual
private property, will fit into Zanzibar's already tangled web of land tenure.
Identity Construction
Identity has long been a gadfly swarming around scholarship. Through history,
studies have attempted to interpret, for example, the following: how past societies and
empires define and deployed identity, the meanings and uses identity assume in
contemporary contexts, the causes and effects of identity, and what the role of identity
should be in society. A melange of critical perspectives have illustrated that identity
construction is a historical process that never finishes and is never absolutely stable.
Categories of race, ethnicity, class, gender, territoriality, and family have been constructed
to articulate what seems to be real bodily and cultural manifestations. Identities are
13. Scott succinctly defines the system of individual freeholding as follows: "[l]and is owned by a legal individual who possesses wide powers of use, inheritance, or sale and
whose ownership is represented by a uniform deed of title enforced through the judicial
and police institutions of the state," Seeing Like a State . 36. 9
or manage social expressed through social interactions. They are also created to control interactions through classification.
Identity—derived from the Latin ident(idem) meaning repeatedly, again and again
the and has (-ity)—refers to the state of remaining the same under varying conditions, condition of being oneself and not another, the condition as to who (what) someone
likeness, and a point or (something) is, the sense of self providing continuity, exact moment of likeness. The idea of repeating, again and again, refers to a process. The process of repetition does not produce the exact same but an impression, thereby creating another however slightly different, and then continues to create another, again and again.'"
completely possible, I begin from the assumption that the idea of identity is never
repeated relations to though it is an articulated desired end. This desire energizes the
acquire identity and the repeated interpretation of the structures of identity. Though
identities are intended to provide a stable sense of the self, people realize that their fixed
identities do not capture the changes they undergo. Thus, despite the attempt to fix
identity, it has an ambivalence within it. In addition, identity is partly the relationship
between the self and other, suggesting that only if there is an other can one know one's
self" Thus, identity can be thought of as process of identification. History, as the
process of change, alters the conceptions of the identities (selves and others). It is the
pursuit of fixed identities (through locating others) and how they fragment when pushed to
14. See Margins of Philosophv . and Michel FoucauU, This is not a Pipe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).
15. Stuart Hall, "Ethnicity: Identity and Difference," in Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Sxmy, eds., Becoming National (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 345. 10
experience of identity in relation to their logical end that is of interest in this study. The
create identities that have difference provides a focus to reveal the ways in which people
identities as both hegemonic and constructive potential. Thus, this study will treat
and relational—presented in discourse, constructed in history, dependent on difference, providing position.
of scholars The specific identities of ethnicity and nation have gained the attention
violent national after the disintegration of communist and socialist societies led often to
more conflicts. However, the two have always raised concern in the study of Africa. A detailed discussion of the nation and ethnicity—comparable to the above discussion on land and resource management—^will open the following chapter.
This study begins with the consideration of the nation and ethnicity because of the assumed necessity of the projects of nation-building and national development in social science and the ongoing concern of how to manage ethnicity so that it does not undermine the nation. In Zanzibar, the effort to create a postcolonial nation was from the beginning complicated by the negotiation of a Union between Zanzibar and Tanganyika. The nation- building process took the form of a subnationalism with the spirit of a nationalism. The project to define and create subnational citizens faced the challenge of altering multiple positions now located within the subnation. However, some identities—territorial
identities dependent on gendered and family identities, blood identities dependent on racial difference and reproduction, and class identities dependent on type of work and position within production—have had their own understandings of citizenship and property which have not always submitting to the demands of the (sub)national project. 11
Materiality in the web of power
with material As a historical process, identity construction enters into relation
and material conditions. Materiality will be used to refer to the ways in which identity
the use of conditions are rejoined after being understood as separate entities. However,
materialism. the concept of materiality in this study is not informed by deterministic
Further, in studies of identity politics, identity is often prioritized, thereby defining material conditions as deferent to the demands and articulations of identity. However, there is another way to understand the relation between identity and the material. Both identity and material conditions can only be articulated and defined discursively. In the discursive process, understandings of material conditions are constructed by particular identity positions. However, in addition, understandings of material conditions invoke and define
identities.'*
Amidst rapid and unsettling change, the material is often thought to offer security and familiarity to make sense of life again—land does this whether as terrain or territory.
Both individual and collective identities oftentimes provide powerfial ways in which to make claims and demands rights in regard to resources, and yet, land itself is a powerfiil
invocation to create, unite, divide, even naturalize identities. Zanzibar is no stranger to both. The struggles that reside in questions of land and identity continue to play out in
Zanzibar. Today, Zanzibar faces a host of interesting questions of identity: Are
Zanzibaris Tanzanians? If not is it possible to break the union? Is Zanzibar democratic?
16. For a more nuanced discussion of the relation between the material and identity see Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemonv and Socialist Strategv: Toward a Radical Democratic Politics (London: Verso, 1986). 12
Arabs, Indians, Pembans, Does Zanzibar want to be capitalist? Who is Zanzibari? Are
All of these questions arise Shirazis and Ungujans? Who is a citizen? Who is foreigner?
throughout Tanzania in the context of questions of land. In a time of land reform
resources have questions of who has access, ownership, and control over land and its provoked heated debate and numerous struggles. However, as land provides a context for
and acts of identity, identity posits a site for issues of land. These practices of identity contestation take place on a graph of power relations embedded as hegemonic struggles in which dominating acts occur.
While the postcolonial state in Zanzibar may harbor an understanding of power as something wielded to define and control (sub)national development, power understood as such has limited analytical value. As Bayart contends, the pursuit of hegemony, the structure of inequality, and the "legitimate problematic of politics" do not have meaning unless they are interpreted in terms of the various social actors.'^ Power as a dominator's
instrument cannot account for the multiple positions and relations that contribute to the struggles that arise in the efforts to define, control, avoid, and even escape the conditions
of life. In this study, power is conceptualize as circulating through agents and situations to link them in productive relations. In this way, the relational demands and responses of government officials, state institutions, non-governmental organizations, extra-state agents, and subalterns can be visualized, along with the systems of power employed to sustain and alter positions in the national project.
17. Jean-Fran9ois Bayart, "Finishing with the Idea of the Third World: The Concept of the Political Trajectory," in Rethinking Third World Politics , ed. by James Manor (London: Longman, 1991), 65. 13
Power in Comparative Perspective
The struggles involved in nation-building and development cannot be articulated without a concept of power (or power relations). Whether or not an understanding of
of nation- power is overtly discussed, one informs any study which addresses dilemmas building in terms of struggle, resistance, or coercion. Epistemic and theoretical choices are made in the construction of a perspective on power. In the study of politics, both can be graphed along continua. Indeed, positivism can be considered the dominant epistemic paradigm in the study of politics. However, combined with theoretical, empirical, conceptual, and ethical concerns, the principles of positivism are understood and embraced in different ways. Who stands to gain or benefit constitutes one critical theoretical concern in the meaning of power. Specifically, most often the meaning of power centers around the relation between dominant and subordinate actors. Again, other concerns, such as epistemic and ethical issues, interact to inform the understanding of that
relationship and its outcomes. The graph below maps the intersections of these theoretical and epistemic concerns.
Positivistic approaches search for regularities through empirical observation in order to establish patterns and certainties and a cumulated knowledge which ultimately can serve to assist explanation and even prediction of phenomena. Modernization approaches have sought to explain problems of nation-building and development in
"developing" countries by evaluating their experiences based on terms constructed out of
European experiences. The assumption of the march of progress guided such approaches.
Similarly, Marxist approaches understand the march of progress to involve stages of 14
difference between development that can be scientifically analyzed.'" However, one
of power. Where modernization and Marxist approaches is their theoretical understanding
social modernization approaches treat power as latent because their focus is on how all
Marxist approaches actors stand to ultimately gain from the processes of modernization,
expense of understand progress dialectically, and thus, the gain of some classes is at the others. Power becomes a focus in the form of exploitation.
Perspectives on Power Relations
Positive Sum Gain
Focus on Progress Focus on Resistance as Appropriation and Coexistence
Modernization e.g. James Scott, Achille Approaches Mbembe, Chantal Mouffe
Epistemic Orientation
Positivism Post-positivism Focus on Focus on Resistance Exploitation and Incorporation
Marxist Approaches e.g. Goran Hyden, Robert Fatton, Robert Chambers
Zero Sum Gain
Theoretical Orientation
18. Hyden provides a commentary on the similarities of modernization and Marxist approaches and the positivistic aspects of Marxism. See Goran Hyden, Beyond Ujamaa in Tanzania: Underdevelopment and an Uncaptured Peasantry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 244-251. 15
There have been numerous challenges to positivistic approaches to political
research does not take into inquiry. For example, it has been argued that positivistic
for account the perspectives of subordinant groups in societies. Thus, the ethical demand
In research to be more participatory necessarily entails moving beyond positivism."
state are contingent on the addition, it has been argued that the success or failures of the successful resistance of groups which compose civil society Yet from this perspective, power relations are understood dialectically in terms of the state and society (or even the international donor community and the poor). Thus, successful resistance on the part of society equates as a loss for the state. Other challenges to positivistic inquiry have challenged a handed-dovm universalized notion of progress, while complicating the strict dialectical understanding of power relations.^' In such perspectives two issues are
emphasized. First, subaltern (or more generally antagonistic) actors often struggle in coexistence with national agendas in ways that the dialectical notion of resistance cannot consider. Thus, while the state may continue to impose order and control, subaltern groups may be able to secure their own defined agendas as they reappropriate the constraints they face. Second, the acquisition of an objective understanding of reality is
19. See for example, Bevond Uiamaa in Tanzania and Robert Chambers, Rural Development: Putting the Last First (London: Longman, 1983).
20. See for example, Robert Fatten, Jr. "Africa in the Age of Democratization: The Civic Limitations of Civil Society," African Studies Review 38, no. 2(1 995).
21. See for example, "Finishing with the Idea of the Third World;" Achille Mbembe, "Provisional Notes on the Postcolony," Africa 62, no.l(1992): 3-37; Chantal Mouffe, The Return of the Political (London: Verso, 1993); and James Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990). 16
entails a focus on not possible, and thus, considering the dilemmas of politics
contested, and interactive. interpretation and constructions of meanings as numerous,
post-positivistic approaches, my study is most While, in general, I have an affinity for
resistance and coexistence (refer to seriously informed by what I have called the focus on graph).
The Politics of Reinterpretation
By considering the struggles arising within the post-colonial national project my
govern, and intention is not to suggest the failings of the state, how the state could better how post-colonial nation-states can modemize.^^ I also have no intentions to suggest how civil society should be strengthened nor how subalterns should be incorporated into the
national project. Instead, I intend to iterate through interpretation political practices and multiple positions in the politics of knowledge production that inform such practices. My
intention is to offer an interpretation that is outside of the modernization paradigm in
order to treat it as simply another interpretative epistemic position in the study and practice of politics. From outside of this ideological mode of analysis, I can feature subaltern epistemic positions along side of the epistemic positions assumed by government institutions and extra-state agents. A consideration of the interactions of the multiple positions from which people collect, collate, and construct perspectives can highlight how they combine epistemic products and frustrate epistemic positions. Manor, et al, have
22. The contributors to Rethinking Third World Politics express the need to step outside of the teleological political development paradigms which have assumed a purpose of prescribing a particular notion of progress as universal. 17
contradictory proposed the idea that in postcolonies, cultures and politics, incongruous or
elements, seem to coexist in curious hybrids." Prior to Manor's, et al, assertion, Hyden
contended that the state and the peasantry coexist.^'' However, he suggested that the state
has not achieved modernization because it has not captured the peasantry. I cannot
support the idea of capturing the peasantry. Indeed there are ways in which people can
participate and pull out of the national system. For subaltern positions, the possibilities to
do either constitute a power which I do not advocate undermining nor usurping. As
Bayart suggests, such a study involves the consideration of material forces and processes
with individual and collective perceptions to link the collective work of the production of
the (sub)nation to the subjective positions of government officials and subalterns."
To engage in such a project requires a way to reread epistemic positions to reveal
the openings in their logic that permit the possibility of reinterpretation and frustration.
Throughout this study work in feminism and postcolonialism provide insights to craft such
a study. Thus, their contributions will unfold through the course of the chapters to come.
However, the method will be articulated up front. The rereading of the myth of Narcissus
and Echo, I believe, provides a way not only to retheorize the unfolding of the political
process to build a nation, but the possibility of listening to multiple interpretations of the
information received and demands made in this process. Through the reinterpretation of
23. Rethinking Third World Politics . 5.
24. See Goran Hyden, No Shortcuts to Progress: African Development Management in Perspective (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983). Hyden refers to the state as a balloon suspended in the sky above society.
25. "Finishing with the Idea of the Third World," 68. 18
national project as a perpetual process of Narcissus and Echo it is possible to perceive the
inform the use of struggle. The deconstructive and dialectical-allegorical methods
Narcissus and Echo.
Method
to read the myth of I draw from deconstruction as a method of textual analysis
Narcissus and Echo, and to read the positions (sub)state officials and institutions, extra-
state agents, and subalterns create in (sub)national struggle. The use of the deconstructive
method can reveal the systems of signification used, the difficulties involved in preserving
epistemic positions, and the openings in such systems that permit their unraveling.
Derrida's notion of differance marks the perpetual quality of the construction of meaning,
while recognizing both the play of identity and difference, and the play of difference across
identity. In the creation of a signifier (that is, an idea), the signified (that is, the original
which the idea signifies)—is presupposed to be fixed. The signifier is a true and final
expression of the signified. Derrida has painstakingly illustrated, however, that the central
signified, or the original, is never outside a system of differences. Thus, there can be no
origins. Rather the play of signification continues infinitely.^* In the Western philosophical
tradition, however, the belief reigns that there are origins and that signifiers indeed can
name them. Derrida has chosen numerous cases of such acts, and by moving through their
chains of signification (in which the central signified resides), has shown the impossibility
26. See Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983). 19
signify absolutely can of breaking out of the chains. Derrida suggests that the attempt to
a multiplicity of meanings. be a political act that attempts to privilege at the expense of
Deconstruction exposes this practice by showing how a system of signification eventually undermines itself When a particular category (material, idea, or identity) is
of signified and marked as distinct, this happens on the basis of a particular understanding the larger context in which the signified is located. This understanding takes itself for granted as universal or truth. Marking off the signified entails a system of signification.
Based on this original signified, a series of differences arises. In order to give meaning to
the original signified it must be defined negatively, or in terms of what is it not, thus creating difference. The deconstructive method focuses on the role of binary oppositions
in which one is elevated to a status of superiority as it defines the other, in terms of how it
is different. When an attempt is made to define the negative, again it must be defined in
terms of what it is not, and so the process of signification continues infinitely. When a signified is privileged, the question—what gestures and beliefs are needed for the privileged division to occur?—needs to be asked. This process then is traced to locate the place at which the justification of the privileged distinction undermines itself When the
attempt is made to erase the privilege (out of a recognition that the privilege exists and a desire to avoid the accusation of privileging while maintaining distinctions) a privilege again surfaces, thus undermining the attempt because the signified carmot be thought of outside the system of signification. 20
between For example, Derrida expresses a concern over the distinction made
to Derrida, written and spoken language and its use in classifying cultures." According
as once the western philosophical tradition recognizes the distinction it has made
gesture made though is ethnocentric, it attempts to upset this idea. The anti-ethnocentric precisely where ethnocentrism arises. It is argued that the spoken word is prior to the written and thus the written word is a violence. It follows that western cultures are violent and that cultures without the written word are incapable of violence. To make this clearer, replace the written word with meaning and violence with imposition. Thus, to suggest that a culture cannot create meaning and cannot impose this meaning is to appropriate the meaning and imposition as a privilege to a particular identity. If it is accepted that language cannot escape being written (giving meaning) and that all writing is violent (imposing via interaction), the distinction between written and spoken is not
pertinent, but rather is an act of dominance. In this project, the first intent is to expose the self-referencing chains of signification (employed to impose particular positions as truth) and their dependency on difference. The second intent is to locate the hidden openings that serve to disrupt the system of binary opposites.
The dialectical allegory provides a way for this project to unfold. Allegory derives from the Latin word allegoria which denotes speaking of one thing under the guise of
another. Allegory refers to a story with a second distinct meaning that is partially hidden
behind its visible or literal meaning. It involves a continuous parallel between two or more
27. See Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatologv (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974). 21
ideas correspond to events and ideas levels of meaning in a story, so that its events and external to the story
of allegory that This study, however, will employ a reappropriated notion
represents the other and associates allegory with dialectics?' In allegory, one discourse
"[a]llegory is loom-like, where invites a double reading of narrative events. In this way,
Dialectical- the thread of the story doubles back and builds on a previous loop."^°
relationship. In this allegorical narratives constitute a interlocking rather than parallel
in study, the myth of Narcissus and Echo and the story of postcolonial sub-nationalism
Zanzibar will create interpretations of political struggle and of theorizing politics through
their interactions.
The Echo and Narcissus myth and this study of (sub)national struggle in Zanzibar
will allegorically interact by reappropriating each other to create layers of meaning. In this
notion of allegory, the idea of a stable knowledge is thrown into question which differs
from a conventional treatment of allegory which insists on a temporal priority.^'
According to Sommer, dialectical-allegory can set a dialectical relationship in motion that
will construct personal and public discourses "upon each other in a circle without end."
28. Ethnography in particular has made innovative use of allegory. See James Clifford and George Marcus, eds.. Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).
29. Doris Sommer, "Allegory and Dialectics: A Match Made in Romance," boundary 2 18, no. 1(1991): 63.
30. "Allegory and Dialectics," 74.
31. Ibid. 22
it, thereby both are understood as One narrative level represents the other and also fuels
subaltern, subnational state, unstable. This study unfolds allegorically by presenting how
of each other in the and modernization discourses are layered in their reappropriations
reappropriations they pull unfolding of politics and in theorizing this unfolding. As layered
to show that an each other along in enduring political struggle. Allegory is a useful way
epistemic position which epistemic totality cannot exist because it can highlight how an
unravels as another takes for granted the truth of knowledge (based on binary opposites) epistemic position disrupts system of meanings put into place.
Research
Paje, During my stay in Zanzibar, I visited four rural coastal towns: Fumba, and
Nungwi in Unguja and Msuka in Pemba to learn about natural resource struggles, the
creation of multiple identities, and how they are entwined together and embedded within
sub-national contestation. I visited each town over the course of four to six weeks.
Discussions were conducted in Swahili. As a consequence of my lack of fluency in
Swahili, a translator assisted me. Salum Simba assisted me in Fumba, AbduUa Said
assisted me in Paje and Nungwi, and Mwalimu Hamisi assisted me in Msuka.^^
32. Translation can be viewed as a limitation of this study. In response, I can only
suggest that I must begin at some point. My fear of missing the nuances of cultural meanings in language will endure through years of learning and experiencing life in Swahili. Thus, the significance of the patient work of thoughtful translators cannot be stressed enough. The involvement of different translators can add a dimension of variation
to the discussions. However, I believe the variation in the work of different translators is less consequential than the work of the same translator in the different places. Each translator was an outsider to the town. However, Abdulla worked already with Paje and Nungwi through his work with a non-governmental organization. Mwalimu—an officer 23
In each town, we spoke, initially, with the sheha (local government leader) and members of the shehia (local government) to receive permission to pursue my studies within each town. Once permission was granted, they assisted us in gaining a general sense of each town and the challenges each faces (from the perspective of the local governmental structure). We continued with the assistance of the sheha to arrange meetings with leaders of community based organizations (CBOs) to acquire an understanding of their work, how they conceptualized development issues and problems, and how they perceived their role and the government's role within each community. We interviewed six representatives of CBOs in each town." Finally, we spoke randomly with individuals to gain a sense of the same issues, in addition to, resource use and property issues, identity affiliations and understandings, and finally interpretations of politics that span across the various differences within each town—such as, gender, age, occupation,
class, family, and territoriality. Thirty open-ended interviews were conducted within each town and broken evenly into groups according to sex and CBO membership. However, in
some towns it was difficult to randomly find an equal number of CBO members and non-
members with whom to speak. It was not my intention to split the town population along
these constructed divides as it does not provide true representations of the population in
terms of CBO membership in the town or the proportion of men to women. However, the
with the Sub-Commission of Natural Resources in Pemba—had not worked in Msuka, but he was Pemban which was more important than maintaining a consistency with a translator.
33. In Msuka, we only spoke with representative of four CBOs, because there were not six fimctional CBOs within the town. 24
suggest something difficulties of locating CBO members in Msuka, for example, does
the about the role of CBOs in that town which deserves critical attention. Subsequent to completion of individual interviews, we held two group discussions within each town—one with women and one with men.^** The group discussions were held to compare the information received by individuals of the community to the information received by the collectivity, in an effort to understand if community pressures altered the giving of information. The discussion of politics could be sensitive in Zanzibar,
accused of particularly in smaller towns. Thus, I asked only one question which could be
people might want to being directly political. I remained open to any political discussions pursue.
During my remaining time in Zanzibar, I spoke with government officials in various agencies and at various levels, and a number of non-governmental organizations. I devoted some time to sifting through documents at the Zanzibar National Archives, the
Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Natural Resources, the Sub-commissions of
Forestry in Unguja and in Pemba, the Commission of Land and Environment, the
Department of Statistics, the Library of the Institute of Marine Sciences, the NGO
Resource Centre (Zanzibar) and the Africana Studies Section of the University of Dar es
Salaam Library. Newspapers also provided a wealth of information and perspective on the
political tensions in Zanzibar. Finally, I was involved in numerous informal discussions
34. Dividing group discussions along the axis of sex had the dual purpose of respecting local customs and creating the opportunity to listen to the perspectives of men and women. In the presence of men, women often speak less, if at all. I wanted to be able to speak with women without the present of gender inhibitions. 25 with people from a multiplicity of positions within Zanzibar Town and Dar es Salaam.
Such conversation indeed educated me about social, political, and economic life in
Zanzibar and perspectives on Zanzibar.
First, the third person I must make two notes about the research in Zanzibar. singular in Swahili does not distinguish between he, she, and it. It would be uplifting to think that such an absence of gender in language translates into less discrimination or acts
of domination based on sex. However, I am skeptical. As degenderization in language
can be interpreted as actually a masculinization, I understand such degenderization in accounts of Zanzibar's past and present to suggest the same. We have used s/he, he, or
statistics she where we have interpreted it as appropriate from context. Second, the use of to make assertions or as material to analyze is barely existent in this study. Two problems
in the use of statistics in Zanzibar arise, however, that are worth noting. First, statistical
information and abstracts are often produced in ways that make statistical comparisons
difficult, if not impossible. Secondly, in the consideration of other forms of information,
statistical accounts can seem suspicious.
Narcissus and Echo
In Zanzibar there is a long tradition of poetry and speaking in metaphor. Politics
and sexuality are most often the subjects. At present, the government censors as blatantly
as through the banning of newspapers and the destruction of homes. Thus, poetry offers a
beautiftil release of frustration and expression. In Swahili newspapers, poets offer their metaphoric commentaries to readers, ending them with a challenge to respond by 26
attempt to continuing the poem. Like politics, rarely does a poem really end. My combine a re-interpretation of Narcissus and Echo with an interpretation of (sub)national
the political in politics is a modest amateur's acceptance of the challenge to contemplate the tradition of Zanzibar. While the myth of Echo and Narcissus is a cultural product of the ancient Western tradition, the tragic form is not foreign within the Swahili culture.^^
The framing of the above issues will begin with the introduction of nationalism.
The popular interpretation of nationalism as that unrelenting political disease will be introduced with the words of Freud who made the connection between nationalism and narcissism. Nationalism re-surfaced as an heightened political concern on the international agenda, subsequent to the crumbling of communist and socialist experiments.
Consequently, a resurgence of national claims in sub-national places has occurred with a new found success, as self-determination has received the status of a legitimized human right by the international community. Thus, this study begins with the acknowledgement of the anxious global concern with nationalism, despite the global legitimation of the nation's right to sovereignty. Freud's use of narcissism to comment on the nation, struck
me as an interesting next turn, because I found it curious that Freud forgot to mention
Echo.^*
35. Sayid Abdullah—an eighteenth century Swahili poet—^provided social commentary on the injustices and demise of the Swahili city-states in his poem Al-Inkishafi (The Soul's
Awakening). Abdullah highlighted hubris as the tragic flaw which brought about the fall of the wealthy ruling class along the Swahili coast.
36. Freud introduces the nation-narcissism complex and in this study signifies Western intellectual neglect of multiple epistemic positions, intentional or unintentional. 27
In the Western philosophical tradition it is common to neglect the contributions made in postcolonial contexts in the defining and reappropriation of the national and the
nation-state. It is also common to think of nation-building as a gender neutral process. I thought Echo signified the neglected strategies of redefinition. Finally, I stumbled upon two texts that commented on Echo and Narcissus in provocative ways which could assist a redeployment of the myth. Salvador Dali's surrealist commentary on Narcissus and nationalism in his poem titled "Metamorphosis of Narcissus" provided the possibility to read Echo against an Euro-centric masculinized interpretation of the myth that attempts to
give the impression of overcoming these positions." Thus, it will be noted that Dali, like
Freud, forgot Echo. Spivak has not only engaged Western intellectual traditions, but
theorizes the feminine and the postcolonial. She not only remembered Echo, her reading
of Echo inspires the allegorical interpretation of the myth in this study. Spivak's essay
"Echo," needless to say, helped me immensely to think of Echo as a fi-ame for my study.
The myth of Echo and Narcissus will be told in this section so that it may serve
37. Dali serves as a referent to the surrealist movement which held a fascination with those places previously neglected by Western movements, in terms of their intellectual and
artistic contributions. In the 1930s, surrealist movements sought to undo the limits of modem sensibilities, and seemed to desire to blend, blur, and erase the colonizer and colonized divide. The surrealists embarked on field trips to Northern and West Africa to gain inspiration to push the margins. See Brent Hayes Edwards, "The Ethnics of
Surrealism," Transition . Issue 78, no. 2(1999): 82-104. However, Western surrealist
interest was an interest defined still in terms of an Other. Jules Monnerot (a Martinican surrealist) asserted that surrealists and modem ethnography alike roamed the outer most bounds through fascination with others in colonies, looking to the Other to understand myth, the sacred, and irrationality (ibid., 84). Edward states that in the surrealist movement "Black modemity resisted and dissolved its arranged marriage to the primitive" (ibid., 89). For surrealism (and for modem ethnography) Black modemity was a crisis.
The primitive was needed to define the modem, and surrealism was involved in its creation. 28
of Zanzibar— context allegorically to comment on struggles in the sub-national context a that remains on the verge of contemplating the national.
Less than a century ago, Sigmund Freud characterized nationalistic conflict as "the
of narcissism of minor differences." In this phrase, Freud reflected and repelled the age
Empire and the Nation-state—projects that entailed creating a legitimate link between
identity, territory, and control. Today, in some ways, it seems as if little has changed.
Across the globe, sub-national sentiments boil into conflicts in which people are prepared
to spill blood in the name of self-determination. Today, journalists, academics, and
politicians alike often view ethnicity as the particular plague spreading death, chaos and
destruction uncontrollably. However, flip the coin of ethnicity and nationalism over and it
has a picture of an antidote for past imperialistic and oppressive ills.
For Freud, narcissism and aggressiveness are inextricably linked. His introduction
of the concept of narcissism located libido originally within the ego. Within society,
individuals can make identifications as members within a community, provided they are
governed by relations of friendship and restrictions are placed on the libido. According to
Freud, society has evolved in this way because men are not gentle but aggressive beings.
Thus, others are understood as means through which to satisfy their aggressiveness, for
example, in forms as exploitation for work without compensation or for sex without
consent, to expropriate possessions, to humiliate and to kill.^* According to Freud,
38. Sigmund Freud, Civilizations and Its Discontents (New York: Norton, 1961), 60. Freud has commented on private property within the analytical context of narcissism. He explains that the institution of private property does not corrupt the individual, thus the abolition of private property does not eradicate aggression from the human condition. In contrast, by abolishing private property the human aggression is denied an instrument 29
hostility towards cultural groups channel the instinct of aggression through permitting
number of people in love intruders or outsiders. It is possible to bind together a significant
the manifestations of (to create stability), provided there remains other people to bear
are aggression.^' Freud elaborates that communities with adjoining territories and/or
mockery. related in other ways are particularly suited to engage in constant conflict and
Freud concludes that the narcissism of minor differences is "a convenient and relatively harmless satisfaction of the inclination of aggressions, by means of which cohesion between members of the community is made easier.'"*"
However, precisely because the rhetoric of cultural identities can invoke fear,
hatred, tolerance, and appreciation, the "narcissism of minor differences" is too narrow-
minded to guide a curiosity about the multidimensionality of identity. Because identities
can produce strategies of domination and resistance which alter the direction life takes, the
narcissism of minor differences is too dismissive and impertinent to consider the
seriousness of the implications of identity struggles. I suggest including a consideration of
the implied opposite of narcissism—modesty—which Freud conveniently attempted to
forget. Within the political realm, modesty is often perceived as submissiveness.
Modesty depicts the qualities of being aware of one's limitations, of avoiding
pretension or display, of being restrained and reasonable. It also can mean a state of
through which to act out this instinct. The abolition of private property does not alter the differences in power and influence that are abused by aggression. In denied this channel, the aggressive instinct will pursue other outlets (see pp. 70-71).
39. Ibid., 72.
40. Ibid. 30 being limited, but not negligible. Modesty found its way into ancient Greek writings through the concern for hubris—always a problematic trait. Submissiveness signifies the
following inclinations: to allow oneself to be subjected to some kind of influence, to defer
to another's opinion or decision, or to be unresistantly or humbly obedient. However,
there is also a transitive side of submissiveness in which inclinations include: to yield to the power of another (used reflexively), to state with deference, to suggest. Modesty signifies the acknowledgment of limitations, but this does not preclude the possibility of resistance
or struggle. Submissiveness not only allows for the possibility of imperfect obedience, but
implies the presence of struggle. Thus, it does not fit neatly into the position of the
opposite of narcissisms. Perhaps, if Freud had not allowed Narcissus to consume his
attention, he would have seen the significance of Echo, as Spivak has meticulously
graphed.'" Echo could embody this modesty (perceived as submissiveness) of which I
speak.
The Myth of Echo and Narcissus
Narcissus was the product of a rape.''^ A nymph by the name of Liriope was violently taken in the waves of Cephisos. When Liriope consulted an augur on the future of her beautiful son, she was told, for Narcissus to live to an old age, he must not get to
41. See Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "Echo" in Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, eds.. The Spivak Reader (New York: Routledge, 1996).
42. The following account of Narcissus and Echo is taken from Ovid, Metamorphoses
I-IV, trans, by D. E. Hill (London: Aris and Phillips Bolchazy-Carducci, 1985), III, 107- 115. 31
Cephisian—but none affected know himself. Many men and girls desired Narcissus—the
neither learnt to keep silent for a him due to his pride. A talkative nymph—who had
She was the sound- speaker, nor to speak for herself—noticed Narcissus in the forest.
she first saw repeating Echo. Echo was still a body and not merely a voice, when
Juno had Narcissus. However, she could only repeat the very last words out of many.
punished the nymph because in her attempt to catch Jupiter frolicking with the many
nymphs, Echo would intentionally engage her in endless conversation until the nymphs
followed him, could escape. Echo fell in love upon seeing Narcissus in the forest. As she
she often wanted to approach him with luring words and admiration, but her condition
that she could prevented it. Thus, she prepared herself and waited for words from him
send back as her words. When Narcissus asked, "Is there anybody here?" Echo replied,
"Here." Surprised he shouted, "Come" and she called him. He asked, "Why do you flee
from me?" and received the words as he had spoken. He persisted, deceived by the
answering voice. Narcissus beckoned, "Here, let us come together." Echo replied, "let us
come together." She helped her words by approaching and embracing him. Narcissus
fled, demanding, "Hands off, do not embrace me." He continued, "I would die before I
would offer myself to you." Echo only returned the words, "I would offer myself to you."
Shamed, Echo hid in the forest and lived in lonely caves. Yet her love endured and grew
with the pain of rejection. Her cares prevented sleep and consumed her body until only
her bones and voice remained. Her bones assumed the appearance of stone. Only her
voice remained—a living voice, never seen but always heard. 32
until one man he had Narcissus had toyed with Echo like other nymphs and men,
so may he not gain what he disdained raised his hands and shouted, "So may he too love,
rested by a spring to which he has loved." One day when Narcissus tired of hunting, he
his thirst, he gazed upon his reflection. was lured by its beauty. As he attempted to relieve
body. He was deceived by the Another thirst grew within him. He loved a hope without a
Ovid interrupts the story reflection of the water. Narcissus was overwhelmed by himself.
vainly clasp at fleeting images?" at this point to ask Narcissus, "Naive one, why do you
its image. . it has nothing of He continues, "what you are looking at is. . . a reflected .
has loved own." Frustrated Narcissus laments, "Alas, oh woods, is there anyone who
I see, but what I see and what delights me I more painfully?. . . I am delighted by what
offer me with . . There is some sort of hope you cannot find. . . Why do you deceive me?.
your beautiful your friendly look [A]s far as I can guess from the movements of mouth, you answer me with words that do not reach my ears." Narcissus wasted away, pining for the love he could not have and content to die if he could not have what he desired. Echo resounded to all that grieved as they prepared a pyre. However, the body
of Narcissus could not be found, instead a flower—pretty but soulless—grew in its place.
An Interpretative Comment on Narcissus and Echo
Each character has implications in terms of the issues of identity and materiality.
However, my use and interpretation of the myth are not offered as an explanation of
national or ethnic conflict; rather they form a place from which to begin a questioning of
current perceptions and uses of these identities in relation to their material conditions. 33
leads him to feel this is the crudest Narcissus- extreme self-love which cannot be realized
not have what he desires. Narcissism of existences. He decides he would rather die than
self-love and that is self-destructive. Narcissus' is commonly understood as an arrogance
nation. On the one hand, Narcissus self-destruction capture the dualism in the idea of the
and self-legitimated encapsulates the belief that the nation and ethnos are meaningful
This has been the communities which should be understood as legitimate sovereignties.
Nationalism gained new life during case since the rise of European nation-state building.
the other hand, Narcissus reflects a the independence movements in former colonies. On
and loss of everything, belief that ethnic and national tendencies lead to self-destruction
on the matter of without any enduring resolution. The contemporary imperialistic position
while castigating national nationalism is to uphold the legitimacy of self-determination,
exclusions, conflict, and contestation that from the imperial view generates discrimination,
(without being intentionally dismissive) that violence. I, however, would like to highlight
while also being limited affinities to particular identities can have constructive implications,
is not completely or even destructive. Echo offers the possibility of a re-interpretation that
self-destructive.
Implicit even in Freud's notion of Narcissus is something outside of Narcissus.
Narcissus knows himself as distinct from others. Even in Freud's notion of "narcissism of
uses minor differences" there is something outside of the community which the community
as a reference point for itself The insolence of Freud's position occurs at the moment that
any point of reference (other than the self) is assumed to the point of neglect and
conveniently forgotten. From this point of view, the other outside of the self is a
34
because it is self-knowledge that understood and need not be acknowledged nor discussed
as a consequence of the limits of self- is celebrated. The tragedy of self-destruction
and differences which knowledge receives priority and notoriety over the interactions
This focus, present in Freud, renders Echo created any possibility of a "self-knowledge."
insignificant, even meaningless.
type of forgetting. It must Reinterpreting Narcissus with Echo works against this
encounters with men and nymphs whose be remembered that Narcissus not only had many
by Echo. Echo confused and feelings of adoration he spumed, he was encountered
Only when Echo embraced seduced him with her repeating words, if only momentarily.
remembering of himself, Narcissus Narcissus did he remember himself In the perpetual
affected by Narcissus, Echo remained lost himself in the love of his own reflection. While
assumed the form of a flower— as he wasted away in unfulfilled self-pining. Narcissus
a sound that carries intent material monument to the self. Echo, however, remains as
illusion of being which remains outside the words she receives, while she surfaces as the
signifies the desire to offer or partially of a self—a part that seems to have escaped. Echo
ideas, and wishes even present oneself, but to be different, while regarding other opinions,
her acknowledged constraints. to the point of allowing them more importance because of
perfectly in the way This gesture with intent is not to "echo" resistance or compliance
Narcissus, but demanded or assumed. As Spivak contends, Echo is not the other of
difference—not outside the space of narcissistic otherness. Echo offers the possibility of
lets go of materiality. self, nor other. To compliment her possibility of difference, Echo
to Whereas, Narcissus loses himself over his materiality and becomes a material monument 35
intent only in her echoing. Echo signifies an loss; Echo had materiality, but she endures
cannot have fixed materiality that which, because of past dominating and spuming acts,
It ebbs and flows with her intent to gives identity. However, she is not lacking in identity. repeat what comes her way and what she hears.
body can be appropriated to The transformed Narcissus flower and Echo without
in more concrete forms. Self-rule consider the connection between materiality and identity
to self- nation-state, not only in terms of the power is at issue in the construction of the
people use (in production) and give define for people, but in terms of the materials
split and then discriminately joined in meaning or purpose. Material and identity are
territory belong to those of the support of the nation-state. The materials of the national
and identity creates a materiality. national identity. The splitting and linking of material
Materiality constitutes an This materiality locates identities within a material reality.
This link establishes rights to the identity inextricably tied to those material conditions.
acknowledges life is not materials that compose national terrain. Like Narcissus who
material being, the nation worth living without self-ftilfiUment through his own
through its own (or owned) material understands its existence to depend on its fulfillment
between materiality context. Out of the material/identity complex surfaces a dichotomy
all other identities subordinate. and identity in which materiality is to be privileged and
split in a persistent and However, post-coloniality has challenged this materiality/identity
contested to resounding way. The very creation of this materiality as a nationality remains
strategies meant to the point of disrupting and reappropriating the very structures and
have generated establish the nation as stable and secure. Like Echo, postcolonial contexts 36
submit to acts of domination, but intentional identities that are constrained and
of the nation nor the nation-state. People nevertheless do not perfectly echo the demands
overlapping, and even seemingly take up a multiplicity of identities (in exclusive,
they want to understand such issues as contradicting ways) in the struggle to pursue how
(material conditions). Like Narcissus, they use and access to land and natural resources
that is may not. But it is the act of echoing may pine for a materiality, and like Echo, they
determine the national. most frustrating to hegemonic attempts to
from Dali's poem and Spivak's critical In subsequent chapters of analysis, passages
with specific discussions of struggles in the essay will be placed into the text to interact
the different aspects of narcissism as (sub)national context. Dali's poem can be used for
Remembering Echo would change the the masculine, the community, and the (sub)nation.
Spivak's reading of Ovid's tale of way to read Dali and (sub)national politics. In
between self-knowledge and Narcissus, she details how the tale is one of "the aporia
of Narcissus. Spivak profoundly knowledge for others" as she engages other treatments
has a history and in doing so she reveals that in Ovid's Metamorphoses, Liriopes' womb
vacant space from which the denies Freud his articulation of the woman's womb as a mere
womb through rape by Cephisus. child leaves. Narcissus is violently seminated in Liriopes'
sexual violence that does not offend the As Spivak asserts, it is "demidivine violence as
details of a masculine/feminine political economy of the gods." Spivak also draws out the
Tiresais (the oracle) with asymmetry in Ovid's tale. In another tale, while Juno punished
not compensate blindness, Jupiter compensates with mysticism. However, Jupiter does
speech. Using this Echo for her loyalty in the forest, once Juno takes away her own 37 asymmetry between the two myths, Spivak considers theoretical elaborations of narcissism
self-knowledge and the mysterious absence of Echo. Spivak's issues of asymmetry and will surface in the chapters of this study.
It should be noted that Echo is not meant to perfectly represent the feminine, and
Narcissus the masculine. While Echo may be feminme in Ovid's myth, she is consulted here as a theoretical place outside of masculine narcissism to reinterpret sub-national
politics. I felt the use of Echo could perform in two ways. First, Echo could offer a way to create a theoretical (or abstract) subaltern position from which to re-think struggle and consider struggle. Second, in the process of thinking about struggle through Echo, a way to re-interpret the position from which the social is analyzed and from which abstractions are created arises. Subaltern spaces are not only there to be analyzed. They can teach,
inform, and theorize. Finally, I felt that Echo was a useful metaphorical tool because I am
not writing from a subaltern position. I am trying to learn from subaltern spaces. Like
Echo, by listening I can echo what I hear, but it will always be imperfect as it still has my
intentions behind it.'*^ Echo allows this acknowledgment to be part of the process of writing.
An Overview of the Chapters
This study highlights the significance of the role of identities in the dynamic
struggle between local, sub-state, and extra-state initiatives to manage and distribute
43. For a nuanced discussion of the possibilities of subaltern positions see Gayatri Spivak, "Can the Subaltern Speak?" in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. by Gary Nelson and L. Grossberg (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988). 38
this tragic form will structure the chapters of resources. Concepts from the Ancient Greek
political analysis in a more literary way. I study to honor my commitment to present a
commentary, and is not out of place in think the tragedy is well suited for political
action that is serious and complete, in Zanzibari culture. The tragedy is the imitation of an
arousing pity and terror."" The protagonist which a catharsis is achieved through incidents
error made by the protagonist, or due to a is often led into a fatal calamity through an
(excessive pride leading to nemesis)."' tragic flaw which often takes the form of hubris
qualities in the protagonist, The tragic effect depends on our awareness of admirable
will be more reflexive due which are wasted in the fated disaster. However, this tragedy
like Echo, certainly does not to the remembering of Echo. The sub-nation of Zanzibar,
self-destruct, as there is no clear protagonist.
Hegemony," The following chapter thled, "Chorus of Property, Citizenship, and
in terms of more specifically conceptualizes material conditions and identity struggle
The chapter will property, citizen, and hegemony for the context of the national project.
conceptual trace these theoretical concepts to reveal their intimate relations and the
following a troubles that arise. For each concept, I will offer a focused genealogy by
that particular logical development in usage of the word. The criticisms and problems
Narcissus surface in the process will weave the three concepts together. Finally, Echo and
will be linked to the notions of property and citizen.
44. Such type of plays are commonly performed on television to address serious social issues in Zanzibar and Tanzania.
in action 45. In the case of the tragedy as interpreted by Aristotle in Poetics , an error made by the protagonist could be brought about by misjudgement or ignorance. 39
in Zanzibar," will provide a nuanced Chapter Three titled, "Epic: Bracing History
interpretations of Zanzibar as part of the history of Zanzibar that considers the multiple
colony, and as a nation turned sub- city-states of the Swahili Coast, as a sultanate and
interpretations will circulate around nation in the post-colonial context. The contending
how gender and rural coral rag identities the issues of race and land, while it is highlighted
history of Zanzibar. are forgotten in the arguments to determine the
over Natural Resources," In the chapter entitled, "Popular Protasis, The Struggle
studies are introduced. A the four coral rag towns which constitute the four case
as they are relevant to the discussion on the issues of land, sea, and their natural resources
consideration of tourism, agriculture, four rural town opens this chapter. It includes the
use and creating contestation and fishing in Zanzibar as the economic activities putting to
of each of the four over the resources. Finally, I provide a descriptive account
towns—^Fumba, Paje, Nungwi, and Msuka.
The two chapters proceeding the discussion of the four coral tovras will depict
are how the abstract ideas of property, citizenship, and hegemony pertain to and
experiences appropriated by life in Zanzibar. The accounts of the four communities'
portray intricate multiplicities of perceptions, intentions, and desires constructed by
various members of the community, other groups defined as external to the community,
local government officials, NGOs, and the state through interviews, stories, newspaper
commentaries, and government and NGO documents. Chapter Five titled, "Eponymous
Epitasis, Defining the Territoriality of Nationality," deals with the struggles over land and
natural resources, as struggles within the community and between communities, to 40
romanticized. It illustrate that the community in not homogeneous nor should it be
citizen features issues of territorial identity and gender as it illustrates how the notions of
and property are contested and manipulated within the community as attempts are made at
the subaltern level to include and exclude. Finally, it also intimates the difficulties of
considering community issues as internal affairs without considering the influence of
factors and agents who are consider outside of the community. It illustrates that subaltern
positions use national (or governmental) and their own notions of citizen and property
with varying results which can be thought of as echoing and narcissistic strategies. Thus,
national development is not a simple matter of state versus society (as is often argued in
African studies), but an issue of people attempting to coexist and negotiate with both a
national agenda or project and differing local interpretations.
Chapter Six entitled, "Climax by Interpolation: Whose Nation under Elaboration?"
features the position of the substate and extrastate agents in subaltern struggles. While
most often studies articulate state projects either as failures because they fail to
incorporate their society or as failures because they subordinate and repress their society,
this chapter will consider the complexities of attempted nation-building where indeed state
projects come into struggle with local groups. However, the struggle is at times to co-
exist and not to destroy, capture, or undermine. The chapter considers the political
tension generated by the 1 995 multiparty elections between CUF and CCM and how political party conflict seeps into local communities in their struggles over land and
resources. It continues with a examination of how sub-national struggles ensue between
the sub-state and citizens (in rural towns). The chapter is also intended to reveal the 41
complexity and confusion surrounding the sub-national context. Thus, the chapter
considers how donor countries, extra-state institutions, NGOs, CBOs, and the global
economy also feature in the struggle to define the sub-nation. I contend that because
many actors are involved (local citizens, substate institutions, NGOs, international
financial institutions, and donor countries), attempts to negotiate what one intends are
complex and involves multiple combinations of echoing and narcissistic struggles. Like
the subaltern citizen, the subaltem state can echo the demands of the international
community but it does not do so without its own intentions. This chapter suggests that
when narcissistic positions are taken, the struggles appear more fiaistrated than where
echoing positions are taken. This is not to suggest that echoing is not firistrating, but
rather by not completely (or perfectly) fitting into the terms of struggle, one can express
intent and continue to endure—be it at the level of the local citizen or the sub-national
state.
The concluding chapter opens with an account of the sudden incomplete resolution
of the political tension between the two political parties, how citizens view the resolution,
and what it means for (sub)national struggle in Zanzibar. It concludes with some remarks
on the contribution made by fi-aming the analysis of struggles to interact with an allegorical myth to the study of politics and development. CHAPTER 2 CHORUS OF PROPERTY, CITIZENSHIP, AND HEGEMONY
Ethno-nationalism
The questions how or why, and under what conditions people act collectively to
make claims to, manage, and distribute various resources provoke conflicting theoretical explanations. Ethnicity and nationalism have received considerable attention as cultural identities that are implicated in these claims. Though these categories remain distinct, oftentimes they are used in the same breath. The interchange of terms such as tribe, ethnic group, nationality, community, and race creates confusion especially within Africa. There
is a politics involved in the use of such terms that carries across the colonial/postcolonial
divide.' I will only briefly mention a few of the contemporary discourses engaged in the larger project of making sense of African politics and development through ethnicity and nationalism. Questioning the concepts of ethnicity, nationalism, and ethnonationalism
1 . See V. I. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), for a discussion of how Africa has been constructed through colonial discourses of missionaries, science (e.g. anthropology), and administrations. Scholarship that deals with the use of these various concepts as political instruments during colonial periods include, for example: D. M. P. McCarthy, Colonial Bureaucracy and Creating Underdevelopment: Tanganyika. 1919- 1940 (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1982); Sally Falk Moore. Social Facts and Fabrications: "Customary" Law on Kilimanjaro. 1880-1980 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); Leroy Vail, ed.. The Creation of Tribalism in Southern African (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989); Mamood Mamdani; Citizen and Subject (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).
42 43 provides a place from which to begin considering the complexities of identity and resource claims (including distribution and management). This questioning will lead to a discussion
of the theoretical concepts of citizen, property, and hegemony that will highlight how these three concepts can be thought of as contested arenas, rather than as strictly defined
in terms of the nation, the state, and ethnicity.
These old narratives may have a spell-binding quality over the Western academy, especially in the study of Africa.^ The problem of conceptualizing postcolonial politics in terms of ethnicity (as primordial, instrumental, or constructed) has received little critical reflection in eurocentrically defined circles which often assume ethnicity as an uncontestable reality plaguing places with ethnic understandings of life. Berman succinctly
articulates the still predominant understanding of ethnicity in the study of Afiica as an identity continuously reinvented (though always rooted in the past) and deployed to define, control, and struggle over political and economic resources. According to
Berman, both colonial intrusions and African responses (in the form of moral ethnicity and political tribalism) have generated an unique link between bureaucratic authoritarianism, patronage, and ethnic competition which endures across the colonial and postcolonial landscapes, shaping state-society relations and a 'politics of the belly.' The complex
dynamics produce an "uncivil nationalism" that undermines the legitimacy of the state, obstructs the possibility of broader national identities, and determines the prospects for
2. Richard Werbner, "Multiple Identities, Plural Arenas," in Postcolonial Identities in
Africa , ed. by Richard Werbner and Terence Ranger (London: Zed Books, 1996), 1-25. democratization.^ However, ethnic identities present a fraction of the various identities
mobilized in postcolonial poHtics of everyday life; an acknowledgement which prompts a
major challenge to contemporary political/social analysis." As Achille Mbembe asserts,
the postcolony is made up not of one single 'public space' but of several,
each having its ovm separate logic yet nonetheless liable to be entangled with other logics when operating in certain specific contexts: hence the post-colonial 'subject' has had to learn to bargain in this conceptual market
place [S]ubjects in the postcolony have also had. . . to manage not just a single identity for themselves but several, which are flexible enough for them to negotiate as and when required.*
Mbembe offers a way of considering localized struggles within the realm of the
postcolonial-state in which multiple social identities are not understood as undermining
state legitimacy nor as an obstruction to "modernization" in its multiple spheres. Rather, they constitute part of the political process.
There is a spate of literature which focuses more specifically on the relationship between the multiple constructions of social identities and the attempts to control the objectives of "development." Theorists writings in this vein highlight the significance of multiple meanings and uses of identities as a form of power to influence the character of development agencies and practices.* While this literature innovatively reevaluates
3. Bruce Herman, "Ethnicity, Patronage and the African State: The Politics of Uncivil Nationalism," African Affairs 97(1998): 309.
4. See "Multiple Identities, Plural Arenas."
5. Achille Mbembe, "Provisional Notes on the Postcolony," Africa 62, no. 1(1992): 4-5.
6. For example see Arturo Escobar, "Power and Visibility: Development and the
Invention and Management of the Third World," Cultural Anthropology 3, no. 4(1988): 45
development policies, strategies, and theories as a discourse that produces certain
occurring at knowledge about the Third World, it is not concerned with how the activities
the localized level contribute to constructing the development process. Recent interests in
new social movements and identity politics suggest that ethnicity can facilitate
development and create a viable civil society. In this vein, ethnic identities can unite
people by providing a basis for pursuing strategies to achieve objectives, desires, and
concerns in a public arena of healthy contestation over resources.' Some scholars have
also begun to illustrate how local level groups reappropriate imposed development
programs and representations in this struggle.* Within this general focus on the
428-443; Gustavo Esteva, "Regenerating People's Space." Alternatives 12, no.l(1985): 377-400; James Ferguson, The Anti-politics Machine: Development, Depoliticization. and Bureaucratic Power in the Third World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Tim Mitchell, "America's Egypt: Discourse of the Development Industry," Middle East Report 169(1991): 18-34; Wolfgang Sachs, ed.. The Develoment Dictionary (London:
Zed Books Ltd., 1992); Michael Watts, "Development I: Power, Knowledge, Discursive
Practice," Progress in Human Geoeraphv 17, no.2(1993): 254-277.
7. Thomas Hylland Eriksen, "Nationalism, Mauritian Style: Cultural Unity and Ethnic Diversity," Comparative Study of Society and Historv 34, no.3(July 1994): 549-574; Arturo Escobar and Sonia Alvarez, eds.. The Making of Social Movements in Latin America: Identity. Strategy, and Democracy (Boulder: Westview, 1992); Gail Omvedt, "Peasants, Dalits, and Women: Democracy and India's New Social Movement," Journal of Contemporary Asia 24, no. 1(1 994): 35-48; Mamood Mamdani and Wamba-dia-Wamba, eds., African Studies in Social Movement and Democracy (Dakar: CODESRIA Books, 1995); Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, In the Realm of the Diamond Queen (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).
8. Louie Fortmarm, "Talking Claims: Discursive Strategies in Contesting Property," World Development 23, no.6(June 1995): 1053-1 06; Pramod Parajuli, "Power and Knowledge in Development Discourse: New Social Movements and the State in India," International Social Science Journal 127(1988): 173-190; Stacey Leigh Pigg, "Inventing Social Categories Through Place: Social Representations and Development in Nepal," Comparative Study of Society and History 34, no. 3(July 1992): 491-513; Tsing. In the
Realm of the Diamond Queen . 46
importance of identity and power, the ways in which people define and deploy multiple
identities in varying struggles (e.g. over land, natural resources, nation, political
participation) illustrate in this work how considering the place from which struggles arise
matters to understanding collective struggle within a society. The following section will
provide a historical background on theories of nation and ethnicity in which to locate this
contemporary concern for the re-emergence of more localized and multiple strategies of
definition and contestation.
The National and the Ethnic
Partha Chatterjee has remarked, "Nationalism is now viewed as a dark, elemental,
unpredictable force of primordial nature threatening the orderly calm of civilized life."'
However, nationalism has not always had such a bad reputation. In the late 18th and 19th centuries, nationalism roamed aggressively across Europe. Various attempts were made to link a particular piece of land, a government, and a group of people, to create unity under the idea of nation—hence construct the nation-state. Again in the twentieth century nationalism offered means to redefine land, people, and governments in Asia, Africa, and
Eastern Europe. Nationalism surfaced not only as a political act but as an object of academic inquiry. Nationalism, painted positively until the rise of fascism in Europe, once again became invoked in the colonized world after 1945. Finally, today the surge of
9. Partha Chatterjee. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 4. 47
nationalistic sentiments is (re)marked with ambivalence in wake of the disintegration of the
Communist Bloc.
It is the more contemporary intellectual treatment of nation and nationalism that is
of concern here. While initially scholarship on nationalism and ethnicity characterized
them as primordial, essentialistic affiliations, contemporary interpretations of the national
and the ethnic fracture into materialist, instrumentalist, figurative/constructionist
understandings.'" The national has taken on an arbitrary and fabricated quality in the past
three decades; that is, scholarship now acknowledges "creative political action is required
to transform a segmented and disunited population into a coherent nationality, and though
potential communities of the kind may clearly precede such interventions. . . the
interventions remain responsible for combining the materials into a larger collectivity.""
Nationalism, as the attempt to create and manipulate a perception of the past,
intends to make and legitimate a claim to cultural autonomy and political independence.
The nation sprouts in the realm of politics and culture providing the terrain in which it
takes on color. Eley and Suny suggest that the most significant contribution of the
recent literature on nationalism is the idea that nations need to be constituted discursively.
This contemporary discourse has received much attention partially because the claim of
nationality replaces a prior discourse of legitimation, becoming the dominant political
10. See "Introduction: From the Moment of Social History," 1-5, for a discussion of the parallel political and academic understandings of primordial nationalism.
11. Ibid., 7.
12. Ibid., 8. 48
discourse through which claims of self-determination and statehood are made.'^ In the
literature tracing the idea of nation and nationalism, the nation becomes understood as a
Nationalism product of modernity, while it names a preexisting cultural community.
becomes the discourse of political claims based on cultural fixities.''' The articulation of
this discourse entails an imaginative process. Yet at some point nations emerge detached
from the political practices that created them and begin to represent these prior discursive
formations." The modem idea of the nation proposed unity and harmony by emphasizing
the differences between nations and erasing the differences within.'* Modem liberal theory
contended that nationalism constitutes a universalist ideology stressing equality and human
rights within the nation-state. However, nationalism can be understood as a particularism
denying the "culturally deviant" full rights and membership.'^ The national discourse
became the legitimizing discourse. Nations re-covered a past to blend differences into a
unity while masking the exploitation, domination, and exclusion that occurred in the
13. Ibid., 11.
14. Ibid., 13.
15. Ibid., 18.
16. Ibid., 19.
17. Thomas Eriksen, "Ethnicity versus Nationalism," Joumal of Peace Research 28, no.3(1991): 265. 49
process.'* The emphasis on the importance of meaning has moved the Uterature away
from the more materiaUst/instrumentalist understandings of the national it all its forms."
In the literature there appears to be no uncertainty that the distinction marking
ethnicity from nationality is political organization. Ethnic identities are fragmented and
localized in contrast to the more coherent, unified, and politically conscious national
identities. The transition from ethnic to national is one from cultural to political. Nation
refers to a politicized ethnic community linked to a demarcated territory (and nationalism
refers to an attempt to move in this direction). Members of an ethnic community become
legal citizens in receiving the status of a nation and then the process of creating myths and
memories begins again to solidify a national identity.^" While ethnicity can serve as the
basis for creating a new nation or state, it is transformed into nationality to give it political legitimacy in the terms of international discourse (of sovereignty and the nation-state). In
contemporary discourse what distinguishes ethnicity from nationalism is its relationship to the state: unsuccessful (or unarticulated) nationalisms become ethnicities that reside under
a state with which the identity is not be directly associated.^'
In the first half of the twentieth century, ethnicity was rarely explored as social consciousness. While nationality evoked notions of progress, ethnicity symbolized
1 8. "Introduction: From the Moment of Social History," 24.
19. See for example, Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1991).
20. Anthony Smith, "The Origins of Nations." Becoming National . 199-120.
21. Eriksen, "Ethnicity versus Nationalism," 265. 50
began to backwardness.^^ A discourse on ethnicity emerged in the 1950s as hterature
the purely primordial directly address questions of ethnic identity.^^ As a challenge to understanding that rooted ethnic identities in traditional culture, scholarship began to suggest that ethnic consciousness arose with the onslaught of modernity. In Africa colonialism, in particular, was indicted as a culprit in creating ethnic affinities. Colonial
administrations sought to classify the different peoples they came across and placed under their rule, thus organizing populations into ethnic identities that could now be known and
regulated. This political/economic system of domination also brought people together in
urban areas that were otherwise strangers. In the competition for resources and
employment a sense of groups identification arose. Alternatively, as a consequence of
social instability brought about by colonialism and independence, people reverted to
ethnic identities to make sense of life and give them a place of belonging.^" It was the
influential work of Barth (1969) that changed the understanding of ethnicity to include the
consideration of how boundaries defined groups." Work on ethnicity began to analyze how groups manipulated cultural symbols to create ethnic identities.^*
22. Crawford Young, "Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Class in Africa: A Retrospective," Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines 23, no.3(1986): 442.
23. Ibid., 444.
24. Vail, "Introduction," The Creation of Tribalism .
25. The preceding brief description of the early trends in the literature on ethnicity was taken from "Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Class in Africa: A Retrospective," 442-446, and
"Introduction," The Creation of Tribalism . 1-30.
26. David Muga, "The Marxist Problematic as a Model Interdisciplinary Approach to Ethnic Studies," The Journal of Ethnic Studies 17, no.4(l 989/90): 54. 51
Interpretations of ethnicity parallel the fragmentation in the literature on
was an nationality. Initially, primordialism predominated, asserting that ethnicity
essentialistic identity, that is generated out of givens and emotions. Instrumentalist
understandings defined ethnicity as a mechanism for competition, making ethnicity
political, situational, and contingent. Thus ethnicity served to direct people in the pursuit
of their interests against other ethnic groups." Materialist interpretations of ethnicity
focused on how relations and modes of production generate material conditions that
create social divisions from which particular cultural identities emerge.^* The materialist
and instrumentalist approaches to ethnicity focus on the creation and recreation of identity
to address social, political, and material interests within particular historical moments."
The figurative understanding of ethnicity stresses that a seemingly natural or
unquestionable authenticity may permeate the sense of membership in a particular group.
However, ethnicity is not an essentialistic identity, rather it becomes constructed through
history as people interpret their relationship to the past. Scholars viewing ethnicity in this
27. "Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Class," 449.
28. "The Marxist Problematic," 449.
29. See Maurice Godelier, Perspectives in Marxist Anthropology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Claude Meillassoux, "The Social Organization of the
Pesantry: The Economics of Kinship," Journal of Peasant Studies . 1, no. 1(1 973); Muga, "The Marxist Problematic;" Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Nelson Kasfir, "Explaining Ethnic Political Participation" World Politics 43(1979): 365-388; Young, "Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Class." 52
way have attempted to locate the mechanisms that give authenticity to identities,
suggesting the role of memory, invention, imagination, and narrative.^"
Since the moment nationalism acquired the status of the legitimizing discourse and
the nation-state presented the only legitimate option for polity, ethnicity had been branded
a sensitive issue. Ethnicity, thus, was often only considered in the course of another
focus.^' Development constitutes such a cynosure. Ethnicity, now entangled in the web
of development studies, became a cause of underdevelopment and an effect of (uneven)
development. Uneven development ushered in by colonialism brought a host of
opportunities, but not for all, thus giving certain groups advantages and creating excluded
groups. Ethnic conflict emerged based on these differences. However, other sttadies
suggested that politics generated incentives for ethnic consciousness and the pursuit of the
cultural resources to support its entelechy. Ethnicity provided a basis on which to control,
manage, and distribute resources producing conflict as a consequence. In a similar vein,
ethnic groups were also portrayed as coalitions organized to acquire the scarce resources
produced by modernization.^^
Eriksen asserts that within a nation-state potential conflict between national and
other modes of organizations can always arise. Yet there are ethnicities whose intent is
30. Walker Connor, "Ethnonationalism," in Understanding Political Development . Myron Weiner and Samuel P. Huntington, eds. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1987); Hall, "Ethnicity: Identity and Difference;" and Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds.. The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
3 1 . Young, "Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Class," 454.
32. Ibid., 44-48. 53
countries where not statehood. Eriksen suggests that typical examples are African
alternative by organization along ethnic lines is perceived by the state as a threat and an
can be a groups in society. However, Eriksen argues that the multi-ethnic nation-state viable and stable political entity, and claims that within the modem state multicultural conflicts can be resolved. Creating a peaceful multicultural nation-state involves: 1. equal access to shared facilities (such as education, the labor market, etc.) 2. the right to be
different 3. state policies must take into account possible cultural differences 4. the state cannot identify with a set of symbols representing one group 5. power should be decentralized." However, the following conditions influence the possibility of resolving
cultural ethnic conflict: 1 . incorporation of groups within the state 2. the degree of
uniformity 3. whether the nation-state emerged out of feudalism or colonialism 4. the
specificity of political histories 5. the division of economic and political power.
Eriksen suggests that nationalism and ethnicity are ideologies emphasizing the cultural similarity of their adherents and differences with their adversaries. Yet he neglects the contestation that surrounds the demands of cultural similarity. In regards to cultural
differences, it is the quest for difference that always is ethnocentric. One only knows
oneself by marking off what is different, what is not, and in doing so defining an other
becomes an act to define the self, to exclude. As Hall explains, "The English are racist not because they hate the Blacks but because they don't know who they are without the
Blacks. They have to know who they are not in order to know who they are."^" This act
33. "Ethnicity versus Nationalism," 276.
34. Stuart Hall, "Ethnicity: Identity and Difference," Becoming National . 345. 54
levels that interact in and practice of defining and knowing has implications at multiple complex ways when considering the construction of and struggle between ethnic identities
neglects this act as they relate to resource use in the context of the nation-state. Eriksen
and practice of defining and how this plays out in the circulation of power.
While an ambivalence may exist in regards to nationalism, the nation and the
nation-state remain as the assumed forms of legitimate political organization in the global
context. Thus, nation creation is ultimately supported. In the effort to explain how the
process of nation-building can be both constructive and hegemonic scholars continue to
reconstruct the concept of nation. In contrast, a cynicism continues to inform the meaning
of ethnicity as efforts are made to accomodate it in the political context. In the study of
Africa, politics and society remain commonly understood in terms of ethnicity. Ethnic
groups are either depicted as interest driven cultural groups or as cultural identities that
should be preserved as they are found, even protected.
I want to suggest, ethnicity—when and if it is articulated—is only part of the
social, political, economic terrain. Mbembe's focus on the multiple acts and identities of
negotiation that subjects make in specific political contexts informs this position. Yet, I
do not want to forget that claims also invoke identities in an attempt to change and preserve a set of material conditions and knowledge. In this study, ethnicity will be understood as a way of re-thinking the relationship between identity and difference and the relationship with the past within the material context of the present.'^ As Hall claims one
35. This interpretation of ethnicity is articulated by Stuart Hall, "Ethnicity: Identity and Difference," 339-351. 55
making cannot act, speak, create, or reflect without coming from some place—
that in the positionality critical to experience. However, this study will also admit
postcolonial context ethnicity resides within the notion of citizen.^^ If the postcolony is
involved in the defining and constructing of a nation and a nation-state, then the project
inextricably involves the creation of citizens—postcolonial or otherwise. What is at issue
then is how the citizen is defined and understood which involves the claims and meanings
attributed to material conditions.
This decision to emphasize to citizen emerges out of concern with a disturbing
trend in the use of the term ethnicity. Today, ethnicity is popularly used to mark
difference, most often of the exotic or primitive kind. Conflicts and behavior become
branded ethnic when they are interpreted in terms of an ancient (or past) blood identity,
imaginary or not and when they do not sprout out of a perceived concept of scientific or
legalistic rationality." Events and actions are branded ethnic or nationalistic when they are
perceived as problematic. This study is not an attempt to chisel at the notion of ethnicity
directly nor to refine it. The intent is to question the assumed use of ethnicity in Afiica so
as to open the possibility of considering the positions of identity and materiality that define
struggle in the context of ongoing political transitions. Today, people remain concerned
about who is included and excluded in rights articulated by a nation-state. The vehicle for
inclusion/exclusion is the identity of citizen, where the collectivity of citizens is meant to
36. Stephen N. Ndegwa asserts this in "Citizenship and Ethnicity: An Examination of Two Transition Moments in Kenyan Politics," American Political Science Review 91, no. 3(September, 1997): 599-616.
37. Instrumental explanations of ethnicity have attempted to give ethnicity a rationality. 56
form a nation. Within and surrounding the citizen struggle, various identities come into
play with struggles. Identities such as gender, family, clan, race, ethnicity, class, work,
urban, rural, and religion vary as people seek to give meaning to their lived experiences.
These experiences are indeed grounded in the material world, however ideationally and
indirectly interpreted. At times, the question of citizenship can become lost if the sense of
belonging it gives has little meaning to everyday experiences (or seemingly less than other
identified relationships) and at times it can draw attention like a siren, for example, if the
sense of exclusion it bestows is understood to have a drastic impact on life.
Citizen. Property, and Hegemony for the Context of the Nation-State
The postcolony vividly highlights that citizenship and property are not only
contested arenas but are assumed as means to participate in contestation and negotiation.
Neither citizen nor property guarantee a fixed or stable articulation of rights, the nation,
even the state. This section will begin with a discussion of the citizen as it has changed in
the western philosophical tradition because much of the literature on the civic or civil
society in the study of Africa is informed by this theoretical (not to mention empirical)
terrain (whether acknowledged or not). While the literature in general on citizenship
identifies the concept of citizen as a western construction, critiques of the relevance of the
concept and attempts to refine the concept have occurred in the literature on Africa.
Postcolonial and feminist efforts have over the past decade acquired more visibility and
claimed more critical space in the study of citizenship. The consideration of material conditions, necessary to the study of citizenship, will follow in the form of a discussion of 57
the concept of property. The transition from material conditions to property is made
because, like the citizen, property is a critical concern of the national project. Again, the
changing character of property through the western philosophical tradition will be
considered because of its impact on the study of Africa. A wealth of literature confronts
conventional treatments of land and property relations in regards to the position of women
and ethnic groups in Africa. I will examine how they contribute to changing to meaning of
property. Hegemony constitutes the final theoretical concept which will be considered in
this study. The discussion of hegemony will be more focused to center around the post-
marxist notion and the concerns with the notion in postcolonial theory.
The defining of citizenship and property in this section includes a discussion of the
mainstream literature because various types of citizens have dwelled in Zanzibar and
various notions of citizenship have been planted, cultivated, and uprooted on the islands
by many different ideological farmers. In subsequent chapters, these concepts will be
deployed to consider current contestations in Zanzibar.
Citizen
A concern for the meaning of citizenship has materialized along with the
resurgence of interest in the nation. Beiner contends that nationalism, ethnic strife, and the fragmentation of previously united multinational political communities place the problem of citizenship at the center of politics. The problem of citizenship becomes a
question of what unites a body of citizens within a coherent stably organized political community and preserves that allegiance? Beiner argues that today the basic problem of 58
by, not national identity is that national citizenship is simultaneously being undermined unrelated, globalizing and localizing pressures.^*
Citizenship is understood as a status that is political and above all other
identifications.^' It bestows and guarantees participation in the political society as an inherent right whether established through blood, residence, or both. Yet citizenship not
only establishes a sense of participation, it establishes a sense of exclusion in two forms.
First, it articulates the boundaries which prevent certain people from being citizens.
Secondly, and more important to this study, citizens' understandings of citizenship can imperfectly match the "reigning" notion of citizenship, thus creating a feeling of exclusion
though formerly there is inclusion. It is worth considering how exclusion and inclusion can occur simulanteously because citizenship is meant to establish simply a sense of
inclusion for its members. Citizens assume a number of positions from which to
38. Ronald Beiner, "Why Citizenship Constitutes a Theoretical Problem in the Last
Decade of the Twentieth Century," in Theorizing Citizenship , ed. by Ronald Beiner
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 1.
39. The conceptualization of citizenship is most often divided into three understandings of citizen: 1 . liberal—which focus on the individual's capacity to transcend collective identity, to emancipate oneself from fixed identity, and to define and redefine one's own purpose. 2. communitarian—which emphasize the cultural group and solidarity in a shared history. 3. republican—which emphasizes civic bonds and that political community is a good in itself, and thus, is not instrumentalist like the above two. The liberal notion of citizenship is based on the assumption that all individuals are bom free and equal. However, it is criticized for reducing citizenship to a legal status, articulating the rights of individuals against the state. Citizens are seen as using their rights to pursue their self-interests within the constraints imposed by the state to respect the rights of others. The civic republican view of citizenship focuses on political participation and the individual's place in the political community, however, it is criticized for neglecting individual liberty, pluralism, the idea of civil society, and separation of church and state.
The notion of the public good as prior to and independent of individual interests is stressed. See "Why Citizenship Constitutes a Theoretical Problem," 13-14. 59
understood the same, understand themselves as citizens. As notions of citizen are not differences arise which form the basis of contestation.
has been The rise of the concept of citizen and its subsequent understanding entwined with the notions of slave and property. In accounts of the ancient (Greek) experience, slavery precluded the possibility of citizenship. While the citizen had property, property was not to define the role of citizen. In the modem experience, citizenship (like the history of emancipation) has emerged in struggle and is not granted but rightly demanded and taken; often property (as rights in access and use of resources) motivated
such struggles. Though this study will not offer a critical consideration of the concept of
slavery to pursue a consideration of citizenship, it vAW contemplate the concept of citizen
antagonistically, particularly since slavery, gender, territoriality, and color have imprinted their mark on citizen and property in the history of Zanzibar.
Citizen and Subject . In the sixth century BC the Athenian constitution and the reforms of Solon articulated and put into practice the idea that the many despite their
degree of wealth participate in the operation of their own affairs—a principle upon which
citizenship is built.''° The constitutional reforms of Cleisthenes corroded aristocratic power by changing a system of tribes into a set of ties based on locality rather than kinship. This had the affect of reducing the distinctions between citizens on the basis of
40. Women, slaves, and foreigners however were barred from politics. It has been suggested that one-tenth of a population of 400,000-500,000 (of Athens) composed an active citizenry. Naturalization was difficult to acquire, thus most people lived in the city without the right to participate in the very political institutions which would bestow Athenians with a place in history as authors of democracy. 60
respecting the authority of others blood ties. Citizens were to make decisions together, and obeying the decisions jointly made.
Aristotle asserted that, "in general a citizen is one who shares in government and submits to being governed. The best state (conditions) in which a citizen exists is where
in public and one is enabled to choose and persevere in a course of virtue through life both
private state.'"" Citizenship is not the means to freedom but the way of being free itself.
It is an ideal which involved escaping from oikos, the material conditions in which one is managing the instruments of action, into the polls, the superstructure in which one engaged in activities that were ends themselves rather than means to ends.''^
In the Roman Empire, the citizen was changed from a political being to also a legal being existing in a world of persons, actions, and things regulated by law."^ The meaning of property was altered to be the defining characteristic of a person, the relation between the person and a thing, and the thing defined as the possession of a person. An individual became a citizen through the possession of things and the practice ofjurisprudence. The status of citizen changed to denote membership in a community of shared or common law, which may or may not be identical with a territorial community. In this way, he became a subject of law that defined his community and a subject of the rulers empowered to
41. Aristotle, "The Politics of Aristotle," in Citizenship , ed. by Paul Barry Clarke (London: Pluto Press, 1994).
42. "The Ideal of Citizenship Since Classical Times," 34.
43. This discussion on the Roman citizen is taken from "The Ideal of Citizenship Since Classical Times," 36-39. 61
offer enforce the law. As a subject one could claim protection and privilege, as well as allegiance and obedience.
that the difference between a modem Theorizing the civic nation . Pocock explains
"subject" and a classical "citizen" that generates calls to revert to an past socio-political
being lies within the relation of each to the binding laws. The citizen was a participant in establishing the binding law. In contrast, the subject could appeal and invoke law which granted rights, immunities, privileges and authority, but he did not necessarily create law."''
According to Pocock, the "growth ofjurisprudence decenters and may marginalize the
assembly of citizens by the enormous diversity of answers it brings to the questions of
where and by whom law is made, and how far it is made—^how far determined and how far discovered.""^ Mamdani raises this issue within the context of colonialism in Africa, suggesting that colonial administrations in Africa created African subjects and colonizer citizens—an ironic gesture when considering that within the colonizing country the idea of citizen of free will was critical to the idea of government.''*
In the modem notion of citizen, people subject their will to the man or government which the people grant power. Thus, citizens by their own will appoint a government over themselves.'*'' However, in modem Westem political philosophy, faction has presented an
enduring concem. It has been argued that the problem of faction can be cured in two
44. Ibid., 39.
45. Ibid., 40.
46. See Citizen and Subject .
47. See for example, John Locke, "Citizen and Subject," Citizenship . 62
which would ways: by removing the causes, namely liberty, or by controlling its effects
interests."* modem mean to instill in every citizen the same opinions, passions, and A
proposed solution to faction has been to have a large society with a decentalized federal
government in which factions will be so many as to cancel out each other. This idea
serves as the foundation for theories of political pluralism. Finally, the modem notion of
citizen is commonly linked to property. In the modem tradition, the property of the
people or public was secured and protected by law and govern."' It is argued that this idea
of the republic implies liberty because property cannot be secure unless the individual is at
liberty to acquire, use, and dispense with it at his discretion.'" This notion of the republic
constitutes a comerstone in the American understanding of liberal democratic govemance
which policy-makers and practitioners have attempted to export to countries in
governmental transition.
According to Pocock, the modem political thinkers asserted that better
understanding between people emerges if people accept the discipline of things and
person; and admit that life involves interaction with a world of things possessed,
transferred, and produced in which people must recognize others as having rights of
48. James Madison, Citizenship. 126-127. Madison defined faction as "a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community" (ibid.).
49. John Adams, Citizenship. 130.
50. Ibid., 131. 63
of interaction between the property and labor.'' In this understanding rights are modes
material." The liberal person and the material world and between persons through the
and the legal ones. idea of citizenship attempts to merge both the political components
defining of Pocock further suggests that the liberal ideal of citizenship enables the
used to indefinite interactions between persons and things, articulated as rights, and
which identify new persons as citizens. The 'patriarchal narrowness' thereby crumbles
separated the oikos from the polis, and enables people to claim rights and legal citizenship,
irrespective of gender, class, and race." In so doing, however, Pocock highlights that
citizenship necessarily becomes a legal fiction, created by people through the decisions to
attribute rights and personality to themselves.
The ongoing skepticism about the inevitability of economic and political progress
within the liberal faith has motivated endless attempts to reconceptualize the citizen. The
focus on the idea of civic culture and the importance of its study put forth by Gabriel
Almond, et al, in the 1960's, has left its imprint on studies in comparative politics up to
today. As understood by Almond, et al, the study of civic culture is an attempt to
understand what assures a stable, viable democracy.''' In their view, civic culture requires
that all citizens be involved and active in politics, and that their participation be informed.
51. "The Ideal of Citizenship since Classical Times," 43.
52. Ibid.
53. Ibid., 45.
54. See Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, eds., The Civic Culture Revisited (Newbury Park: Sage Publications, 1989). 64
that it involves the However, the authors of this concept of civic culture also asserted
deference to authority. Pye and opposite of these requisites, namely, passivity, trust, and
development in Verba extended the concept of civic culture to the study of political developing countries to explain the problems confronting these countries." Verba highlighted the importance of establishing a sense of national identity in the process of
their political development.'* The number of studies on civil society in Africa testifies to influence on political science within African studies. Criticisms of theories of modernization are well documented and beyond the scope of this study. However, it should be highlighted that the civic culture genre assumed (without questioning) the incipient definition of the civic to be necessarily a product of western political thought and tradition.
Despite the fact that modem thinkers have had equality on their minds, the concept of citizen was a discriminating or exclusive concept. As modem political philosophers had the concerns of particular groups in mind, they consciously constmcted boundaries which limited who receives equal rights of participation. However, the reasoning behind such boundaries simultaneously laid the foundation for antagonisms to arise. In other words,
antagonisms which challenged where the boundaries lie could arise precisely because of the way in which modem liberal philosophers spoke of the people. Modem philosophers
55. See Lucien Pye and Sidney Verba. Political Culture and Political Development (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966).
56. Theories of modemization were optimistic that developing countries would eventually create a common national identity. See Reinhard Bendix, Nation-building and Citizenship (New York: John Wiley, 1964). 65
it as the modem acknowledged the diversity of the human condition and conceptuaUzed
one of two strategies to create political problem to solve. Theoretically, a commitment to
politically—paradoxically a citizenry was made. The first was to create a citizenry unified
preventing all from having read impersonally—to erase the onerous and unruly differences freedoms." The second understanding was to create a citizenry too divided by difference
to protect the to actively pose a threat to the instituted form of government which was freedoms of the universal individual.'* Ironically, both provided the discursive space for different groups to articulate how they rightfully fit into the category of citizen or to change the concept of citizen itself
to understand Resources, freedom, and citizen rights . It has become commonplace the issue of who can practice citizenship and on what terms as a matters of legal scope (or rights involved) and of the non-political capacities of citizens which derive from social resources to which they have access. From this understanding, equal citizenship is less
than equal if the society is divided by unequal conditions. Subsequent to independence struggles in Africa, the political philosophies of Nyerere, Nkrumah, Senghor and Cabral articulated the importance of creating African nations which emphasized the community, destroying colonial legacies of exploitation, and the need for socio-economic equity.^'
57. Even Marx envisioned an unified citizenry, of sorts, though he critiqued the bourgeois notion of citizen.
58. It is interesting to note that the idea of dividing by difference and ruling was a feature of colonial rule in Africa.
59. See Amilcar Cabral Revolution in Guinea. Selected Texts (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972); Kwame Nkrumah, Selected Speeches (Accra: Afram Publications, 1997); Julius Nyerere Freedom and Development (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 66
resources, However, whether the expansion of citizen rights, in terms of socio-economic can address inequaUties has been subjected to ongoing debate.
In modem Western political philosophy, the question of whether an expansion of citizen participation can reduce class inequality or affect the structure of relations between persons of different identities continues to be debated. In the view of those highlighting the problems of social inequities, though all persons as modem citizens are equal before the law, social conditions which create inequality between groups will inhibit the ability of groups to exercise their rights or capacities as citizens.
Marx more pointedly argued that mere political emancipation through citizenship was inadequate, alternatively contending that people must be freed from the determining power of private property. For Marx, political emancipation was at best only a step in the process of obtaining human emancipation because the fight for citizenship involves an agreement to the social structures of a society and a desire to be included.*" The problem
with modem citizenship, according to Marx, is that it bestows formal legal equality upon
1973) and Freedom and Unity (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1967); and Leopold Senghor, Nationhood and the African Road to Socialism (Paris: Presence Africaine, 1962).
60. In contrast, T.H. Marshall argues that as capitalism materializes as a social system and a class stmcture develops, modem citizenship changes from a system of rights which arise out of and supports market relations to a system of rights which exists in an antagonistic relationship with the market and class systems. Marshall expanded on the conventional notion of citizenship to suggest that there are three parts of citizenship: civil, political, and social. According to Marshall, social citizenship tends to reduce certain social inequalities. Marshall understands the development of citizenship and class as an antagonistic relationship in which inequality in each contributes to changes in the other. Thus, class conflict can be an expression of the stmggle for citizenship rights. See
Citizenship: Rights. Stmggle and Class Inequality . 6-8. 67 citizens without providing them with the social and economic equality necessary to exercise such rights.*' Marx's claim that citizenship presents a partial mode of being and only a partial solution to modem capitalist socio-political problems, also touches upon what some political thinkers perceive as a contemporary challenge to the order and mutual respect established by the democratic system in Western societies, namely, the excessive reliance on exclusive partial identities to demand rights." Much of the history of citizenship since the nineteenth century has been concerned with reducing the contradiction between real inequality and formal equality in the civic contract of modem society."
Reconstmcting the citizen in the civil society . In modem political thought, the
Ancient Greek notion of citizen is regarded as the ideal example of the republican citizen.
A problem which arises with the ancient Greek republican notion of citizenship has been
commonly addressed by liberal and feminist perspectives alike; namely, that not all people were understood as citizens or as having even the right or capacity to be citizens. Pocock
points out, that the desire to make citizenship available to those to whom it has been denied involves a choice between emancipating them from such conditions, and denying that these conditions are appropriate terms of exclusion in the definition of citizenship.
The latter choice involves a search for a new definition of citizenship that differs radically
61 . Michael Ignatieff, "The Myth of Citizenship," Theorizing Citizenship . 65.
62. Citizenship . 21.
63. "The Myth of Citizenship," 65. 68
from the Greek definition articulated by Aristotle. The new definition understands public
and private as not rigorously divided but as permeable.*'*
Most feminist critiques have chosen the latter path of criticism suggested by
Pocock." While the concept of private may have been used by modem political thinkers
to protect or secure citizens rights and freedoms, feminists have illustrated how it has
secured the subordination of women to men. Feminists have critiqued the private/public
distinction upon which the concept of citizen is built as a gendered construction. The
private/public distinction divides in terms of masculine and feminine domains. The private
is domestic, familial, the household, that is the place of women and the public is created as
a distinct place of men as a domain moving beyond the material into reason and ideas.
Feminists have contended that the public realm of citizenship founded by men and casted
as universal values and norms were derived from specifically masculine experiences.**
Some feminists have attempted to illustrate how the boundaries between public and
private have preserved male power or dominance over women through the domestic
64. "The Ideal of Citizenship Since Classical Times," 34.
65. For examples of feminist critiques of the tradition of Western political thought see Wendy Brown, Manhood and Politics: a Feminist Reading in Political Theory (Totowa: Rowman and Littlefield, 1988); Judith Butler and Joan Scott, eds., Feminists Theorize the
Political (New York: Routledge, 1992); Nancy J. Hirschmann and Christine Di Stefano, Revisioning the Political: Feminist Reconstructions of Traditional Concepts in Western Political Theorv (Boulder: Westview, 1996); and Susan Moller Okin, Women in Westem Political Thought ^Princeton: University of Princeton Press, 1979).
66. See "Polity and Group Difference." 69
dare not trespass." The domain by defining it as the private realm in which government
uses of the private/pubUc distinction have also framed studies in Africa which attempt to
explain women's subjugation and focus on the household (or private) relations.**
However, some feminists have not only critiqued gendered forms of political subjugation
but have also challenged Western feminist uses of the public/private distinction on the
grounds that Western women are portrayed as superior in this divide compared to Third
World women and Western feminism only portrays Third World women as victims.*'
Feminist theories have begun to consider the varied social experiences from which
questions of citizen rights arise and to illustrate how the private/public divide can be
blurred.™ Feminist literature has given visibility to property as a gendered medium
67. See Nancy Fraser, "After the Family Wage: Gender Equity and the Welfare State," Political Theory 22, no.4(November 1994): 591-619. For a discussion of how relations within the private sector (or household) create differences in power in the public sector see Nancy Folbre, "Hearts and Spades: Paradigms of Household Economics," World Development 14, no. 2(1986).
68. Nancy Hafkin and Edna Bay, eds., Women in Africa: Studies in Social and Economic Change (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1976), Margaret Jean Hay and Sharon Stricter, eds., African Women: South of the Sahara (London: Longman, 1984); Jane Papart and Katheleen Staudt, eds.. Women and the State in Africa (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1989).
69. See Chandra Mohanty, "Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses," Feminist Review 30 (1988): 61-88; Chandra Mohanty, Anne Russo, and Lourdes Torro, eds.. Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991); M. Barrett and Anne Phillips, eds.. Destabilizing Theory: Contemporary Feminist Debates (Stanford: Standford University Press, 1992).
70. See Michela di Leonardo, ed.. Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1991); Marianne H. Marchand and Jane L. Parpart, eds., Feminism/Postmodemism/Development (New York: Routledge, 1995); Linda Nicholson, ed., Feminism/Postmodernism (New York: Routledge, 1990). 70
security, through which different experiences have different relations to the meaning of and as a gendered medium of contestable meaning.
Pluralistic understandings of citizenship have become the most often provided
solutions to modem problems of citizenship. Pluralistic theories of citizenship highlight the importance of difference in opinions to the stability of democracy and a nation, while
attempting to manage differences. Three meanings of citizenship have emerged from
pluralistic theories: 1. a national identity as ethnic-cultural, 2. pluralistic identities of
subgroups within the larger society that the state is to serve and not vice versa, 3. a
larger cultural identity that is national-civic (not national-ethnic) to which all must
conform.'' Beiner expresses a popular fear that pluralism poses a threat to the idea of
citizenship because it facilitates a tendency for each group in the society to withdraw
behind the boundaries of its own group, with no need to acknowledge the existence of a
larger common culture. Beiner cautions that if there is no limit to cultural pluralism then
"the very notion of citizenship as an existential reality dissolves into nothingness."'^ The concern to prevent the fracturing of a shared citizenship often entails the idea of an universalism which presupposes an appeal to what different cultural or ethnic groups
share. From this point of view the emphasis on particularistic identity undermines this
universalism. However, it is the actualizing and defining of this universalism which is often contested.
71. "Why Citizenship Constitutes a Theoretical Problem," 6-7.
72. Ibid., 10. 71
Since colonies in Africa wrested independence, a concern with pluralism has
informed debates on the value and problems of multiple cultural identities for the creation
of a nation-state with a viable civil society. As discussed above ethnicity has most
commonly been understood as a hindrance to the creation of the nation-state of citizens
and the establishment of democratic practices. In the postcolonies of Africa, state and
society have often been treated as a dichotomy. Discussion of the failures of the
postcolony to establish a stable and democratic national unity most often begin from the
point of the state or of society. In the focus on the state, studies suggest the failures to
generate, direct, facilitate, and/or sustain, participation and national unity stems from the
shortcomings of the state in terms of its grasp on society or its lack of influence over
society.'^ In the focus on society, many studies illustrate how ethnic, regional and
communal identities are deployed in the political process, how such identities frustrate democratic politics, and how ethnic identification can lead to violent conflict.^'' The
73. See for example, John A.A. Ayoade, "States Without Citizens: An Emerging
African Phenomenon," in The Precarious Balance: State and Society in Africa , ed. by Donald Rothchild and Naomi Chazan (Boulder: Westview Press, 1988); Robert Fatton, Predatory Rule: State and Civil Society in Africa (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publications, 1992); Robert Jackson and Carl Rosberg, Personal Rule in Black Africa (Berkely: University of California Press, 1982); Rene Lemarchand, "Uncivil States and Civil Society: How Illusion Became Reality," Journal of Modem Afiican Studies 30, no. 2(1994).
74. See for example, Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner, eds.. Nationalism. Ethnic Conflict, and Democracy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994); Harvey Glickman, ed., Ethnic Conflict, and Democratization in Africa (Altanta: African Studies Association Press, 1995); Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Goran Hyden. Beyond Uiamaa: Underdevelopment and an Uncaptured Peasantry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980); F. S. William Miles and David A. Rochefort, "Nationalism versus Ethnic Identity in Subsaharan Africa," American Political Science Review 85(June 1991): 393-403; Marina Ottaway, "Ethnic Politics in Africa: Change and Continuity," in State. Conflict, and Democracy in 72
to the literature specifically on civil society views ethnicity and often the state as obstacles
creation of viable associational life, while considering other identifications which are more
constructively deployed." The question of state/society relations in terms of both state
and social strategies to incorporate or disengage from politics became the framework for
considerations of political participation/* Often political participation in African has been
understood in terms of patronage." The shared objective of these various studies is to
contribute to an understanding of how to manage difference in a way that will create a
unified national citizenry that places competing differences as secondary to upholding a
universal democratic process of articulating demands.
Young asserts that the universality of citizenship as the inclusion and participation
of everyone stands in tension with universality as generality, and universality as equal
treatment. The idea that a universal citizenship creates a political community with a
Africa , ed. by Richard Joseph (Boulder: Lynne Reinner, 1999); and Crawford Young. The Politics of Cultural Pluralism (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1976).
75. Naomi Chazan, "Africa's Democratic Challenge," World Policy Journal 1 9. no.2(1992): 279-397; Michael Bratton, "Beyond the State: Civil Society and Associational Life in Africa," World Politics 49, no.3(1989): 407-23; John W. Harbeson, Donald Rothchild, and Naomi Chazan, eds.. Civil Society and the State in Africa (Boulder: Lynne
Rienner Publishers, 1994). Fatton is more critical of the concept of civil society
suggesting that it is fragmented and carries contradictions within it, nevertheless he advocates the use of the term to explain problems of social contradictions. See Robert Fatton, "Africa in the Age of Democratization: The Civic Limitations of Civil Society," African Studies Review 38, no.2(1995).
76. See contributions Precarious Balance .
77. See Jean Francios Bayart, The State in Africa: The Politics of the Bellv (New York: Longman, 1993); and Rene Lemarchand, "Political Clientelism and Ethnicity in Tropical Africa: Competing Solidarities in Nation-Building," American Political Science
Review 66, no. 1 (March 1972): 68-90. 73 general will that transcends particular differences has in practice excluded groups considered not capable of fitting into the political community. Lemarchand offers a reflection of how this happens in Burundi where a national unity masked Tutsi dominance.''* In regards to equal treatment, Young contends that adherence to the rule of equal treatment can preserve oppression or disadvantage. She claims that acknowledging groups difference in capacities, culture, and needs only presents a problem for those attempting to destroy oppression if they define difference in terms of deviance or deficiency.^'
As in the literature on African, in political theory citizenship is conceptualized in
terms of its capacity to create struggle and conflict. Barbelet asserts that because the interaction between citizenship and other identities (such as class) is never final, citizenship can never eradicate inequality, thus the creation of unity can never be complete. Giddens extends this assertion by suggesting that the expansion of citizenship rights result from marginalized and disadvantaged groups' struggles to improve their lives. Groups excluded have to struggle against the resistance of those who are opposed to the extension or
change of rights.*" The struggle for citizenship is a struggle against exclusion and against
78. See Rene Lemarchand, Burundi: Ethnocide as Discourse and Practice (Washington,
DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1 994).
79. "Polity and Group Difference," 268. See also Mary Dietz, "Context is All: Feminism and Theories of Citizenship," Daedalus 116, no.4(Fall, 1987): 1-24.
80. Citizenship: Rights. Struggle and Class Inequality . 32. 74
inequalities which exclusion creates. Thus, the rise of democratic citizenship does not
eliminate inequalities.*'
Ndegwa argues that different and competing forms of citizenship exist within a
nation-state. According to Ndegwa, the acknowledgements of citizen formation in
substate political communities and the competing claims of different citizens can
contribute to understanding how ethnic politics and conflict arises.*^ The duality of
existence within the ethnic group and the nation-state reflects the dichotomy of republican
and liberal citizenship (respectively). Within the postcolonial nation-state, the republican form of citizenship adhered to by the ethnic community can undermine the liberal form of citizenship attached to participation in the national community in two ways.*^ First, experiences as part of the community inform the understandings and pursuits of individual citizens in the national arena. Second, the state becomes the site from which to meet communal obligations for those who acquire state power. Thus, according to Ndegwa competing understandings of the political community and of citizenship shape postcolonial struggles to define and practice democracy.
Nevertheless, the predominant belief is that liberal democracy provides the institutions (if properly understood) that can shape rising hostilities in a way that defuses their potential. Elias Canetti elaborates concretely upon this idea:
81. Ibid., 44.
82. See "Citizenship and Ethnicity."
83. Ibid., 603-604. 75
the actual vote is decisive, as the moment in which the one is really
measured against the other. It is all that is left of the original lethal clash
and it is played out in many forms, with threats, abuse and physical provocation which may lead to blows or missiles. But the counting of the vote ends the battle [P]arties can play an important role in giving expression to social division and conflicts of will. But if they fail in their
jobs, conflicts will assume other guises and it will be more difficult to manage them democratically.*''
In the study of Africa, the emphasis on the importance of multiparty elections to the
creation of democratic nation-states supports this view. Though there has been a proliferation of work that focuses on civil society, the process of political liberalization, or
democratization, spurred on by structural adjustment programs in Africa has revived the
interest in elections. As Hyden suggests, through the 1990's, it has been increasingly
realized that national development is about politics.*^ Though it may be realized that a
focus on elections is too narrow to understand the complexities of politics, multiparty elections are understood as necessary to citizen participation. Multiparty politics has expanded the space in which political struggles can be articulated. However, competing political parties have also become conflicts of will that create new and nurture past social divisions. Rather than suggest the failures of political parties the following question should be asked: How are modem nation-state and the modem citizenry be re-interpreted when political parties and elections as harbingers, impositions, and signifiers of
84. Quoted in Chantal Mouffe, The Return of the Political (London: Verso, 1993), 5.
85. See Goran Hyden, "Governance and the Reconstitution of the Political Order,"
State. Conflict, and Democracy in Africa . 76
democracy, along with citizens laugh at the liberal notion of democracy? It can be
asserted that this has occurred in numerous postcolonial contexts in Africa.
Mouffe offers a theoretical reworking of citizenship to preserve the faith in the
modem concept from which a questioning can begin.^* Mouffe argues that too many
definitions of citizen aim at a neutral notion of citizenship which evades the inescapable
antagonisms. Mouffe claims, "[t]here will always be competing interpretations of the political principles of liberal democracy, and the meanings of liberty and equality will never
cease to be contested. . . [A] modem democratic theory must make room for competing
conceptions of our identities as citizens".*^ According to Mouffe, to be a citizen means to recognize the authority of a set of principles and mles articulated by a political regime and use them to inform political judgement and actions. A citizen is not someone who
passively receives the rights and protections of law. Citizenship is a common political identity of people who have different identities and experiences, but who share a set of ethico-political values and agree to comply with the mles of this political community.**
Mouffe's reconceptualization sounds like the modem ideal, and as such continues to neglect what happens when the ethico-political values themselves are understood
86. Mouffe locates modemity as the advent of the democratic revolution and characterizes it as an era in which power is no longer embodied in a person and tied to transcendental authority. Subsequently, society became nebulously defined and impossible to define fi-om a imiversal or single perspective. Thus, Mouffe contends that a theory of the subject as decentered, detotalized, and constmcted from multiple positions merging through hegemonic practices is needed to consider politics and stmggles in social relations
(The Return of the Political . 14).
87. The Retum of the Political . 7.
88. Ibid., 70. 77
differently by citizens. Do citizens simple cease to be citizens? Is the question of
citizenship as simple as either being included or excluded? Mouffe's interpretation
emphasizes the multiplicity of social relations where relations of domination exist and must
be challenged if liberty and equality are to apply. However, what Mouffe proposes is
precisely the difficulty—^that is, to create a society of people who believe in and pursue
such a notion of radical democracy wherein they share a set of ethico-political values, and
understand and agree to a set of rules. Politics to a great extent is contestation over how
to exist as a society and as a political community. The political community is a product of
certain struggles, that is, articulations of power relations and how they are challenged. Is
it possible to understand citizenship as a political identity of compliance with a set of rules
and common ethico-political values in a terrain of competing claims? Perhaps, citizenship
should also be seen as existing provided it is never fiilly realized, or at least is understood
as a site and process of struggle, rather than simply a political identity.
Today, citizenship commonly refers to the just exercise of property rights,
equitable access to resources and revenues, and the right to elect representatives and hold
them accountable for their actions. It signifies membership in a political community, a
status with a set of rights that involve equal participation in the political system, and the
equal protection of the rights to which one is entitled. However, citizenship also constitutes a perpetual site of struggle. Citizenship is the political space in which people include and exclude, and feel included and excluded. Policies of inclusion in and exclusion from citizenship are attempts to solidify boundaries of order and control, yet they have the 78 unintended consequences of provoking, shaping, and legitimating antagonistic identities."'
attempt to define, Thus, citizenship constitutes a contested position through which people preserve, change, manipulate, and endure politico-social interactions.
Propertv
socio-economic Property is associated with security and seen as a solution to problems, or in the postcolonial context solutions to problems of modernization or
development, constituting a contested political issue. Yet property can generate anxiety as
easily as security.'" It is critical to consider the space in which property as security and
as anxiety blurs because it is often overlooked, and yet, it is a place where many reside
transitions or changes occur. The notion of property has been defined in terms of relations
and means which fracture into objects(subjects) and rights. Subsequently, subsistence or
maintenance, ownership, use, exchange, and profit (capital) have become tangled in
reciprocal webs of definition by efforts to articulate the purpose of property. A selected
historical summary will consider the treatment of property by ancient and contemporary
scholars in regards to issues of land and freedom, historical modes of production,
ownership and property rights, because these issues illustrate: meanings of and
89. See The Nation-State and Its Fragments . Ranaiit Guha. Dominance without Hegemony: History and Power in Colonial India (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997); Anthony Marx, "Contested Cifizenship: The Dynamics of Racial Identity and
Social Movements," in Citizenship. Identity and Social History , ed. by Charles Tilly (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996).
90. Alan Ryan makes this argument in Property (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986). 79 assumptions about property, how property has emerged and developed in societies, the impact property has on a society, and uhimately the formulation and imposition of policies
to organize and manage (i.e. control) societies around property and the way they think about property. Various liberal perspectives will be briefly discussed because they have had an impact on understandings of property in various politico-economic spaces: national and global. For Zanzibar, in particular, a consideration of the multiple
conceptualizations is necessary because it is a politico-economic social space where a multiplicity of understandings of property have coexisted and clashed.
I will begin with a brief articulation of assertions about property and humanity made by Karl Marx.'' Humans, according to Marx, begin to distinguish themselves from animals at the moment they begin to produce—or give existence to—their means of
subsistence. The ways in which humans produce constitute labor. Property is that which
involves labor, that which has labor added, and labor itself. From this understanding of
property is it easy to follow the imaginings of property as means (material objects and labor), as laborers (workers and slaves), and re-producers (women and men). From this
perspective it can be understood how land can be thought of as property and how land can
be thought of as distinct from property. Thus, thinking of property in this way is most conducive for reflecting on the multiple meanings given to property.
The ancient ideal of virtuous soil . In the Western philosophical tradition from the time of Aristotle there is a strand of thought which associates "political virtue in the citizen
91 . The following assertions by Marx have been extracted from The German Ideology.
Volume I . ed. by C. J. Arthur (New York: International Publishers, 1970) and Grundrisse . ed. and trans, by David McLellan (New York: Harper and Row, 1971). 80
and stability in the state with the ownership of land and the cultivation of the soil.'"^
Within this persuasion the implications of different forms of property and ownership and the different degrees of wealth generate debate. Differences in conditions have
implications for the ability to rely on the small property owner for social stability. Most
often, in conditions of economic and social transition, a fear emerges that the small
property owner or propertyless will generate social unrest.
Ancient Greece and Rome both experienced civil wars between rich and poor; such
conflicts were a great threat to political stability and peace in these societies. Plato and
Aristotle differed in their understandings of property and its relation to politics. Plato
perceived property as a source of trouble for politics to be avoided only by preventing the propertied from acquiring power and the powerful from acquiring property.'^ Aristotle
defended private property against Plato's attacks by asserting that if things are to be used as nature intends, they need to be owned by a person who feels a deep stake in taking care
of them.''' It is on the basis of the claims that family life and the private ownership of land
and other means of subsistence is not only a fact of life, but the condition of things being looked after properly that Aristotle paints an image of the superiority of landowning and farming to trade or money-making that subsequently influenced Christian economic
92. Ryan, Property, 4.
93. Ibid., 13. Plato was also a critic of democracy. In contrast to the social conditions of his time he advocated more freedoms and equality for women was able to imagine women as rulers. Such thoughts were connected to his understanding of property and politics.
94. Ibid., 16. 81
rather than doctrine in Europe.'^ For Aristotle, farming was concerned with subsistence exchange which breeds moderation—a virtue critical to Aristotle because he believed citizens should have the need to make and obey law.'*
Aristotle also commented on the impact of property when politics breaks down and conflict arises. He asserted that where an oligarchy feels threatened by the poor, they attempt to transform their wealth into political monopoly; and where the poor feel threatened, they attempt to transform their political rights into access to the wealth of the rich. The solution he proffered involved the distribution of wealth. If there are a handful of rich people and a large poor population, the wealth of the few is quite visible and frustrates the poor potentially to the point of revolt. However, if most people have a
median of wealth there is a more steady gradation of wealth from top to bottom and
people can aspire to move a little up and will not be terrified if they move a little down, such a system creates complacency.''
Property and Historical Theories of Modes of Production . Modem theorists have
attempted to understand what is property by seeking the origins of property and considering the development of property to occur in stages. For example, Adam Smith presented the origin of property through four stages of social organization: hunting, flock-
95. Ibid., 17. A distinction between ownership and use has been made and it is suggested that this development was prompted by a desire to define what degree of attachment to private property was defensible, for example, during medieval period in Europe attempts were made to defend through God the idea of private property.
96. Ibid., 18.
97. Ibid. 82
involved in the tending, agriculture, and commerce.'* Property in this approach becomes
For characterization of the stages and assessment of their benefits and disadvantages.
of property, and Smith initially property is only possession, then animals become objects then land does. The commercial stage extends property in terms of distribution.
Inheritance practices are also an extension of property. The institution of inheritance develops as property becomes transmissible (in the shepherd stage) but association of
property with particular families is concentrated in feudalism (an agricultural stage). A
characteristic of the commercial stage is the absence of this family association. Through these stages, the form of government and the state of property to affect each other. For example, as property changed from possession to objects, more government is needed to handle disputes. Property as objects produces wealth which gives immediate power, or property in land constitutes family birth as important, or as property is diffused its
connection with power is severed.
Marx asserted that the mode of production (or method of extraction) determines
the character of social, political and intellectual life. Marx and Engels, like Smith, mapped production in terms of hunting and gathering, and agriculture. They extended their discussion of the development of production to include Asiatic, ancient, feudal, and capitalist (or modem bourgeois) stages, and socialism as a future stage. The 'primitive' and Asiatic modes do not have a concept of private ownership, in contrast to the ancient, feudal, and capitalist modes. Marx's modes of production circularly evolved returning to
98. Andrew Reeve, Propertv (Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press International, 1986), 57-59. 83
societies with private the notion of common property. Marx made distinctions between
Slavery involves property through their means of extracting surplus from producers.
property to property in persons, capitalism comprises a proletariat which has no
overlap of the two where a exchange/sell but its labor power, and feudalism involves an
groups owns some property while residing indentured to another group (i.e. customary
claims on the labor of others in terms of time or produce). Marx's critique of capitalist
society rests on the assumption that one group of people possess only the capacity to
labor, while the other group owns the means of production. In order to survive people
must produce and in order to produce propertyless laborers must have access to the means
of production which places the owners of this access at an advantage. For Marx, the
abolition of private property is associated with freedom.
Scholars in African studies have attempted to illustrate how the modes of
production framework is useful in the consideration of the development of African
societies.'' By deploying Marxist modes of production, it is popularly asserted that rural
societies within Africa are precapitalist. Using the idea of modes of production Marxist
anthropologists, in particular attempted to articulate the nature of a rural African
precapitalist mode of production.'"*' Kinship ties featured centrally in this African mode of
production. In particular, Hyden has contended that the resilience of affective communal
99. See Donald Crummey and C. C. Stewart, eds.. Modes of Production in Africa: Precolonial Era (Beverley Hills: Sage Publications, 1981).
100. See Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, "Towards an African Mode of Production," and Claude Meillassoux, "'The Economy' in Agricultural Self-Sustaining Societies: A Preliminary Analysis," in Relations of Production: Marxist Approaches to Economic
Anthropology , ed. by David Seddon (London: Cass, 1978). 84
has prevented the incorporation of ties (or precapitalist social and production relations)
of modernization communities into national development and has obstructed the process
(or transition to capitalism) for the nation-state.""
between real (such as land) and Land. Property, and Freedom . The distinction
the personal property in the modem era derives from the significance attached to land in ancient and modem periods. Arendt explained that the ancient significance of 'real property' was freedom. In ancient times man could liberate himself from necessity only
'"^ through power over other men, and he could be free only if he owned a place.
Economic security and a place in the world were associated with ownership.
Contemporary notions of private property share similar underlying ideas. However, the importance of land changes once the moral cmmbling of the distinction between property and exchange as money-making occurs (leading on to the acceptance of profit in the form of capital) and the rise of the nation-state begins.
Land has a relation to the polity that other forms of property do not, that is, land
provides the territorial boundaries of political sovereignty. Modem states are defined partly in terms of their legal jurisdiction which they claim over particular territory. The distinguishing features of land in comparison to other forms of property is its visibility, fixity, and security. Before the development of commercial society land is understood as the major economic resource. These elements underlie the assertion that landowners are
particularly tied to the interests and welfare of society. Because property is fixed the
101. See No Shortcut to Progress .
102. Reeve. Property . 81. 85
than if his property were landowner has a greater interest in the welfare of the community
of land and its importance in in something else (such as money). The understanding
in Africa. Thus, precommerical society also underlies understandings of development
precapitalist mode of production societies in Africa have been conceptualized in terms of a
the transition with land centrally shaping social (economic and political) relations. As
unaccepting view of from land based to exchange activities occurs, it is argued that an
than to immigrants, who are seen as having ties to commerce (or earning) rather
elsewhere other permanent settlement, arises in which the belief is that their loyalties lie
In the study of than the community (e.g. the Indian merchant class in colonial Zanzibar).
and Africa, this transition is considered to understand the affects on various communities
the success of states in incorporating communities into the nation. In this way, property
(as land) and citizenship become necessarily politically entwined.'"^
Property and ownership present ongoing issues for social critique as these
concepts raise questions of the justice or injustice of inequalities resulting from the private
ownership of land, producer goods, or means of subsistence.'""* In neoliberalism, private
property is the basis of liberty. Advocates of neoliberal policies understand liberal
democracy only to exist in countries with capitalist economies. The modem conception of
property defines property as an economic resource, supports the making of money, and
regards the demands of the state as a drain on resources and a threat to the individual's
103. Adam Smith reflected on this process. See An inquirv into the nature and causes of the wealth of nation, ed. R. H. Campbell and A.S. Skinner (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1976).
104. See Ryan, Property . 86
liberty as mainly non- right to do as he will with his own. The modem concept of
resources which the interference and ownership is understood in terms of rights over individual can exercise absent of such interference.'"'
property will come under There is a fear among modem political thinkers that
also attack from a democratic pressure for such redistribution. However, there are
concerns over democratic tyranny and inequities. While it is believed that the main role of
the modem state was to guarantee the private rights of the individual, including the
individual's property, it is feared that privatization had overstepped its limits and modem
citizens were concemed only with their private possessions and nothing for their larger
liberties. Spencer argued that equity does not permit property in land because if persons
had exclusive control over land and all land were owned then anyone who did not own
land could act only by permission of the landed.
Defenses and criticisms of private property have been distinguish in terms of
utility, natural rights, the promotion of personality, and the defense of liberty. What is at
issue can be best captured in the following two questions: What rights over resources for
production and consumption ought be recognized, and who should receive these rights?
J.R. McCulloch considered historically the inheritance and succession of property
(considering Greek, Roman, and European inheritance rights) to discern the best way to
105. Ibid., 36. Ryan poses three interesting questions to challenge this common comparison and understanding of ancient and modem notions of liberty and property. First, was the ancient view of the political which connected property and liberty via the need for citizen virtue as committed to political participation as critics of modem liberalism would argue? Second, has modem liberalism been so uncommitted to participatory liberty and political virtue? Third, can the defense of modem liberty rely solely on constitutional arrangements to limit the state's role in policing property? 87
private property because he regulate inheritance. In 1848 he argued the necessity of
admitted. In the same year the Communist claimed its benefits are obvious and universally
because it is a Manifesto was distributed arguing that private property must be abolished
Marx means of subjugating the labor of others through appropriation of their products.'"*
and an external agreed that property was simultaneously the object of human freedom force which "tyrannized over us."'"'
Marx builds his condemnation of capitalist exploitation on the emergence of capitalism via the forcible expropriation of small fanners. Small-holders were thrown off the land and given the option of working for wages or starving, thus, wage contracts were not freely made. Subsequently, wages are the profit of capitalists and a form of robbery.
Marx extends this initial process which generates unequal access to resources to launch attacks on other forms of exploitation.'"* Within African studies, considerations of how colonial rule and post-colonial states altered production relations in rural societies have begun with a consideration of the small-holder. Studies of colonial rule in Africa illustrate how colonial administrations established the institution of private property for its colonial
citizens (but not its subjects) to facilitate capitalist extrapolation of resources with little regard for the affects on already established system of social and property relations and
106. This interesting paralleling of events is noted by Reeve in Property . 1-2.
107. For Marx, the critical historical rupture was the division of labor and property. The relations between people in society and between societies depend on the division of labor. The various stages of development in the division of labor are different forms of ownership (suggesting ownership emerges out of the property-labor split).
108. Ibid., 81. 88
colonies most often informed land tenure. Knowledge of traditional land tenure systems in colonial policy to facilitate social control.""
dispersion of property The liberal defense of private property would be that the
argues that if private property difftises power (as only power can check power). But Ryan
other social aspects, such as a is to aid political liberty, it must be in collaboration with
tradition of dissent which encourages individuals to employ their resources and
discourages governments to challenge the balance of power."" What Ryan
underestimates is the resilience of tradition. The perspective which links property and
freedom does not only attempt to extend private property rights to prevent restrictions on
There is liberty, it equates freedom with property, while also assuming this very equation.
a long tradition of understanding property as freedom; it has become part of the very
meaning of freedom as freedom has become part of the meaning of property. While
political thinkers may attempt a rational construction of the relation between freedom and
property to either critique exploitative social relations or defend rights, property as
freedom constitutes the quiet presupposition upon which such arguments arise. Even
Marx could not escape the property-freedom assumption. While Marx deplored private
property because he understood the human condition as ultimately needing to create—an
existence which alienation of labor from product destroys—^he could not actually imagine
a world without property because freedom is located in the individual's ability to produce
property. One must be able to assume that the acting of producing is fulfilling in of itself
109. See Citizen and Subject .
110. Ibid., 87. 89
property (or product). so that the individual need not make exclusive claims to the
from production, However, Marx aims his attack against the forced alienation of property
is a difference thereby creating people who only possess the ability to labor. Though there
only the between choosing to find contentment in the process of creation alone and having
involves labor option to labor (or be labor), it is the very notion of property as that which which opens the possibility for private property. And yet the complete abolition of
property is not possible because it is part of the very meaning of creativity.
As freedom assumes a more fragmented and individual character it only follows that so to would property. Thus, only if the idea of individual freedom is questioned would the favoring of private property falter. However, in the modem mix of liberal democracy and capitalism, questioning individual freedom is taboo. Yet, through the histories in Africa, private property and individual freedom as understood in the western tradition brought by colonialism has been challenged. This is not to suggest that there is no sense of individual freedom nor private property within African traditions. On the
contrary, it is to highlight that notions of individual freedom and private property have coexisted in an overlapping way with community notions of freedoms and property.'"
Nyerere focused on the longstanding notion of community to create a new national
community and extended it to the economic realm. He envisioned constructing Tanzania
on its predominant orientation as an agrarian community which would be self-reliant to overcome the legacy of colonialism and escape the exploitation of global capitalism. The
111. See for example, H. W. O. Okoth-Ogendo, Tenants of the Crown: Evolution of Agrarian Law and Institutions in Kenya (Nairobi: ACTS Press, 1991). 90
(communal agriculture) in which land foundation was the concept of the ujamaa village
neglected the ways in which would not be understood as property. Perhaps Nyerere
not completely forget the ideas people think of individual property and freedom, but he did
of communal property and freedom.
private property Today, the importance of individual liberty endures as rights and
and policy informs the as freedom constitutes a right. A focus on land rights, reform,
declines in objectives to address problems of agrarian crisis: sustainable development,
adjustment policies agricultural production, and environmental degradation. Structural
crisis in return to resolving agricultural, environmental, and more generally economic
property terms of neoliberal notion of property and citizen. Consequently, the ideas of
rule but the rights and rules must be considered to understand not only logic of colonial
dilemmas of the postcolonial project of development (or modernization).
only three general points across political Propertv rights . Macpherson claims that
thing, 2. it is an individual right, 3. it eras can be made about property: 1 . it is a right, not a
property is an enforceable claim created by the state. In the modem Western tradition,
has been articulated as "a bundle of rights or set of relations between people with regard
to some good, service, or 'thing'; such rights must have economic value and must be
enforced in some societally recognized manner.""^ A concern through the history of
debates on property has been the justifiability of private property as a right and the
112. Macpherson further asserts that the idea of property as a thing arose with the capitalist market economy (in the modem era).
113. Reeve, Property, 25. 91
has been asserted that if consequences of both private property and common property. It
least led to certain political property was not the root of all exploitation then it at
the other hand, the depravity because property requires the state to protect it.'" On
of 'the argument from first institution of private property has been justified in terms
arguments from 'utility' and occupancy,' 'labor theory of property acquisition,' numerous
private ownership as an aid to from 'political liberty.' Utilitarianism, in particular, justified
efficiency. From the promotion of happiness, assessing its merits and defects in terms of
rationality and utility the utilitarian perspective, human behavior is an association between
of maximizing where the individual attempts to maximize happiness over pains (or costs)
to more concretely seal liberty achieving it. A focus on rights allowed modem thinkers
within property. This discussion of property will narrow to concentrate on the school of
contemporary property rights, because it has become the most advocated and supported
approach to understanding and solving problems of development.
In neo-classical economics the notion of property is understood in terms of a
causal connection between a set of property relations and the level of economic
performance in a society. The function of property rights is to create incentives to use
resources efficiently. Allocation only becomes a problem when resources do not match
needs and wants, thus property rights should be understood as a mechanism which
provides for the efficient use of scarce resources."* Efficiency here is understood in
114. Ryan, Property, 97.
115. Reeve, Property, 23. 92
or capable of being owned to the universal terms, that is, all resources are either owned exclusion of others from use and transferability."*
classified as private, public, Property, in terms of rights, has been most commonly
individual use and ownership. Public or common. Private refers to rights of exclusive
requires no special qualifications refers to indeterminate group rights of use; though access
not vest ownership of rules may permit exclusion. In contrast to private, public does
Public also property in this group; an authority such as the state usually has ownership.
is to benefit refers to the accountability to the public of the authority and that ownership
the public. Common property gives rights of use (and perhaps management) to a specific
group of people and may or may not vest ovmership in this specific group. However,
common property can consist of a group of people collectively owning something.
Property as private rights has become the most influential notion of property in modem
political thought and practice, it is certainly the most aggressively promoted globally.
In contemporary times, the predominant thought not only in political and economic
philosophy but in policy circles is that private property rights are a necessary condition for
the generation of economic wealth. From this perspective, private ownership is a needed
condition for profit in regards to land."^ The underlying assumption is that giving people
property rights in anything of value is the best way of ensuring that resources are used as
efficiently as possible (echoing Aristotle). However, the broader approach to property
116. Ibid., 24.
1 17. Daniel Bromely, "Property Relations and Economic Development: The Other
Land Reform," World Development 17, no.6(1989): 868. 93
lead to the conclusion of common property rights suggest that this assumption could
rights as the best option.
a concern of Bromley has challenged the defense of private property and raised
terms "the other land reform." particular significance for this study, namely what he
aggressively pushed by donor Shifting the focus from the private-land based policies
nonprivate land which lies at the countries as development assistance, Bromley considers
and economic margins and provides daily sustenance for millions (particularly in Africa
created South Asia) by focusing on institutional arrangements (including property rights)
incomplete around that land. He argues that the demands to privatize arise out of an
understanding of property regimes, a reftisal to acknowledge the obvious destruction of
privately-owned lands globally, and from naivete concerning who benefits from
privatization."*
Those that advocate private property rights assume that privatization will cause
production to exceed the costs and that collective management impedes productivity.'"
118. See "Property Relations and Economic Development." Bromley suggests a
naivete which undoubtedly is present the advocation of policy at times. However, I would
venture to assert that privatization is also pushed with knowledge of who stands to benefit from such policies, e.g. knowing that privatization can be to the detriment of groups living
at a subsistence level.
1 19. Bromely explains that there are costs which accompany and vary in each property boundary regime . For example, for cultivated private land, there must be a system of surveys to demarcate plots, measure the amount of land, attach them to their respective
owners through titles, and record keeping; and a process to record transfers of land and property disputes. In addition there are costs that the owner accrues such as fencing and maintenance. The costs cultivated public land would also include other costs, such as, meetings to determine the locations of, uses of, and restrictions on land, and a system of enforcement of rules and to settle disputes. 94
have emerged arguing that Within the economic conceptualization of property, critiques
understand various conventional theories of property rights have neglected and fail to
consolidated as the public domain. types of common property regimes as they have been
of institutional arrangements vary Bromely contends that if it is recognized that complexes
resources, then the across resources and through seasons regarding land and related
Development possibility of understanding various types of property rights emerges.
property advisers often mistake changing or seasonal property rights with the absence of
or poverty. rights, and thus propose them as the solutions to development quandaries
characterized However, according to Bromely, successful common-property regimes are by the existence of individual rights. What changes between types of property regimes is the scope of individual rights.'^" Such institutions constitute the foundation of group
management over agricultural resources.
A common property regime comprises a "well-defined group of authorized users,
a well-defined resource that the group will manage and use, and a set of institutional
arrangements that define each of the above, as well as the rules of use for the resource in
question.'^' A common property regime includes and excludes certain users, thus some
have a right to be included, while others have a duty to remain outside. In addition, those
included in the regime have a duty to comply with the rules and the right to expect others
to comply.
120. "Property Relations and Economic Development," 870.
121. Ibid., 870. .
95
considered the proper decision maker In contemporary economics the individual is
productive inputs such as land and its and thus must have full control over the necessary
resources are individually owned, fully related resources. It is assumed that all valuable
concluded that these conditions mobile, and exchangeable in well-flinctioning markets, and
contends that "in a world where not will assure an efficient system. However, Bromley
of individual ownership, where all all valuable resources are fully divisible and capable
markets . . resources are not fully mobile, where information is imperfect, where many
is suspect."'" are not present. . . our standard advice
not This confession should extend further because property and property rights are
the link necessarily purely economically driven nor derived. Even Bromley is accepting
between individual ownership and the success of property regimes by only questioning the
lack of a spectrum of individual ovmership. Secondly, common property rights advocates,
like the theorists of economic property rights, consider property issues in terms of
economic costs. However, economic costs are not the only thing which frame the
question of property and its related resources.'^"*
122. Ibid, 875.
123. Ibid.
124. See Sara Berry, No Condition is Permanent: the Social Dvnamics of Agrarian Change in Sub-Saharan Africa (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993); Michael Donovan, "Capturing the Land: Kipsigis Narrative of Progress," Comparative Study of Societv and History 38, no. 4(1996): 658-686; Mitzi Goheen, "Chiefs, Sub-Chiefs and Local Control: Negotiations Over Land, Struggles Over Meaning" Africa 62. no. 3(1992): 'customary' law on Kilimanjaro. 1880- 389-41 1 ; and Moore, Social Facts and Fabrications: 1980 for examples of arguments which extend costs to include social or cultural costs and which place emphasis on the social and cultural meanings and uses of land and natural resources. 96
of Africa, there is a rich body of literature Property as Relations . In the study
property and social which focuses on questions of land, resources, and production as
of the various types of land relations. This literature attempts to provide understandings
social and production tenure (and usufruct or rights of use) in terms of the complex of
studies framed by neoliberal relations that make up its composition. In contrast to
various types of notions of property, this approach contends that an understanding of the
Africa land tenure and meanings of property is critical to understand agrarian change in along with social, economic, and political problems. Land has structured relations between groups within societies in Africa. It is controlled by ancestors, groups, and individuals which need not constitute mutually exclusive land tenure practices. Thus, land and property relations are historically far more complex than a single tenure system.
Social identity is also linked to land and property rights, and as a consequence individuals and groups invest in social identity to define and acquire such rights, access, or control.
Some scholars have particularly argued for a gendered analysis.'^* Davison has suggested that the way in which a society structures its relations in terms of genders roles has implications for people's differing access and control of resources and aspects of
125. The literature on land tenure in Africa is prolific. See for example, Thomas Bassett and Donald Crummey, Land in African Agrarian Systems (Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 1993); Berry, No Condition is Permanent : R. E. Dovms and S. P. Reyna, eds.. Land and Society in Contemporary AfHca (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1988).
126. See for example, Jean Davison, ed.. Agriculture. Women and Land: The African Experience (Boulder: Westview, 1988). 97
of colonialism on gendered production.'" In gender-structured analyses of the impact
colonial policies disrupted production social relations, it is most often illustrated how
productive and reproductive labor relations and women's land tenure rights.'^' Women's
land tenure practices and were devalued by capitalist production relations. Changes in
lives in different ways.'^' Thus, policies continue to have an impact on men's and women's
social and production relations in terms it remains relevant to consider how policies shape
of gender.
However, while land may structure social relations and social relations structure
understand production relations within a society, not everyone within a community may
these various relations in the same way. Various interpretations of the meaning of land
emerge as strategies of negotiation in struggles over its access and use, and the rights and
obligations in land, shape and redefine relations. Goheen's study of land tenure in
Cameroon provides an example to highlight the nuances of framing land and property in
terms of social relations and contested meanings. She begins with a consideration of land
struggle with the presupposition that while there is a change in the nature of productive
relationships and in the social relations of land tenure (which is characterized by the
127. Jean Davison, "Land and Women's Agricultural Production: The Context,"
Agriculture. Women, and Land .
128. See for example, Mona Etienne and Eleanor Leacock, eds., Women and Colonization (New York: Praeger, 1980).
129. See for example, Louise Fortmann and John Bruce, You've Got to Know Who Controls the Land and Tress People Use: Gender. Tenure, and the Environment (Centre for Applied Social Sciences, 1991); Eleanor Leacock and Helen Safa, eds.. Women's Work (South Hadley: Marcus and Garvey, 1986). 98
economics"), there is a growing importance of national politics and "accumulative
symbol of political leadership, continuity in the cultural meaning of control over land as a
for example, how new even in this context of expanding privatization.'^" She illustrates,
participate in traditional politics by elites invest in the symbols of traditional leaders and
playing key roles such practices as denouncing the commodification of land while actually
and thereby facilitating in allocating national lands to individuals for development schemes,
knowledge of the process of privatization of land. While elites use access to the state and
claims is the law to acquire access to the process of land allocation, the success of land
also contingent on the approval by traditional authorities."' Goheen concludes that
conflicts over land can be explained by contradictions arising out of the interaction
between state-promoted privatization of land which stresses individual accumulation and
traditional values which stress the right of land as a right of citizenship (or stressing social
identity). Depending on the social identity of people and the nature of the dispute,
individuals will invoke customary and national law, singly or in combination, to
'^^ substantiate their claims.
Goheen finds support in Berry who has asserted that throughout Africa where
rights of access to land depend on social identity people invest in it because it has become
130. "Chiefs, Subchiefs and Land Control," 391-392. By accumulative economics,
Goheen means that is land has become a form of accumulation as well as a means of subsistence.
131. Ibid., 401.
132. Ibid., 403. 99
access to both an object and an instrument of investment.'" In the postcolonial context,
economic wealth; the the state endures as a precondition for accumulation of individual
"translators of received new elite have privileged access to the state which makes them the custom and national law into new practices."'^" However, Goheen also concludes that while the new elites may negotiate and resolve conflicts over land by investing in traditional social identity, they do not resolve the contradiction between traditional land settlement and national laws advocating individual ownership and privatization. These contradictions drive change and will create a transformation of the tenure system, but the ways in which the system changes are a matter of negotiation and struggle, informed by varying interpretations and relations of power.
Struggles over land or property are more complex than framing contestation dialectically in terms of contradictions such as state-promoted values (read as modem values) and traditional values. '^^ The problematic complexities of an articulated modem and traditional and their mix are not captured by such a rigid dichotomy alone. Such dichotomies are not reducible to themselves; they hold within them their own deconstruction. The idea of antagonisms which coexist provides the space in which such multiple and complex struggles can become visibly articulated. Returning to a young
Marx, property, for this study, will be understood as that which involves labor. Property
133. See No Condition is Permanent .
134. Ibid., 405.
135. Kwame Anthony Appiah. In My Father's House: African in the Philosophy of Culture ("London: Methuen, 1992). 100
residual of security or anxiety and thereby will refer to a positioning involving labor with a
contestation. Property may be rights and may is a positioning of material content and in
illegitimate, nevertheless, in the attempt not, because to those excluded such rights may be
will involve considerations of to make claims to property, rights are invoked. Property
in which people resources, allocation, rights, and ownership as relations of struggles
arena in which decide and contest who can have what. Property constitutes a contested
land centrally features in the struggle to define property.
Hegemony'^*
Hegemony derives from the Greek hegemonia referring to leadership and
supremacy. In Greek mythology, hubris refers to excessive-pride or self-confidence,
arrogance, insolence. Hubris plagues the hero, often a leader in Greek myths, leading to
their tragic downfall. Hegemonic power involves an articulated hero created out of an
excessive self-confidence. Today, the meaning of hegemony is more complicated in that it
refers to the idea of absolute domination and leadership that implies consent. The
discussion of hegemony in this section will begin with an articulation of power that
complements a concept of hegemony that denies the possibility of absolute domination. It
follows with a summary of Gramsci's refinement of the Marxist concept and continues
with the postmarxist reworking of the term. Finally, concerns over the concept in
postcolonial theory, lead me to refine the use of the concept for this study.
136. I will not provide a genealogy of the concept of hegemony. For such a thorough endeavor see Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Heeemonv and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (London: Verso, 1986). 101
has defined power as a complex Power, a preface to hegemony . Foucault
such, power relations do not strategical situation, rather than a structure or institution. As
positions of stem from an absolute dominant/subordinate binary opposition, rather
confrontations.'" Power domination are the "hegemonic effects" sustained by multiple
power is stained with relations are simultaneously intentional and nonsubjective. While
an individual subject. The calculation, it does not necessarily result from the decision of
the formation of logic of power might comprise connected multiplying gestures that end in comprehensive systems, yet these tactics are not necessarily the product of individual
efforts.'^* Because power is never localized, never held by an individual, never
in the form appropriated as a commodity, it must be analyzed as something which operates
of a chain. Power is a web of sticky strands through which individuals move. They are always trapped in the practice of power while simultaneously exercising it.
In the exercise of power, new objects of knowledge are created and new bodies of information are accumulated. However, while the exercise of power perpetually creates knowledge, knowledge constantly induces effects of power. The practice of power cannot occur without knowledge, and knowledge, on the other hand, must engender power. It is in discourse that power and knowledge merge in an attempt to create a hegemonic
137. Michel Foucault, Historv of Sexuality, vol. 1 (New York: Random House, 1978).
138. Ibid, 95. 102
can be challenged by knowledge. However, the false power of hegemonic knowledge counter-hegemonic discourses.'^'
Marx and Engel's notion of Reappropriating Hegemony . Gramsci rejected
relations of dialectical materialism which articulates life as a constant struggle between production and consciousness. He reformulated historical materialism to involve the
than influence of ideas of history and the influence of the individual human will, rather emphasizing material goods necessary for human existence as the primary force
influencing social relations. He established the idea of the historical bloc to articulate the
dialectical interrelationship of the structure and superstructure, theory and practice, and
intellectuals and masses. The construction of historical blocs involves the emergence of
consciousness and the intellectual initiates its inception. Ideologies constitute the
instrument to organize masses of people, form the space for movement, and give
consciousness. Hegemony signifies the moment when objective and subjective forces
combine to produce a situation of revolutionary change. Material forces are the content
and ideologies are the form. Hegemony involves coercion, consent and the ruling of other
classes/groups. Hegemony requires becoming influential and attaining leadership
economically, culturally, morally, and ideologically. It expresses the interrelations of
associations and oppositions, civil society and political society, consent and coercion, and
139. See Michel Foucault. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980).
140. See Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks. 1929-1935 (New York: International Publishers: 1979). 103
persuading the ruled to direction and domination. As Gramsci states ruling depends on
moral values. accept the imposed system of beliefs and to share its social, cultural, and
Laclau and Mouffe claim that three elements in the work of Marx have undergone
centrality" of the criticism and reconceptualization in Marxist circles: the "ontological
another, working class, the role of revolution for transforming society from one stage to and the idea of a unified collective will."'" Laclau and Mouffe argue that the concept of hegemony introduced a type of logic that is incompatible with the basic concepts of
Marxist thought. Marxism presents history and society as discernible totalities grounded in laws; yet hegemony offered a conditional operation to address the unquestioned precarious aspects of Marx's evolutionary thought. As hegemony gained emphasis in
Marxist thought the articulations of conditionality proliferated, thus diminishing the value of Marx's historical necessity. Laclau and Mouffe conclude that hegemony offers a foundation from which contemporary social struggles are possible in their specificity.
However, to conclude this requires a break with an epistemological orientation grounded in ontology.
Laclau and Mouffe focus on antagonism, rather than contradiction, in the dialectical process. Antagonism refers to the 'experience of the limit of the social' and thereby a relation which expresses the limits of objectivity. For example, Laclau and
Mouffe suggest, "it is because a peasant cannot be a peasant that an antagonism exists with the landowner expelling him from his land."'"^ Antagonism captures the impossibility
141. See Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics .
142. Ibid., 125. 104
understood in terms of society to fully constitute itself as an objective reality. This limit is of a subversion—or that which frustrates the desire of and prevents complete self-
'^^ constitution as an objective reality—where each position is fixed as specific. What distinguishes antagonism from contradiction is that the presence of an entity is not an impossibility. Antagonism cannot completely destroy the possibility of objectivity.
Laclau and Mouffe argue that any type of social totality (such as an identity)
cannot fully constitute itself because to define itself depends on marking itself as different
from something external to it. Subsequently, identities become defined negatively (by what they are not). Because negative identities cannot be expressed directly they must
find expression in terms that are equivalent but different. These theorists claim that any position in a system of differences (revealed by the contingency that equivalences
introduce) can become a locus of an antagonism. The more unstable the social relations, the less successful a system of differences will be and thus antagonisms proliferate. As
antagonisms proliferate the ability to centralize and create unity diminishes.
Laclau and Mouffe suggest that the notion of hegemony is more compatible with
the dialectic. One cannot speak of hegemony if one speaks of subordinate and dominant
positions because one position has already "won." Hegemony is the idea of ongoing
struggle. This interpretation of hegemony supposes an open and incomplete social terrain.
Competing forces are in constant play in the attempt to dominate, but domination never occurs. If absolute domination was possible, then other voices would not even exist because the dominant voice would prevail. To speak of hegemony one must understand
143. Ibid., 127. 105
social agents are in relational positions identity and the subject position as fluid because as
is an attempt to create an they are in ongoing flux. To deny this, as Marx so desired,
socio-production relations objective understanding of exploitation and emancipation of
will abandon their without a position from which to do so. It is to assume that people
conception of their multiplicity of experiences in favor of a priorly created ideational
situation if given a persuasive one.
Hegemony assumes the form of a political space where articulations are played out
power as antagonisms. Hegemony is a relational process in which no one system of
(system of regulations, practices, and means of differentiating) has attained a central social
in position. Every form of power arises out of differences, thus power cannot be couched terms of class or a dominant core because centrality escapes location. However, Laclau
this and Mouffe suggest it is wrong to propose the total diffusion of power, because would neglect not only the attempts to centralize power but partial concentrations of power.'"" Thus, acts of domination and centralized power are possible only if they are understood as contingent and as such acquire their meaning in relational contexts and can be subverted.
The problem with Marx's dialectical understanding of struggle is that the social division was based on class, however, the class opposition he proposed could not divide a social totality into two subject positions capable of reproducing itself Laclau and Mouffe propose that hegemonic struggle allows for the transformation of social relations of
exploitation and subordination, because it includes the proliferation of antagonisms
144. See ibid., 142. 106
concept because as a between fluid and multiple identities. Hegemony becomes a critical
for political struggle. Thus, conceptual tool it does not erase the multiplicity of positions
participate, rather than simply it aids the pursuit of understanding how multiple positions being oppressed.
While Laclau and Mouffe offer a nuanced conception of hegemony which permits the complexities of struggle to be acknowledged and analyzed, they do not extend the use of hegemonic struggle to the Third World.' They claim that the proliferation of
antagonisms is unique to Western democracies and therefore their concept of hegemony does not travel well beyond Western soil."" Laclau and Mouffe contend that the antagonisms which arise in advanced industrialized countries are expressions of resistance to the commodification, bureaucratization, and increasing homogenization of social life.
In contrast, postcolonial popular struggles occur in conditions where relations between the dominant groups and the rest of the society are defined around centralized forms of domination. However, a problem with the predominant western understanding of struggle
in postcolonial Africa is that relations and struggle are conceptualized in terms of extreme binary opposites.'''* In addition, Laclau and Mouffe's implicit suggestion that postcolonial
societies do not have to contend with increasing commodification and bureaucratization is at best misinformed, but more likely based on assumptions of the postcolonial as more primitive on the one hand and stunted by colonialism on the other hand.
145. I have crifiqued Laclau and Mouffe's concept of hegemony elsewhere. See "Did Marx underestimate the 'interest[s] of minorities?" African Rural and Urban Studies. forthcoming.
146. See "Provisional Notes on the Postcolony." 107
postcolonial The concept of hegemony has been rearticulated and deployed in
aspect of hegemony. On the contexts. Mallon highlights a slightly different but important
processes through which power and one hand, "[h]egemony is a set of nested, continuous
society.""' Hegemony as meaning are contested, legitimated, and redefined at all levels of
process in which precarious such is both hegemonic process and the result of hegemonic
because balances or agreements are reached among contesting forces. On the other hand, hegemonic processes contribute to the rise of a common social project that includes various competing notions of political culture, those in power are able to rule through a combination of coercion and consent."''^ Hegemony, thus, makes visible the contending interactions among different levels or groups which never involve equal access to power and knowledge. In these ongoing complex interactions among spaces of conflict and alliance moments of greater change occur which belong to a broader historical articulation of different hegemonic processes.'"'
Guha has articulated hegemony as a domain of dominance and subordinance
(power relations) in which the dominant must be granted dominance or else they would completely destroy the dominated. Chatterjee further elaborates that hegemony cannot be understood only in terms of dominance. While hegemony involves the successful
147. Florencia E. Mallon, Peasant and Nation: The Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 4.
148. Ibid.
149. Ibid., 6.
150. Ranajit Guha. Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India ("Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983). 108
and fragmented because exercise of coercive and persuasive power, it is incomplete
movement only hegemonic claims are contested.'" Thus, leaders of a broader political
endpoint when they amass achieve hegemony as a momentary, if somewhat precarious,
inclusion of ongoing legitimacy and support, yet the success of this necessitates a partial
the supporters' discourses and desires.'" In moments of hegemonic outcome
obscured, while contributions and struggles of subaltern groups will be redefined and even
subaltern voices in moments of hegemonic process which lead to repression and violence vanish.'" However, because hegemonic struggle is continuous, the voices Mallon claims vanish have the potential to be heard and can resonate in facilitating conditions. Subaltern groups can contest and reappropriate acts of dominance to suit their needs and interpretations, while they also defer to dominance."" Struggles over the meanings and purposes of citizenship and property attempt to make real the promises of nationalism and can be understood as hegemonic pursuits. Because hegemonic claims are contested, citizen and property are more appropriately thought of as contested arenas.
151. The Nation-State and Its Fragments , 212.
152. Peasant and Nation . 6.
153. Ibid., 7. For a detailed discussion of the voice of the subaltern and the problems of political representation through the concept of subaltern see "Can the Subaltern Speak?"
154. See Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts . 109
Melodious Harmony nr Dissonance?
The Colonial Citizen in Modernity
arise only In the tradition of Western political thought, citizenship is articulated to
replaced where clan and other kinship ties have dissolved. Clan and kinship are to be ties with political and military ties and power. The emergence of citizens in the ancient Greek
and clan ties cities is commonly interpreted to have accelerated the dissolution of kinship
'^^ as the practice expanded through colonies. However, what is not often remembered is that Greek citizenship had a short existence in the larger articulated era of Greek
civilization.'" Citizenship surfaced for a period of about 200 years (750-500 BC) and
even then was episodic and contested.'" This is mentioned to highlight an imperfect
repetition of sorts. By the 18th century nation-states dreaming of empires, such as
England, attempted to expand territorial control, however, the authors of colonial rule
were confused over what status to grant its new subjects—^what was citizenship in the
colonies? The relations between citizenship and property could not be articulated in a way that resolved the antagonisms between the modem citizen based on equality, the desire for
economic control, the layered relations of property, and the confronting kinship, clan, or
155. Engin Isin, "Who is the New Citizen? Towards a Genealogy," Citizenship Studies . l,no. 1(1997), 118.
156. The rise of Greek civilization is marked by the settlement of Crete in 3000 BC and ends with the Macedonian conquest of the Greek poleis in 322 BC.
157. See "Who is the New Citizen," 1 15-132 for an interesting genealogical consideration of citizenship. 110
in the colonies though its family ties in colonies. Blood ties were not to be dissolved importance was understood in the western context.
the main concern According to Ryan, in contrast to Ancient cities and republics,
and its of the modem notion of a free republic was not the maintenance of an army
separated employment in colonization. Building on the notion of citizen, the modem state citizenship from the military. Though the purpose here is not to empirically challenge
and Ryan's claim, I will suggest that he has forgotten the European race for empires economic dominance in the modem period. It cannot be denied that throughout the modem period a concem of imperialist nation-states was the maintenance of imposed order in colonies, and while colonial administrators perhaps replaced the military as the visible army, military force indeed backed-up administrative efforts to impose order in colonies. The modem colonial citizen administrator presents a challenge to constmcted military-citizen divide.
Perhaps the Roman Empire provides a better visual aid to encapsulate the modem imperialist dream than the ancient Greek city of citizens. By the 6th century BC, Roman citizenship emerged as a status based on association as family and territory and not clan or kinship. However, within the Roman Republic a distinction between types of citizens soon emerged, that between patrician citizens who owned a considerable amount of land, cattle, and slaves, and plebeian citizens who were mainly artisans and small farmers.
Plebeian citizenship consisted of not being slaves. By the 3rd century BC, citizenship distinguished within law the status of a Roman from what he was not, namely, slave, serf,
158. "Who is the New Citizen," 122. Ill
expanded into the Roman Empire, alien, debt servant. Finally, as the Roman Republic
It depended on how a city citizenship comprised a complex classification of distinctions.
as most, founded as new became part of the Empire: by annexation, alliance (treaty), or
citizenship, and some were granted citizenship coloniae . Some were granted complete
citizen's without voting rights, while others were not granted citizenship rights. A Roman
a province, of a status comprised a web of territorial identities—of the Roman Empire, of
to the fall of city.''' Such differentiation is often interpreted by scholars as contributing the Roman Empire.
In the modem colonies territorial and blood ties were used to order and control.
Yet territorial and blood ties can be understood as a means of resistance in the rise of nation and citizen. The postcolonial context highlights this possibility which is often neglected in Western studies. With the loss of colonies, post-colonizing efforts to understand and direct nation-building relied heavily on the idea of the ancient citizen and the modem subject as one rather than separated. But as Mamdani highlights independence did not "democratize" the nation-state; only deracialization occurred in the postcolonial context.
In the consideration of the rise of citizenship in western civilization it is also asserted that a direct relationship exists between citizenship and the form of capital.'*" Isin notes that because "different forms of capital facilitate or hinder access to capital through
159. The preceding depiction of the Roman Republic was taken from "Who is the New Citizen," 123.
160. See "Who is the New Citizen." 112
in citizenship territorial arrangements," the city and its people form a relationship which
the ownership becomes a territorial institution. Class—as the power difference based on of different forms of capital—conditions the territorial, legal, and moral boundaries of citizenship.'*' Chatterjee highlights the contradiction between capital and community
suggesting that its consideration offers a critique of modernity from within itself'"
Chatterjee contends that the problems in the history of the state-civil society relation in
Europe are shaped by divergences in conceptualizing the relation between rights and
community. The conceptualization is framed within the extremes of abolishing community completely (the rise of the individual) and of re-attributing community a single determinate
form which delegitimizes all other forms of community (rise of the nation and nation-
state). This history is entangled with the history of capital. The moment of capital turns provincial European thought into universal philosophy, and for this to take form, the destruction of community must occur. However, community could not be entirely
destroyed. Chatterjee states, "[t]he domain of civil society, ruled by 'liberty, equality, property, and Bentham,' could not produce an adequate justification for the lack of freedom and equality within the industrial labor process itself and the continued division of
161. Ibid., 119.
162. The proceeding discussion taken from "The Nation-State and Its Fragments," 230- 239. Mallon similarly asserts that the combination of colonialism, nationalism, and democracy creates a contradiction in which the democratic discourse promised universally autonomy, dignity and equality of all people, yet in practice denied groups of people access to citizenship and liberty based on Eurocentrism, race, class, and gender. This tension featured centrally in the construction of national-democratic projects and discourses which attempted to expand and redefine the notion of citizenship throughout the worid between the 18th and 20th centuries (Peasant and Nation . 9). 113
public sphere becomes the society into the opposed classes of capital and labor." The
political authority, thus place for diverse communities of the individual and a place outside
according making the distinction between the state and civil society. Community—which
and to capital should have been eradicated but refuses to go away—has a subterranean potentially threatening presence.
Chatterjee suggests that considerations of colonial and postcolonial histories enable a critique of European modernity because it is in these spaces that the contradictions between community and capital are clearly visible. The modem state and institutions of civil society were imported into these countries through colonial rule.
However, colonial rule could only grant subjecthood and not citizenship to the colonized.
Anticolonial nationalism is the disruptive moment when the colonized refuse to accept membership as subjects in this civil society and create national identities through the narrative of community. Chatterjee concludes that the tragedy of the postcolonial occurs where the state interrupts such new creations of nation and resigns itself to old modem nation and state forms and consequently must oppress communities.
Nationalism (conceptualized out of European capitalism and colonialism) is conventionally defined as an ideology whose believers put the nation—an already defined, integrated community with a territory, language and accepted set of historical traditions—before divisive associations such as region, class, family, clan, or ethnic group. '^^ However, history has illustrated that subaltern classes have led nationalist stmggles against the interests of the local dominant classes. Thus, nationalism needs to be
163. Peasant and Nation . 9. 114
subaltern classes conceptualized so as to account for the participation and creativity of the
treated in the process of nation-state formation. To this end, nationalism can be
analytically separate from (though historically linked to) the politics of the triumphant
nation-state.'*" A broader concept of nationalism includes contestation, thereby shaping
nationalism as a series of competing or contending discourses in constant flux and
negotiation and bounded by power relations.'*'
Postcolonial colonialitv?
The decision of postcolonies to assume the old modem nation and state forms
parallels the efforts of modem social science to direct the analytical focus on the failures of
the national project in the postcolonial context.'** Eyoh contends that most of social
science inquiry on Africa rests on the inadequate assumption that politics in postcolonies is
ordered in the form of reactions to the way in which mling elites of the state pursue the
hegemonic projects of nation-building (centered around a nation-state) and modem
164. Ibid., 3.
165. Ibid., 4.
166. See Dickson Eyoh, "From Economic Crisis to Political Liberalization: Pitfalls of the New Political Sociology for African," African Studies Review 39, no.3(1996): 66-101.
The criticism of the imperialistic nature of the Westem academy is a lingering criticism that has been rearticulated in multiple ways and in different specific disciplines. See for example, Kwame Anthony Appiah, "Is the Post- in Postmodemism the Post- in Postcolonial," Critical Inquiry 17(Winter 1991): 336-357; Claude Ake. Social Science as Imperialism: The Theory of Political Development (Lagos: University of Ibadan Press, 1979); Irene Grendzier, Managing Political Change: Social Scientists and the Third World (Boulder: Westview Press, 1985); Mahmood Mamdani, "A Glimpse at African Studies,
Made in the USA," CODESRIA Bulletin . 2(1990); Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon, 1979). 115
industrialization.'^^ The current focus is on the constructive role of civil society in the process of state democratization. Hyden has proposed that a new focus on governance centered around the reconstitution of political order in Africa. The focus is on the construction and management of the rules of the political arena which includes the state and civil society as interactive.'** However, Mbembe contends that a shift in perspective
is needed to understand postcolonial politics. He suggests that postcolonial relations of power are not primarily relations of resistance and collaboration, but ones of "illicit cohabitation."'*' Thus, postcolonial relations should not be understood in terms of binary oppositions such as state and civil society, resistance and passivity, nor should they be interpreted in terms of resistance and absolute domination.'™
I have chosen to consider the concepts of citizenship, property, and hegemony precisely because these concepts are not only important but imposed on political studies of democratization, economic liberalization, and state/society relations within Africa.
However, these terms can be reappropriated and deployed to read against the grain of their parochial use. This study will deploy citizenship, property, and hegemony to reappropriate the terms in regards to three tendencies in their usage. First, analysis and conceptualization of the national project suffer from gender neutrality though such a
167. "From Economic Crisis to Political Liberalization," 68-69.
168. "Governance and the Reconstitution of Political Order," in State Conflict and
Democracy in Africa . 185.
169. "Provisional Notes on the Postcolony," 4.
170. Ibid., 3-5. 116
in terms of binary political project is gendered. Second, analysis tends to be framed
postcolonies do not opposites. Third, the use of these concepts is intended to locate how
this means in replicate the already determined appropriate form of the nation-state, what
terms of obstructing progress, and how they can be fixed.
neutrality, gender-blindness, and Gender neutrality . The problems of gender
gender-bias in social science analysis has been criticized from many feminist
perspectives.'^' McClintock asserts that nationalism from its beginning was constituted as
a gendered discourse. Women were excluded from direct participation as national citizens
and reduced symbolically into national politics as its boundary and metaphor.''^
Citizenship can also be characterized as gendered. Citizenship at its birth was not only a
strictly male identified discourse distinguished from and excluding women, it did not even
invoke the image of woman metaphorically. While national discourse spoke in terms of
familial and domestic space, and symbolically feminized the nation, the discourse of
citizenship distinguished the citizenry from the family and the domestic. While national
171. See Ayesha M. Imam, Amina Mama, and Fatou Sow, eds.. Engendering African
Social Sciences (Dakar: Codesria, 1997). For the purposes of this study I will use gender in the way articulated by Ayesha Imam in "Engendering African Social Sciences: An Introductory Essay." Gender refers to the social and historical constructions of masculine and feminine. While gender roles may seem to be founded on or correspond to biological sex, they do not necessarily. Imam provides the examples of female husbands and male daughters in studies conducted in Africa. See also Joan Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988) for a discussion of gender and sex, For a questioning of the categories of sex and gender see Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990).
172. Anne McClintock, "'No Longer in a Future Heaven': Nationalism, Gender, and
Race," in Becoming National . 261. McClintock also warns of the problems with the concept of postcolonial, particularly in regards to gender in "The Angels of Progress: Pitfalls of the Term 'Postcolonialism,'" Social Text 31/32(1992): 84-98. 117
discourse repudiated the former discourse spoke of blood and valued reproduction, citizen
slaves and women could not and was disinterested in the latter. Citizenship offered what
constraints of material have: freedom—which was partially defined in terms of the
insights into analyzing the conditions. McClintock's feminist theory of nationalism offers
four possible exclusionary shortcomings of the concept of citizenship. She articulates
male theories, the ways areas for critical reflection: the gendered formation of sanctioned
national formations, in which women have actively participated in cultural and political
structures and how to place nationalist institutions in critical relation with other social
institutions, and finally, the structures of racial, ethnic, and class power that problematize
privileged forms of feminism.'"
A consideration of the ways in which national discourse and specifically different
notions of citizen are gendered in Zanzibar will highlight three issues. First, in the creation
of a new Zanzibari nation, political leaders used the feminine body both as an object to
appropriate and a place of re-creation. The implications for women of such a gendered
project were completely disregarded by political leaders, and only until recently remained
silenced or rationalized in historical discourse. Second, the creafion of social order in
rural towns has historically involved the use of women as carriers and creators of citizens,
though they themselves have not always had a proper identity as citizen of their own.
Finally, the question of citizenship is more complicated than the simple question of
exclusion or inclusion. While women may not be considered proper citizens, they can be
included within the notion of citizen. In addition, women contribute the preservation of a
173. Ibid. 118
their agendas and social institution that does not properly include them as they pursue own
to needs. Women can deploy the very concept that excluded them however impartially
exclude others.
Though Mbembe calls for an end to conceptualizing in terms of Binarv opposites .
conceptualized as binary opposites, I will begin with the material/identity dichotomy
property/citizen to comment on how this dichotomy is disrupted. The antagonism
between citizen and property offers another place to begin a critique of modernity from
within itself A split between the material (manifested as material conditions and property)
and the ideal (embodied as the political identity) classifies the ancient period as distinct
from the modem period in Western political thought. This moment of rupture may offer a
different understanding of the relationship between the material and identity, however it
left the two tangled in a state of contention. Two concrete manifestations, property and
citizen, testify to an irreducible, irreconcilable relation. In the modem perception of
ancient citizenship, the citizen is a member of a political community of dialogue where the
common assumption of property unites them so that there is no need nor interest to
discuss questions of property. Property was articulated as security, land, and things
involved in production— all of which do not belong in the realm of politics.
In the modem moment, property became articulated as resource relations which constituted the basis of liberty. Though the modem critic understood the inevitability of material relations, he also believed that what gave the ancient citizen his freedom to think
(his identity) was his freedom (or rights) in property. Citizenship became an assurance for the protection of liberty, rather than the activity beyond property. The change was in the 119
the fluctuation and perception of property because as money-making expanded so did
an attempt to ambiguity of property as relations. The concept of the modem citizen was
liberated from stabilize property so that the identity of citizen was self-defined and
citizen, as envisioned by property. It was an attempt to reach the ancient ideal. However,
The the project of modernity, could only exist if it was defined in terms of property.
modem notion of property became dependent on citizen, because property was only
as understood as of value because it gave people freedom as citizens. Once property, an
individual right which confers freedom, became a political topic and political interest to be
debated and determined by the modem state, the modem state would never be able to
universally understand, protect, and avoid interfering with the individual. This is a
consequence of the differences of interests which citizens cannot resolve because of
property. Thus, citizenship will always create marginalizations which will not be
incorporated nor assimilated, thereby disturbing the system of order. The disturbance can
provoke change or the use force, or can uncomfortably coexist with the system of order.
This constitutes the process of hegemonic struggle.
Perhaps postcolonies present the most dismptive challenges because the colonial
imports (or impositions) of citizen and property are never actually discarded, but endure
and are reappropriated along with new notions of how the ideas of citizen and property
will constmct a nation which confronts old ones which were never erased. Each is comparably legitimate and as such positioned in contestation. Zanzibar has a history of stmggle on the terrain of nation in which contending notions of citizen and property 120
have undergone figure. Zanzibar constitutes a place where citizenship and property redefining.
property in terms of a dichotomy has Postcolonial failings . Revealing citizen and
current relevance to rethinking the concepts because it highlights the enduring logic behind policy and scholarly attempts to address nation-building in Africa. This binary opposite
understanding of the has lost its visibility because it is assumed. However, it informs the national project in Africa as a failure and the ongoing efforts to correct the failings of state
and/or society (another binary opposite). I have decided to focus on these three — theoretical concepts—^property, citizenship, and hegemony ^to highlight the imperfect entanglement of the citizen and property in the simple pursuit of life and the political. This social process takes the form of struggle that is never complete; thus, the idea of absolute
dominance is never attainable. This study vnW specifically consider land (including its natural resources) and the numerous politicized relationships of race, ethnicity,
territoriality, family, gender, and class that have been invoked as citizen struggles in
Zanzibar. The following chapters will illustrate how the postcolonial experience in
Zanzibar informs the re-articulation of the three concepts to comment on the materiality of political struggle and how citizenship constitutes a terrain for political struggle rather than conferring a fixed, finalized, or resolving identity.
The challenge is to understand how multiple identity discourses interact and are reconstructed in the historical struggle to build an empire or a nation within and across the boundaries of a territory. Rather than focusing on how postcolonies of Africa have failed to construct viable nation-states in the image of their past colonizers, a shift in perspective 121
understanding how people in their is attempted in this study. The shift will involve
postcolonial state. This fragmented social identities illicitly, yet legitimately, coexist in the
of enduring coexistence can assume the form of a subnational identity within a nation,
negotiations localized fragmented identities within the subnation, and of complicated between localized, subnational, national, and extra-state positions—none of which are mutually exclusive. People may struggle over material resources but they may or may not attempt to link property and citizen and invoke a materiality. In such negotiated struggles acts of domination do occur and the postcolonial state can be implicated.'^'* Yet those subjected to acts of domination or control have a role to play in their own subordination as they continue their struggles to coexist.
Echoing Citizen and Narcissistic Property
The myth of Narcissus comments on hubris in terms of the limits of self-knowledge and the insistence of materiality. Hubris can be thought of as an imagining of hegemony as absolute dominance. Narcissus tragically suffers as a consequence of the pursuit of such hegemony. The nation-state considered only in terms of Narcissus faces a similar
174. The definition of the state will be not theoretically debated in this study.
Nevertheless it is a indispensable concept that is inextricably tangled in the notions of citizen, property and hegemony, while residing in the location of (postcolonial) nation.
Thus, I will borrow Mallon's definition as a series of de/centralized sites of struggle through which hegemony are both contested and reproduced. The state will be understood as a network of institutions which governs in a society. These state institutions are locations where conflicts are constantly being resolved, manipulation is circulating, influence is being sought, and order and organization constructed. Struggle is dispersed throughout the state network as a consequence. Struggle is also complicated as state officials at times simultaneously find themselves to be manifestations of the state and citizens. See Peasant and Nation. 9-10. 122
citizen and tragedy. However, Echo and Narcissus together can rethink the relation of
binary property in the hegemonic context because they do not represent a relation of
opposites, nor an expression of absolute dominance. They express a collection of complex
outside relations. First, Echo—as feminine—offers a theoretical position as gendered and
of the masculine from which to consider citizenship and the implications of its gendered
uses. Echo permits gendered theorizing to think of not only women's lives but an array of
citizen lives as meaningful and understandable. Second, Echo reconceptualizes citizen not
as opposed to property, because Echo is not defined as the other or opposite of Narcissus.
Though she echoes Narcissus, she it not him nor completely within his discourse.
Likewise, Echo assists in thinking of citizen as not defined by (or through) property but as
concerned with property and resigned to echoing its demands. Finally, Echo also rethinks
citizen in relation to nationality. The national project—like Narcissus—is concerned with
only itself as the proper and fiilfilling identity. Like Narcissus, who depends on and lusts
after his material image, the nation (or nation-state) is defined in terms of its property. It
remains like Narcissus in its material form though vacant. Echo, however, is not
necessarily defined in terms of the material and does not have a fixed identity. She is not
defined in terms of Narcissus. She is constrained to echo him but not without her own
intentions. This gives her the illusion of being part of Narcissus, while she is also not.
Echo endures in her struggles, even after Narcissus cannot speak. Likewise, citizen is not necessarily defined in terms of the nation and state. Citizens may be constrained by them, however, they echo or defer with their own intentions. In this way, citizen as Echo
coexists outside the nation-state and can give the illusion of being within it when required. 123
possibilities are not defined opposed Echo signifies possibilities rather than failure. These
desired and undesired affects. to failures, however, because like echoes, they can have
consider the Together Echo and Narcissus provide a rearticulated postcolonial allegory to
the nation- complex ways in which various citizens struggle in coexistence with citizens,
state, and extra-state agents. CHAPTER 3 EPIC: BRACING HISTORY IN ZANZIBAR
Kracinp in Zanzibar
On 16 July, 1997, the Civic United Front (a political party in Zanzibar) held a rally in Zanzibar Town to bum a book written by a member of the first Revolutionary Council under multipartyism. Omar Mapuri wrote The 1964 Revolution: Achievements and
Prospects to set the record straight on the motivations of the revolution in response to the
"lies" articulated and perpetuated by CUF. CUF contended that Mapuri's book was an
inaccurate account of Zanzibar's history, particularly as it centers around the issue of land.
According to CUF, Arabs did not hold most of the land in the form of plantations, rather the Pemban landscape was parceled into small farms of which Arabs owned about half.
Mapuri explained that he wrote this history of the Zanzibari Revolution in response to a proliferation of histories rife with the distortion and misinterpretation of facts. He
declared, "[a] distorted history breeds a distorted future." Perhaps Mapuri echoes Abeid
Karume's more brutal aversion to history which was imprinted in his proclamation to destroy history because history destroyed us. Consequently, Karume embarked on a political mission to allow historical products—including documentation and architecture—of Zanzibar to decay.
124 125
changing position in a Nevertheless, extensive documentation on Zanzibar and its
sift through in their efforts to larger global context provide rich accounts for historians to
quite interesting construct a history of Zanzibar. The writing of Zanzibar history is
reveal the because there has been a critical effort within postcolonial Zanzibar to
colonialism. This imperialistic and racist motivations of writings on Zanzibar during
background chapter will draw from selected writings to provide a history of Zanzibar as a
will be on for understanding contemporary postcolonial politics in Zanzibar." The focus the postcolonial efforts—understood as politically and socially motivated acts—of scholars and politicos to create particular accounts of Zanzibari society. The purpose of
this chapter is to highlight the contested articulation of the history of Zanzibar which dances around identifying who and what is most exploitive.
Histories of Zanzibar can be roughly considered to divide into two perspectives.
The first interpretation focuses on how social relations, production, and the struggle for
independence were shaped by racial or ethnic identities, and highlights how racial or ethnic
identities coincide with class identities. The second perspective reftites the racial emphasis
and rejects that race and class coincided. Rooted in materialism, it offers an explanation
of the development of Zanzibar in terms of class relations and through a mode of production analysis. Despite their differences, writings from both perspectives tend to
1. For a very detailed economic account of the history of Zanzibar from 1770 to 1873, see Abdul Sheriff, Slaves. Spices, and Ivory (Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House, 1987). This chapter will not be concerned with determining who and what relations were more exploitive, i.e. the relations between European societies and societies around the Indian Ocean or relations between Arabia and East Africa. For an attempt to clarify myths about exploitation and who has been more exploitive see Slaves. Spices, and Ivory . 126
and analysis of Zanzibari share a de-genderized (or masculine) approach to the telling
a political process exposes the history. Considering the writing of Zanzibar history as
development. It is also influence that knowledge production has in directing a society's
the following in regards reveals how writing supports hegemonic pursuits. Prakash states to historiography of former colonies:
To pry open the reading of colonialism from this prison-house of historicism requires more than the concept of neocolonialism. For at stake have become is not simply the issue as to whether or not former colonies free from domination, but also the question as to how the history of colonialism and colonialism's disciplining of history can be shaken loose from the domination of categories and ideas it produced-colonizer and colonized; white, black, and brown; civilized and uncivilized; modem and archaic; cultural identity; tribe and nation.^
Chatterjee lays out three broad stages, through which tensions in national-democratic discourse unfold, in his consideration of colonial and postcolonial India. These stages can provide a framework in which to consider how a colonial notion of Zanzibar's history has been written, challenged, and re-written. The first stage is the "moment of departure" in which the possibility of a national-democratic project emerges. In the "moment of manoeuvre," new elites emerge as dominant in a national alliance through the mobilization of popular support for the cause of a democratic struggle. At the same time, a "distancing of the popular elements from the structures of the state" occurs. Finally, the "moment of arrival" refers to the political exclusion of subaltern movements from power once they are used. Mallon adds that the national-democratic discourse becomes a discourse of order
2. Gvan Prakash. After Colonialism: Imperial Histories and Postcolonial Displacements (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 5. 127
. . glossing over all earlier "conducted in a single, consistent, unambiguous voice, .
differences and antagonisms are contradictions, divergences, and differences."' However,
achieve hegemony. never completely erased which account for why the state cannot
completely eradicate Neglecting their presence may have political purposes but it does not antagonisms.
In addition to the three historical moments articulated by Chatteijee, I have added
Chatteijee's three to consider the writing of history in Zanzibar. The first two precede three moments. The last one will follow his three stages. I have created the first two based on the work of scholars to rewrite colonial and precolonial history in Zanzibar and the East African coast. The first is "moments of alliances" in which the politics of trade between numerous participants in the India Ocean trade system unfolds. The system of
trade established is facilitated and hampered through social ties and negotiations. In the
"moment of imposition," political alliances to maintain influence and stability become imperialistic political relations. In the "moment of re-arriving," the ways in which popular struggle to define and direct national development change with the changes in the economic and political arenas.
This epic narrative will arrange differing accounts of Zanzibari history as a rudimentary attempt to highlight the different categories used to interpret history against
colonial and imperialist accounts. It also presents an attempt to question the categories used in the historical construction of Zanzibar by highlighting historical details which can provide the means to disrupt hegemonic concepts framing history in a postcolonial era.
3. Peasant and Nation , 13. 128
persuasively argue the importance of The materialist explanations of Zanzibari history
changes in social relations in transformations in trade, production, and capital to shaping
highlight the role of social Zanzibar. However, other interpretations also persuasively
political animosities and identities in solidifying production relations and generating
raises the question of why resistance. The contention between the two interpretations
the writing of history there have been such attempts to erase race and to conjure race in
it will suggest that for Zanzibar. This chapter will not answer that question; however,
society tangled neither identity nor material alone can portray the complex history of a
resources, and with other societies. The perpetual maneuvering of identities and material
the mutual defining between the two, generate new interactions (or relations) indefinitely.
The notion of eracmg semantically captures this hegemonic struggle in which new
identities materialize and new material concerns become identified, whether it involves the
writing of history or the participation in politics. Bracing suggests that though an attempt
identities is made to erase a social identity through the creation of another, residue of past
remain. Bracing must occur in a place since it is a simultaneous attempt to erase and
identify something. In the history of Zanzibar, that place has been the land. In Zanzibar,
race—as used by the British colonial administration as an instrument of control and
preserved in some historical analyses—indeed, awkwardly, disruptively, and
incomprehensibly interprets the social. Yet as a political instrument, it has left its trace on
Zanzibari history. Class constitutes an excessively narrow analytical concept which has
been deployed to erase race. However, class alone also cannot explain the various and
complex interpretations of Zanzibar. The treatment of the writing of history as a process 129
revealed and of eracing can give visibility to the ways in which materialized identities are concealed for political purposes.
Moments of Alliance
The name Swahili derives from the Arabic sawahil which has two meanings: coast and edge or border. Middleton suggests that the Swahili are people of the coast, or perhaps, on the borders of Arabic or Islamic civilization. He notes, "[that] many outside observers and members of the socially superior Swahili groups have contended that
Swahili culture was transplanted from Asia."" More recently though, it is increasingly asserted that the African influence on the Swahili culture is more important than was thought. Middleton contends that the Swahili were not composed of the Asian merchant
settlers. Rather, the Swahili created their identity in response to the arrival of the merchants.
Many immigrant groups have crossed the Indian Ocean from Asia to settle in
Zanzibar. Between 600 B.C. and the seventh century A.D., the Persian empire was one of the largest around the Indian Ocean. Many rulers of Swahili city-states claimed Shirazi identity and this claim remains prevalent in Zanzibar, particularly in Pemba and in the
South of Unguja. Middleton explains that the Arab influence came in three waves across the Ocean. The oldest claim Arab ancestry through those who came from the Hadhramaut
(Yemen) and Oman before the arrival of the Portuguese. While they are Swahili, they
4. John Middleton. The World of the Swahili: An African Mercantile Civilization fNew Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 15. 130
the case in Pemba. The have retained their tribal and clan names. This is particularly
during the eighteenth second wave of Arab immigrants became part of the Swahili culture
subjected the Swahili and nineteenth centuries when the Al-Busaidi dynasty of Muscat
Zanzibar). The preservation coast to Omani rule (the Sultan eventually ruled Oman from
from the older and of the link between Arabia and Zanzibar distinguished the Omani
insisted on their localized "Arab-Swahili." Many Omani families of high social standing
petty traders who Arabian identity.' Finally, the Hadrami Arabs trace their ancestry to the
with the came from the Hadhramaut and prospered because of their willingness to trade
Indian Ocean as Africans in the nineteenth century. Indians have also travelled across the
never merchants in the trade routes and settled on the Swahili Coast; however, they are considered Swahili.^ Africans of slave ancestry feature in the Swahili culture; however, mainland Africans who settled on the coast and on the islands are not considered Swahili.
Each has, upon arrival, claimed to be different from the people already settled there. Yet with time, such distinctions have blurred through intermarriage, concubinage, the Swahili
language, and custom. Nevertheless, immigrant groups and those already settled establish
dress, differences whether it is through nuances of dialect and speech, religious behavior,
and house adornment as Middleton suggests, or through the political acts of interpreting
and contesting history, creating political parties and alliances, and resisting, shaping, and
deploying government policies.
5. Ibid., 12-13.
6. Ibid., 13. 131
the life of societies. Ancient Along the East African coast, commerce shaped
extend their routes down the Greek and Roman affections for ivory urged Arab traders to
The export of slaves from the East African coast as early as the second century B.C/
City-states arose along the Horn of Africa was documented by the second century A.D."
as a network through maritime coast. While autonomous, they were also connected
middleman communication and common culture and language.' The Swahili became a
around the Indian Ocean. society in this two thousand year old mercantilist system
trading partners Middleton explains that relations between Swahili merchants and their
overseas were personal rather than market-oriented, often based on the marriage of
created ties of trust by merchants to the daughter of his host Swahili family. This practice creating ties of blood.
By the 16th century A.D. the Portuguese appeared on the horizon with the
objective of capturing the Indian Ocean trade to reroute it around the Cape of Good
Hope, thereby destroying the Italian-Muslim monopoly over the spice trade. '° The
Swahili merchant class was fragmented, enabling the Portuguese to create allies with some
city-states and to subjugate others. The Swahili requested assistance from the Imam of
Oman to end Portuguese subjugation of the coast; and in 1653, the rulers of Zanzibar,
7. Slaves. Spices, and Ivory , 12.
8. The first knows and heralded account of the Swahili coast originates from Alexandria as a in the first century A.D. The Periplus of the Ervthraean Sea , written in Greek, served navigator's guide to the Indian Ocean.
9. Slaves. Spices, and Ivory , 8.
10. Ibid., 15. 132
Swahili (e.g. Pemba, and Utondwe revoked their allegiance to the Portuguese." The
Portuguese in their struggle Mombasa under the Mazrui's) tossed between the Omanis and
expulsion of the Portuguese, for domination over the East African coast. After the final
eighteenth century. the Swahili were unable to resist Omani subjugation in the
period. The main Oman also had undergone a major transformation during this
source of economic activities of Oman were agriculture and pastoralism. The main
revenue for the rulers was a produce tax. The tribes of Oman were ruled over by the
had Imam who was elected by the elite (comprising chiefs, nobles, and the educated), but
to be confirmed by the commons.'^ The Imams began a transformation into merchant
princes as a consequence of their control over the East African coast. With their profits
they invested in date production based on slave labor. Along with the emergence of a
merchant class and a landowning class, who employed slave labor, came the secularization
of Oman which ran counter to an elected Imam. A ruling dynasty and the principle of
patrilineal succession were established. The preservation of this class and the ruling
dynasty depended on international trade, and its success in monopolizing the trade
depended on the British dominance that was increasing over the Indian Ocean.''*
11. See Sheriff for a discussion of the struggles between the Swahili states, Oman, and the Portuguese.
12. Slaves. Spices and Ivory , 18.
13. Ibid., 19.
14. Ibid., 21. 133
Moments of Imposition
The Rise of an Imperial Force
nineteenth century Sheriff asserts that Zanzibar rose as a commercial empire in the
argues that the unfolding of in the context of expanding Western capitalism. He
interior of Africa and the Zanzibar's history as an commercial intermediary between the
and ivory--and two capitalist industrializing West hinged on two commodities-slaves
trade by the use of slave coinciding transformations--the rising demand placed on the slave
This combination of labor in Zanzibar and the expansion of the ivory trade in Zanzibar.
eventual subjugation to changing demands led to the rise of a plantation economy and its
merchant capital.
the Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the demand for slaves to labor in
French sugar colonies of the Mascarenes and plantations in the Americas kept the slave
slave trade generated trade alive.'* However, the British crusade to abolish the European
century, Arab the need to find other avenues for the trade in slaves. By the nineteenth
plantations of slave traders transformed the slave trade by rerouting slaves to the clove
Zanzibar and the grain plantations on the East African coast. This shift had the effect of
changing the use of slaves purely as an commodity for export into labor to produce food
15. Marx articulates in his modes of production that the moment when labor and product are severed, life becomes a progression of exploitation. In the capitalist moment this exploitation intensifies and accelerates as capital accumulation is exponential in power. Sheriff fi-ames his account of history with this presupposition attempting to prove
that Zanzibar's rise and fall can be explained in terms of the destructive march of merchant capital as a instrument for capitalist powers. While sharing a concern for the material, I do not assume the potential of deterministic materialist explanations of history.
16. The Mascarenes now are the islands of Mauritius and Reunion. 134
However, clove commodities which were chamieled into the Indian Ocean trade system.
food crops, undermining the cultivation also encroached upon areas suitable for growing
changing Zanzibar into an importer islands self-sufficiency in the production of food and
the Swahili peasantry. They had of food." This shift contributed to the marginalization of
a communal land tenure once held the land encroached upon for clove cultivation under
descent from the man who cleared system in which land was shared by those of patrilineal
exacerbated the need for slave labor the parcel of land.'* The marginalization of peasants
on the plantations.
of the The supply of ivory from Mozambique to India collapsed in the grasp
the demand for ivory Portuguese taxation system at the end of the eighteenth century, yet
consequence, trade in Zanzibar in Europe and the Americas was on the rise. As a
manufactured goods such as expanded in the export of ivory and cloves, and the import of
through taxation which cotton textiles.'' Zanzibar then sought to monopolize trade
increasing proved extremely profitable for the Sultanate and the merchant class. The
East African dominance of the Sultanate strangled trade in the Swahili city-states along the
coast.
Arab traders had aggressively invested their profit in landownership and began
the spice which cultivating cloves first to the point of breaking the Dutch monopoly over
had brought about a decline in the price of cloves on the market, and then, to the point of
17. Slaves. Spices, and Ivorv . 54.
18. Ibid., 55.
19. Ibid., 2. 135
With this shift overproduction which left the landowning class indebted to moneylenders.
to Middleton. The to investing in plantations came a shift in social structure, according
and the plantation-owning aristocracy first comprised members of the Omani dynasty
of slave and Swahili "patrician" families, but by the end of the nineteenth century, Africans mainland origins had acquired parcels of this land.^° The Swahili peasantry was able to
diverse, share in the clove industry and land-owning became more widespread and particularly in Pemba.^'
Swahili merchants invested capital at this time as loans to landovmers, but by the end of the nineteenth century were marginalized by Indian fmanciers.^^ In the early eighteenth century, Indian traders' commercial activities were confined to Zanzibar itself, and they were not permitted to ovm land outside of Zanzibar town. Complaining of
oppression by the ruling body in Zanzibar, they called upon the British for protection."
Facing impoverishment at home, Indians began to migrate to East Afiica and prospered as
a merchant class. By 1861, three quarters of immovable property on Zanzibar was either
mortgaged to or in the possession of Indians.^'' Though Indian merchants accumulated
profits in the form of interest fi-om loans and mortgages to Arabs, Sheriff contends that
they could only invest in merchant and moneylending forms of capital because the
20. The World of the Swahili . 48.
21. Slaves. Spices and Ivorv . 57.
22. The World of the Swahili . 49.
23. Slaves. Spices and Ivorv . 84.
24. Ibid., 205. 136
they were prohibited to profitability of clove cultivation declined, and as British subjects, use slave labor. They eventually undermined the land-owning class.
Sheriff contends that the Zanzibar commercial empire did not develop refined
over administrative and political structures, but was sustained by the Sultan's monopoly
the trade routes in the interior of Africa which eventually suffered fi-om competition. By end of the eighteenth century, the Omani Sultanate was dependent on Britain for protection and to gain access to the Indian market. By 1840 the Sultan relied completely on the British to maintain order in Oman. Sheriff claims, "the various slave trade treaties provided a convenient path for the penetration of British influence and power into East
Afiica under a humanitarian guise, and were a prelude to British supremacy at Zanzibar."
By 1873 the Sultan submitted to pressure by the British to sign a treaty prohibiting the export of slaves fi-om his kingdom (though ownership was not prohibited except for non-
Muslim British subjects)." In 1890, Zanzibar was established as a British Protectorate; the Sultan remained in power as a constitutional monarch on salary from the British.^*
25. The World of the Swahili . 47-48.
26. Slaves. Spices and Ivorv . 245. 137
The Dilemmas of Re-structuring Zanzibar
In 1897, under the British, slavery was completely abolished in Zanzibar."
critical According to Depelchin, the abolition of slavery, as a legal act, constituted a
destabilized interference in the structure which bound Zanzibar society together because it
the quandary of how to class relations. It also created a shortage of labor which presented
only reorganize free slaves to preserve the operations of plantations. Slavery was not
receive important to the agricultural economy, Depelchin argues, but Arabs expected to
the question of their subsistence from slave labor. For the British, the dilemma presented
production, that how to assure that the freed slaves would not simply revert to subsistence
Depelchin claims that the is, how to transform their labor power into a commodity.^* second problem for the British concerned how to transform the plantation and slave ovraer
into a capitalist because it was from the production of cloves that surplus value was created, and not from trading.
The British granted owners compensation for property lost in persons due to the abolition of slavery, but the landowners were already heavily indebted. The Arab landed
aristocracy was ultimately unable to make the transformation. The colonial administration
saw a future in the small-holders (also identified as wealthy (Shirazi or Swahili) peasants)
27. While the 1897 decree abolished slavery, it exempted certain categories of slaves such as concubines and required slaves to apply for their freedom through rural officials (who were Arab) (Harrison George Mwakyembe, Tanzania's Eighth Constitutional
Amendment and Its Implications on Constitutionalism, Democracv and the Union Question (Munster: LIT Veriag, 1995), 38).
28. Jacques Depelchin, "The Transition from Slavery, 1873-1914," in Zanzibar Under
Colonial Rule , ed. by Abdul Sheriff and Ed Ferguson (London: James Curry, 1991), 25. 138
other emerging and provided incentives to encourage the cultivation of cloves. On the
various hand, labor remained a problem. The colonial administration deployed
including mechanisms to quash local resistance to wage labor on clove plantations,
force, the taxation of all forms of peasant activity and ownership.^' They also used recruitment of more competitive migrant labor, and the importation of commodities.^"
However, Bowles also attributes the conversion of "the indigenous people into a reserve labor supply" to the impoverished conditions in which landowners had marginalized
peasants as the fertile land was appropriated for plantations.^'
According to Ferguson, four categories of workers arose out of the transition from a slave economy to a free labor economy. The squatters (who were mostly ex-slaves) worked on the plantations in return for wages and a small plot of land.^^ Mainland workers, comprising mostly Wanyamwezi and Wasukuma, increasingly migrated to
Zanzibar. Peasants who grew their own food on land off the plantation would work on the plantations for wages as seasonal labor. Finally, a sector of this peasantry was able to
29. Zinnat Bader Jaffer, "Food Imports and Clove Exports: The Myth of Reform and Self-Sufficiency in Post- 1965 Zanzibar," prepared for the Program in Agrarian Studies Colloquium Series, Yale University, 1993, 4.
30. See Ed Ferguson, "The Formation of a Colonial Economy," Zanzibar Under
Colonial Rule .
31. See B. D. Bowles, "The Struggle for Independence, 1946-1963." Zanzibar Under
Colonial Rule .
32. Sheriff elaborates that the squatters had to be paid wages for picking cloves, and by their cultivation of their food crops between the trees, they controlled the growth of weeds. They however had no security of land tenure on the plantations and were generally not permitted to plant trees. 139
unpaid family labor. It was the acquire land for their own production through the use of
in the 1920's." latter which revitalized the clove plantation economy
and Newbury distinguish In their focus on the indigenous peasantry, both Bowles
explains that in the peasant work force further between Pemba and Unguja. Newbury
Unguja the coral rag areas were unsuitable to clove cultivation and the Hadimu who
as resided in these areas maintained a system of land tenure based on kinship. However,
they were dispossessed of their rights over their more fertile communal lands and
cultivable land became scarce, they sought work on clove plantations. Simultaneously, a
land tenure system based on patronage between Arab landowners and squatters (former
slaves) also evolved.^" In Pemba, land was more evenly distributed across the entire island
in the form of smaller plantations, many of which were owned by Pemba Shirazi.
Consequently, a system of patronage and subsequent tensions between Arab landowners
and squatters did not arise.-'^
33. "The Formation of the Colonial Economy," Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule . 40-41.
34. M. Catherine Newbury, "Colonialism, Ethnicity, and Rural Political Protest: Rwanda and Zanzibar in Comparative Perspective," Comparative Politics 15, no. 3(April, 1983): 260.
35. Ibid., 262. Jaffar contends that the ex-slaves and the indigenous peasantry (specifically the Hadimu) frustrated the efforts of the colonial administration to create a labor force. Jaffer infers that British colonial control was caught between the problems of a decadent Arab land-owning class and an elusive native population disinterested in cash and able to sustain itself See "Food Imports and Clove Exports." Contestation over Races and Classes
In the materialist accounts of colonial Zanzibar, colonial administrative statistics have been invoked to refute that race and class coincided in Zanzibar. For example,
Bowles highlights that Arabs comprised 485 of the 810 large landowners and 3,875 of the
more than 11, 800 small landowners. Thus, 8,140 out of 12,610 (or 65%) of those owning
60 clove trees were African, thereby undermining the supposition that race and class coincide. However, much of the literature on Zanzibar and colonialism addresses the construction of racial categories by the British, questioning the definitions of the racial categories and highlighting peculiar population shifts between categories. Considering the different accoimts can create some confusion over Zanzibari history. Fair asserts that while during the nineteenth century the Omani aristocracy owned the clove trees, by 1922 the Hadimu accounted for seventy-five percent of clove cultivators.^^ However, Jaffer points out that according to Clove Bonus records of 1922-29, fifty-four percent of all clove trees were owned by ninety-four percent of all races of clove-owners. This means
that six percent of the clove-owners (not of all races, i.e. not Hadimu) held forty-six percent of the trees.
Cooper reveals from census data a significant increase in Arabs between 1924 and
1931 on Zanzibar and Pemba. In between these years, he approximates a 77% increase in people identifying themselves as Arab and notes that the Swahili population virtually
36. Laura Fair, "In the Dressing Room of Identity: Clothing, Class, and Ethnicity in
Zanzibar, 1850-1930," mimeograph paper, 6, 10. Fair, however, notes that Arabs still owned more clove trees (an average of 394 trees per person) than the Hadimu (an average of 33 per person). The size difference remained due to credit extension services which favored large-scale ownership. 141
but a decrease (in disappeared." In its place emerged a 1 5 1% increase (in Pemba) 37%
economic change, Zanzibar) of the Shirazi.^* Arguing that ethnic identification is tied to
land Cooper suggests that people's identification as Shirazi on Pemba was linked to ownership because the identity patterns paralleled the expansion of clove cultivation beyond the Arab plantations.^' Middleton complicates this issue of identity with his assertions that the land owning class of Pembans did not claim a purely Arabian nor an
African identity. Some Pembans may have claimed an Omani ancestry, but many more claimed Shirazi ancestry. This did not exclude them from being Swahili, yet their Swahili identity distinguished them from other Africans. Prior to 1948, few people identified with
Shirazi but the identity gained popularity by a population wanting to establish its indigenousness and to distinguish itself from the Arabs and the mainland Africans.""
Amory adds that struggle in Zanzibar can be framed as struggles over native versus non- native identity, because a desire to be Arab or Shirazi was as much a desire not to be
Swahili. This was particularly the case in Unguja where the Sultan was visibly present and
Arabs owned almost 3/4 of the clove trees and most of the big estates. Yet, in Pemba,
37. Frederick Cooper, From Slaver to Squatters: Labor and Plantation Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya. 1980-1925 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980).
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid.
40. John Middleton, Land Tenure in Zanzibar (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1961), 7-8. Though Middleton uses the term Shirazi here, the terms was not used in the 1948 nor 1958 census reports which used the identities of Hadimu, Tumbatu, and Pemba. 142
establish two more non-Arabs owned land and trees. Thus, these two differing conditions different visions of nationalism."'
indigenous Fair interprets the shifting trends in identification and the adoption of
the first twenty identities as including a process of establishing roots on the island. During
in the years after the abolition of slavery, many adopted the identity of Swahili which
urban trade nineteenth century meant a fi-ee bom Muslim originating from one of the many centers along the coast. By the late 1920's despite where people came fi-om they perceived themselves as Zanzibari. During the period between 1920 and 1940 the number of people identifying as Swahili declined from 34,000 to 2,000 and the number of people who identified themselves as indigenous increased by seventy-five percent."^ As slaves began to identify as Swahili the identity of Swahili changed so dramatically that in the
1940's it meant precisely the opposite."^ According to Fair, gaining access to property was a factor in establishing such identities. She contends that as people transformed their
41. Deborah Amory, The Politics of Identitv in Zanzibar , (Ann Arbor: UMl, 1994), 111. Michael Lofchie also contributes to debate over racial and ethnic identities in which he argues that Zanzibar politics is divided along racial lines because race coincide with economic class. He also suggests that the racial categories deployed by colonial censuses provide the best way to differentiate races in Zanzibar, otherwise is too diverse to articulate. See Chapter Three in Michael Lofchie, Zanzibar: Background to the Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965).
42. "In the Dressing Room of Identity," 12. While the Swahili identity was on the decline, the Shirazi was on the rise. Newbury the expansion of the Shirazi identity reflected the broadening of three indigenous African groups (i.e. Hadimu, Tumbatu, and Wapemba) and the rise of cultural pride in relation to mainland Africans. The number of people in Pemba identifying as Shirazi increased from 12,000 to 32,000 between the census reports of 1924 and 1931 ("Colonialism, Ethnicity and Rural Protest," 273, nt. 7).
43. Ibid., 9. 143
national identity by expanding class and ethnic identity, they created a new and inclusive
what it means to be an islander."*"
Contestation over the identity composition of colonial Zanzibar highlights a problem with the use of colonial statistics. The British colonial administration has been rightfully accused of dividing the population into racial categories, however, the statistics used to determine who owned what and refute the issue of race coinciding with class are based on racial categories as defined by the colonial administration in statistical reports.
What can be asserted firom the statistics is not whether class and race coincide but that
British colonial assertions of Zanzibar being racially divided along economic lines cannot be supported by their own statistical reports. Thus, different interpretations of history caimot suggest whether or not class and color coincide, but only that class and color form a complicated web and coincide or not in moments when politically or socially deemed
necessary. Once this is acknowledged then exploitation must be considered not only in terms of larger imperialistic efforts to uproot a viable commercial trade, but also in terms of social relations both producing and produced by property relations at a host of social levels. In the case of Zanzibar, the British colonial administration attempted to direct changes in social and property relations through land.
Social Control through Land Policv
Administrative control of land began immediately with the formation of the
Zanzibar Protectorate in 1890. The British established the Land Office in 1920 to register
44. Ibid., 12. 144
determined as valuable—in other words, all land and substantiate private tenure of land
issued the Land Acquisition agricultural land."' The British colonial administration had
expropriate any land Decree on 12 January, 1909 to vest power in the British Resident to
"benefits to arise out of needed for any public purpose. The decree defined land to include
attached to the land, and things attached to the earth or permanently fastened to anything
countryside, earth." This is a significant difference from how land was defined in the where land and the things attached to the land were separated. The differing understandings of land—and only one informing colonial law—produced a complex of land tenure systems and an eventual site for anti-colonial struggle.
The 1921 Public Land Decree refined the control of the colonial administration and
postulated that all public land was subject to the right of appropriation by the SuUan or the
Government of Zanzibar. The colonial administration held the power to grant the occupation of public land to any person other than the indigenous people."^ The indigenous population had the right to occupy public land without first receiving the approval of the government or the Sultan. The colonial administration prohibited the cutting of trees on public land by anyone, again with the exception of the indigenous population. However, the emphasis on the use of land for agriculture applied to Zanzibar as a whole. The expansion of clove production marginalized the indigenous farmers (also
45. Garth A. Myers, "Democracy and Development in Zanzibar? Contradictions in Land and Environment Planning," Journal of Contemporary African Studies 14, no. 2(1996): 227.
46. Ibrahim, Shao, The Political Economy of land reforms in Zanzibar: before and after the revolution (Dar es Salaam: University of Dar es Salaam, 1992), 14. 145
colonial referred to as peasants) off fertile land (and onto the coral rag areas). The land policies had the effect of creating a land tenure system which incorporated those who the administration thought could easily be brought into capitalist production. A section of the population—identified as native—existed within their own land tenure system and within the margins of incorporation when their involvement was understood as necessary by the colonial administration. The land decrees represent the efforts of the colonial administration to control the use of productive land, while unintentionally providing incentives for groups to shift between identities.
The power alliance that bound the British to the Sultan also established British allegiance to the Arab landowners. Land transfers had proliferated as a consequence of compounding debts for landowners. The transferring of land hampered the productivity of land in the eyes of the colonial administration. In the attempt to save debt-ridden plantation owners and make them more productive while simultaneously attempting to facilitate the transformation of the more "frugal" small-holders (as perceived by the
British) into the engine of the economy, the administration discovered that the small- holders became as dependent on cash and cloves as the Arab landowners and their capacity to generate their own subsistence also declined.''' The bulk of borrowing actually occurred in Pemba where the majority of smallholders cultivated and where approximately three-quarters of the clove trees were located."** Numerous poor debtors with inadequate means to reproduce their subsistence became a feature of the clove economy.
47. "Food Imports and Clove Export," 10.
48. "Food Imports and Clove Exports," 13. 146
economic control in moral Jaffer contends that the colonial administration justified
uphold British terms by defending the Protectorate over the Sultanate as a measure to
The irony in the obligation to protect plantation-owners from losing their inheritance.
fragmentation support of inheritance was that Islamic law of inheritance contributed to the
issued the Land of land and the rise of the small-holders/' In 1938, the administration
debts Protection (debt settlement) Decree stipulating that the government would pay the
of landowners to the creditors so that landowners could maintain their land. The
landowners would become indebted to the government and could pay-off the debt in
installments. With the 1939 Land Alienation Decree, the administration established two
land alienation boards which were to oversee all leasing, selling, purchasing, and
mortgaging of land.'"
Problems, however, arose over the amount of mortgage of properties whose sizes
could not be discerned as they varied depending on the pro-Arab or pro-Indian position of
the assessors. One colonial administrator's account of his attempt to evaluate the debt
burden explained that the task was an impossible one given the absence of clear
boundaries, titles, and records of mortgages. He depicted the practice of assessing land
value in terms of trees as "fantastic and obsolete, and an impediment to clear thought.""
49. In Pemba the nus-bin-nus (half-by-half) system also propagated peasant ovraership through the division of planted land between the supplier of seedlings (usually an Arab settler) and the provider of labor. Most Pembans refused to work on plantations imless they became owners of trees in this way (See "Clove Exports and Food Imports," fh 15).
50. The Political Economy of Land Reforms . 15.
5 1 . C.F. Strickland and Sir Alan Prim, Zanzibar, the Land and its Mortgage Debt
(1932): 8, quoted in "Food Imports and Clove Exports," 11. 147
of the Western concept The difficulties facing British land assessors was the translatability
property was at best of private property. Within the Islamic land tenure system, private
be defined as possession of land based on usufructuary rights, provided these rights could financially maintained. But this differed from land ownership which passed through kinship lineage. Physical occupation or improvements to the land, other than the initial planting of trees, was not necessary to prove or preserve ownership." Thus, trees provided the most reliable way to understand land-holdings, despite British resistance to the idea.
The Moment of Departure
Newbury argues that changes in land tenure and consequently class relations by colonial rule created new forms of ethnic and racial difference by which not only elites but also non-elites constructed new forms of political identity." While the upper
52. "Food Imports and Clove Exports," 11.
53. See "Colonialism, Ethnicity and Rural Political Protest," Wilson also argues that the British brought with them racial tension where it had not existed previously. In her account of Zanzibar society, the rural population consisted of small landowners (who often lived in town), casual labor on coconut and clove farms [plantations], squatters, and subsistence farmers on the less fertile communal lands. In the towns there were merchants, traders, street vendors, shop-keepers, casual laborers, dock workers, transport workers, etc. Ethnic groups had almost all intermingled but could still be identified as Arabs from Oman and South Yemen, Shirazis who traced their ancestry fi-om Persia (Shiraz), Asians (Indians) and mainland Africans. Shirazis formed the majority of the subsistence peasants and mainland Africans formed the majority of urban workers (Amrit
Wilson, U.S. Foreign Policy: the Creation of Tanzania (Pluto Press, 1989), 9). However, Sheriff contests equating the subsistence peasantry with the "so-called" Shirazi.
The peasant class was "no longer homogenous. . . nor composed solely of this ethnic group" by 1873 (Slaves. Spices, Ivory . 1 1 1). 148
or ethnically distinct socioeconomic class was composed of members of a racially
in the elite class. However, minority, racial or ethnic criteria did not dictate membership
and Newbury argues what did matter was that those who were politically powerful wealthy were Arabs. The status of Arabs was maintained by British colonial structures
Indians and one and policies. In 1926, Legislative Council consisted of three Arabs, two
European, while the Sultan and British administrators constituted the Executive Council.
Not until 1946, was one seat reserved for African representation.^'*
Colonial law required the identification of all citizens with ethnic associations and from the associations racial antagonisms emerged replacing class antagonisms. Bowles
. encouraged those groups to suggests that "racial representation of privileged groups. . think in terms of racial interests." Babu contends, however, that while Arabs were identified as ethnic groups, the vast majority had ceased being purely Arab as a consequence of generations of intermarriage which made it impossible to create a difference between who was Arab and who was African. To the contrary, Lofchie argues that Arabs constituted a privileged political and economic elite. The Africans were underprivileged and exploited as they did not own land, had minimal education, and
virtually no political representation. Consequently, it became possible for Africans to unite as a race against the Arabs and bring about a revolution."
54. Omar Mapuri, The 1964 Revolution: Achievements and Prospects (Dar es Salaam: TEMA Publishers), 27.
55. See Zanzibar: Background to Revolution . 149
the Arab After the complete abolition of slavery in 1897, Arabs formed
slave traders. The Association, primarily to demand compensation from the British for
financial Indian Association, established in 1910, sought to protect the commercial and
in 1935, interests of the Indian community.'* The African association, established
in 1940 represented the 'urban' Africans." The Shirazi Association was formed in Pemba to represent the 'rural indigenous' Africans.'* Their first act taken demanded representation in the Clove Growers' Association and Land Alienation Board, complaining that only Arabs and not Africans held posts in these agencies.'' Peasants from the
Southern part of Unguja instituted the Shirazi Association of Unguja looking to the
Association in Pemba for leadership. Sheriff contends that with their economic and social distance from the urban proletariat narrowing, they later joined with the African
Association to form the Afro-Shirazi Party.*"
56. The 1964 Revolution . 12.
57. Abdul Sheriff "The Peasantry Under Imperialism, 1873-1963." Zanzibar Under
Colonial Rule . 134. Mapuri offers a more detailed account of the rise of the Afiican Association. Football clubs emerged in the 1920's. While composed of mostly Africans, non-Africans organized the clubs. Africans from various teams formed the Afiican Sports Club in 1933, captained by Abeid Karume. The formation of the African Association in 1934 arose out of this club with the consul of elders for the purpose of defending the rights of Africans (The 1964 Revolution . 12).
58. Ibid. Mapuri claims that the Shirazi Association was established in 1938 subsequent to Arab instigation to divide the African Association. The Shirazi Association comprised Africans who ad quit the African Association on religious grounds and Africans who claimed Shirazi ancestry predominantly living in the countryside of Pemba ("The 1964
Revolution . 13).
59. "The Peasantry Under Imperialism," 134.
60. Ibid., 135. 150
out of a strike In 1948 a general workers strike by Africans in Zanzibar town rose
responded by workers for the African Wharfage Company. The colonial administration with a promise of an increase in the minimum daily wage and a reduction of the cost of living through price controls. Subsequent to such a response, an anti-colonial movement gathered strength in the 1950's. Babu asserts that the beginning of modem political
struggle in Zanzibar began with the Anthrax Revolt or Vita wa Neombe (Cattle Riot) of
1951.*' The administration suppressed the revolt, resulting in the death and arrests of
several peasant leaders. The Arab Association had supported the peasant uprising,
accusing the British colonialists of brutality in their newspaper. The British charged the
editor and central committee of the Association with sedition. The sedition trial prompted
Arab Association to withdraw its support of all colonial institutions including their
representatives in the Legislative Council." The revolt marked the beginning of mass
organization—transcending ethnic differences nurtured by colonialism—and ushered in party politics." As Babu comments, although these 'pioneers of Zanzibari nationalism' did
not receive mass support, they planted the idea of a nationalism that did not employ the
colonial categories of ethnic organizations.
61 . The Anthrax revolt was a peasant uprising against the British administration which had established a project to inoculate the cattle against Rinderpest, anthrax, and foot and mouth disease. Word spread that the administration's objective to save the cattle masked the actual plan to cull off the cattle at a time when the price of cattle was at its highest. For a detailed account of the Anthrax Revolt see "The Struggle for Independence," 94-95.
62. When one representative defied the boycott he was assassinated by Mohamed Hamoud.
63. A. M. Babu, "The Background to the Revolution. U.S. Foreign Policy . 140. 151
The Pressures of Changing Land and Production Relations
ability to reduce the cost Jaffer argues that while it was the smallholding peasant's of production through self-exploitation that made him attractive to the colonial
into the administration, this very characteristic was undermined as they were incorporated production of cloves. However, in another interesting shift in Pemba, the emergency measure to encourage food production during World War II, led some peasants to realize that local food production was beneficial because it lowered the cost of food and the cost of labor (for clove harvests). When clove prices dived and the price of rice imports increased, peasants returned to the cultivation of rice. The colonial administration's withdrawal of rice imports during World War II resulted in increased rice cultivation by peasants.^'' Pembans could feed themselves, while supplying various food crops to
Zanzibar Town, thus, their reliance on cash from cloves dwindled. By 1948, this withdrawal from the clove industry and the anticipated clove boom for the 1950's reignited the need for migrant labor from the mainland (and Unguja) to harvest cloves. The colonial administration ceased the emergency incentives to encourage food production and resumed importing rice which led to a decline in the demand for local rice. The subsequent reduction in food production and the decline of clove cultivation by the late
1950's led to severe food shortages. By 1961, once again, many peasants turned to food cultivation.
The colonial administration imposed an agricultural tax on incomes in an effort to
change squatters into rent-paying tenants. However, plantation-owners found it in their
64. "Food Imports and Clove Exports," 17. 152
for the interests to re-possess land and evict squatters thereby exacerbating insecurity
landless peasantry and undermining the administration's efforts." Squatters were evicted
if they did not concentrate their efforts on clove cultivation. This translated into the
reduction of cultivation for their own subsistence. Squatter evictions also occurred after
land was transferred from plantation owners to money-lenders and financiers. Systematic
evictions from plantations between 1957 and 1964, left squatters with no land to cultivate,
no place to build housing, and no land for grazing animals.
Moment of Manoeuvre
The peasant leaders of the Anthrax Revolt formed the political organization. Party
of National Unity for the Sultan's Subjects (PNSS) (see graph below). The organization
was explicitly anti-colonial.^* However, as a political category it also established a
distinction from mainland immigrants who identified politically with Tanganyika, thereby
not having simply a role of uniting but also fragmenting. As a consequence of the 1948
strike which was perceived as a struggle between mainlanders and indigenous people,
Arabs began a political campaign to emphasize common interest among 'indigenous'
65. Ibid., 16-19.
66. Bowles explains that the peasants who had supported the 1948 strike by not taking their produce to market imsuccessftilly appealed for worker backing of their revolt. They named their party somewhat out of disillusiormient with the non-indigenous workers. In contrast, Mapuri claims that radicals in the Arab Association, motivated by their opposition to Afiican representation in the Legislative Council, formed the PNSS to fight for the preservation of Arab rule. Finally, Babu contends that the "Sultan's Subjects" signified the only political category which could unite an ethnically divided population. The Sultan was not considered foreign because the family of the Sultan had become
Swahilized, thus losing its pure Arab identity. 153
Development of Political Parties in Zanzibar
Year 1995 Civic United Front (CUF) 1992)
1990 Kamahuru (1992)
1985 KEY:
1980 — indicates direct Chama Cha Mapanduzi lineage (CCM)(1977) — indicates a splinter 1975 group
1970
1965
Umma 1960 Party (1962) ZPPP(1960)
Afro-Shirazi I 1955 Party (1957) Zanzibar Nationalist Party (1955)
1950 PNSS(1952)
1945 Shirazi 1940 Assoc. (1940) African Assoc. (1935) 1935 Left Right Degree of Anti-Colonialism (and anti-imperialism) The Development of Political Parties Based of Ideology
[Note: The left end of the spectrum refers to an anti-colonialism which includes the call for independence from the British and the Sultanate, radical socio-economic reform guided by socialist ideology, and a focus on radical land reform. The right end of the spectrum refers to an anti-colonialism which calls for independence from the British, continued ties with the Sultanate, and the preservation of the existing socio-economic structure.] 154 people and appealed to a common nationality as subjects of the Sultan." In 1955, PNSS
was renamed the Zanzibar Nationalist Party. Arabs from the land-owning class realized
with the inevitability of independence that the party would provide a position from which
to secure power.** The Zanzibar Nationalist Party first acted by demanding the right to
vote as universal, a new constitution articulating a British commitment to an early
independence of Zanzibar, and the abolition of racial and ethnic representation.
The ASP was founded in 1957 out of a pact between the African Association and
the Shirazi Association, but not without some difficulties unifying various interests.
According to Bowles, the peasants of Pemba called themselves Shirazi to emphasize the
similarity of their ancestry with those of Arabs as they distinguished themselves from other
Africans in Zanzibar. In constrast, Babu asserts, that the Afro-Shirazi Party emerged out
of the union between the African Association and the Shirazi Association in an effort to oppose the struggle for independence. However, as Bowles suggests, the ASP could be interpreted as an African or mainland worker party that subscribed to an African nationalist ideology arguing that Africans should unite against the oppressing Europeans.
Despite their differences, the members of the Shirazi Association and the African
Association both identified as African, in the sense of being Zanzibari strongly enough to merge together.
Tension between the two parties has existed since the time of their inception.
While the British were forced to concede to constitutional reform and establish a
67. "The Struggle for Independence," 92.
68. Ibid., 99. 155 commission which agreed to the universal vote and parUamentary democracy, the Afro-
Shirazi Party articulated that Zanzibar v^as not ready for independence.*' The Zanzibar
Nationalist Party reacted to the ASP 'anti-independence' stance by taking Karume to court on charges that he was not an authentic Zanzibari citizen.™ The accusation generated support for Karume as a victim of Arab oppressors.'" The court ruled in Karume's favor prior to elections in which he was a candidate. He won donning his party's slogan 'Uhuru,
Zuia' (stop independence). In response to Babu's claim, Mapuri explains that the ASP,
aware of its weak educational foundation, assumed an evolutionary stance towards independence and proposed an interim period to allow Africans to acquire the necessary skills to run a government.'^
While the urban workers were split between mainland workers and indigenous workers, a similar differentiation occurred in the countryside in Unguja. Most squatters were of mainland origin and/or descendants of slaves, and also supporters of the Afro-
Shirazi Party. After the Party's success in the 1957 elections, land-owners would evict
ASP supporters and replace them with indigenous labor which was in accordance with
ZNP policy to encourage the hiring of indigenous labor over mainland labor."
69. "Background to the Revolution." U.S. Foreign Policy . 146.
70. Abeid Karume was bom in Zanzibar but his father emigrated from Malawi. Karume was a dockworker and eventually became a member of the Boat-owner's Syndicate.
71 . "Background to the Revolution," U.S. Foreign Policy . 146.
72. The 1964 Revolution . 20.
73. "The Struggle for Independence," 99. 156
Under the pressure of Julius Nyerere, ASP and ZNP united in the demand for
independence of Zanzibar/" However, unity was short-lived. The right wing within ZNP
found a shared fear of the mainland with the ASP splinter group, and joined to form the
Zanzibar and Pemba's People Party, taking with them the bulk of their support in Pemba.
Babu depicts the possibility of these rapid twists as conditioned by the particular
circumstances of Unguja (and not Pemba). On Unguja a large number of immigrant
workers from the mainland played an active "but often negative role" in the internal
politics of Zanzibar. With their "deep-rooted sense of property," ZPPP aligned with ZNP
to preserve the interests of the propertied class, casting aside "its ethnic moorings.""
With political parties in place, the holding of elections followed. The elections of
1961 ended in violence as ASP supporters felt frustrated by the failure of the party to win
a majority and took to the streets rioting for several days. It was believed that the British
rigged the elections.'* The elections held again in 1962 ended in a stalemate placing ZPPP
in a position to assure the success of any coalition. They chose to ally with ZNP taking an
anti-mainlander stance. At the following pre-election ZNP party conference, the left wing
announced its break with the party and formed the Umma Party (Babu was the new party's
leader).
74. Julius Nyerere was a founder of TANU and a leader in the independence movement of Tanganyika. He would go on to be the first president of United Republic of Tanzania which was formed out of a union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar.
75. "The Peasantry Under Imperialism," 134.
76. "The Struggle for Independence," 101. 157
The 1963 general elections resulted in a new government in which ZNP/ZPPP
acquired most state powers though the colonial administration maintained control of
defense, foreign affairs, and finance." Once the country gained independence in
December of 1963, the first action taken by the government was to introduce two bills
into parliament which would give the government the power to ban any political party and
any newspapers viewed as a threat. On 4 January, 1964 the Umma Party was banned,
while the government prepared to charge its leaders with treason.^* Echoing Chatterjee's
suggestion that the misery of the postcolonial is not the inability to create new forms of
the nation but a reversion back to old forms, Babu comments that postcolonial
government had no intentions of "restoring justice" and bringing about democratic rule.
Rather than liberating Zanzibar from 'colonial bondage,' the government extended its own
bondage over the people.
The youth of ASP planned and launched an uprising in 1964 which overthrew the
ZNP/ZPPP government. Babu contends that the intervention of the Umma Party
transformed the uprising into a popular revolution which contributed to the minimalization
77. A. M. Babu, "The 1964 Revolution: Lumpen or Vanguard," Zanzibar Under
Colonial Rule . 238.
78. Ibid. Wilson's account claims that at the time of independence the United States
sought to discredit the ZNP by branding it an 'Arab-dominated organization.' The British responded to the creation of the Umma Party by implementing to Acts pushed through
Zanzibar parliament. The Suppression of Information Act banned ZaNews, the first Afi-ican owned news service, edited and published by Babu. The Registration of Societies Act was invoked to ban the party itself Finally, police threatened that Babu would be charged with treason. 158 of bloodshed by avoiding inter-racial and inter-party violence/' The Sultan fled and what members of his government stayed were detained. On 12 January 1964, a new revolutionary government was formed by the ASP (and Umma Party) in which they created the Revolutionary Council as the leading body of the state with Karume as its
Chairman. As an interim measure, the Council held the legislative powers and they were exercised under the direction of the President. The party introduced trade with socialist countries, non-aligned countries, and the traditional trading partners in the West. The
Zanzibar revolution was understood as more than a revolt to overthrow a government
and a monarchy; it is considered a revolt to change the social system which oppressed people in an effort to reconstruct their own social system. Babu asserts that the role of the
Umma Party gave the impression to both supporters and adversaries that the Zanzibar revolution was a socialist revolution "of the same magnitude and importance as the Cuban revolution."
The Deplovment of the Union
Indeed, the United States government feared that Zanzibar would become the
'Cuba of Africa.' Tanganyika and Nyerere were understood as friendlier towards the
West, thus. Dean Rusk (then the Secretary of State) urged the U.S. embassies in East
Africa to "raise with Nyerere, despite his previous objection, the idea of a Zanzibar-
79. "The 1964 Revolution: Lumpen or Vanguard," 240. Wilson claims that by joining the revolt, the Umma Party ensured the success of the revolution and prevented it from assuming a racial character (the party consisted of a large proportion of Arabs, though it also included Africans and Indians). 159
Tanganyika Federation as a possible way of strengthening Karume and reducing Babu's influence."*" Meanwhile, Zanzibar continued to pursue relations with China where the type of support or assistance wanted was found. As Babu explains,
China was at that time the only Third World country which had developed a self-reliant economy where people were not dependent on external forces. Also they were closer to other Third World countries—they knew about the sentiments of nationalism, the problems of underdevelopment and how to use village implements and a mixture of traditional and modem methods. We felt that China was the only country which could help us.*'
On April 15, 1964 The U.S. Bureau of Intelligence and Research released an assessment of the situation in Zanzibar, making the following statements:
Less than three months after a Communist-supported African nationalist coup toppled the British-backed Sultan of Zanzibar and his minority Arab regime, Zanzibar has changed from a torpid backwater to potentially the foremost beachhead of Commimist influence in Africa.*^
It was believed that Zanzibar could become an example of socialist economic development with minimal Communist financial support. The report articulated two options for the
West: either a complete withdrawal from Zanzibar, or the US could maintain a minimal
presence to give Zanzibar access to the West should it decide to detach from the
'Communist camp.'*^ The report also advocated an union with Tanganyika, who at the time was perceived as a Western ally.
M 80. Background to the Revolution," U.S. Foreign Policv . 48.
81. U.S. Foreign Policv . 58-59.
82. Ibid., 65.
83. Ibid., 68-69. 160
The Manipulation of Land
Land continued to form a central concern in the changing political order of
Zanzibar. Land was losing the productiveness which the colonial administration sought to
assure through law. By the 1960's a debate ensued regarding the current relevance of the
Land Alienation Decree. It was argued that apart from the decree being discriminatory,
there was a lack of adequate security for loans. The decree exacerbated this problem
because it obstructed access to agricultural credit, aggravated the problem of land
fragmentation, and penalized efficient farmers while protecting inefficient ones, and yet it
failed to address the proliferation of indebtedness when its objective was to prevent
agricultural land from falling into the hands of money-lenders.*'' In favor of repealing the
decree, the Chairman of the Land Alienation Board asserted, "[i]f an Arab or an African is
considered sufficiently responsible to be entrusted with the vote, he should be sufficiently
responsible to be able to manage his own affairs without the protection of racially
discriminatory legislation."*^ The debate abruptly ended with the rise of the revolution.
A larger political debate which revolved around the squatter paralleled this
administrative one. The contested nature of land featured not only in colonial policy but in
the formulation of agendas by contending political parties in the struggle for
independence. Jaffer points out that while the government insisted to the owners that
"land has nothing to do with politics" and to the squatters that they should "show appreciation for the landlord's favour," the Afro-Shirazi Party argued the opposite. While
84. The Political Economy of Land Reforms . 29.
85. Ibid., 30. 161
the the Zanzibar Nationalist Party favored the status quo, the ASP declared that though trees and other improvement to the land belonged to the Arabs, the land or the soil belonged to the indigenous people who had been displaced by the immigrant community.
The ASP promised to return the land to the people.** The ZNP argued that distribution of land based on discrimination in favor of Africans constituted a racial governmental policy, again placing ASP in the position to argue the opposite. According to the ASP, the ZNP promise of "equal opportunities on the land" on the basis of hard work and adoption of modem agriculture would not facilitate a change in status for the landless peasantry, nor open opportunities for the majority of African small-holders. The historical disproportionate distribution of resources would only be corrected by redistribution based on the interests of those who were previously neglected or denied."
Subsequent to the revolution of 1964, the Afro-Shirazi Party explained that
"[sjince land forms the backbone of Zanzibar's economy, the capitalists and feudalists
under the Sultan seized all fertile land as a means of maintaining their ascendance over the people, while the latter were forced to cultivate on the barren and coral areas."** On 8
March, 1964 the Revolutionary Council issues the following announcement:
Any plantation that was original state-owned land and subsequently or cunningly sold by the wicked colonial government to the relatives of those in power, will now go back into the hands of the Government. All land in
Zanzibar and Pemba is government property. Every person in Zanzibar and
86. "Food Imports and Clove Exports," 20.
87. Ibid., 22.
88. Afro-Shirazi Party, Afro-Shirazi Partv Revolution. 1964-1974 . (Dar es Salaam: Printpak Tanzania, Ltd., 1974), 42. 162
Pemba will be entitled to the use of land as best as he can after the Government re-distributes the land.*'
Karume nationalized all land—developed or undeveloped—by the Government Land
Decree. The purpose of re-distribution of the land was to enable the people who were
marginalized out of the fertile areas to adequately earn a living and contribute to the
country's economy. The government aimounced that Zanzibar would achieve self-
sufficiency through land reform. The Land Reform Office (or Land Distribution Office)
was established on 1 April, 1964 to design policies for distributing land. Shao asserts that
it was necessary for the revolutionary government to establish at a theoretical level whose
land was to be appropriated and whose was not, and the implications this policy would have on the peasants and the national economy.'" Large plantation owners were to have their land confiscated and reappropriated without compensation, because they did not
actually engage in cultivation, but expropriated labor. Former government land (i.e. colonial) which had been sold to individuals would also be re-distributed. The objective was to eliminate exploitation and income inequalities. However, the government could not define how much land was excess.
Jaffer further contends that the rationale for the distribution of land and the creation of small-scale ownership would inevitably clash with the need for economic production for survival on the "national" scale. Jaffer suggests that the problem was with the definitions of land, masses, subsistence, and increased production. Land reform was
89. Afro-Shirazi Party Revolution . 44.
90. The Political Economy of Land Reforms . 49. 163
understood in terms of the distribution of tree holdings rather than land since land was
already being farmed by those who had obtained access during the colonial period. The
underlying assumption in this definition of land reform was that the previous pattern of
land use for subsistence production was well-founded. Since no attempt was made to
formulate an optimum holding in land for sustenance, Jaffer asserts that the division of
trees must have had the purpose of correcting other matters or of stimulating the production of more cloves by new owners in order to realize a higher standard of living.
However, this new owner constituted a motley and confused notion of the masses which
incorporated landless peasants, peasants who cultivated without employing labor (with the exception of cloves harvesting), ASP supporters, freedom fighters, and government employees, and professionals."
Moment of Arrival
[Pjolitics also brought shocking things to the surface. We liked to think of ourselves as a moderate and mild people. Arab African Indian Comorian: we lived alongside each other, quarrelled and sometimes intermarried. In reality, we were nowhere near we, but us in our separate yards, locked in our historical ghettoes, self-forgiving and seething with intolerances, with
racisms, and with resentments. And politics brought all that into the open So when the time came to begin thinking of ourselves in the future, we persuaded ourselves that the objects of this abuse had not noticed what had happened to them, or had forgiven and would now like to embrace a new
rhetoric of unity and nationalism. . . They wanted to glory in grievance, in promises of vengeance, in their past oppression, in their present poverty and in the nobility of their darker skins. To the nationalist rhetoric of their opponents they proclaimed a satirical reprise of their despised Africanness,
91. "Food Imports and Clove Exports," 27-28. 164
mocked the nationalists for their new-found conscience, and promised them an accounting in the very near future.'"
In the newly independent Zanzibar, the Revolutionary Council passed decrees,
executed the decrees, and could hear appeals from the Special Court (established in 1966
to try cases involving theft of property belonging to the government and other political
offenses). All political parties were banned along with elections immediately following the
revolution. Karume had stated that the 1964 revolution was the most perfect form of
election ever to have taken place in Zanzibar.'^ The Revolutionary Government not only
nationalized all land, but nationalized utilities, the export of cloves through the Zanzibar
State Trading Corporation, and all large private enterprises, creating parastatal institutions
to control the economy. Through the parastatals the government set commodity prices.
All land taxes and groimd rent were repealed. Free education for all was declared to
abolish discrimination and subsequently all private schools were nationalized. The
government also began a large-scale housing project along with the development of
Ng'ambo—which had been perceived as a sprawling ghetto outside Stone Town (in
Zanzibar Town).'''
92. Abulrazak Gumah, Admiring Silence (New York: the New Press, 1996), 67.
93. See Tanzania's Eighth Constitutional Amendment . 151.
94. For a discussion of the rise of Ng'ambo and subsequent attempts at urban planning see Garth Myers "Reconstructing Ng'ambo: Tovm Planning and Development on the Other Side of Zanzibar," unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1993. 165
in the Stone Prior to the revolution, only Europeans, Asians, and Arabs lived
lived on Town section of Zanzibar town. Those who constituted the African population the other side of the creek which divided Stone Town from the expanding residential development due to mainland labor migration and migration from the rural areas for work.
The Revolutionary Council sought to facilitate development on the Other Side and neglect
Stone Town. Stone Town was a symbol of colonialism and exploitation for the
Revolutionary Council, and thus, was allowed to decay. On 17 August 1964, Karume laid
the first foundation block for the blocks of apartments to be built just outside of Stone
Town, in Ng'ambo. The government initiated this housing scheme to provide free housing
for the people. However, with the death of Karume, the construction of the apartment blocks also died.
While the Revolutionary Government claimed that the revolution was not
motivated by racial sentiments, it declared that its objective was to eliminate racialism and
" oppression. Kurume's speech in January, 1970 entitled, Ushirazi Sio Asili va Watu wa
Zanzibar" (Shirazi Identity is not the Heritage of the People of Zanzibar) articulated the
Shirazi identity as a fabrication of the colonial state.'^ Karume banned the Shirazi ethnicity as a strategy to breakdown racial boundaries. As a consequence of this strategy, between April and December of 1970 over 18,000 people from different areas of Zanzibar
95. Afro-Shirazi Party histories of Zanzibar formed the basis of standard school education. . .
166
of the document read, "1 am signed papers renouncing their Shirazi identity. The final line
of Shirazi (ethnicity)."'* not a Shirazi, and I don't even know the meaning
inter-racial marriage. Prior to this practice, Karume issued a policy to "encourage"
opposed the marriage of The marriage laws of 1966 imposed penalties on parents who
the barriers against their children. The government stated that it sought to remove
marriage between people of different classes and color. Gumah offers a contrasting
depiction of the government's intentions:
announced the Racism is an evil which our nation cannot tolerate, the radio same evening. This was the preamble to naming names and requiring the delivery of so-and-so to the house of Member of the Revolutionary Redemption Council so-and-so, where the marriage ceremony would then most of the women refused to take place. . . Anyway, as you can imagine, go. Their fathers grumbled and their mothers wailed, and marriages were
. trucks to hastily arranged to preempt this catastrophe. . [A]rmy came collect the lucky brides from their homes. The Father of the People himself
came to hear of these grumbles from the women's fathers and mothers. . When he heard of the grumbling, he summoned representatives from all the various communities, by locale, religious sect, country of origin or any strolls in, other category they could dream up. . . The Father of the People and the sight of those cowering old men makes him laugh that rumbling,
. then, ghoulish laugh of his. . . 'I hear some of you are grumbling'. . So
while his voice is still rumbling round the room, the great man imzips his
trousers, pulls out his cock and puts it on the table. He lets everyone have a good look before he says: What's there to grumble about? It's not that big. They can swallow that whole without any difficulty. Now go home and stop making trouble. Do you think you're something special? Those days are over. My government abhors racism, and will remove it by any
means at my disposal, including this. . That was our big man. Nothing was too much for him.'^
96. The Politics of Identity in Zanzibar . 116.
97. Admiring Silence . 143-144. 167
oppressive implications for The policies of the Revolutionary Government had
years after the revolution. In the women and girls, particularly during the immediate
of the households were countryside, Arab men who owned land were slaughtered, women
into the towns to seek raped, and their land taken. Most women and children were forced
fled the country. A refuge. When the forced marriages began, many Persians and Arabs
social branch of the police force, the Green Guard, held the responsibility of maintaining
daughters of order which included searches for girls to coerce into marriage. When four
Revolutionary an affluent Persian family were forced into marriages with members of the
incident. Council, one took her own life and the international media received word of the
Only then did Nyerere denounce the policy and call for an end to the forced marriages.
Yet the Green Guard continued its tactics of harassment. Dress codes were implemented and if girls were found inappropriately dressed their clothes were torn on their bodies.
When people eventually looked for alternative political movements to undermine the destruction generated by the Afro-Shirazi Party, women would find promises, provided they were veiled.^*
Karume began a purging spree soon after his rise to power as Chairman of the
Revolutionary Council. The Committee of Fourteen, which regarded itself as the core of the revolution, has been held responsible for the execution of Zanzibaris labelled enemies
98. From interviews in Zanzibar, October 23, 1997. See also Tanzania's Eighth
Constitutional Amendment . It has been suggested that around the time of the revolution ninety-percent of women did not wear the veil, however today perhaps only two percent do not. Even girls of the age of five wear the veil as a requirement to enter Madrassa Schools which have assumed the role of education once the government failed. 168
the threat of counter-revolution, of the state.'' Karume justified detainments with
purged his Party. With insubordination, and treason; while he eliminated opposition, he
buried up to their school children arranged in lines along the beach, he had the targeted
clapping on command. chins in sand and shot them to the sound of children's hands
assassinated Children witnessed their fathers' executions."^ Mohamed Hamoud (who had
death in Karume's the Legislative Council member who resisted the ZNP boycott) met his
was bullet on this beach, according to some accounts. On 7 April, 1 972 Abeid Karume assassinated. Hamoud Mohamed, the son of Mohamed Hamoud, avenged his father's death in the assassination and ended the reign of terror.'"'
Jumbe, who was a member of the Revolutionary Council at the time, was
appointed to replace Karume. While Jumbe had a more gentle approach to leadership, he
did not have the support of the Revolutionary Council, and looked to the Mainland for the
maintenance of his power. In 1977, TANU and ASP merged to form CCM (Chama Cha
Mapenduzi or Party of the Revolution). Othman explains that when leaders announced
the inception of CCM in Zanzibar, people rejoiced more in the demise of ASP than in the
birth of CCM. The Afro-Shirazi Party which had achieved independence for Zanzibar
99. See the Zanzibar House of Representative Debates , June 3, 1985.
100. From interviews in Zanzibar, 23 October 1997.
101. "Background to the Revolution." U.S. Foreign Policy . 144. However, in Babu's
second version of this text, Mohamed Hamoud is reduced to the space of a footnote by the editors explaining that he "apparently died in prison after the revolution," while his son did though assassinate Karume. 169
leaders were concerned with accumulating then "devoured its own sons."'°^ While most
death greeted any political wealth through the structures of the government, prison and
experienced increasing poverty. dissent. Up through the 1980s under Jumbe, Zanzibar
domestic demand. Rice production in particular met only twenty-five percent of
imports. With the Approximately fifty percent of export revenues was spent on food
viable alternative for plummet in the price and the production of cloves, and no established
be generating revenue, many of the Government projects to reform Zanzibar would
abandoned. The Government had to establish food subsidies. Food shortages perpetually
plagued Zanzibar in the 1970's. Food rations became commonplace along with long lines
of people waiting for their rations of foodstuffs, such as sugar.
Jaffer argues that the prospects in the world demand for cloves dictated the official
commitment to self-sufficiency in food production. From 1967-1977, clove exports
accounted for almost ninety percent of the government export earnings despite the
declining trend in production and market price during this period.'"^ Though the
government had articulated that land reform would entail restrictions on imports to
increase domestic production, the government actually continued to prop up clove
production to generate revenue while restricting rice imports which did not significantly
increase the production of rice. By 1968, the government faced the problem of repayment
102. Haroub Othman, "Tanzania—The Withering Away of the Union?" paper for The Nyalali Commission and the Search for Democracy in Tanzania, 1993, 24.
103. By 1983, clove production was one-fifth of the production level during the 1970's
though it continued to account for over eighty percent of export earnings ("Food Imports and Clove Exports," 35). 170
capital intensive inputs to on international loans, forcing a decision between subsidizing
import rice. While the modernize agriculture and increase production, or to simply
production, it government abandoned the project to facilitate the increase in agricultural
shortages by smuggling also decreased rice imports. People attempted to combat food
discontent with the failure cloves for sale or exchange in the black market. By the 1980's,
of the government to involve the people was on the rise.'"''
The Role of the Union
Subsequent to the formation of the revolutionary government with Karume as
chairman of the Revolutionary Council, the leaders of Zanzibar and Tanganyika convened
to discuss the union of the two countries. The vision, as articulated in the Afro-Shirazi
Party's 10 year anniversary text, was to "restor[e] officially and constitutionally the
brotherhood and unity that had existed between the people of Tanganyika and Zanzibar
before the imperialist [sic] divided and ruled Africa." This text further proclaims that
"[t]he Union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar is the Union of the people, created by the
people, under the leadership of Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere and Mzee Abeid Amani
Karume for the people." On 22 April, 1964 the 'Articles of Union' were signed by Nyerere
and Karume. In an emergency session on 25 April, Nyerere explained the importance of
this union as a step towards the unification of Africa and emphasized that Tanganyika and
104. "Food Imports and Clove Exports," 31-33. 171
and political convictions;" the Zanzibar share a "common culture, language, customs,
Tanganyika National Assembly ratified the Union.
Numerous arguments have been proffered to explain the motivations for creating
structure of the Union. It has been the Union and to challenge the legitimacy and the
position (and the Afro-Shirazi argued that Karume agreed to the Union to secure his
leaders feared the threat of a Party's) of control in Zanzibar. Karume and the party
centered around the counter-revolution. Nyerere's justification of the Union has always
security of idea of pan-Africanism. While Nyerere wanted the Union to assure the
Tanganyika because Zanzibar was seen as vulnerable to foreign intervention.'"* It has also
access to been suggested that Nyerere knew the economic value of the island and wanted
large role to the island's revenue. It has even been argued that the United States had a play in the creation of the Union in an effort to prevent Zanzibar from becoming the Cuba
'"^ of Africa.
For donor countries, such as the United States, the socialist ideological leaning of
Tanzania persisted as a concern in 1965. The CIA issued the report discussing the failure
to integrate Zanzibar into the Union administration. Nyerere was understood as
personally frustrated. To avoid direct confrontation with Zanzibaris, Nyerere
compromised his position both in domestic and foreign policy.
105. Afro-Shirazi Partv Revolution , 27.
106. See Anthony Clavton. Zanzibar Revolution and Its Aftermath (London: C. Hurst & Company, 1981).
107. See U. S. Foreign Policv . 172
difference between how the union issue is What is interesting to note though is the
were ultimately concerned about the described by the Embassy and the CIA, though both
(i.e. both feared the cultivation of political implications of the revolution in Zanzibar
the West communism). The former spoke with a nurturing tone about Nyerere's faith in
described the Union as and the need to support the development of the Union. The latter
Nyerere experienced is the an aggressive, even violent act on the part of Nyerere. What
in the postcolonial tragic link between building a nation-state and receiving assistance
produced by context. What binds the two together is a sticky and thick gum of politics
another's to achieve an the acceptance of aid, while balancing one donor's assistance with
nature appearance of neutrality and avoid detrimental political consequences. The tragic
assistance, while of this process is that compromising politics inevitably accompanies
or as compromise holds within it the possibility of being interpreted as a weakness undermining the original project since aid never comes without strings attached.
Tragically, the assistance is accepted to facilitate nation-building and independence, and the very acceptance of this assistance can erode the ability to build a stable nation-state
and the realization of independence.
The Legacy of Land Reform
According to the ASP, the meaning of land reform was the end of exploitation.
Farmers held in their hands the capacity to improve their ovm lives in the form of land.
Re-distribution of land in the form of three acre plots began on 1 1 November, 1965. In
Unguja, confiscation of land occurred mostly in the western part where the large .
173
areas (or native land) plantations had predominately been cultivated. The coral rag
confiscation occurred remained unaffected by redistribution. However, in Pemba land
and cultivation under across the entire island, echoing the differences in land distribution
majority of land Arab and British rule. Squatters (of mainland origins) received the redistributed in Unguja, while in Pemba, the majority of recipients were "indigenous." By
1974, 22,251 families had received 66,753 acres of land.'"*
According to Shao, there was no control of land distribution because the government had not put into place any regulatory structures. The government announced the end of land distribution in 1967 because of complaints about malpractice, corruption, mistakes, and problems in the land distribution process."" Shao contends that even the
statistics on land distribution are not reliable because they do not include those who received land but do not hold deeds. In 1966, the Principal Secretary to the Ministry of
Agriculture complained that people were receiving land without permission—a practice made visible as people went to the Ministry of Agriculture to ask for deeds without the proper letters as proof that they had been officially given land by the Ministry of State.""
Redistribution occurred in a haphazard manner at best, and more often within discriminatory parameters. Jaffer elaborates that due to the tedious nature of land surveying, the government bestowed the Party at the local level with the power to redistribute land by means of rope measurement which generated disparities,
108. The Political Economy of Land Reforms . 5 1
109. Ibid., 53.
110. Ibid., 53. 174
not only partially expropriated discriminations, and discrepancies in allocations. Land was
in privately-owned land but also partially nationalized, since a commodity market
also did not subject the continued to exist subsequent to land reform.'" The government
coral rag) to re-distribution areas which were formerly cultivated for food crops (i.e. the
government was and did not address the re-organization of subsistence agriculture. The
simply re-dividing expropriated land rather than reorganizing the use of land.
Land distribution powers were shifted to the Ministry of Agriculture in 1974,
along with a change in policy. Land no longer would be given on a permanent basis,
rather only for the cultivation of food crops and cash crops, excluding coconuts and cloves
which indicated permanency. A person could receive permission to cultivate anywhere,
provided he did not tamper with the owner's permanent crops. This policy echoes the
squatter system which land distribution was designed to destroy. To emphasize
production, age discrimination was introduced into the distribution process—^persons over
50 could not receive more than one acre. Much of the land distributed was not utilized,
thus the government issued a warning that those who received three acre plots and did not
cuhivate them would be fined. By 1977, the Ministry began to issue land as private
property, on the condition that one must work the land for some time to establish proof of
productive use. Land distribution had become an instrument to control agricultural
production. Land was also controlled to prevent the return of adversaries of land reform
111. "Food Imports and Clove Exports," 27.
112. Ibid., 29.
113. The Political Economv of Land Reform . 53. 175
without a fee, and the revolution. Thus, the government gave land to the peasants provided they were citizens and members of the ASP."^ These nuances in the implementation of land re-distribution undermined the very objective of eradicating inequalities by creating differences in terms of wealth through land.
The government established the Department of Agriculture to direct the future of rural production."' Extension officers advised people on the use of fertilizers and insecticides and encouraged the cultivation of primarily rice, but also yams, sweet- potatoes, and bananas. State plantations and cooperatives on Unguja and Pemba were established to organize and increase to cultivation. Both the state farms and the cooperatives failed to increase production while ending exploitation because cloves remained the main source of revenue for the government and thus were most heavily emphasized. By 1978, clove production was rapidly declining due to the decline in world market prices, neglect, disease, lack of replanting, and a shortage of labor.
Two main problems plagued the state farms. First, the population targeted for
participation was still tied to production for their own subsistence; production on the state farms was secondary. When farmers did not participate in production, the government assumed the work, thus farmers did not perceive a need to work the state farms because
the harvesting would be done regardless and they would still receive their shares."^ Thus,
114. Ibid., 54.
115. Along with the control of production, the govenmient established Zanzibar State Trading Corporation to control market processes.
116. Ibid., 88. 176
experts. Secondly, donor the state farms faced a constant shortage of labor and local
did they agencies had no interest in funding state farm and cooperative projects, nor
focusing develop projects to link industrial production with agricultural production, rather
failed in terms on light industries and small-holder agriculture."^ Though the state farms of farmer participation, the government never abandoned the projects. Cooperatives
faced other problems. The government never offered technical advice nor the required resources to set up production to the cooperatives. To compound the problem, the
government set prices too low for the cooperatives to recover their costs."* With the lack
of record-keeping the in the cooperatives, corruption slowly corroded the idea of the
cooperative as people began stealing the crops for their own use."'
A more fundamental problem confronted the government's efforts at land reform.
Rather than creating a secure land tenure system, land nationalization and redistribution
generated insecurities. Land reform policies were blind to other issues such as an already
established attachment to a place as home, and existing understandings of land use,
ownership, and restrictions. Many people given land under the three-acre system never
utilized the land, or simply sold it despite laws prohibiting the sale of land. While the
confiscation of land without compensation uprooted people without offering alternatives.
117. Ibid., 87.
118. Ibid., 81.
119. Ibid., 82.
120. C. Seithy L. Chachage, "Land, Forests, and People in Zanzibar," unpublished paper, 1997,21. 177
ability to many who received land would settle on other allocated plots, undermining their
for their own rightfully claim such land and the ability of others to utilize their plots
did not housing and/or subsistence. Chachage argues that land nationalization also
trees and prevent the commodification of land because transfer involved the transfer of developments which were not considered part of the land even by the government.'^' The
with revolutionary government did not consider that the re-distribution policy might clash
they had pre-existing understandings of land and social differences and relations, because framed the revolutionary struggle as one between two classes, exploited Africans and exploiting Arabs.
Moment of Re-arriving
In 1984, Jumbe was forced to resign over his suggestion that the Union be restructured. Nyerere appointed Ali Hassan Mwinyi as the interim president, until elections would be held in 1985. The appointment of Mwinyi disappointed Self Shariff
Hamad, who was a member of the CCM National Executive Committee. Mwinyi
appointed Hamad as the Chief Minister. The introduction of the 1984 Zanzibar
Constitution, the 1984 Zanzibar Election Act, and economic liberalization have been
largely attributed to Mwinyi and Hamad.
With the market price of cloves continuing to decline, the Zanzibar Government
implemented a trade liberalization policy in 1985 to diversify the economy, allocating a
greater role for the private sector. The acceptance of an IMF structural adjustment loan in
121. Ibid., 24. 178
Tanzania, including 1986 required radical economic changes in the whole of
opening up to private and denationalization of banks and government-owned enterprises,
repatriation of profits, foreign investment, promoting new exports, easing regulations on
'^^ The and abolishing duties and taxes on the import of raw materials for industry.
tourism for Zanzibar Economic Recovery Program introduced a new emphasis on
the economic development. To facilitate the development of the tourism industry
Investment Protection Act included tourism as an export to qualify it for investment incentives to attract foreign capital.
Tanzania held single-party general elections every five years. On the Mainland, elections began in 1965. However, in Zanzibar, elections began (again) in 1980, after the
1979 Constitutional reform to reverse the banning of elections after the revolution.
Mmuya and Chaligha suggest that a general acquiescence in the single party political system stemmed from an understanding that Tanzania was building a socialist system which required a monolithic political structure and a realization that elections could affect leadership change.'" However, this articulation did not capture the complete understanding of the political system in Zanzibar, where regular multi-party elections occurred prior to the revolution. For some, the banning of political parties and elections
122. Martha Honey, "Zanzibar: Ecotourism on a Muslim Island," draft chapter for Ecotourism and Sustainable Development: Who Owns Paradise? (Washington, DC: Island
Press, 1999), 6.
123. Max Mmuya and Amon Chaligha. The Anticlimax in Kwahani Zanzibar: Participation and Multipartism in Tanzania (Dar es Salaam: University of Dar es Salaam Press, 1993), 16. 179
of the democratic possibilities and Karume's reign of terror obstructed any understanding of a single-party political system.
Mwinyi for the Tanzanian In 1985, the National Executive Committee nominated
Abdul Wakil, a member o; presidency. Once again frustrating Hamad's expectations, Idris
presidency.'^" Wakil only the Revolutionary Council, was nominated for the Zanzibar
located in Pemba received 61.1% of the voters support; much of the disapproval was
meeting to where he received only 24.5%.'" In the National Executive Committee
vote became nominate a single candidate, it was impossible to reach a consensus. A
87).'^* necessary and Hamad lost to Wakil by seven votes (85 to Hamad was again
appointed as Chief Minister, only to be dismissed from the position and from CCM in
1988 which denied him the possibility of nomination for the presidency in the 1990
elections.
By the late 1980's, an underground political party had been formed and its
members were subjected to harassment and imprisonment. Various demonstrations were
on the rise. Once dismissed from the position of Chief Minister, Hamad also went
underground and joined the political movement. During the 1990 elections, only sixty
124. Nyerere voluntarily stepped down from power. Many claims surrounding Hamad political disappointments suggest that Nyerere viewed Hamad as a bright, young rising figure in CCM. Nyerere had wanted to nominate Hamad for the interim presidency. However, a founding member of the Zanzibar Revolutionary Council advised Nyerere to postpone his nomination because he could create problems for the Union.
125. Haroub Othman, Immanuel Baru, and Michael Okema, eds, Tanzania: Democracy in Transition (Dar es Salaam: University of Dar es Salaam, Press, 1990), 62.
126. Ibid. 180
elections. Detentions of people on percent of eligible voters in Pemba participated in the
was arrested in 1991 on a common the basis of association with Hamad began. Hamad
documents. During his arrest he accusation of illegal possession of classified government
introduction of multiple formed the Zanzibar United Front, foreseeing the inevitable political parties.'"
passed the Political Parties Bill On 8 May 1992, the Tanzanian National Assembly
and procedure which permitted the registration of political parties and stipulated the terms
register through a two for registration. The Political Parties Act required all parties to
registered if it stage process. After provisional registration, a party could then be ftilly
must be obtained at least 200 members qualified to vote from ten regions—two of which
in Zanzibar, and have a location for the head office and a postal address.'^* As a
consequence of these conditions a party could not register which would serve the interests
only of the Mainland or Zanzibar, nor any particular ethnic or religious group. In 1992,
three parties secured provisional registration: Union for Multiparty Democracy (UMD),
Chama cha Wananchi (CCW), and the Kamati ya Mwelekeo wa Vyama Huru
(KAMAHURU). The UMD and CCW were Mainland based and KAMAHURU was
Zanzibar based. However, KAMAHURU merged with CCW to form Civic United Front
(CUF). Hamad was released from prison immediately prior to the legalization of political
parties. He became a central figure in CUF and human rights became a central issue for
the party. CUF has been accused of being a reincarnation of ZPPP, an Arab-identified
127. The 1964 Revolution . 74.
128. Tanzania's Eighth Constitutional Amendment . 162. 181
society, and renouncers of party, staunchly Islamic in their views of the place of women in the revolution.'^'
Economic liberalization and the structural adjustment program quickly changed the face of Zanzibar's economy. Importation of commodities, mostly from Dubai, rapidly increased. Donor assistance began to pour into the country, followed by the march of non-govemmental organizations to advocate micro-level development projects. But economic restructuring revolved around tourism. Between 1982 and 1992, tourism grew at an average annual rate of 18.5 percent. By 1993 nearly sixty percent of all proposed investments were in the tourist sector. The number of tourists and investments continued to increase, along with concerns about the implications of the economic changes. Nearly
all tourist development was occurring on the eastern coastline and in Stone Town, generating three major concerns. First, the expansion of land speculation paralleled the expansion of the tourist industry. Land was being bought, sold, and leased with minimal compensation to local people and villages, echoing a past problem of land marginalization.
Second, Zanzibaris began to raise concerns about cultural offenses and the loss of their culture with the invasion of tourism. In particular, this debate has centered around the dress code for women, reflecting the rise of conservative Islam in Zanzibar. Finally,
Pemba remained virtually untouched by the tourist industry and seemed to receive little benefit from economic liberalization.
129. See The Anticlimax in Kwahani Zanzibar and The 1964 Revolution . Mmuyaand Chaligha offer a detailed account and analysis of the first multi-party by-election held in a Zanzibar constituency which they viewed as a litmus test for multi-party elections. CUF withdrew from the election. 182
While CUF supported CUF began to build a political platform on such concerns.
generated by economic liberalization, the party publicly warned of the problems
the unregulated tourist development and government corruption. The party supported
privatization of land, but not the selling of Zanzibar to foreign investors. Land was a
sensitive subject because while the Party advocated land ownership for the people,
political candidates proposed land compensation to all those who had land confiscated by
the Revolutionary Government. Because Pemba constitutes the stronghold of CUF, the
lack of development in Pemba and the overall neglect of Pemba by the government
featured highly in the CUF agenda. CUF slogans called for "equal rights for all," "a more just government in Zanzibar," and the renegotiation of the Union.
Tanzania held the first multi-party general elections on 22 October, 1995. CCM
fielded incumbent Salmin Amour as their presidential candidate in Zanzibar. Self Shariff
Hamad campaigned as the presidential candidate for CUF. The Zanzibar Election
Commission announced Salmin Amour as the newly elected president with 50.2% of the
votes—a victory by a narrow margin. The international election process monitoring teams
accused the government of failing to facilitate the creation of a democratic environment
for the holding of elections. Members of CUF and CCM and monitoring teams claimed
that citizens were prohibited from registering to vote at particular stations. In addition,
the government was accused of denying the rights of assembly and of freedom of 183
constitutional conference and expression. The government had also ignored calls for a reform prior to the elections.'^"
claimed election CUF disputed the outcome of the presidential election results,
of Zanzibar. Donor rigging, and refused to recognized Amour as the legitimate President and Embassy claims paralleled those of CUF. The International Observation Team expressed strong suspicion over the inaccuracy of the final vote count for the presidency
their own. due to discrepancies between the Zanzibar Election Commission's figures and
CUF used external concerns with election fi-aud to support their position. Tension mounted in Zanzibar while elected CUF members of parliament announced their boycott of the House of Representatives of Zanzibar, ushering in a new period of political conflict.
The Questionable Role of the Union
The purpose of the Union has been suspect in Tanzania from the moment of its inception. Mwakyembe suggests that one problem of the Union which became a source of
controversy is that its structure did not embody any traditional form of distribution of power and competent political units for forming a new state. Provided Zanzibar had exclusive power over certain sectors, the Union defied the unitary concept. Provided
Tanganyika did not have the same exclusive powers over the same sectors within their
130. The Issue of constitutional reform generated heated debate during the 1995 annual conference sponsored by the Department of Political Science at the University of Dar es Salaam. The general feeling held by the audiences and participants, however, was a need to rewrite the constitution before holding multi-party elections. 184
idea territorial domain and in relation to the Union government, then it also rendered the
of a federation problematic.'^'
By the 1980's, discontent with the Union began to thrive in Zanzibar. Zanzibaris
had two main complaints. First, although the Union Treaty of 1964 included a provision
for a separate legislative and executive branch in Zanzibar, CCM was undermining the
autonomy and identity of Zanzibar. It was argued that CCM's constitutional powers and
control of all political activity in the Union gave the mainland access to Zanzibar's non-
union affairs. Secondly, Zanzibar did not receive equal treatment as a partner in the
Union, as Zanzibaris were poorly represented in the diplomatic corps and received less
than its fair share of foreign aid and investments. While Zanzibar felt the Union had
underdeveloped them, mainland Tanzanians began to express concern that Zanzibar
burdened their economy. On the mainland it was also argued that Zanzibar is
overrepresented in the Union government. Fimbo has suggested that the absence of a
strategy to distribute revenue between the two governments inevitably would generate
such problems.
131. Tanzania's Eighth Constitutional Amendment , 5 1 . In terms of the structure, Srivastava states, "there are three judicial areas: territory -wise and subject-wise, for the operation of governmental powers, both legislative and executive, which necessitate the existence of three governments, namely. Government of United Republic, Government of Tanzania Mainland and Government of Zanzibar, corresponding to the three jurisdictions. It is, however, common knowledge that there are in existence only two governments for three jurisdictions." See B. Srivastava, The Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania 1977: Some Salient Features. Some Riddles (Par es Salaam: University of Dar es Salaam Press, 1983). Haroub Othman also questions the structure of the Union arguing that it is not a federation. For a defense of the Union as a federation see Issa Shivji, Tanzania: The Legal Foundations of the Union (Dar es Salaam: University of Dar es Salaam, 1990). 185
people's views on In 1983, CCM initiated nation-wide discussions to acquire the
radio and the Union and possible changes. In Zanzibar, the government launched a television campaign to attack the union, claiming that it was responsible for a host of
Zanzibar's problems including the dive in clove prices. Othman asserts that numerous politicians in Zanzibar, other than Karume, have used the mainland as a trump card.
Before the National Executive Committee of CCM, Jumbe stood accused of intent to dissolve the Union by fellow Zanzibari politicians such as Self Shariff Hamad and was forced to resign. '^^ Thus, while CCM gauged popular opinion of the Union, the Party deployed the Union stance to remove politicians from its ranks.
By the end of 1983, it was clear that people favored constitutional reform. People demanded the immediate introduction of a multi-party system in which the parliament had supreme powers, the re-introduction of constitutionally guaranteed rights, and the re- negotiation of the Union Treaty. The Party responded only with the creation of a Bill of
Rights amended to the constitution. Another attempt was made to consider these issues in
1991 . The President's Commission on Political System of One Party or MuUi Party in
Tanzania—known as the Nyalali Commission-again compiled popular opinion from public meetings, and recommended the introduction of a multi-party system, although only 21.5 percent of those involved in the discussions supported such a change. '^^ The Commission
132. "Tanzania—The Withering Away of the Union?" 31. Hamad, as discussed later, became the Chief Minister and ironically was expelled from his posting and the Party, and accused of anti-union sentiments by political opponents in Zanzibar.
133. Yet, even those who support the one-party system felt the government needed to 'cleanse' itself While the total percentage of people in favor of the continuation of a single-party system was 21.5, the breakdown between the mainland and Zanzibar is more 186
minority' demanding multi- based its recommendation on the presence of a 'substantial
which would party politics and the need to provide the right of freedom of association
the be facilitate people's participation. Finally, the Commission recommended that Union
transformed into a federation of three governments.'^" However, the latter
recommendation was the only one on which the Commission did not come to a
consensus.'"
The Commission raised a concern about the possibility of dissolution of the Union
if emerging political parties would include this in their agenda. The House of
Representatives in Zanzibar could also dissolve the union through legislature if it so
desired, because it has the powers to revoke all policies created in Zanzibar since 1964.
The Commission also expressed concerns about the possible adverse effects of multi-party
politics in Zanzibar. The concern centered around the possible revival of the political
revealing. In the Mainland 79.7 percent favored continuation of a single-party system and 19 percent were against, while in Zanzibar 56 percent favored the continuation of the single-party system and 43 percent were against. See The Presidential Commission on Single Partv or Multiparty Svstem in Tanzania, Report and Recommendations of the Commission on the Democratic Svstem in Tanzania. Volume One (Dar es Salaam: University of Dar es Salaam Press, 1991), 69-75. [This report will be referred as the "Nyalali Report"].
134. See the "Nyalali Report" for a discussion of the problems generated by the structure of the Union.
135. Othman details the divide on the issue of the union, revealing that of the eleven members from Zanzibar, 7 wanted the present union structure to remain, 3 wanted a federal structure, and 1 was undecided; while of the eleven Mainland members 9 wanted a federal structure and 2 wanted the present structure ("Tanzania—The Withering Away of the Union," 33). 187
parties which existed in Zanzibar prior to the revolution and with them the political enmities which could disrupt peace.
Anti-union sentiments bear the imprint of the anti-mainland politics which emerged with the rise of nationalism during the struggle for independence in Zanzibar. The Union has provided enough fuel to keep Zanzibari national sentiments smoldering for over thirty years. In 1994, Zanzibar was admitted to the Organization of Islamic Conference, though they had to withdraw because Zanzibar cannot apply to join an organization for sovereign states—that is a vmion matter. With the introduction of multi-party politics, criticisms of the Union took an implicit place in political agendas in Zanzibar. In 1997, political campaigners spoke of the right to be Zanzibari, while making distinctions between
Mainlanders and Zanzibaris. Today, anti-union sentiments thrive both in Zanzibar and on the Mainland. Zanzibaris and Mainlanders continue to accuse the other as the cause of
their underdevelopment. It is commonly suggested though that the Union will remain as
long as Nyerere is alive. . . and probably only as long as he is alive.'"
Land Reform Revisited through Economic Liberalization
During the 1980's, food and commodity shortages became a part of life as the economy of Zanzibar deteriorated with the decline in revenue from cloves. By 1981,
Zanzibar's Balance of Trade turned negative and has not recovered since. The government had to reveal to the world the failure of the social experiments to receive
136. See the "Nyalali Report."
137. Julius Nyerere passed away on 13 October 1999. 188
with the assistance to revitalize the economy.'^* The Revolutionary Government
Rehabilitation assistance of foreign consultants designed the Economic Recovery and
least a Program in 1986. The Program articulated the following objectives: to achieve at four percent annual growth rate of GDP, reduce inflation rates, and generate balance of payment surpluses which would eliminate external debt. The program envisaged a sustainable increase in production in agriculture and fisheries, full capacity utilization of industries, and the development of tourism to increase foreign exchange. Accompanying these reforms the program was to introduce more farmer involvement, eradicate inefficiencies in the extension services, and increase the understanding of the needs of local labor to improve planning and the bureaucracy supporting agricultural production.'" In
1986, the enactment of the Investment Act initiated a series of radical changes, including the restructuring of government institutions. The Investment Act established the Zanzibar
Investment Committee (ZIC), Zanzibar Investment Promotion Agency (ZIPA), and the
Commission for Tourism.''"' The necessary policy changes to support the program included the reduction of the public sector, non-interference in the market, and the support of the private sector through investment incentives and the protection of private property rights.""
138. "Food Imports and Clove Exports," 1.
139. "Food Imports and Clove Exports," 34. .
140. "Land People and Forests," 10. The history of the inception of these institutions appear in subsequent chapters.
141. Ibid., 8. 189
The Commission for Lands and Environment (COLE) was established in 1989 to
coordinate "all land related matters," partly in response to the failure of decentralized
planning to take root.'"^ The various land issues fall under three divisions within COLE, namely Lands, Environment, and Urban Planning/Surveys. COLE has featured at the core of economic restructuring through the 1990s. It assisted in the design of three Export
Processing Zones and new development areas for industry, wrote the national land use plan, collaborated with the Commission of Natural Resources on a national environmental policy, and designed tourism development plans for selected areas. The foreign consultants to COLE rewrote the land decrees issued by the Revolutionary Government.
The new procedures for all land surveying, registration, transfer, and development are vested in the different departments of COLE.
The land legislature rewritten by consultants includes: Land Adjudication Act of
1990, Land Registration Act of 1990, Land Tenure Act of 1992, Land Transfer Act of
1993, Land Tribunal Act of 1994. In these Acts, land is redefined to include "land
covered by water, all things growing on land, and buildings and other things permanently affixed to land, except trees when specifically classified and owned separately." A short description of each act follows:
Land Adjudication Act : establishes the process of making claims and disputes regarding confiscated land and the first registration of rights and interests in land (as outlined in the Land Registration Act), and vests the resolution process in COLE.
142. COLE, "Recommendations on Development Control in Rural Areas," (Zanzibar: Integrated Planning Unit, COLE, May 1995), 3-4. 190
proper procedure for registering land with the Land Registration Act : articulates the all holdings in government, the regulation of dealings in registered land, and declares that land are not valid until registered.
tenure system, beginning by redeclaring The Land Tenure Act : redefines the legal land over which the that all land is public land. However, public land is defined as all land Government or private persons can have rights of occupancy as an exclusive right of use and occupancy. In accordance with this act, land (as rights of occupancy) can now be bought and sold through the government. Right of occupancy can be acquired in the following ways: a grant from the Minister, recognition of a rightful interest under the Land Adjudication and Registered Land Acts, inheritance of registered land, purchase of registered land, or a gift of registered land. The ownership of trees (along with the rights of inheritance and purchase) as held separately from land remains in tact, however, even trees must be registered. All of these transactions with land and trees can only involve Zanzibaris, however, government holds the right to lease any unoccupied land to any person, Zanzibari or non-Zanzibari for a period not to exceed forty-nine years. While leased land cannot be sold, sub-leased, nor sub-divided, it is inheritable. The Land Tenure Act defines abandoned land as such if the holder (communal or individual) is not in possession of the land for a period of eighteen months or three cultivation seasons. It defines land as idle land if the holder has failed to use the land for its allocated purpose for over two years. (Abandoned land and idle land have importance because such land can be rightfully reallocated by the government.)
Land Tribunal Act : established a land tribunal to handle land disputes.
Land Transfer Act : declares that no permanent passing of land from one person to another (either through purchase or lease) can occur until the transfer is reviewed and approved by a Land Transfer Committee.
The most significant point to make about the re-writing of land policy in Zanzibar is that it has been re-written in the neo-liberal language (save the term public land) by foreign
consultants without actually addressing or articulating the meaning of property and how it
differs from land in Zanzibar. It seems that not only the government but also international financial institutions and donors do not want to acknowledge the multiple meanings of both that exist in Zanzibar and the implications of creating liberal economic policy based on an understanding of land as government property which differs from how people in 191
purpose of economic Zanzibar define land and property. Such gestures render suspect the
is not meant to liberalization advocated by the international community. Certainly it
Revolutionary address the concerns of Zanzibari society as a whole, since it builds on the
Council's definition of land and the current government's interpretation of this definition without considering the complexities of people's interpretations of land issues.'"^
Through the 1990's, the bulk of work consuming the Department of Lands within
COLE has involved the settling of land claims and disputes based on historical and ancestral ties to land, and overlapping conceptions of land tenure (including regionally specific notions).'"" COLE has had limited influence over land development and environmental control or management. Most land is transferred without the knowledge of
COLE. The Commission has also achieved limited success in handling land disputes.
Myers attributes the limitations of COLE to donor dependence. Donor agencies fund 85 percent of the Government of Zanzibar Budget, thereby holding government agencies captive to the whims of donor demands which often do not correspond to the needs articulated by the Government of Zanzibar.'"' Myers also sites institutional inadequacies,
CCM corruption, and regional inequalities both between Unguja and Pemba, and the fertile land and the coral rag areas as exacerbating the difficulties confronting COLE.'"*
143. The establishment of a land tribunal once policy has already been made is the classic band-aid treatment advocated by the development enterprise.
144. "Democracy and Development in Zanzibar?" 228.
145. Ibid., 232.
146. Myers articulates the regional inequalities in terms of political divides. He labels Pemba as predominantly a CUF stronghold and the fertile lands (former plantations) to 192
problem which In regards to the success rate of resolving land disputes, the main
evidence upon which to base confronts COLE is the lack of documentation or supporting
accordance any decisive resolution. The system established to handle land disputes is in
outside with the idea of rule of law; however, land transfers and disputes have occurred such a system and in negligence of the system. As will be discussed in subsequent chapters, small land disputes have a higher resolution rate when handled within the local government structures. However, when land is deemed valuable by the government, heated contestation ensues, resulting often with the government eventually ruling in its own favor. The problems of cooperation among the institutions within the government and with local communities are products of both donor and (sub)national politics in
Zanzibar. Such problems faced by COLE are compounded by the issue of insecure subsistence which Jaffer argues must be addressed democratically first or the implications for the government will be far greater than those of abandoning land reform.
The Color. Gender, and Soil of History
Indeed racial associations were tactics of divide and rule which came to be the cornerstone of British colonialism. The British generated broad racial antagonisms glossing over the complex social divisions articulated in Zanzibar. The struggle to write this part of Zanzibari history ensues because of Western writings on and in Zanzibar! history which interpret conflict in Zanzibar in terms of colonial racial categories, and
comprise predominantly CCM supporters. See "Democracy and Development in Zanzibar?" for a detailed discussion. 193
British politicized pursuits of the source of exploitation. In the colonial context the
In scholarship, the created racial categories to divide, order, and control a mixed society.
of race focus can be read as an implicit assumption of the virtue of western concepts democracy, nation-state, and elections, and thus, the need to explain instabilities and problems in terms of something other than the shortcomings of the exported definitions or the shortcomings of the intellectual conceptual exportation process. The class focus of materialist historical accounts constitutes an attempt to write against the imperialistic grain by contending that identity discriminations were not an issue between Africans and Arabs in Zanzibar, rather they are the fictions created by British colonialism and perpetuated by
Western scholarship. However, these very accounts deploy another virtuous export
(namely Marx's notion of class) and cannot avoid making distinctions such as Zanzibaris versus Mainland Africans or Swahili (or Shirazi) versus Mainland Africans to understand
social, political, and economic issues in Zanzibar.
Such distinctions can indeed be read as disrupting or confusing neat colonial categories of race. For example, despite Babu's dogmatic deployment of class, the mindless expropriation of the feminine body for political purposes, and the renouncement of any identity other than a mixed Zanzibari one, he offers an attempt to disrupt the
Arab/African dichotomy. Though Babu attempted to structure struggle with the ironic combination of a rigid Marxist class analysis and the rigid concept of the nation, his interpretation demands that people were too mixed for colonial categories to make sense of history, while not denying the political reappropriation of the Arab/African dichotomy.
However, such distinctions can also be read as testimony to the difficulties of separating 194
explanatory power of one. The identity and material conditions with an intent to reject the
inevitably conceptual acknowledgment of identity distinctions by materialist accounts
while contributes to interpreting and creating some sense of a unified social identity, simultaneously discerning who does not fit into this identity.
I question the While I concur that material aspects are indeed meaningful, possibility of separating social identities and perceptions from material contexts of societies on two grounds. First, deterministic materialist arguments can be deconstructed by highlighting the complications which undermine the very line of reasoning. For example, Depelchin outlines that the reproduction of slave labor was understood as more costly and generated less surplus value than wage labor, consequently leading to the abolition of slavery. However, he also notes that at the same time the transition from slave labor to wage labor was understood to result in revenue losses of two-thirds for the colonial administration. The very solution to the creation of more profit is also the very obstacle to the creation of more profit. Indeed, both can happen simuhaneously, however,
a strictly materialist argument then loses its explanatory power. Other concerns must contribute to the decision to abolish slavery if creating profit and risking profit are effects of abolition. For example, the fear of losing or not having enough social control, or phrased in a more extensive way, the fear of losing the ability to define the social, could
contribute to such an eventful change which is not strictly economically driven as the
dilemma implies. To suggest this is not to undermine the importance of profit in the equation, but to highlight that the desire to define and preserve power, security, and stability through mechanisms of control also features in the political. The affects of hubris 195
material conditions alone. The struggle in hegemonic pursuits are not easily explained by
as they facilitate and to define social order and material relations are entwined
difficult to problematize the fulfillment of the other. With this realization it becomes
classification and prioritize either the construction of social order (which uses social interactions based on differentiations) or material conditions and pursuits.
Secondly, the articulated reliance on social alliances and differences through identification facilitates the march of materialist forces as people perceive them. Resource control, access, allocation, and use are not defined only by one's relation to production as a producer. Materialist accounts fail to draw out and comment on these details and nuances of a complicated history which could disrupt old colonial categories for writing history. People exclude and include in the access to resources on the basis of a host of
differences and similarities as is illustrated in the multiple interpretations of history, the constructions of political agendas, and the articulation of struggles. Such social constructions can also create the contradictions articulated by materialist explanations.
Thus, explanations of colonial rule based on class or race alone deny the possibility of considering articulated negotiations and antagonisms which arose out of social differences people constructed and received on the basis of locality, gender, family, and polifical power. The problem of claiming that race and class coincide in Zanzibar is the construction of a rigid parallel between Arab and European versus African and exploiter
versus exploited. It denies the visualization of resistant perspectives from outside these classifications. Literature in both perspectives considered here have denied, dismissed, or 196
To dismiss anomalized the coral rag, the feminine, and the Pemban perspectives.'^'
through a single multiple strategies of difference as false consciousness or to explain
and the capacity to colonial construct is to arrogantly deny people's varied experiences
the struggle articulate them. As a consequence such interpretations fail to visualize hov/ over interpretation and articulation have a role to play in the control and definition of resources and the political defining of a society.
historical Beginning with this supposition, I will briefly reconsider the use of sex in interpretation from a gendered position of analysis. The use of sexual intercourse and mixed generations as evidence of a lack of racial difference needs to be questioned because they are themes deployed throughout the construction of Zanzibar and Zanzibari history to address the issue of discrimination. Because children were bom between slave owners and slaves does not mean that a discriminatory distinction was not made. Slaves and women have been articulated as property throughout various social histories.
Historical accounts explain that women constituted a form of property often traded via
147. There is an account of life in nineteenth century Zanzibar written by the daughter of the Sultan. Princess Salme Sayyida has an interesting story as she became a pawn in
Zanzibar politics. She eloped with a German businessman in the 1 860's, moved to Germany with him, and adopted the name Emily Ruete. When he passed away, she attempted to return to Zanzibar. Her brother—then Sultan—reftised to permit her return. She sought the aid of the British which put her in the middle of the political tension between the British and the Sultanate of Oman. Recently, the memoirs have captured the attention of many historians as an historical source that provides a rich account of life in
Zanzibar. What is interesting to note is that the memoirs were first published in 1888 (D. Appleton & Co., New York). However, Ruete's work does not inform historical accounts of Zanzibar cited in this chapter (with the exception of the later work of Fair and Amory).
The memoirs do not even appear in the bibliographies of Sheriff, et al. Princess Salme offers a powerfial example of how feminine experiences are silenced, through neglect, in the writing of history. See Emily Ruete. Memoirs of an Arabian Princess fi'om Zanzibar. Intro, by P. W. Romero and Markus Weiner (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989). 197
various communities (European, marriage for other property, wealth, status, or alliance in
in exchange for labor as Arab, and African alike). Slaves received care, as did women,
held as a perceived appropriate by owners. Engaging in sexual intercourse was a right
Personal slaveowner with a slave, if so decided, just as it was for a man with a woman.
articulated desire does not always (if rarely) obey social norms, but often travels across
boundaries into the socially forbidden or unknown. Thus, the feudal landowner could be
racist and engage in sexual intercourse with the slave, because the Arab (or European)
slaveowner, landowner, or trader may be blind to color for sex or acquisition of land.
However, in Zanzibar no one was blind to the color of slaves—only Africans became
slaves. Nevertheless, individual acts to live out desires and ambitions indeed have
consequences such as producing generations of mixed background, and mixed marriages
become inevitable and thereby begin to confiise such boundaries.
In the writing of Zanzibari history little is questioned on the use of women from a
feminized interpretation. This is problematic because sex itself can be understood as a
relation of expropriation. Babu argued that one of the reasons the 'Party of National Unity
for the Sultan's Subjects' was acceptable to most people of Zanzibar and Pemba was
because the 'royal family' had by the time of its inception become Swahilized through
intermarriage, consequently eracing a purely Arab identity. Thus, Babu concludes, peasants did not consider the Sultan as alien, rather his family was their own. Perhaps
Karume remembered this aspect of Zanzibari history (and this interpretation) and the political power of the mixing of blood when he carried out a policy of forced marriages in the 1960's. Girls of Arab and Indian identity were forced into marriage with African men. 198
Revolutionary Council, all in culminating in the marriage to some of the members of the
a Zanzibari identity. The the name of eliminating racial difference in Zanzibar and creating
their daughters policy generated panic, outrage, and resistance. Many families smuggled
places such as by night in the dhows of fishermen to Dar es Salaam and on to other
England and Oman, while others quickly organized arranged marriages.
soil have mixed in more Blood is not the only thing mixed in Zanzibar. Blood and ways than one. Women have been deployed as a sign of a created Zanzibari nation giving
to be eraced it its character in pre- or post-colonial times. This land called Zanzibar was as a mixed people—colorblind because distinctions would not be visible. Eraced in the sense of eradicating for that moment the politically articulated problematic differences to
create a new identity. It was to be done by planting the seeds of one color into the soil of another. Even before forced marriages became a postcolonial political practice, mix marriage has been provided as evidence of a colorblind Zanzibari nation. In the feudal and colonial contexts the colors of seed and soil were reversed though. The Revolutionary
Council even vengefully justified the forced marriages by explaining that Arab men had forced African women into concubinage and marriage. Amory explains that for the
Revolutionary Council, the forced marriages succeeded in creating new citizens that create
a multi-ethnic society in which all participate fully in an egalitarian social order; however, the Arab girls maintained that they had successfiilly resisted sexual relations with the
African men, thus upholding myths of racial and sexual purity.'"'* Some Arab and Asian
148. "The Identity of Politics in Zanzibar," 158. Amory offers an interesting discussion of the forced marriages. 199
to abort pregnancies. Some girls who could not make such claims resorted to attempts
into took their lives to avoid marriage. Whether African women were brought concubinage and impregnated, coastal families gave their daughters to Arab traders in marriage, or Arab and Asian girls were forced into marriage by the state to African men,
terrain, as property, to the body of the woman is the appropriated—even expropriated—
either create the evidence of a new nation (or political alliance). This is too often neglected or accepted in the history of Zanzibar rather than questioned from feminine positions of analysis.
While the incident of the forced marriages in Zanzibari postcolonial history has
has been demonized, silently and publicly, it strikes me that a more nuanced comparison not been made in order to question the feminine body in identity-property constructions.
While arranged marriages remain a practice among Asian and Arab families, it is ironic to note that a solution to the idea of Arab and Indian daughters—forced into marriage to
Africans by the state—would be the forced marriage of the daughter to a man of appropriate identity by the family."" While the family—the man and his private domain—will not permit the coercive state to overstep its boundaries in the creation of a nation, the coercion of the daughter or of the feminine does not become a visible
contestable issue. That the daughter is again forced into yet another marriage is conceptualized as an acceptable arrangement and not force, thus it is incommensurable to
the state's actions. That such a decision stems from concern for the daughter out of
149. This statement is not an intent to diminish the differences between a state coercively meddling in what is understood as a family, or private matter, but to add another dimension to a complex issue. 200
is being highlighted though familial love is acknowledged and not at question here. What
a violation of the freedom and is that the policy is challenged and resisted on the basis of property of the masculinized family but certainly not on the basis of a violation of the freedom and property of the woman. Of course, both men and women of the family legitimize this solution, but this comparison raises questions about the understanding of women constructed through such social possibilities and practices. In addition, a more general consideration of the use of sexual intercourse and marriage in the defining of
Zanzibari society reflects on the use of women and on the imderlying understanding of women that make such uses possible.
The materialist argument neglects the material experiences of the body in its color, sex, and soil to narrowly define materialism in terms of de-gendered production and labor.
In such attempts to critique imperialistic writing of history it is difficult to imagine how such writing can comfortably justify the neglect of material experiences in their ovm attempt to condemn the cover-up of materially conditioned experience (read as class) as a program of domination. In the context of postcolonial, post-revolution, post-Karume, and
Western versus anti-imperialist story writing, it is easy to understand the desire to not only erace Zanzibar history but to erase certain interpretations because of their remainders of oppressions, violence, and suffering. Karume's attempt to eliminate the Arabs and history
through controlling the planting of seeds in soil (in its different connotations) succeeded
only in creating oppression. Similarly, the denial of difference and its place in social experience silences positions of experience which contribute to the creation of history. 201
squeeze of the People in Zanzibar have experienced differently the hegemonic extended Western nation-state and globally consuming capital. Considering the
possibilities of differences in the way the history of Zanzibar is written opens the
rigid interpreting history in terms of complex positions of struggle and considering how concepts of race (and class) are deployed as instruments in political struggle (and political analysis) from various standpoints. What can be realized is that the differing accounts of
Zanzibar's history share a concern with what is the source of exploitation that motivates
struggle and who is responsible for this exploitation. It is not denied from any perspective that differences in Zanzibar, politically and materially colored, became divisive enough to motivate a revolution. However, not only do scholars and political actors disagree on the way to explain the historical unfolding of Zanzibar, the issues of exploitation have not been resolved. Commentators continue to rewrite events and demand of their truth as a basis for explanation and corrective action or policy. Yet in this process interpretations continue to be neglected. In a postcolonial, postsocialist, democratically and capitally conflicted Zanzibar, the followdng chapters consider struggles by reappropriating the terms of the Swahili city-state—in the context of the coral rag rural stone-towns—with its
emphasis on citizens and guests in what is hardly a monotonous plot of land but a mixed, parcelled, gendered, and fretful territoriality with often (un)defined boimdaries. CHAPTER 4 POPULAR PROTASIS: THE MATERIAL BASIS FOR STRUGGLE IN THE CORAL RAG
Popular Protasis
characters are The protasis is the first part of an ancient Greek drama in which the introduced. Because this study highlight the subaltern rather than the elite scene, this chapter will introduce the coral rag scene through depictions of the four towns that compose this study. A brief general history of the coral rag and Pemba will first be highlighted because both places are often either neglected or treated as subaltern spaces in scholarship and politics alike. A general discussion of land, sea, and their importance to
everyday life in the rural coral rags areas will follow. This discussion will not only introduce important government agencies in the use of the resources depicted, but will sketch the shifts in activities surrounding the resources as they parallel economic changes in the whole of Zanzibar. Such changes form the basis of struggles in the coral rag areas.
Finally, the discussion will specifically introduce the four coral rag tovms: Fumba, Paje,
Nungwi, and Msuka.
Neglected Histories: a Historical Consideration of the Coral Rag of Unguja and Pemba
This section will be devoted to considering the histories of places not only distanced from nationalist discourse, but often neglected in the critical writings of the
202 1
203
Figure 4. Tanzania Figure 4.2 Unguja 205
Maziwa Ng'ombe
PEMBA
Settlements:
Growth and Service Centres
20000 - 40000 RcKional CroM'th & .Service Centre Mkoani 10000 - 20000 Dislrict Trading 4r Service Centre
Michcauai SOOO - 10000 Rural Trading & Service Centre
UnUtt 500O Villago
311
NATIONAL LAND USE PLAN
Figure 4.3 Pemba 206
Though the coral rag may colonial period which focus on the clove plantation economy.
it is a place that has harbored often seem to lie outside of the (sub)national project,
demands. While it is a political struggle, anticolonial sentiments, and national desires and
nationalist agenda, place that has been silenced, neglected, or avoided by the postcolonial
agenda in moments when its allure it has also been courted and appropriated to serve this
could not be overlooked.
The Coral Rag of Unguia
It is believed that the coral rag was actually the cradle of agriculture in Zanzibar.'
Historians have postulated that the early settlers coming from the African mainland settled
in the coral rag areas. They were part-time farmers and fishermen. They did not cultivate
the denser forested area because of the heavy labor required to clear the land, opting to
clear the coral rag by implementing a system of shifting cultivation. It has more
confidently been asserted that the Hadimu have occupied the coral rag areas over most of
the island of Unguja and the Tumbatu have occupied the North of the island (including
Tumbatu Island).^
1 . See Land Tenure in Zanzibar and John Gray, "The Hadimu and Tumbatu of Zanzibar," Tanganyika Notes and Records 81-82 (1977): 135-53.
2. For Middleton the Hadimu and Tumbatu are part of the larger Swahili culture. However, Shao intimates that the terms Wapemba and Waunguja are more appropriate to use, because tribal names are Arab and British constructions. Hadimu derives fi^om the Arabic Khadim which means a servant. Arabs used the term Khadim to refer to the natives in Zanzibar. 207
remained predominantly In the postcolonial era, the Hadimu and Tumbatu have
and labor feature in subsistence farmers and fishermen; however, cash crop production
is imported. their economic activities because much of their staple food—rice—
more Middleton observes that most of the towns in the coral rag cannot accommodate
farming residents as a consequence of dense populations and a shortage of building and land. According to Middleton, there is a perpetual competition for resources in a context where local land shortages occur regularly. While the towns vary in size, they are dispersed because the pockets of deep soil which can support trees are scattered. A permanently cultivated garden normally sits between a cluster of houses. The shamba
plural) is to cultivate permanent trees which signify the holding of (mashamba . used private rights and are distinct from the trees which grow wild but also have economic importance. Coconut palms (used for copra, coir, cooking oil, wood, building fronds, matting), mango trees (use for fruit and wood), and citrus trees are the most important permanent trees cultivated. Wild trees may also actually be cultivated but only in the bush or communal lands; they include palms, timber trees, and mangroves.^
The construction of the towns center around the concepts of kiambo and kitongo .
Kiambo refers to a piece of occupied land which comprises planted trees and a garden. It
intimates residence, permanent occupation, and the planting of trees; it implies home.
Kiambo is the kitongo of the kin group whose members are the "proprietors" of the ward.
Kitongo refers to an aspect of ownership in which an inalienable piece of land belongs to a
3. The World of the Swahili . 69-70. 208
the piece of land becomes founded as a Idtongo by kin group; it is similar to waaf.' This
the jointly by those who are the descendants of cultivation of trees on it. Kitongo is held
of every member. Middleton explains founder and is inalienable without the agreement
trees and buildings, giving identity to that kiambo and kitongo signify land with permanent
than as a reproducing group, and those residing on it as kin, but of a place rather
grown.' However, the distinguishing from the place outside where annual food crops are
on the very separating of place and reproduction, to emphasize place, can be questioned
reproduction. The basis of the possibility of passing on land without the work of
importance of place highlighted by Middleton indeed should not be overlooked. However,
only a masculine position could forget the work of reproduction to suggest that place has
that more importance than reproduction. It cannot be put more explicitly than to recall
4. I have relied on the work of Middleton to discuss kiambo and kitongo. Waqf is an Islamic social institution of giving or devoting resources to a beneficiary. It has been asserted that an important function of the waqf system is to support and reinforce social relations (such as kinship, religious ties, etc) and their cohesion. A waqf can be private or public-where private predominately benefits the family and public refers to charitable or religious donations though often the administration of the waqf if reserved for members of the family. The benefactor's concern for the position and welfare of his or her family has been shown to be reflected in the institution of waqf in the consideration of how it has been used throughout Islamic societies. While a waqf may be created for charitable
purposes often it arranged to be managed by the family, thereby providing the family with future security. The administration of public waqf has served for centuries as an important way to further the interests of the family (for example, a waqf administrator receives a considerable portion of the waqfs income, that is 10-15%). See Gabriel Baer, "The Waqf as a Prop for the Social System (Sixteenth-Twentieth Centuries)," Islamic Law and
Society 4, no. 3(October, 1997) for a more detailed discussion of the social value of waqf
from which this brief discussion is taken (263-267).
5. The World of the Swahili . 71-72. 209
substance and no without the continual production of people, kin as place would have no meaning.
Shao explains the indigenous land tenure system in terms of konde and kiambo. A member of the village (rural town) could cultivate a konde for subsistence purposes on the communal land. What distinguished konde from the communal land was the construction
land of a bigii (or boundary formed with stones around the field). Once the piece of was bounded, no one could use the parcel of land without permission of the founder. If the konde did not have a constructed boundary then rights of use were open. All members of the town had rights to use the communal lands for the collection of firewood and fruits, cultivation, grazing, hunting, and burial without pay.* Shao interprets the konde concept of ownership as one where the land belongs to the community but whatever is added to
the land belongs to the individual. However, it extends beyond what Shao suggests because a constructed boundary gives the builder exclusive rights in the sense that another must ask permission to use this land. When this practice was in use Shao suggests that the elements of private ownership were subordinated to communal ownership because land was abundant. Nevertheless, Shao acknowledges that individuals could lease land that
was enclosed and that this practice was introduced prior to the arrival of Arabs. Kiambo .
according to Shao, is the homestead of the founder and his family and is inherited through males. Shao suggests that as Muslin law influenced inheritance, the land of the kiambo was parcelled and each family member receives a piece.
6. Land Reform in Zanzibar . 3. 210
of settlement with its own sense The town historically constituted the primary form
lands, and own forms of government, of identity, its own proprietary citizens, its own
the town and extended to the according to Middleton. The communal lands surrounded
officials who boundaries of the neighboring towns. Government was divided into
with spiritual organized the internal order of the town and maintained peaceful relations
and the nearest larger forces, and officials who maintained relations between the town
Middleton, the stone-town, the Omani Sultanate, and other non-Swahili. According to
faded in function. Towns latter was weakened first by Omani rule and the former slowly
had were divided into wards which refer to areas occupied by a single kinship. Each ward
the ward and controlled a head ( mkobaa wa mii^ who regulated the influx of tenants into
the ward budget. This elected elder also represented the ward by acting as an advisor to
the local government body—Watu Wanne ."^ The sheha wa mji and the mzale or mwale
and controlled worked in association with Watu Wanne . The sheha wa mii accepted
tenants and placed their dues into the town's budget. The mzale . usually a woman,
handled spiritual matters related to cultivation, illness, and annual rituals.* Until the
7. The World of the Swahili . 70. While watu wanne is normally translated as four men in this particular context, watu actually translates into people. This is interesting because watu which lacks gender specification becomes masculinized. While the name of the local
form of government suggests people, the translations suggests it has been composed of men.
8. The World of the Swahili, 74. For other accounts which explain the position of Mvale (Mzale) in terms of the masculine see Land Reform in Zanzibar and Slaves, Spices,
and Ivory . 211
Hadimu towns' The ruler middle of the nineteenth century, Mwenve Mkuu ruled over the
government)—to collect appointed a local nfficial —sheha wa serikali (headman of the
has assumed most of tribute and labor for him. In the post-colonial era the modem sheha
however, these councils play an important the previous responsibilities of the watu wanne . informal role in local politics. The sheha was redefined by the Afro-Shirazi Party
Government as the local leader appointed by the party. With the coming of multi-party politics, the concept of sheha becomes fraught with problems in some places as it remains a position appointed by CCM, as will be discussed later.
Sheriff elaborates on the local social structures centering around his account of rice cultivation and the arrival of the Omani Sultanate. Prior to the expansion of the cultivation of cloves, the cultivation of rice was extensive, particularly in Pemba. Pemba has even been referred to as the granary of Mombasa. By the beginning of the nineteenth century surplus grain was produced for export to Mombasa and Arabia. Surplus grain
was also produced for appropriation within social and political relations. The mvyale . who controlled the allocation of uwanda land and whose office was hereditary through the
village senior lineage, received various offerings. The elders, Watu Wanne . exercised influence over fines and dues which were to be used for communal purposes. A substantial portion of surplus went to the Mwinvi Mkuu who ruled over in Shirazi area of
Unguja, and probably to the sheha who rule over Tumbatu, and the diwani of Pemba. The al-Busaidi dynasty imposed their rule over these existing political structures. The Mwinvi
9. Mwenve Mkuu (Great Owner, trans, by Middleton) were the traditional "Shirazi" kings in the early towns of the islands. For a more detailed discussion, see The World of the Swahili . 42. 212
change in political Mkuu was used by the Sultan as a form of indirect rule until 1865. This
tribute as surplus structures deprived the local ruling class of a considerable amount of production and eventually local rulers eliminated from the governing structure.'"
Shao adds that the deployment of Muslim Land Law by the Omanis introduced land as private property in terms of both usage and the land itself Thus, when an Arab acquired land he was the private owner of not only the trees and crops but of the land itself Shao asserts that through this change land became a commodity which could be bought and sold. The Sultan (Seyyid Said) granted Arabs land for the cultivation of cloves. In his 1962 land report, Middleton suggests that claims to reclaim land
(expropriated by Arabs), however, could be made if one was the first cultivator of the area or if one had inherited the land. As Shao points out, the problem with the recourse through Muslim Law was the lack of legal titles to the land and the lack of specified boundaries to prove prior ownership. Shao takes issue with Middleton's further assertion that the Arabs occupied the unoccupied areas and did not disrupt the Native/Customary land tenure system. He highlights that according to the Native/Customary land tenure system "unoccupied" areas belonged to the tribe [kin groups] as all land was owned communally."
The conception of property and the pattern of ownership in the coral rag differed from those in the areas which were under cultivation through the use of slaves and squatters and from stone-towns, according to Middleton. In Hadimu land, as well as in
10. Slaves. Spices, and Ivory . 113-117.
1 1 . Land Reform in Zanzibar . 6-7. 213
groups as stated above. Pemba, land was divided among all citizens and held among
by both groups and Property rights are held over material and immaterial resources
rights include individual members in a group. Middleton states that material property
sailing craft, tools, and rights over land, stretches of beach and water, trees, crops, houses,
of immaterial rights include rights to marry, of political, familial and religious authority,
tide ancestry, and to define citizens.'^ The collection and trapping of sea life during low
while deeper and on the sand banks followed rules of tenure similar to that of kiambo .
waters were considered 'God's waqf,' and as such, anyone could fish in the deep sea with
in contrast, lines or nets using nealawas (outriggers) or dhows . Middleton claims that,
Swahili society implicitly defines four main categories of property: productive and
immovable, reproductive, personal and movable, and trade goods. "Productive and
immovable property include land, the sea within the reefs, creeks, wells, and houses;
reproductive property includes people—siblings, children, domestic slaves, and livestock;
personal property includes things on the land, such as crops, ships, canoes, money,
jewelry, furnishings, heirlooms. . ; trade goods includes ivory, domestic slaves, clothing, .
gold, timber Property rights are more restricted to unilineal descent groups.'^
12. The World of the Swahili . 104.
13. The metaphorical term, "God's waqf was offered in areas of Pemba, see Land
Tenure in Zanzibar .
14. The World of the Swahili . 132. The distinction between Hadimu and Swahili is one of wealth and blood—where the Swahili have intermarried to include Arabs and stone- town residents and consequently hold more wealth.
15. Middleton offers a detailed account of kinship, lineage, and descent patterns and how they relate to property ownership and marriage which I will not recount here; see The 214
based on relations between local The internal organization of Swahili settlements is
a town, members may distinguish or territorial ties and descent or kinship.'' Within
ancestry, rank, and ethnicity, themselves from others by house and ward, kinship, originary
Middleton. The Hadimu towns consist of all of which are interconnected according to
ancestries who live socially on the virtually only Hadimu with a few people of other ethnic
not full citizens. The margins of the towns (and literally in some places), and thus are
the land, or wenyeii citizens of the town are the "proprietors" (wananchi, owners of ,
have full owners of the town). Only the citizens of a town, who are bound in kinship,
to Middleton, all are of rights (haki) of settlement and landholding. However, according
the same social rank. The largest kinship group within the Hadimu is the ukoo. The
availability of land constitutes one factor determining how many generations are
which recognized in its composition. There are smaller familial groupings within the ukoo
are traced through the parents and grandparents only. Middleton elaborates that a person
can only trace membership in the ukoo through blood from the foimder provided his or her
skin color is not too light nor too dark.'^ Historically, the Hadimu-towns have attempted
to keep stone-town immigrants and non-Swahili out, thereby ensuring control of land,
World of the Swahili .
16. Hadimu descent patterns are often considered as being more "African" and since Hadimu refers to themselves as Shirazi, decent patterns are often considered Persian- interpretations with which Middleton considers having little value.
17. Skin color marks one as Hadimu or non-Hadimu. Middleton explains that this
particularly applies if one of the parents was an Omani Arab who married a Hadimu woman to acquire rights to land. Marriage often occurs based on the issue of land
availability and access (The World of the Swahili . 86). 215
arrival of the Omanis on Unguja. water, and inheritance. This became a concern with the
In The Omanis expropriated the Hadimu rice lands by force in the nineteenth century.
strategy of Pemba, the Omanis gained access to land through the more subtle
preventing Arab intermarriage, however, the Hadimu on Unguja resisted intermarriage, inclusion.'*
Pemba
Local stories in Pemba tell of a nobleman of Shiraz, by the name of Darhash bin
three Shah, who left this region due to famine along with his two brothers, a sister and
sons of an aunt. One of the cousins (Shahami bin Ali) settled in Pemba.'' The Wapemba distinguished themselves from the Arabs and Africans (who arrived from the mainland) as the indigenous people of Pemba by claiming their Shirazi descendancy from Persia.
Middleton asserts that many particulariy on Pemba and around Mombasa have historically
claimed Persian or Shirazi ancestry to place their settlement along the East African coast prior to other local populations with Arab roots. Shao, however, argues that Shirazi was used to refer to descendants of the indigenous people and the Arab-Shirazis as an effort to
glorify Arab culture and destroy traditional tribal cultures, an effort which the British
supported.^" According to Knappert, it is speculated subsequent to the arrival of Persians,
18. The Worid of the Swahili . 89.
19. This historical narrative of is from Jan Knappert, "Pemba," 1992.
20. Shao frirther states that in the 1940's indigenous people could purchase Shirazi names in order to acquire the certain governmental privileges that accompanied an Arab identity (Land Reform in Zanzibar . 2). 216
ruled it for two islanders from the Maldives conquered the eastern part of Pemba and
generations during the fifteenth century. The Portuguese found five independent
kingdoms upon their arrival. By 1509 each were part of the Portuguese empire. During
the seventeenth century, Wapembans engaged in numerous uprisings against the
Portuguese. In 1696, Omani Arabs gained control of Mombasa and with it Pemba,
eradicating Portuguese influence permanently.
In the nineteenth century, the Sultanate of Oman (under Seyid Said) managed to
wrest Pemba from the Mazruis of Mombasa. The cultivation of cloves was introduced to
Pemba, but not as intensely as in Unguja (until after 1872) and not in the form of large
plantations. Middleton has intimated, though Pemba shares similar social structures as the
Hadimu coral rag, the history of social relations in Pemba differs from the coral rag as a
consequence of intermarriage with the Omanis. In addition, there is more emphasis on the
smaller patrilineal descent line in terms of property rights in an attempt to retain profitable
cloves trees over generations. Social structures also differ due to the ability of some
Wapemba in the countryside to acquire land for the cultivation of cloves, thereby
introducing differentiation based on wealth within rural towns.
Under both the Sultan and British colonial rule, it has been argued that Pemba
suffered fi-om neglect in terms of the Sultanate and the colonial administration resources.
It is argued that after the revolution, Pemba underwent isolation from the world for a decade. In 1963, the Afro-Shirazi Party only received forty-four percent of Pemba's
votes. The people of Pemba did not wholly support the revolution. People attempted to resist the land nationalization policies which they did not view as relevant to Pemba 217
Unguja. When plantations were because its history of land-owing differed from that of
that seized for redistribution dissidents voiced their opposition. It has been argued
Karume sought revenge on Pemba by restricting the amount of food allowed to be imported.-' Pemba produced about ninety percent of the country's export earnings through clove production, yet was deprived of essential foodstuffs. Merchants were prohibited from importing food from either Zanzibar or the mainland and perpetual food shortages were the result.^^ People smuggled cloves through fisherman to barter for food on the coast. In an attempt to halt smuggling, Karume decreed a mandatory death penalty for anyone caught smuggling. Indian merchants, who had dominated business in Pemba, abandoned the island. Today, the contrast of negligence remains in Pemba as a harsh historical residue.
Land and Natural Resources
Zanzibar comprises two main islands—Pemba and Unguja—along with many small
islands (most uninhabited). It covers an area of 2,332 square kilometers (Unguja is 1,464
square kilometers and Pemba is 868 square kilometers) and has an estimated population of over 800,000 people of which 32% live in urban areas and 68% live in rural areas. The
population density is approximately 226 people per square kilometer in Unguja and 269 in
21. "Pemba," 46.
22. Statistics have been used to argue the neglect of Pemba. While Pemba has a higher birthrate than Unguja it has a lower population growth rate and a higher infant mortality
rate, suggesting a more acute problem of malnutrition. See The World of the Swahili . 218
between two types of terrain Pemba." Land in Zanzibar is often characterized as split
red fertile soil and is with quite different features. The "plantation land" features deep
rainfall.^" The coral rag to generally in the western part of the islands which receive more
soil. coral the east features rocky terrain of coralline limestone with pockets of fertile A
small surrounding reef frames the whole of Zanzibar (Unguja, Pemba, and the many
Unguja and fifteen islands). Coral rag land covers approximately fifty-five percent of
coral percent of Pemba. Approximately thirty-eight percent of the population lives in the
ecosystems rag areas." On the coasts of these two contrasting terrains several other
sea grass beds. thrive: mangroves, mudflats, intertidal flats, coral reefs, sand beaches, and
coral All of these ecosystems have articulated value or purposes for people living in the
only rag areas. Though the coral rag is considered the cradle of agriculture in Zanzibar, recently have people attributed any value to this land with the economic shift towards tourism. Since the time of the Sultan's presence in Zanzibar, the plantation lands constituted the central focus. The stories of land and natural resource use which compose
23. Commission for Natural Resources, "Zanzibar Long-Term Forestry Plan, 1997- 2006," Zanzibar Forestry Development Project, Technical Paper No. 72, July, 1997, 9. The population density of Zanzibar has been estimated as high as over 300 people per square kilometer. See Diana Fox and James Packham, "Rural Income Earning Opportunities in Zanzibar with Regional Analysis," Technical Report 93/10 for Zanzibar Cash Crops Farming Systems Project, April 1994.
24. This land received its name because historically plantations were established in the
fertile zones. It was only this land that was considered valuable because of its qualities for agriculture.
25. E. Krain, et al, "Farming Systems of the Coral Rag of Zanzibar," (Zanzibar: Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Natural Resources, 1993), 1. 219
four rural towns in the coral this study follow the shift in land concerns and come from rag.
Land and the resources found on the land form an intricate relationship as
that has indispensable understood by Zanzibaris. It is a relationship with a long history implications today. The most interesting relationship is that between land and trees.
Historically, coconuts trees and clove trees have generated the wealth of the land. Over
thirty years after the plantations were stripped of owners and dissected into three acre plots, the coconut tree whispers resolutions in the breezes wrought with the noises of land
disputes. Through the years it is not the land itself that has been perceived of value but
rather what it produces and the human improvements (or alterations) it hosts. Coconut trees and other permanent trees such as orange, lime, and mango trees mark land as belonging to someone as do other permanent structures such as stone walls and houses.
Permanent crops are only cultivated on land understood as belonging to the cultivator. An owner of land will permit others to cultivate on his/her land, but only temporary crops.
This also intimates the separation between land and resources, and that it is the resources that give the land value. One can claim rights to the resources on land without actually
ovraing the land. While the coconut tree may assist in disputes over land, it can generate
discrepancies also. When land seems not to have an owner because, for example, it has
not been cultivated for years, a person may decide to plant permanent trees on it. To do
this is to stake a claim to the land and if someone already understands that land as his/her own a dispute will arise. If land changes hands (regardless of the way) the former possessor may continue to perceive the land as his/hers provided the permanent trees 220
the transaction. remain standing on the land, even despite his/her conscious participation in
a claim to any parcel of Because all land is national land, the government can make
government land. In a political system where supposedly no one owns land, the
accepted compensates people for the value of their coconut trees. In the past people have
understandings of this compensation, but this is changing as this system collides with other
understand land brought into the area by non-Zanzibari investors. Investors who do not
the initial the land culture in Zanzibar may leave coconut trees standing on land providing spark for a dispute. But increasingly more common are complaints by people that they are not being adequately compensated for their loss. As people begin to acknowledge that land has value—at least for some, and others benefit from this system of value—those who have their land taken want similar benefits from the land. People have begun to either claim their coconut trees have more value than attributed by the government and/or the purchaser, or assert demands that they receive actual payment for the value of the land, a bold move in a system where land has no value by law.
The land reform introduced by the nationalization of land involved the confiscation of large plantation owned by Arabs and the redistribution of this land in three acre plots to
African peasants. Because such reforms had no relevance in the less fertile coral rag areas, traditional communal land tenure systems remained in tact. However, a more sweeping change in both the mainland and Zanzibar occurred at a conceptual level when the leadership declared land as absent of value. Like prior colonial policies, this
articulation at the national level by the government did not reflect the complex understandings of land and property of subaltern groups. Despite the objective to create a 221
understandings coexist. In single national understanding of land and property, multiple
policy, while particular, this has meant that the government established a national overlooking land tenure in the coral rag. Despite the recent acceptance of economic
of liberalization measures, an ideological belief in the separation of land from the concept private property endures. At a conference on Leadership in Africa in September, 1997,
Julius Nyerere vehemently defended this idea:
I have never changed my view on land. I don't believe land can be owned.
Land is common property. The rule for this shirt to be mine is that I did
something to produce it or gave something for its production, but I cannot
do this with land. I have never produced land. Land is public property.
This will never change. It is not going to change. Land can be used and can be asked to be used. Villages can be given land by law. But I have never subscribed to the idea that land can be owned like a shoe.
In Zanzibar, Private land is recognized but it is "possessed," not "owned."^* The
possessor of private land is able to sell his "right of occupancy," not the land itself A sale
of this sort is registered and a document (waraka) is issued. The following compose a list of land tenure systems which exist simultaneously at present in Zanzibar:
Government managed land : includes forest reserves, plantations and state farms under Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Natural Resources or parastatal control. There have been cases of squatters cultivating govenmient land and disputes between the govenmient and people over grazing of animals on government managed forestry land. The government has permitted traditional borrowing for the cultivation of food crops on large areas of state farms. Some farmers have begun to establish permanent crops on this land.
Three-acre svstem : This refers to the land owned mostly by arabs before the revolution and confiscated by the government and redistributed in parcels of about three acres to peasants. In theory the land was allocated to individuals until their death with a lease
26. Mark Thomas, "Situation Summary Report: Land Tenure," Zanzibar Cash Crops
Farming Systems Project, Working Paper no. 92/2, April, 1992: 1. 222
The land could be forfeited if specifying suitable uses and obligations of the recipients. monitoring land use has not been these conditions were not met. However, a system of of this land has been inefficiently implemented. Yet, there is a general consensus that most could not be passed on to used and poorly maintained for several reasons. Since the land Oftentimes the individual did not live heirs there was little incentive to invest in the land. the plantation areas and on the close to the parcel received. This system can be found in fringes of the coral rag area.
with the planting of permanent trees and Private and Kiambo (or familv) land : is marked land, inheritance, housing. This type of land is acquired by long term cultivation of unused It is common for the land to gift, or purchase. Islamic inheritance laws apply to this land. owners to lease be loaned for cultivation of annual crops without charge. It is illegal for difference is their land. Kiambo (or family land) has a similar status to private land. The of land is inherited that ownership is held jointly by several family members. When a piece by a number of children and sub-division of the land would reduce individual plots to very area small units, the land remains as one plot jointly owned. Family land is a residential originally comprising several houses and permanent crops. The harvest of crops is
distributed between all members but does not provide enough for sustenance thus this income must always be supplemented. This type of land cannot be sold without the
approval of all family members. Family land will usually not be sold to strangers (though
this is changing). An stranger may be permitted to farm or even build on the land but will not have permanent rights to the land and thus cannot plant permanent trees. Sale is articulated in terms of the trees because trees can be individually owned but land in a kitongo cannot divided. Underutilitization is considered the major weakness of family land.
right occupancy Konde ("borrowed land) : gives many farmers who do not have the of
enough private land to sustain their families. It is quite important in Zanzibar. The borrower can cultivate annual crops free of charge on this private land.^'
Temporarv occupied coral rag land (or communal land) : Traditionally, in the coral rag
area, land is considered as communally ovmed and tenure is exercised as temporary occupation. Most of the land in the coral rag area is used in a system of shifting cultivation and thus only periodically used (2-5 years farming and 5-20 years fallow). During a period of cultivation the farmer considers the land which he owns but which translates into rights of occupancy. A farmer can cultivate any piece of land in the coral
27. As land becomes understood to have value not only in the plantation area but also
the coral rag the system of rent fi-ee land may come under pressure. Though people
cannot sell or lease land they do. 223
In this system there is no private ownership rag bush provided it is "evidently unused."^^ improvements made to the land. Each of the land but clear ownership of the crops and In the past plots of land were village has boundaries established by village elders. seek permissions before settling allocated by village elders and outsiders would have to or in kind. The system of and cultivating and might be asked to pay a fee in cash exists because most of the regulating land allocation involving village elders no longer land in the coral rag households cuhivate the same plots. New settlers seeking to clear bush usually seek the permission of the sheha or local elected leader.
on the land though Uvinie svstem^^ under this system permanent tree crops are planted the community). Thus, the land the land is strictly communal (owned or possessed by member of the belongs to the community but the crops belong to the individuals. Any irregular planting community can plant a tree crop in this plot provided there is space. An appears as old trees pattern with respect to trees by owners surfaces because new space die.^o
is given to family members, Islamic institutions, or the Waqf: Under this system land poor.^'
Though Nyerere did not change his mind on land, others have. As economic hardship endured, attitudes in Zanzibar began to change. Economic liberalization has brought foreign investment and the need for land to develop. An increasingly popular political view contends that the land-based Zanzibari economy is in need of reform. In addition to the seven land tenure systems listed above, the government now permits and regulates the
28. Formerly clans controlled the coral rag land and clan elders allocated land for cuhivation to their clan members. Clan ties of this sort to land have mostly vanished ("Situation Summary Report: Land Tenure," 3).
29. Mivinje is the swahili word for coconut trees.
30. This system is rare. Krain, et al, located the system on Tumbatu Island and Michamvi ("Farming Systems of the Coral Rag in Zanzibar," 18).
31. This discussion of land classification is taken from "Situation Summary Report: Land Tenure," 3-5; "Farming Systems of the Coral Rag in Zanzibar," 15-18; and Suliman M. Nasser, "Socio-Economic Consideration of Villages Around Menai Bay, Zanzibar," (Zanzibar: Subcommission of Fisheries, May 1995), 17-19. 224
discussed in the purchasing of land by individuals (in the form of rights of occupancy as
are doing so. previous chapter). Those who can afford to purchase land in Zanzibar
from the new Those who believe they have land to sell are seeking to benefit economically
the coast in realized value of land. The land now given the highest value is located along the coral rag. Not only do individual Zanzibaris and national foreigners want a piece of the action before the initial investment because too expensive, the government wants to
develop the coastline through tourism. The government may be attempting to control land
development by preserving it as national property. However, who perceives whom to have what understanding of land along with the very understandings of land and property
constitute contestable and confusing terrain. The coral rag now features centrally in the
land debate.
Forests
Zanzibar was completely covered by forest prior to the nineteenth century. The
sparse population resided mostly in the coastal coral rag areas and engaged in fishing and
agriculture. The less humid conditions of the eastern coral rag areas gave rise to
deciduous woodland and dryland forest in contrast to the evergreen forests on the westem
side of the island.^^ In 1 8 1 8 the Arabs introduced the clove tree, and by the 1 840's large areas of forest were cleared on the westem side of the Unguja for clove and coconut plantations. Clove cultivation also spread to Pemba where within one decade the effects
32. Sharon Harvey, "A Description of Agroforestry Systems in the Coral Rag of Unguja Island, Zanzibar," Zanzibar Cash Crops Farming Systems Project, (Zanzibar: Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Natural Resources, October 1994), 2. 225
covered with forest of deforestation were visible. Until 1839 two-thirds of Pemba was
in 1872 which were being rapidly cleared by 1849." Clove cultivation intensified further
plantations. The subsequent to a hurricane which swept through Unguja destroying clove
Zanzibar introduction of the clove dramatically changed the landscape of Zanzibar, turning into a importer of foodstuffs.
In contemporary Zanzibar, coral rag forest covers 85,254 ha (approximately 54 percent) of land in Unguja and 13,075 ha (approximately 12 percent) of land in Pemba.^"
Approximately 27 percent of Pemba is forest covered, marking a significant change from the mid-nineteenth century.^' The forests are classified into four broad categories: forest reserves (natural and plantation), coral rag forests, coral rag bush (and grasslands), and mangrove forests.^^ In the coral rag, the forests provide vital resources as raw materials,
income, and soil fertilizer for both rural and urban communities entangling them in production relationships. Fuelwood and charcoal constitute sources of energy; poles and timber are used for construction, boat building, and furniture making; and wood supplies the production of lime for construction throughout Zanzibar. Forests also provide food, fodder, medicines, and materials for handicrafts. The sale of both raw and finished
33. Slaves, Spices, and Ivory . 54.
34. "Zanzibar Long-Term Forestry Plan, 1997-2006." See also Jarmo Leskinen and Pereira A. Silima, "Unguja and Pemba Coral Rag Forest Inventory," Zanzibar Forestry Development Project, Technical Paper No. 10 (Zanzibar: Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Natural Resources, 1993).
35. The coral rag forest is only one type of forest found in Zanzibar.
36. "A Description of Agroforestry Systems," 2. 226
products in rural communities. It is materials from the forests accompany the use of these
least part of their daily estimated that eighty percent of the rural population derives at livelihoods from market and non-market forest activities."
The government and the non-governmental sector alike have articulated
in forest deforestation as a serious crisis in Zanzibar, and poverty as the culprit. Changes covering provide one source of evidence to support the encroaching presence of deforestation. Specifically within the coral rag areas, in 1977-78 open area constituted
9.4% of the land in Unguja and 12.3% in Pemba. By 1989-90, the cleared area expanded from 8,494 to 12,360 ha (an increase to 13.7%) in Unguja and from 1,747 ha to 2,382 ha
(an increase to 29.0%) in Pemba.^* Shifting cultivation (with short fallow periods) is now considered the major cause of deforestation in Zanzibar along with cutting of trees for poles and firewood. Coral rag vegetation is used in shifting cultivation. Because the coral rag forests are the largest areas of remaining forest, the cutting of trees for various products occurs most intensely there. Since 1980, the Village Forestry Project has targeted the coral rag areas for conservation programs which include aggressive attempts to reforest by distributing seedlings to people in rural areas for planting. In 1993,
37. "ZanzibarLong-TermForestry Plan, 1997-2006," 12. By 1 990, agricultural production, including forestry, accounted for approximately fifty-eight percent of the total GNP. By 1996, agricultural production, including forestry, accounted for approximately thirty-seven percent of the GDP (12, 16). Agricultural production has been in a steady decline since economic restructuring began in 1986 (17). Food production, in particular dropped from 221,672 tons in 1991 to 184,426 tons in 1995.
38. "Unguja and Pemba Coral Rag Forest Inventory," 16. Thus, wdthin twelve years 12,429 ha of coral rag forest (total on both islands) changed to open land, however, 6,180 ha of the open areas became forest covered. The reversal of land from open to covered is often dismissed to emphasize the urgency of the problem of deforestation. 227
Livestock, and conclusions from research commissioned by the Ministry of Agricuhure,
(ZCCFSP), Natural Resources, under the Zanzibar Cash Crops Farming Systems Project
land use proposed the introduction of agroforestry in the coral rag areas as a solution to problems and as a consequence of determining low or minimal income potential from agricultural production." Contestation indeed exists regarding the success of the numerous policies to manage the forests (and will be discussed in subsequent chapters).
At this point, however, what is significant to highlight is that a serious concern over how to manage forests has surfaced as a consequence of proliferating pressures placed on the forests by people. The forests and their use have become politicized issues of development.
Agriculture
Farming systems of the coral rag trace back to African settlers from the mainland who cultivated in a system of shifting cultivation, or a bush fallow system. Where
population pressure is low, this system of cultivation is considered highly sustainable
although productivity is relatively low.''° Shifting cultivation continues to be commonly practiced in the coral rag. This type of cultivation involves clearing and burning the bush and subsequently planting in cycles of about 3-4 years for planting and a fallow period of
39. "A Description of Agroforestry Systems," 8. Agroforestry is traditionally practiced in Zanzibar, thus the idea of its introduction is misleading. Rather by 1993, the Ministry initiated farming research to direct the development of agroforestry systems in the coral rag.
40. Ibid., 3. 228
periods of fallow vary. about 9 years/' Local perception of what constitutes acceptable
fallowing has become In some areas where land has become scarce, the practice of
extreme example, where inadequate to restoring soil fertility. Nungwi provides the most
explanations for the fallow period has diminished to a period of one year."^ Common
growing declining fallow periods and land degradation include: population growth,
farmers to pressure on land and forest resources, uncontrolled immigration of "non-native" the coral rag areas, illegal extraction of forest resources, growing job insecurity, and economic hardship for the landless and near-landless residents.''^
The pattern of planting crops during which year depends more on consumption needs than on soil fertility. Maize, sorghum, peas, and pumpkins tend to be grown in the
first year, and bananas during the second or third year, while cassava is planted through the entire cropping cycle. Monocrops include tomatoes, pumpkins, yams, and sorghum.
Cassava is often intercropped with bananas, sweet potatoes, yams, maize, and peas.
Maize is intercropped with sorghum, green gram, hyacinth bean, and peas.*" On average a household grows eleven coconut palms. Most farm land in the coral rag is classified as
41 . "Farming Systems of the Coral Rag Area of Zanzibar," 28.
42. "A Description of Agroforestry Systems," 3.
43. See M. A. Muhajir, "A Study of Environmental Change in the Coral Rag Ecosystem," Zanzibar Environmental Study Series, No. 4 (Zanzibar: Commission for Land and Environment, 1990).
44. "Farming Systems of the Coral Rag Area of Zanzibar," 28. 229
average size of a cultivated farm private (family) land or temporary occupied land and the
member/' is 1 . 1 to 1 .4 acres per household
and vuH. Masika is There are three planting seasons in Zanzibar: masika. mchoo,
refers to the the long rainy season beginning in March and ending in May or June. VuU
rainy short rains of October and November."^ Mchoo marks a transitional period between
seasons (July and August) with little if any rain; it is the coolest part of the year. The
beginning of seasons slightly vary from the north of Pemba to the south of Unguja.'*^
In the coral rag, planting is only done in the soil pockets which may be 30 cm wide
and up to 50 cm deep.''* Principle tools used in cultivation in the plantation areas are the
hoe and the long bush knife. However, because of the stony nature of the land the bill
hook (a hooked knife, with one sharp edge for cutting bush and the back of the hooked
end blunt to make planting holes) and crow bar (a heavy steel bar one meter in length,
pointed at one end for making planting holes and chisel-shaped at the other for slashing)
constitute the primary cultivation tools. Other tools include the planting stick, small hoe,
and pick axe.
45. Ibid., 24, 26.
46. Accounts of the length of this actual season vary from September through November, October through December, November through January and October through
November. In my discussion I found most people expressed that it was odd to have rain at the end of December and in January as was experienced during my research in 1997-
1998. It seems that October and November guarantee to bring rain.
47. "Farming Systems of the Coral Rag Area of Zanzibar," 29.
48. Ibid., 14. The following discussion of agricultural tools can be found on pp. 19-20. 230
Tsh and The average annual income from cultivation ranges between 42,000
Cash 50,000 Tsh with farms in Pemba averaging slightly higher incomes than in Unguja."' expenditure on cultivation averages around 300-500 Tsh.^° Subsistence farming accounts
the for approximately eighty percent of crop cultivation in Zanzibar as a whole. In Pemba,
percent). percentage is higher (about ninety-six percent) than in Unguja (seventy-seven
Livestock keeping consists of cattle, poultry, and goats. Farmers keep about ten percent more stock than they actually own due to the investment in livestock by people in
Zanzibar town who give the livestock to a caretaker.^' The average income generated from livestock keeping in the coral rag is 10,000 Tsh with an average expenditure of up to
340 Tsh." Most households engage in multiple economic activities besides agriculture and livestock which include: fishing, shop-keeping, cooking, government employment, tailoring, firewood collection, handicrafts, carpentry and building. Total annual income
(which is figured in cash and kind together) of households tend to range from 30,000 to
130,000 Tsh.^^ The variance is contingent on the type of farming and contributions of
other economic activities.
49. Ibid., 34. This could be attributed to higher land productivity, higher rainfalls, et cetera in Pemba. Income figures for households in the coral rag are terms of the Tanzanian shillings in 1992 (roughly 250 Tsh.=US$l). For this purposes of this study, US$l=600Tsh., unless otherwise noted to account for the timeframe. In Tanzania, this has been the average exchange rate since 1995.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid., 37.
52. Ibid., 40.
53. Ibid., 44. 231
production According to government reports and farmers alike, agricultural
production through the continues to decline. The government has attempted to address
cultivation through agricultural use of fertilizers, pesticides, agroforestry, and advice on
normally extension officers (mabwana shamba) with little success." Agroforestry is
the practiced already by those who have rights to plants trees and by those who work on land owned by others. Though the majority of farmers are individual women, extension officers mostly work with co-operative groups and men because it is these groups who pursue extension assistance. Even where advice is received, few farmers have the resources to purchase fertilizers. Nevertheless government reports continue to recommend the use of fertilizers and pesticides, agroforestry (without a consideration of
social rules surrounding land in the coral rag) and the improvement of agricultural
extension services.
The most mentioned constraints on agriculture by farmers are vermin, insects, and
diseases, lack of capital to invest in cultivation, and insufficient rain and soil infertility.^^
The main problem associated with coral rag farming is the separation of the farmer's residence and plots.'* During the ripening and harvesting stages of cultivation farmers
54. See Z. S. Hassan and H. A. Omar, "Report of a Survey Done on the Perspective of Rural Women on Environmental Change in Paje and Bwejuu," Zanzibar Environmental Studies Series, No. 3 (Zanzibar: Commission of Land and Environment, 1990). For a history of agricultural extension services see "History of Agricultural Extension Activities in Zanzibar," Comprehensive Agricultural Extension Systems Project (Zanzibar: Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and Natural Resources, no date).
55. "Report of a Survey Don on the Perspective of Rural Women," 47.
56. Women complain of this problem as they are more involved in agriculture than men. Women normally walk three to five miles to reach their farms. See "Report of a Survey 232
crops. To must camp on their plots to deter various pests from destroying their
markets, compound problems, coral rag farming requires intensive labor, has only distant
produce, and a involves an expensive and highly irregular system of transportation to ship poor flow of information." Most farmers claim that their two most basic problems are
inadequate availability of seed and the short supply of land.'^ They place little faith in
agricultural extension services to provide answers or assistance.
The Sea and its Resources
Mangroves, seagrass/seaweed beds and corals constitute the ecosystems
generating coastal resources. Each grows at a different rate; seagrass beds grow at the
fastest rate and corals at a very slow rate. All form an entanglement in which the health of
one has an impact on the condition of the others. This entanglement comprises food and
nutrient cycles, animal migrations and human involvement. Because people are dependent
on the ability of these ecosystems to provide a constant pool of resources and both
research and observation suggest an increased rate of destruction to these ecosystems,
resource management has become a hotly advocated and pursued activity with the
following objectives: 1 . physical protection of the coastline to prevent beach erosion and provide shelter for the fish and the animals on which they feed, 2. productivity enhancement through the provision of food and nutrients to fish and shellfish on which
Done on the Perspective of Rural Women."
57. "A Description of Agroforestry Systems," 7.
58. Ibid. 233
opportunities and loca commercial and traditional fisheries depend. 3. creation of tourism
major tourist recreation through protection of coral reefs because they constitute a attraction."
Fishing
In Zanzibar, environmentalists within the government agencies and the non- governmental sector have identified two potential problems associated with fishing: overfishing and degradation of the resource base. The two are interconnected because as fish stocks decline fishermen tend to use more destructive methods to catch fish.*" Coral reefs also provide food and shelter for fish which, when lost, will decrease fish stocks.
The destruction of large portions of coral reef can result in beach erosion because the reef
acts as a cushion breaking the force of the water and currents which pound the beaches.*'
Fishing has historically formed a critical activity for survival and continues to be a
indispensable component of Zanzibari life, culturally and economically. The dhow has
become a romantic sign of Zanzibari culture to the tourist. For centuries in Zanzibar, the
dhow signifies a way of life, whether in the form of fishing or trade. In the contemporary
context, fishing faces unavoidable changes as new articulations of what constitutes
appropriate (or sustainable) techniques surface.
59. J.C. Horrill, "Status and Issues Affecting Marine Resources Around the Fumba Peninsula," Zanzibar Environmental Study Series, no. 17 (Zanzibar: Commission of Land and Environment, 1992), 3.
60. Ibid., 4.
61. Ibid., 7. 234
both by fisherman Through the 1980s there was a decline in fish catches observed
problem to be a and researchers. Fisherman and researchers both understood the
Food and consequence of full exploitation of the fishing grounds." However, the
Agriculture Organization (FAO) asserted that low productivity was a result of the shortage of fishing equipment and motorized boats and not overexploitation." The government designed the Zanzibar Fisheries Policy in 1985 to address the problem of declining catches. Zanzibar required (during the 1980s) 30,000 metric tones offish per year for domestic consumption, but catches were declining from approximately 22,000 metric tones in 1982 to 12,000 metric tones in 1989.*" The objective of the government was to improve the fisheries sector technically to increase fish production to not only meet domestic demands but for export to diversify foreign exchange earning activities (and reduce dependency on cloves. Thus, the government created fishing cooperatives, imported modem fishing equipment, offered tax exemptions, and established fishery
62. See L. K. Boerema, "Development of the Fishery in Zanzibar: Fishing Statistics in Zanzibar," URT/75/090 Technical Report (Rome: FAO, 1981), 13; M. A. K. Ngolie, "A
Survey of Fishing Units in Zanzibar and Pemba," Tanzania Notes and Records . No. 88 and
89: 89-96; and J. Tarbit, "Inshore Fisheries of the Tanzanian Coast," in "The Proceedings of NORAD—Tanzania Seminar to Review the Marine Fish Stocks and Fisheries in Tanznia," Mbegani, Tanzania, 6-8 March, 1984, 186.
63. N. S. Jiddawi, "Comparison of Fishing Units, Boats, and Gears Between the Fishery Census of 1980, 1985, and 1989," Proceedings of the Zanzibar Artisanal Fishery Sector Seminar sponsored by the Regional Project for the Development and Management of Fisheries in the Southwest Indian Ocean, FAO, Victoria, Mahe, Seychelles, September, 1990, 24.
64. Ibid. 235
rag are aware of the development projects." While most fisherman in the coral
most complain that they never government initiatives to provide new fishing equipment, receive such assistance.
fishing vessels and gear by Today in Zanzibar, rarely is there absolute ownership of
boat does not even fish. Many an individual fisherman.** Often the person who owns the
are numerous types of men residing in town own fishing boats and hire fishermen. There
dhows (or sailed vessels):
Mtumbwi/hori--small dugout canoe without outriggers, contructed from a single sometimes or few pieces of tree trunk, usually propelled by oar or long pole or with rudimentary sail.
Ngalawa-small dugout canoe, with two outriggers, constructed fi-om a single or few pieces of tree trunk, propelled by sail.
Dau-wooden planked boat without outriggers, with point bow and rounded stem, usually propelled by sail.
65. See N. S. Jiddawi, "Government Policies and Objectives for the Fishery Sector," Proceedings of the Zanzibar Artisanal Fishery Sector Seminar, for a more extensive discussion of the Fisheries Policy and government objectives.
66. NGORC field officers found this to be the case in their survey research. I also found this to be the case in my own research. However, fi-om research conducted in 1990, Hoekstra asserts that sixty-three percent of boast and fishing gears were own exclusively by the "fishermen-in-charge." See Mark Hoekstra, "Geographical Concentration of Fishing Units by Fishery Type in Zanzibar," Proceedings of the Zanzibar Artisanal Fishery Sector Seminar, 46. However, Hoekstra also concludes that ownership of boats changes with the type of boat. As the value of the boat increased (for example from carved to planked, and no engine to engined), the exclusive ownership of boats by the fisherman decreases and the ownership of boats by middlemen increases. See Mark Hoekstra, "Ownership of Boasts, Gears, and Engines and the Use of Credit in the Zanzibar Artisanal Fishery," Proceedings of the Zanzibar Artisanal Fishery Sector Seminar, 69. 236
bow and flat stem Mashua-wooden planked boat without outriggers, with pointed usually propelled by sail. (to facilitate possible use with an engine),
outboard-engined. The most Boats with engines can either be inboard-engined or
the mtumbwi; both are also most commonly used boat is the nealawa followed by
is the most common because it commonly propelled by sail rather than engine.'^ Ngalawa
coral rag. is affordable to a group of fisherman in the
and with the The ownership of fishing gear also varies with the type of equipment
shared than boats.*' combination of boat and gear. It is more common for gear to be
towe (large and Various fishing gear includes: troll-, long-, and hand-lines, madema and
small moveable traps), uzio (fixed fence traps), nvavu (nets with a mesh size of
inches), spears approximately 3 inches'), iaarife (nets with a mesh size of approximately 12
nets in the (for lobster and octopus). Nets are often used as uzio or wando by staking the
channels near intertidal reef flats.™ The most commonly used gears are handlines and
longlines, followed by moveable traps, and octopus spearing."" Fishermen often use
different types of equipment during different seasons. For example, during the southeast
monsoon nets may be used, while changing to fishing lines during the northeast monsoon.
67. The descriptions of dhows is taken from "Geographical Concentration of Fishing Units by Fishery Type in Zanzibar," 44.
68. Ibid.
69. For a detailed survey of fishing gear and boat ownership see, "Ownership of Boats, Gears, and Engines," 68-76.
70. "Status and Issues Affecting Marine Resources Around the Fumba Peninsula," 1.
71. "Geographical Concentrations of Fishing Units." 237
traps and nets are mostly used and dema traps during the change of the monsoons. Dema
near shore waters because near the coral reefs and seagrass beds. Fishing is concentrated
when the vessels are not suitable to sail in offshore waters except between monsoons
until 1995, waters calm. This puts a lot of pressure on marine resources near shore." Up
smallest offish the use of fine mesh nets rapidly increased. Fine mesh nets catch even the
consequently undermining the possibility of fish stocks to mature and spawn and thereby
over-exploiting the fish population.'^
Destructive (and now illegal) fishing methods include: poison, dynamite, juya
(beach seine net), kigumi (open water encircling net), and spearing.''* Juva and kieumi (or
kojam) fishing techniques similarly involve a group of up to 25 fishermen, two fishing
boats (one large and one small) to operate the net which can stretch up to 200 meters
long. The net encircles fish over the reef and the fishermen drive the fish into a bag net
which is laid inside the encirclement of net. Both methods use small mesh nets which
collect all sizes of fish reducing the number of fish that can grow to complete maturity and
breed. The two methods differ in the technique used to herd the fish. Juya involves
swimmers who gather the fish by using their arms to scare, in contrast to kigumi which
uses swimmers who pound the bottom of the reef with sticks.'^ The amount of damage
72. "Socio-Economic Consideration of Villages Around Menai Bay," 10.
73. Ibid., 11.
74. Kigumi is also referred to as koiani because the people of Kojani commonly practice this type of fishing.
75. "Status and Issues Affecting Marine Resources," 5. 238
that the places affected can generated and the rate at which it occurs make it unlikely
Yet fisherman continue to use regenerate at a sustainable level for fishing to continue.
however, claim to deploy (and admit to use of) illegal fishing methods. Most fisherman,
higher capital investment unsustainable methods because more sustainable methods require than they can afford, though they lament their declining catches.
households. Fishing In the coral rag, fishing is an important economic activity for
incomes meets the household subsistence demands and earns income. The average daily of fishermen vary from 1,000 to 5,000Tsh (in season).^^ Fishing is predominantly engaged
than in by men. However, women more commonly engage in octopus spearing men.
Women also collect shellfish in the shallow waters of the reef (discussed below). Finally, women also engage in net fishing in the shallow waters. Fishing by boat and with other
types of gear is exclusively done by men, because as is it most commonly explained,
women do not have the resources to invest in fishing equipment. Government assistance
focuses on men because they are traditionally the fishermen. However, as mentioned
above, government assistance is limited though it is an articulated objective of the fisheries
policy .^^ In addition, government assistance to rejuvenate fish and shellfish populations
are highly suspect by coral rag communities (as will be discussed in the following chapter).
76. "Rural Income Earning Opportunities in Zanzibar," 15.
77. See N. S. Jiddawi and C. Muhando, "Summary of Marine Resources in Zanzibar,"
Zanzibar Environmental Study Series, No. 1 (Zanzibar: Commission of Land and Environment, 1990); P. M. McCIintock, "Proposed Economic Recovery Programme" (Zanzibar: Government of Zanzibar, 1987); "Inshore Fisheries of the Tanzanian Coast;" O. Wijkstrom, M. Sanders, and R. Khan, "A plan for the fisheries sector of Zanzibar," FAO: TCP/URT/5755 (Rome: FAO, March 1988). 239
Seaweed Cultivation
activity in Seaweed cultivation has reemerged as a potentially lucrative economic
cultivation for many Zanzibar. Seaweed now supplements more traditional agricultural
have households along the east coast of Unguja and in Pemba. Women, in particular,
Around embraced the new crop which has a striking resemblance in meaning to money.
export of seaweed 1950, Mahommendrafik Mussa Virjee (a businessman) initiated the first
of from Zanzibar.'* Until the early 1970's private businessmen controlled the export seaweed. Middlemen travelled to the coast and purchased the wild seaweed collected by
export local fishermen. The Zanzibar government implemented a policy to nationalize the of seaweed in 1970's. The Zanzibar State Trading Corporation (ZSTC) regulated the
export of seaweed and ushered in the decline in tonnage exported. The price of seaweed
rose in the late 1970's prompting the government to strive to increase the amount of
seaweed culled for export. As seaweed collection intensified the plant slowly became
depleted. Fishermen replaced the species preferred with other types of less quality which
had an adverse affect on the price. By 1983, seaweed was virtually abandoned.
Mshigeni, a marine biologist in Tanzania, conducted research on seaweed on the
coasts of Zanzibar during the culling period of the 1970's.'" With financial support from
USAID, Mshigeni initiated three pilot farms in 1983, including one in Fumba, without
78. Steffan Eklund and Per Pettersson, "Mwani is Money: The Development of
Seaweed Farming on Zanzibar and its Socio-Economic Effects in the Village of Paje," Development Studies Unit, Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University, Working Paper No. 24, 1992, 22.
79. See K. E. Mshigeni, "Seaweed Resources in Tanzania: a Survey of Potential Sources for Industrial Phycocolloids and for Other Uses." 240
with a representative of FMC who success. However, a couple years later Mshigeni met
advised Agro-Seaweed was interested in finding new areas for seaweed cultivation, and
companies reintroduced Company, Ltd. to initiate seaweed fanning in Zanzibar. Two
worker registered his seaweed as a commodity in the late 1980's. A former Danish aid-
businessman company, Zanzibar East Africa Seaweed Company, Ltd. (Zanea), in 1989. A
(Zascol) as a from the mainland established Zanzibar Agro-Seaweed Company, Ltd.
1988.^° its seaweed to branch of Agro-Seaweed Company in Dar es Salaam in Zascol sells
two companies now FMC, a multinational corporation based in the United States. The
organize seaweed constitute the predominant buyers of seaweed in Zanzibar which
farmers in the coral rag.
farming The Philippine government first established an Echeuma (seaweed)
meet research program in 1971, as a consequence of the depletion of this species to
spread to demands for carrageenan.^' From the Philippines, seaweed cultivation
Indonesia, Zanzibar, and Micronesia. Eucheuma will grow in areas only located away
from water sources (such as rivers), strong winds, and waves and where it can be
submerged in water even at low tide. In Zanzibar, seaweed farming is characterized by its
harvesting cycle, labor intensive work, and low capital costs. The moon and tides dictate
the periods of harvest. Harvesting and planting occur for about seven days during low
80. I will not comment on the history of Zanea because only Zascol has an agreement with farmers in Paje.
81. Echeuma spinosum is a red algae which grows naturally in tropical water close to the shoreline. Polysaccarides give echeuma its desirable quality as a commodity for export. Polysaccharides are extracted to produce carrageenan which functions as a gelatin for numerous products (e.g. toothpaste, cosmetics). 241
the farmer about five hours tides around the time of full and new moons. Each day gives
seaweed plants, wooden of tides low enough to work. The initial investment requires
plastic cords, and bags. A sticks, coconut ropes (string or rope of some sort), smaller farm comprises modules of 25-50 monolines with 24 centimeters in between. The
firmly in the seaweed plants are tied to the rope/string which is tied to sticks and placed
subsequently harvest every sand. Farmers let the initial crop grow for two months and month because then farmers can alternate the harvesting and replanting periods for
(microorganisms modules. The plants must be kept clean of sand, seagrass, and epiphytes growing on seaweed), thus seaweed requires care even between harvesting and planting.
process occurs over Once harvested, the seaweed lies outside to dry. In the sun the drying
seaweed white three days. Rain can decrease the value of the harvest because it turns the
and glutinous. The seaweed loses 80 per cent of its weight in the drying process.
In Zanzibar, the seaweed industry has three tiers: the farmers, the exporters, and
is shipped the processors. Processing plants do not exist in Zanzibar, rather dried seaweed
contrast to to companies located in the United States (Maine), Denmark, and France. In
the processors who establish commercial ties with exporters through formal agreements,
the farmers and exporters institute informal agreements in which the purchaser provides
advice and usually the initial capital. In exchange, the farmers must sell their harvests to
the purchaser for a fixed price per kilogram. Cultivation can be organized as an estate-
managed farm with an absent ovraer, a resident-owner farm with hired workers, or a
family or individual farm without paid labor. Research suggests that successful production 242
and operated by the workers of seaweed hinges upon "having the farms small and owned who benefit in proportion to their investment of material and effort."*^
rag areas. The Seaweed cultivation has had varying degrees of success in the coral
located). Fumba most extensive farming occurs on the east coast of Unguja (where Paje is
has been and Nungwi have had limited success in seaweed cultivation and thus, the activity
extensive in Unguja as a virtually abandoned in these areas. Seaweed farming is also more
cuUivation has been whole compared to Pemba. However, even in places where seaweed
areas, seaweed farms more lucrative, profits are not made without difficulties. In some
Hoteliers complain of and tourist resorts are located close enough to generate conflicts.
the shallows the problems of seaweed on "their" beaches and the sticks and ropes in
disrupts the aesthetics of waters. From the perspective of the hotelier, seaweed cultivation
with pristine beaches that tourists seek. Seaweed farmers, of course, are more concerned
generating income to support their families. Though seaweed farmers may continue to
cultivate, they most often complain of their labor intensive work, compared to the
payment they receive.
Tourism
Zanzibar evokes romance with its images of coconut pahns shading soft beaches,
dhows sailing at sunset, winding narrow streets lined with worn whitewashed buildings
with ornate trim, doors and balconies, and exotic faces behind veils at least for the tourist
seeking romance and the exotic. Zanzibar boasts of a cosmopolitan climate—a place
82. "MwaniisMoney,"21. 243 where the Arabic, the Indian, the African, and the European blended. For Zanzibar, tourism has become a major source of revenue and a profit generating economic activity in a very short period of time. Tourism currently is the most successful sector of Zanzibar's economy, in terms of attracting investment, accounting for 70-80% of all investments.*^
Zanzibaris (particularly in rural areas) understand tourism to bring benefits such as employment and infirastructure such as electricity, roads, piped water. However, in the
eagerness to embrace strategies to improve life, Zanzibaris have begun to worry that they have permitted aspects of others' ways to wash onto their shores to the detriment of their own culture.
What has yet to materialize is the support to facilitate the rise of this sector in terms of infrastructure. Areas were not demarcated for development for tourism, roads and a water system were not built, electricity installed, and only poor airport facilities were in place. In the words of Mlingoti, "[t]he government, thus, woriced like a fire brigade;
where the fire arises the brigade follows it and addresses the problem." Despite the poor conditions for building businesses, investors have taken risks and accepted additional investments such as generators, water tanks, and salination systems. Possibly the price of these additional investments seemed minuscule in the shadow of agreements which gave complete control of small islands in the forms of 33+ years leases. Foreign investors have become the driving force behind the way in which tourism has taken root. While ecotourism has become the flavor of the day internationally, such projects have generated
83. Interview with Issa Mlingoti, Director of Planning and Development, Commission for Tourism, Zanzibar, 13 February, 1998. 244
form of environmental sensitivity as new social turmoil and do not always assume the expected.
has on culture, Despite policy attempts to reduce the influence foreign investment
The tourism does have an impact which concerns government (and the people). government has created a code of conduct to assist tourists in understanding the
responsibility of sensitivities of Zanzibari culture. Initially, hotels were to have the
distributing the code in the form of pamphlets and signs posted in the lobbies. The
tour government held a series of discussions with select citizens, hoteliers, restaurants,
operators, boutiques, diving operations to decide what is Zanzibari culture and how can it
be preserved and respected. The pamphlet was first published in 1996 and now is
distributed not only at hotels but at all entry points onto the islands (the harbors and the
airport).*" While efforts to educate tourists have clearly articulated a feasible strategy, the
actual practice of distribution as routine offers a less than successful realization of such
attempts.*^
Cultural violations such as nudity on beaches and public displays of affection are
the least of Zanzibar's worries (not to diminish the sense of offensiveness of such acts in
Zanzibar culture) as the industries of drug trafficking and prostitution expand on the
84. Ibid.
85. Never once did I receive such a pamphlet in my travels between Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar (via the harbor), nor did anyone visiting me and arriving by air receive such a pamphlet. However, a number of the higher priced hotels did distribute the pamphlet. In
my visits to the cheap guest houses, particularly outside Zanzibar town, I never saw such literature. 245 island, bringing problems of drug abuse and a rise in crime, particularly violent crime.**^
Tourism has also changed market prices especially in the coral rag areas experiencing tourist development. Inflation can have the adverse affect of the arrival of employment
and infrastructure, since it becomes more difficult for the local population to afford their everyday purchases. Tourism has indeed brought benefits and continues to offer a very feasible way to revive the economy in Zanzibar, however changes do not come without a price. At an increasing rate of 20% aimually, tourists continue to flock to the islands.*'
The Case Studies
This section will provide depictions of the four communities where the above issues of resources will be considered as specific concerns and struggles occurring in the contexts of change. Nungwi, Paje, and Fumba are located in coral rag on Unguja.
Fumba, however, sits on the edge of more fertile soil, though the area was never appropriated for plantation cultivation. Msuka, the only town in this study located in
Pemba, is also the only one spanning both coral rag area and arable soils, fertile for plantation farming.
86. I did not pursue statistics on crime as evidence of this rise for several reasons. First, my own few experiences with police supported my desire to have as limited contact with law enforcement as possible. Second, the police have a well-deserved reputation as corrupt making any statistics suspect. Much crime goes unreported or can be erased if the price is acceptable. In addition, people often feel deterred from reporting crime precisely because of this corruption.
87. Commission of Lands and Environment, Tourism Zoning Plan (Zanzibar:
Commission of Lands and Environment, 1991), iv. 246
Fumba
Fumba, located 15 kilometers south of Zanzibar Town, sits at the tip of a peninsula jutting into the Indian Ocean and hugging the Menai Bay. A town of approximately 750
dispersed over a large people, it has the feeling at first of even less because the houses are
span of land. Fumba is divided into small collections of houses that form wards (or
neighborhoods) each with its own name. All the names refer in some way to water
suggesting the importance of the appearance of the well water system in Fumba. Many
people in Fumba consider themselves Shirazi. An association with Swahili is also quite
common. In the larger area also encompassing Kizimkazi to the southeast it is common
for people to still identify with Zaramo because many people who migrated to this are
from the mainland were Zaramo. Now most who migrate into the area are Wanyamwezi
looking for seasonal agricultural work. A significant enough number of people to note
emigrate from Mkwajimi (in the north of Unguja) to Fumba and have settled into the particular neighborhood of Bondeni. Mkwajuni suffers from intense land pressure, at
present, due to the increasing reclaiming of land in that area.*^ However, all immigrants
are not welcomed equally in Fumba.
The proximity of this town to the main town in Zanzibar has surprisingly little
impact on actual life here (in terms of economic or social aspects). However, the people
88. Land scarcity and competition have featured comparatively less in Fumba.
Consequently, disputes over kitongo hardly exist and migration into the area is on the rise.
Kiambo is not divided but the gardens are. Sale within the family is frequent. In the communal land sale occurs with outsiders (though it is not approved). According to Middleton (in the past), sales have been invariably to Arabs and Indians who would plant
and build houses (Land Tenure in Zanzibar . 31-32). Figure 4.4 Fumba 248
and those in Zanzibar are very aware of the differences between their living conditions
remind Town. There are also visible symbols of the differences located within Fumba to
receives people. The main power supply transistor is located in Fumba (Zanzibar
electricity; the government electricity from the mainland), yet Fumba is completely without
this type seems to have neglected to provide the basic connecting lines for the tovra. It is
presence and following in of neglect that is suggested as one reason that CUF has a strong
but a part of Zanzibar (the southern part) that is knovra as not only the stronghold CCM, the birthplace of the Afro-Shirazi Party.
On the other hand, in 1992 the government marked Fumba as one of two places to implement economic processing zones. By designating land in Fumba as an EPZ, the government declared the area as an industrial zone. As a free zone raw materials could be imported at no cost into the area to use in manufacturing. Industries would only be charged an export fee on their finished products. However, the government has never provided proper infrastructure for the area thus to this day nothing has really happened.*'
Six years later a government agency devoted to the idea of the EPZ is about the only
visible building constructed. There are no paved roads leading to Fumba, no electricity,
no buildings, no industries, no employment—only as of yet unfrilfilled promises. There is
a key military base which makes this a rather sensitive area.'"
89. Discussion with Salum Simba, Officer in Department of Land, COLE, Zanzibar, 31 July 1997.
90. At the end of 1997, an entomology researcher was shot and killed by an army officer in Fumba. The army claimed he had trespassed on army property. The researcher had the permission of the sheha to conduct research in this area. 249
in the coral rag. Fumba has thick Fumba is green and lush, despite its location
green coloring is vegetative covering though many elders in the village claim Fumba's
shores of Fumba remains disappearing. The coral rag covering most of the islets off the
rocky shores mostly untouched, possibly because they are inaccessible due to the sharp
Ukanga Islet near around them." Islets being used for woodcutting (for example,
responsible reside Kisakasaka) have very high rates of forests depletion. The woodcutters mostly in Fumba and neighboring Bweleo.'^
mangroves, seagrass beds and The coastal resources in Fumba are products of the
coral reef provides a the coral reef—ecosystems capable of regenerating resources. The
farming provides habitat for various shellfish, fish and other marine life which aside from
is an activity mostly the other main income generating and subsistence activity. Fishing
and octopus. engaged in by men. Women skim the shallow reef in search of shellfish
with little Seaweed cultivation was introduced to Zanzibar first in Fumba in 1980 but
success." This composes the terrain (political and geographical) on which the complex
issues regarding land and natural resources unfolded in the accounts of various Fumbans.
In Fumba, people understand their land holdings as communal or private (family)
and held individually through inheritance (very few suggest purchase). Most land along
lemons tress the coast is owned usually in the form of family land. Coconut, orange, and
91. "Socio-Economic Consideration of Villages Around Menai Bay," 8.
92. Ibid., 9.
93. However, as will be discussed later it has become a major income generating activity for women in Paje. 250
also connote the permanency are planted on private family land. As permanent crops they
does, then of "ownership." Even when one does not own land, if a relative in the family
the one can plant permanent trees. The trees are owned by the person responsible for
ask a landowner planting though the land is not. As a member of the community, one can
sign of land if they can use their land and cultivate on it. Because permanent trees are a ownership, even though some one may have been compensated for land (e.g. compensation by the government for land taken for "sub-national purposes"), the owner
trees are may still claim ownership or perceive her/his ownership to still exist because the
trees. still on that land. People from time to time quarrel over boundaries and coconut
These quarrels are resolved either by the parties involved or, if they cannot agree, the sheha mediates the dispute. Usually compensation either in the form of money or a simple agreement in words to give one party user rights results.
Land in this area is farmed for subsistence and sale on a small-scale basis. Areas of the coral rag with thin top soil are cultivated by clearing the bush using a system of slash and bum with intermittent fallow.''' The soil can support sufficient yields for 3-5 years
then a plot must lay lie fallow for a few years.'' Annual crops most commonly grown in
Fumba include: bananas, cassava, com, pumpkins, tomatoes, and yams. Animals rather than people pose a persistent problem regarding land in the eyes of many Fumbans. The land supports cultivation in this area but livestock and monkeys constitute the culprits of
land and crop destmction. Mostly women complain of this problem (it is mostly women
94. "Socio-Economic Considerations of Villages Around the Menai Bay," 8.
95. Ibid., 9. 251
even sought the who plant temporary crops which livestock trample and eat). They have
Consequently, assistance of the sheha who is reluctant to take action in this matter.
at all on their people either accept that part of their crops will be destroyed or do not plant
animal. land to avoid the frustration. In the words of a livestock herder, "An animal is an
They destroy plants but people in Fumba bear with me. So I have been in no disputes."
These limitations contribute to the diversity of resources people exploit to satisfy food and
income needs, resources from such places as the sea and the coral rag bush.
The coral rag bush also provides a source of energy and raw materials for
construction. Women who collect firewood on the communal land encounter problems at
times with people who tell them by collecting firewood they are clearing the bush which
damages the environment. According to the women, the bush is being overcut to acquire
the raw materials for preparing lime, burning charcoal, and collecting firewood.'* People
use communal land for cutting poles and collecting stones (coral limestone) to make lime
which are used in construction. These materials are sold as an alternative income to
fishing. The production of lime requires large quantities of fuel wood, thus it can pose a
serious threat of environmental degradation.
While nearly all women farm at least for subsistence, a major income generating
activity for women of Fumba is collection of intertidal creatures such as shellfish, sea
cucumbers, and octopus, and crabs. This work follows the tides and the lunar cycle.
There are two periods in a month when conditions permit shellfish collection. The work is
labor intensive with minimal profit. The women organize depending on the best time for
96. Discussion group with women in Fumba, 19 August 1997. —
252
shellfish as they walk collecting that day. With metal containers in tow they search for
where a shellfish deeper into the water. They look for small slits in the sand which suggest would be buried. At various places though in this vast stretch of low tide waters are clam beds where a more concentrated number of clams breed. The women—constantly leaning over skimming the ocean bottom and shifting into the sand through seaweed and coral can find three to five clams at a time in the rich clams beds. What is disturbing about this
work is the minuscule profit despite all the effort and different phases of work involved.
After collecting the shellfish they are taken to the home of one woman and boiled until
they open. The meat is removed and then bagged. They send the bags of shellfish into the market with a driver of local dala dala (bus) who receives a cut of the money earned for
his service provided. A bag of clams weighing approximately 1 kilogram fetches about
200 Tsh (about 30 cents). The women make approximately 3,000 to 4,000 Tsh. a month collecting shellfish. Women complain of decreasing harvests. Similarly, seacucumbers are declining at an increasing rate. Women of Fumba attribute this to the increase in people collecting seacucumbers which exceeds the available pool and the rate at which they can replenish. Divers have begun collecting seacucumbers which leads to their depletion in shallow waters because they are collected in immature stages.^'
In Fumba fishing constitutes the leading income generating activity for men.'*
Men also cultivate, and on a small scale engage in carpentry, shopkeeping, and public transport. But the majority of men are involved in fishing—an activity which constitutes a
97. "Socio-Economic Consideration of Villages Around the Menai Bay," 13.
98. Ibid., 2. 253
reef major problem confronting Fimiba in the form of overfishing and destruction of coral
in member size In Fumba, men exclusively engage in fishing by boats with a crew ranging from 1-6 depending on the size of the vessel.'^ Income acquired from fishing usually is
the distributed in three parts. The owner of the boast receives one part. One part covers cost of fishing equipment. The third part is distributed equally among the fishermen. As previously state, average earning ranges from 1,000-5,000 Tsh. per trip. The fish are
either sold at the landing site, transported to Zanzibar town, or sold to middlemen with cold boxes who transport them to Dar es Salaam. In the past, the villagers in the Fumba peninsula employed a traditional management scheme which entailed the regulation of equipment, the rotation of fishing areas and seasonal closures and were regulated through the community structures."" The fishermen of Fumba suggest that they fish with traps
(madema), troll lines (mishipi ), and large-eyed nets (nyavu and jaarife ).
Fishing around Fumba is mostly artisanal and concentrated on inshore areas. The
Menai Bay is a vast stretch of shallow water with deep chaimels cutting through it running northward between Pungume and Uzi islands and speckled with many small uninhabited
islets. Coral reef and sea grass beds ring these islets providing fertile fishing grounds.
Many fisherman use the islets for camping during the fishing cycles.'"^ The fishermen who
99. Ibid., 10.
100. Ibid., 13.
101. "Status and Issues Affecting Marine Resources Around the Fumba Peninsula," 4.
102. "Socio-Economi Consideration of Villages Around Menai Bay," 2. 254 camp mostly use Pungume and Kwale islets.'" In the intermonsoonal periods the coral
However, the reefs reefs are fished. Fishing ceases during the kaskazi (camping periods).
also. around these islets are also heavily fished by fisherman from mainland and Pemba
suggest According to the fishermen of Fumba, there has been a decline in catches. They that major causes are increase in number of fishermen coming into the area and harmful fishing equipment and techniques. Around Fumba these include poison, dynamite, juya
Kojani (beach seine net), kieumi (or koiani ), and spears. In particular, the fishermen from
(Pemba) destroy the coral reef with their fishing methods.
The Department of Environment (a subsection of the Commission of Land and
Environment) became aware of the environmental destruction increasing in this area through the complaints of the fishermen of Fumba. The Department became involved first by raising awareness and educating the communities about the importance of conservation and sustainable fishing practices. Studies were conducted to survey the area for tangible evidence of damage. The research discovered that a number of reefs were totally destroyed with the majority of the others suffering extensive damage. The most damaged
areas were those located closest to the coast.'"'' Government agencies, the Institute of
Marine Sciences, and supporting international organizations attribute the trend of decline
103. Ibid., 11.
104. Damaged areas had high densities of spiny sea urchins. This creature indicates high levels of disturbance and overfishing. It is an algral grazer whose numbers are usually controlled by fish who either eat it or compete with it for food. In the process of grazing, sea urchins uproot settling coral larvae and bore into the reef structure, reducing its strength and efficiency as a breakwater ("Status and Issues Affecting Marine Resources," 8-9). 255
in the number of fishing vessels operating in fish catches to the following: 1 . an increase
fishing activities due to in the areas, 2. an increase in number of persons engaged in
higher efficiency, 4. population growth, 3. the use of new methods of fishing which have
majority bad fishing techniques which degrade the resources and the environment.'"^ The of damage observed was concluded to be directly attributable to the use ofjuya and koiam fishing techniques.'"*
Subsequent findings by government sanctioned studies generally conclude that changes have occurred in fish catches and to the coral reef, but that the rate and extent of these vary from place to place in the bay. The rapid increase in fishermen since 1992 and
the present level of fishing is of "some concern."'"^ Fisherman in the Menai Bay now
utilize shallow water demersal (bottom living) stocks. "Experience from other areas
indicates that it is uncertain whether this intensity of fishing effort is sustainable."'"* Thus,
it has been recommended that measures to enable the regulation of fishing be formulated.
In addition, it has been recommended that management strategies consider the importance
of fishing in this area from outside the Fumba region and that users from other regions be
included in efforts to create a management strategy. Finally, the need for effective
105. "Socio-Economic Consideration of Villages Around Menai Bay," 11.
106. "Status and Issues Affecting Marines Resources," 8.
107. J.C. Horrill, et al, "Baseline Monitoring Survey of the Coral Reefs and Fisheries," Zanzibar Environmental Study Series, No. 6 (Zanzibar: Commission of Land and
Environment, 1994), 8.
108. Ibid. 256
The enforcement of regulating juya and kieumi fishing has been recommended.
and the role of fishermen of Fumba, however, understand the decHne in sea resources
their own sustainability. visiting fishermen differently. To Fumbans, the concern is one of
Paie
wrote an account of In 1898 J. T. Last, a Provincial Commissioner in Zanzibar,
every settlement in Zanzibar for the First Minister to the Sultan. He commented that the
south-eastern coastline was the densest populated part of the islands with the largest
tovras (which included Paje). Last painted Paje and Bwejuu as the "most town-like places
in Zanzibar.""" Paje is located on the south east coast between Bwejuu and Jambiani and
45 kilometres southeast of Zanzibar Town.'" With a population of approximately 1610,
this town spans across 13 square kilometers (8.75 square miles) with the town proper built
along a thin strip of land between the beach and the coral rag. Paje stands recognized as
the oldest fishing village along the coast. There are claims that the first people of Paje
were dissidents from Makunduchi who dispersed and settled along the south east coast.
Some in Paje suggest that early descendants came from mainland Tanzania and others
claim that the early people of the region were originally from Persia fleeing persecution by
the Harun bin Rashid administration, emigrating to India, and eventually traveling on to
109. Ibid., 9.
110. Land Tenure in Zanzibar . 12.
111. Jambiani lies to the south and is a fast growing tovm. Many Europeans and expatriates in particular are buying land in this area and building houses. Both Bwejuu and Jambiani are more heavily visited by tourists than Paje. 257
Figure 4.5 Paje 258
Shirazi or Swahili and Zanzibar."^ Today, most people in Paje consider themselves either
than family and clan ties. such cultural identities seem to have less importance or meaning
resources in Paje the family Where in Fumba the foreigner posed a threat to land and its
prevalent in Paje than Fumba presents such threats to itself Land disputes are much more
to increase and arise in the form of family bickering as land along the coast continues rapidly in value.
The people of Paje increasingly rely on the use the sea resources to generate income. Men fish and women cultivate seaweed. Fishing gear used by men include hand
lines, trolling lines, gill nets and local traps. Dhows—both carved canoes and planked boats without board engines—are typically used. In the past fisherman scanned the coral reef area close to the shore for fish using small nets which would be cast around the reefs.
As fisherman used sticks to poke the bottom of the reef they would drag nets with ropes to catch the fish disturbed."^ However, this method would break the coral and destroy the habitat used by fish as shelter, thus decreasing the number of fish found in the coral reef Though the village had reserved places to conduct such techniques the fish population declined and the government initiated new regulations which prohibited the use
of small mesh nets and harpoons. Paje has followed suit and established local regulations monitored and enforced by the shehia and the fishermen themselves with the anticipation that the fish population will increase after one year. Fishermen have switched to deep sea fishing.
112. NGO Resource Centre, "Baseline Survey: Paje," May, 1997, 2.
113. This is the kigumi method previously described. 259
The absence of central market in Paje to sell fish lures villagers to greet the
fishermen on the shores as they return. Fishermen earn 1000 to 6000 Tsh per day
depending on weather conditions, season, number of fisherman working on a vessel and
fishermen the state of consumer demands and prices."^ Before the presence of electricity,
would preserve fish by smoking, drying, or salting. Now, fisherman store fish in deep
freezers owned by individuals who charge a fee of 200 Tsh per day. Individual fishermen
sell directly to the customer or to buyers who sell the fish in Zanzibar town. Fishermen in
Paje have never received assistance from fishing credit facilities (such as IFAD set up by
the government of Zanzibar)."^
Around the time of the revolution, the economy of south-eastern coast was largely
based on cash-crops (chilies and tobacco) and other exports such as coir, copra, and fish.
Seaweed has now become the crop of importance. Though initially involving men,
seaweed cultivation, introduced in 1989 in Paje, has become a major income generating
activity for women. According to women in Paje, cultivation occurs on a completely
individual basis. A fiill cycle of planting and harvesting is 45 days. There are two
harvesting techniques. In the first, women pull in all the seaweed at one time. In the
second technique, some seaweed is left on the rope to grow longer while some is
harvested. Once the seaweed is harvested it is dried and packed. The best time to
cultivate the seaweed is during masika (the long rainy season), however it is the most
difficult time to dry because much of the crop is lost due to rot. There is a large loss of
114. "Baseline Survey: Paje," 4.
115. Ibid., 4. 260
strong waves, currents, the crop to currents and fish. Other problems recorded include:
feeding and winds washing away seaweed, other forms of seaweed hindering growth, fish
between on the seaweed, and a physio-chemical stress which causes the interconnections
profits in branches of seaweed to dissolve until it detaches."* Growers complain of low relation to the amount of labor and time involved. However, despite the problems, women continue to cultivate seaweed because more than any other economic activity it
generates cash income and on a continuous basis.
Though Paje is located on the coral rag it sits on the edge of a forest which lies to the west and northwest of the town. In addition, approximately 18 hectares of forest plantation has been cultivated near the village. The people of Paje use the forest for
firewood (which is the main source of energy used), lime burning, extraction of
construction materials, charcoal, bee keeping, and timber. Lime burning involves stacking
the lime-stones in firewood to extract the lime-chalk which then becomes a powder used
as cement. Charcoal is processed in a similar way and sold as a fuel source. Tree cutting mostly supports construction by providing building poles. Indirectly related but less practiced are the professions of carpentry and masonry. Forestry activities, including agriculture, constitute the major economic activities in Paje.
Some parts of the forest are completely closed to access or use by the community in an effort to conserve the forest. To use the accessible areas of the forest, an individual must attain a permit which functions as a control on forestry use. A forest officer has the responsibility of issuing permits which can be obtained after getting a recommendation
1 16. "Mwani is Money," 28. 261
cases of illegal use resulting in from the district authority. Around Paje, there have been
have chased away the arrest of the violators, while in most incidences villagers simply
monitor the intruders. Paje established a natural resource committee to supervise and
establishment of proper use of the sea and guard the forest against illegal use. Prior to the these conservation measures, the forest was disappearing at an alarming rate as it was
also cleared to meet urban demands for construction materials. Deforestation of the area contributed to declining rates of soil fertility in the area. But organized efforts are being made to reforest the area and increase soil fertility. In addition to the work of the natural resource committee, there are two community based organizations which plant trees as part of the afforestation effort.
The people of Paje established the Natural Resource Management Committee in
January 1997 with the assistance and advice from the Commission for Natural Resources.
The aim of the community was to create a sustainable management program and protect their natural resources. The committee has formulated by-laws and subsequently
forwarded them to the Commission for Natural Resources for approval but have had no
response. The by-laws address forest and sea monitoring by proposing random patrolling
in the forest and sea to guard against activities which would violate the by-laws. Prior to
the establishment of the Natural Resource Committee, the Environmental Committee was
formed in 1996 to address problems of dumping and storage of solid and liquid wastes.
The committee coordinates the collection of garbage scattered in the town and burning of
it (burying of plastics to avoid air pollution). The committee enforces the following activities: the prohibition of vehicles on the beaches by charging a fine of 10,000 Tsh to 262
if they fail to violators caught, petty traders must have containers for collecting waste and
of Tsh comply they are fined, prohibition of free roaming animals by charging a fine 1,000
for cattle and 800 Tsh for goats.
Agricultural activities provide the largest source of income, employment, and work
(for men and women). Farming land lies about three kilometres from the town. The
major crops grown include: cassava, yams, peas, beans, sorghum, com, tomatoes,
spinach, and eggplant. Mahogany is a popular tree planted because of the value of its
wood to carpentry. Most crops harvested are locally consumed in the form of subsistence
or sold locally if surplus exists. Shifting cultivation constitutes the predominant mode of
cultivation. Men clear and bum the bush, while women plant, weed, and harvest. If a
farmer cultivates a large portion of land he can hire labor at a wage of about 500-1000
Tsh per day. Because of an increase in the village labor force and the high demand for
agricultural land, the average fallow period has declined from six years to three years. A visible decrease in the forest density and increase in patches of land completely deforested have resulted. Extension services are available in this area. Block extension officers offer training and advice in modem farming techniques and have facilitated the establishment of
small-scale nurseries. However, most farmers cannot afford the investments required for more modem techniques.
The town of Paje has a more concentrated residential area (about 500 by 500 meters) than Fumba. Houses of coral stone and lime-chalk and covered with thatched palm leaves create the character of the town, though the constmction of houses of cement
117. "Baseline Survey: Paje," 25. 263
the towns appearance. The Hmited bricks and corrugated iron-sheets has begun to change
over land and boundaries between ground for building houses is for villagers. Disputes
densely populated town."" Two and within families have become common is this already
The public land forms of land tenure predominate: private family land and public land.
The public land falls around Paje differs in status from the communal land around Fumba.
and the under the management of the Commission for Land and Environment (COLE)
anyone Commission for Natural Resources (CNR). The land is free for public use by provided s/he contacts the institutions responsible for its management.'" However, this is
public but rather how land is formally defined. Most people in Paje claim this land is not
communal land (that is, belonging to the community of Paje and not the government).
Also in contrast to formal land understandings, individuals have begun to sell private land
(with permanent crops) to investors and hoteliers. Land prices vary according to the site,
crops that exist, and size. In 1992, a small parcel of land for hotel construction fetched
60,000 Tsh. By 1997 the same sized parcel can sell for 9,000,000 Tsh or more. These
land sales tend to be final with no share accrued in the profit for the seller. Approximately
90% of potential land for tourism ventures has been sold to investors (predominantly
Zanzibari) in Paje.
118. It is interesting to note that a gendered discrepancy emerged over who could build houses where. Women tended to explain that people could not build on communal land and if you were not from Paje you could not build even in the town proper (allocated building area). However, men suggested that you could build in these areas.
1 19. "Baseline Survey: Paje," 10. 264
At COLE has zoned the east coast (including Paje) for tourist development.
increased present, four hotels and four villas operate in Paje. Hotel development has
people pressures on land, water, and natural resources of the community. However, most
resource use, in Paje expect the benefits of tourism to exceed the problems of land and because the industry will reduce the community's dependency on the exploitation of natural resources to generate income. According to people in Paje. this will in return lead to more sustainable use of resources and generate excess capital to put into environmental management projects. To date, people in Paje have not raised complaints directly regarding land allocation for tourism, despite the absence of a cleariy articulated local tourism development plan. However, land disputes arise constantly in Paje between family members, and often they are related to land use issues particularly for tourist related
activities. Family land is mostly used for building houses and planting of permanent trees,
and it is this land which is rapidly being sold.
Currently, twenty-eight wells and caves provide reliable water supplies, though the
purity of the water is questionable. Many wells are uncovered and most have not been
treated for purification since 1978. Hotels and villas have private wells on their premises.
A plan to install a piped water system from Unywanyuni caves is in progress. In contrast to Fumba, Paje also has electricity which was installed by the government in 1992. In
February 1997, the shehia established the Village Development Committee to handle the rapid pace of development that previously moved more slowly and was handled by the
CCM party branch (prior to the adoption of multiparty politics). The Development
Committee is an umbrella organization for all community based organizations (CBOs) 265
reviews all village development within Paje. The committee performs the following tasks:
co-ordination with the education activities, renovates and expands school buildings in
organizes village meetings committee, improves social facilities, installs telephone services,
community to discuss possible development strategies with the town, encourages involvement, and organizes labor in development activities.
several In contrast to Fumba, a final interesting feature of Paje is the presence of
a large, lavish houses along the beach. One in particular even has horse stables and
concrete driveway leading from its grounds to the ocean. The ovmer of this house is a private adviser to the president and rumors float around Zanzibar that he is the largest
drug trafficker on the island. Another big man in Paje worked his way through the
government administration. Now he is a retired "peasant" but serves as an advisor to the
president. In the words of townspeople in Paje, "he is whisked away unannounced in a big
car to town from time to time." Finally, another influential family has built in this area.
The Madhvani's (of the Asian magnate family owning sugar plantations in Uganda before
the Indians were expelled by Amin) built a house a bit north of the center of the town. It
is suggested that the presence of such big people in Paje has brought the usual signposts of
development (electricity, a project for piped water, roads) that were absent in Fumba.
Nungwi
The town of Nungwi sits on the Nungwi peninsula forming the extreme northern tip of Unguja. Nungwi covers an estimated area of 28 square miles. Tumbatu Island hugs
120. Ibid., 25. Figure 4.6 Nungwi 267
Tazari the coast to the west. To the south Nungwi shares a border with Matemwe and towns which becomes a source of dispute when villagers seek to use the minuscule forested area at this juncture. With a population of approximately 5,563, Nungwi constitutes the second largest town in this study. The elders of Nungwi guess that the earliest people of Nungwi came from Arabia. The youth have their own account of history in which their ancestors originate from the mainland coast of Tanzania. Most people of Nungwi, however, think of themselves as Tumbatu intimating the close historical link between the island and the Nungwi peninsula. Many other claim a Swahili identity. Nungwi has ten neighborhoods: Kikwajuni, Mwanda, Mjikati, Banda kuu,
Kendwa mchangani,'^^ Mwambale, Kendwa maweni, Mgagadu, Kiungani, and Kilindi.
Some seem less like neighborhoods than neighboring towns and such a distinction of distance appears in the sentiments of some villagers.
The sea forms a valuable resource base for Nungwi. Fishing is the predominant economic activity in the sea. Fisherman deploy five major fishing techniques: trolling
lines, floating, gill and medium meshed nets, bamboo traps, and wading. Unlike in Paje, fishing dhows are made in the village of Nungwi, however, fewer and fewer are made as a
consequence of intense deforestation. Because it is difficult to find wood suitable to build dhows, increasingly fisherman import boats from Pemba and Tanga (a coastal town on the mainland). Also in contrast to Paje, an open air fish market stands on a stretch of the
121. According to the 1958 census the population of Nungwi was just under 2,000.
Now, approximately 53% of the population is 18 years of age or younger (NGO Resource
Centre, "Nungwi Baseline Survey," May 1997: 2).
122. Mchangani is also the name of a town on the island of Tumbatu. 268
constructed a road leading to beach on the north coast of Nungwi. Once the government
the new Nungwi from town, the villagers saw a increase in the price offish accompany
deep consumers/purchasers travelling from Zanzibar town. Fishermen store fish in private
and fishermen freezers like in Paje. The freezers most commonly belong to shopkeepers who charge between 200 to 300Tsh per day for use.
Nungwi does not face the acute problems with sea resources as Paje and Fumba, yet unsustainable fishing methods form a concern. People from Nungwi and other places such as Matemwe and Tazari fish with harpoons. In the past, fisherman fi-om Tazari have been arrested, taken to the Fisheries Department and issued warnings. Fishermen from
Tazari continued to travel into the Nungwi area and camp. They received a warning again and were ordered to leave. This was successfully resolved initially but is becoming an issue again. People can camp and fish in this area but Nungwi has defined a camping season. The Fisheries Department has cooperated with Nungwi to enforce the season regulations.
Seaweed farming constitutes a less important marine activity to generate income.
Initially introduced by a few women in 1990, the potential of seaweed cultivation enticed men to also participate. Currently about 120 women and 10 men cuUivate seaweed to supplement their income. Cultivation occurs around the concentration of hotels on the west coast of Nungwi. Income earned varies according to the amount harvested. On
average in Nungwi each cultivator has about 1 00 ropes and harvests 4-5 packets in one 269
in Nungwi have the harvest which earns about 7,000-8,000Tsh.'" Seaweed cultivators
and time same complaints as those in Paje, namely, that cultivation is labor intensive
Cultivators consuming (requiring more than four hours per day) for only meager profits.
is the best face the problems of low prices, drying seaweed during the rainy season which time for cultivation, and damage to crops by strong winds and fish.
A walk away from the coast and into the hinterland of Nungwi eerily leads to vast open bush land absent of trees. Nungwi has virtually been completely deforested. The remaining patch of forest to the southeast of Nungwi as mentioned above forms the boundary with Matemwe and Tazari over which an ongoing struggle occurs as each side claims the right of ownership and use of resources. Unsustainable practices and management predominate in this dispute as the various villagers scramble for the remaining sparse forest resources. Elders claim that until 1955 the area was completely covered with a dense natural forest. Due to lack of proper planning and management of the forest resources by the community, unsustainable use ensued leading to deforestation.
Nungwi has been identified by the government as a tovra included in the afforestation efforts of the early 1980s. Today in Nungwi, there is little visible evidence of such a project as the land appears virtually treeless. From the perception of villagers, unsustainable forest use occurred to meet the growing demands placed on the construction industry (for lime and building poles), of household energy needs, for boats, and for land
123. In Nungwi a complete planting and harvesting cycle requires 60 days in contrast to the shorter season in Paje. 270
shifting method of use of the forests in for agriculture.'^' In the past, Nungwi employed a
no forestry use plan exists, simply which part of the forests would be reserved. At present a complete ban on use.
Nungwi. shortage Deforestation has had very visible implications for daily life in A
find wood to carry out of fuelwood necessitates that women travel kilometers by foot to
firewood (which lasts for the daily activities of cooking and boiling water. One bundle of
costs 700Tsh. These one to two) costs 500Tsh in Nungwi and one basket of charcoal
which once prices are higher than those found even in Zanzibar Town. Building materials
Zanzibar not only supported construction within Nungwi but also other places (such as,
Town and Tanga)—thereby also providing a means of generating income for people in
Nungwi— are now scarce. Fisherman now travel to Pemba and Tanga to purchase
completed boats or the materials to build boats. Finally, agricultural productivity is in
decline. The production of lime and fiielwood/charcoal, contributes to deforestation and
consequently declining soil fertility.'^'
According to the sheha, villagers use the land effectively. The problem lies in the
type of terrain-that is, the Nungwi peninsula is mostly coral rag. The coral rag lacks
forest cover and thus lacks a way to naturally create fertile land. Villagers continue to
practice shifting cultivation despite problems of deforestation and land degradation. Rural
elites, with a proclaimed basic understanding of the natural environment combined with
124. Elders suggested that 70% of lime used in the construction of houses in Tanga comes from ("Baseline Survey: Nungwi," 8).
125. The sheha holds the neighboring communities of Kidoti, Tazari, and Fukehani primarily responsbile for lime and ftaelwood production. 271
of food insecurity threatens their local knowledge, confess that abject poverty in the form
village.'^^
inNungwi Agriculture constitutes the second most important economic activity
cultivate maize, lentils, beans, and cassava. (second to fishing). During masika . farmers
Crops meet Farmers cultivate peas, millet, sorghum, and tomatoes during vuU season.
recent subsistence needs only as farmers have not managed to generate surplus for sale in
planting, years. Women provide most of the farm labor, engaging in the clearing, weeding, and harvesting on agricultural land. Women often even farm as wage laborers to meet household needs. A typical payment rendered would be 300Tsh per day for 3-4 hours of work.'"
Livestock keeping is performed on a much smaller scale involving an individual holding of about 10-15 cattle or goats. Pastoralists graze their cattle wherever they find
suitable land (which often is found close to their own homesteads). Other economic activities in Nungwi include craftsmanship such as carpentry, boat building, masonry,
tourism, shopkeeping (retail and restaurants), and public sector jobs (health staff, teachers, various extension agents).
Nungwi is divided into approximately fifty clans each claiming and occupying a sizeable portion of land enclosed with stone fences. Nungwi town is densely populated with houses of coral-stone and lime with thatched roofs, and the occasional mud house and cement block house. Each member of a clan receives a small parcel of land for the
126. "Baseline Survey: Nungwi," 9.
127. Ibid., 10. 272
land became fragmented into purpose of either building or farming. As families grew,
are not considered natives of smaller plots. There are landless people in Nungwi, but most
Nungwi. The people of Nungwi claim that land defined as public constitutes a very small
of percentage (10%) of the overall coral rag land in their area. This land is the area
one dispute where the boundaries of Nungwi, Tazari and Matemwe collide. Because no
of use particular community is responsible for the management, planning, and monitoring over this small patch of forest, competition over its resources is leading to their total exhaustion. The regulations over the use of any public land entails the following procedure: a person must first contact the representative of the relevant institutions in the village in which the land falls under jurisdiction, then s/he must receive authorization by the shehia and the district level by attaining a permit issued by the district authority.
Failure to follow this procedure results in prosecution in a court of law and the penalty of a fine or jail if failure to pay the fine, if an offender is caught.'^* People in Nungv^ would assert, when asked about land, that no one ovras land and some would even suggest land
is for everyone. Yet in the same breathe people explain that they have family land. If people don't have family land, they can seek permission to borrow land for cultivation even for building houses, but with the understanding that the land does not belong to
them. Thus, everyone has access to land who wants it.'^'
128. Ibid., 12.
129. Middleton observed that despite land scarcity in this area rarely does conflict over land arise. This has greatly changed over time. 273
There are three major sources Water constitutes an ongoing concern in Nungwi.
rain water. Although household of water in Nungwi, namely piped water, well water, and
as it provides the most reliable consumers use all three, well water is used most widely
inconsistent supply of water source. Villagers contend that taps provide an inadequate or
tapped into their because of the increasing number of users from other villages who have
stated, "The acute problem of line forming unplanned tributaries. As the sheha concisely
technical inquiries into water is caused by the pressures of an increasing population." More
the matter suggest that the increase in tourist activities has a more significant role to play.
In addition the town lacks a water reservoir. However, rain water is stored in cement
tanks and used widely when there is a critical shortage of water. There are thirteen wells,
most uncovered, which provide a constant supply of water even during the dry seasons.'^"
However, the sheha revealed that only four wells exist in Nungwi, and of them, only two
provide safe or clean water. The use of the wells for water collection is labor intensive
and falls on the backs of women. Women can spend 3-4 hours a day walking 2.5 miles to
collect enough water to meets the daily needs of the household.
Outside of Zanzibar Town and Kiwengwa (on the east coast), the tourism sector is
expanding at its most rapid rate in Nungwi. While nearly all guesthouses are constructed
by people in Nungwi, who had family land or purchased land on the coast, most are leased
to foreigners.'^' The largest attraction Nungwi holds for tourists is snorkeling and scuba
130. Previous information on water was acquired from the "Baseline Survey: Nungwi," 19.
131. At the time of this study in Nungwi there were five foreign hoteliers and three from the town. When foreigners build hotels they bring labor with them. The ones built by 274
has preserved a diving along the coral reef. An environmental organization in Nungwi
facilitate the town's ability to sea-turtle "aquarium" carved into the beach by the tides to
have also appeared in attract tourists. Shops selling handicrafts and clothing as souvenirs
arrival of tourists the town. While many in the tourist sector articulate the benefits of the
concern is a fear for the town, not everyone in Nungwi is pleased. A commonly expressed
of the loss of their culture or way of life to the culture of the tourist. In Nungwi, tourism
has not only brought guesthouses, restaurants, and small businesses, but a brothel which
employs women from the mainland who arrive in Zanzibar in search of employment. At
the time of this study, the shehia was involved in a struggle to evict the residents of the
brothel. Other concerns also arise with the arrival of tourism. The guesthouses introduce
another pressure on the already strained resources in Nungv^. The tovra and hoteliers
continue to struggle over the limited supply of water. Finally, tourism seeps into the
struggles around the land itself Land is already strained in Nungwi, but as tourist
development raises the value of land, families struggle over boundaries as they attempt to
sell or maintain their land.
Msuka
Msuka, in contrast to the other three towns, sits on the island of Pemba on the
northern coast. It is also divided into neighborhoods by the presence of stark boundaries
Nungwi people give employment to people of Nungwi. The reluctancy of foreign hoteliers to hire local labor contributes to the tension between the foreign investors and townspeople. 275
Figure 4.7 Msuka 276
Msuka does not lie which divide a population of approximately 6,1 10 people.'"
for agriculture. As a completely in the coral rag, but extends into more fertile soil
clove plantations, thus, consequence, parts of Msuka, at one time, were coconut and
three acre policy. marking Msuka as the only town of this study directly affected by the
coconuts and However, according to Middleton, the soil is poor in Msuka supporting
land constitutes annual food crops, but cloves only very poorly. The inheritance of family
land is formally the other form of drawing boundaries in the terrain of this community. No
demarcated as communal. In 1961, Middleton classified Msuka as an impoverished
outlying settlement in which local organization had dissipated with the emigration of
original inhabitants to the richer parts of the island and the influx of mainland
immigrants.'" Nevertheless, today many in Msuka claim a long history of ancestral ties to
the land here.
Today, Msuka is known as a politically sensitive place and consequently is
oftentimes overlooked in the distribution of development assistance. Goverrunent officials
offer stories of the difficulties of doing research and holding discussions in Msuka. Thus,
in contrast to the other three town, virtually no studies and surveys exist on Msuka. The
political reputation of Msuka has roots in a long history of change and struggle beginning
with a migration to Msuka from Makangale which continues to conjure past links to land
in dispute to this day (which will be discussed in subsequent chapters). A changing
132. According to Middleton, who acquired his statistics from the 1958 census, the population of Msuka was then 3,464 of whom about half were Shirazi.
133. Land Tenure in Zanzibar. 54. 277
their desire to reclaim Zanzibar provokes this hot appearance. Many of Msuka now voice
desire for land land from the three acre policy and are willing to pay for its return. As the
the eyes of takes on new forms of articulation, "land confiscation" seems to also, at least in some villagers.
In Msuka (and Pemba more generally), people often affiliate with a family or clan name that has Arabic origins which differ from how people in the above communities in the coral rag of Unguja identified themselves. Names given as an ancestral marker of identity included al Farsi, Mazrui, Nidheri, Kharass, Baalawi, Mazidi, Bajaoni, and Riyami.
A history of a clan name often accompanies its articulation. The name Mazrui found its way to Pemba from Oman through Mombasa. It has a large invocation and testifies today to the strong ties of the past between Pemba and Mombasa. Al Farsi also commonly found around Msuka, travels to Pemba from Mombasa. Nidheri and Kharass mark ancestry from Muscat (Oman). Mazidi is said to originate from Shangani in Unguja.
After the revolution, the revolutionary government dictated that Zanzibar forget its divisive clan identities; however, at least in Pemba, "all families have a tribe and know
Mi34 1^ Yj^Qsg ^j^Q claim a Shirazi identity could claim a political affiliation with CCM and intimated this however unconsciously or subtly. '^^ Yet most people in Msuka sympathize with CUF. Political sensitivities indeed course through the veins of Msuka with intensity.
134. Interview, Wete, 12 November 1997.
135. The irony in this claim is that eventually Karume sought to destroyed the Shirazi identity. 278
subjection to police brutality and To associate with CUF for this town can mean nightly yet people continue their political support.
Msuka has a In contrast to the densely constructed feeling of Paje and Nungwi,
boundaries. thin dirt road spacious feel due to the large tracts of open land within its A
into two runs through Msuka until the last neighborhood on the sea, splitting the town
more like neighboring sides. Msuka, like Nungwi, is divided into neighborhoods that feel
Kichawini, towns divided by stretches of land.'^* In addition to Msuka proper, Pingwe,
Kichaka Cheupe, Mtongwe, Jinuni, Chamboni Pwani, Kigongo, Taponi, Meli Kumi na
Moja, Dodea, and Fumbamacho are some of the neighborhoods of the town. Houses vary between coral stone and lime, mud, and cement with both thatched and corrugated iron.
Finally, in contrast to the other three towns, clove trees are present in parts of Msuka.
Two main economic activities predominate in Msuka, namely, farming and fishing.
Attempts to introduce seaweed cultivation failed as have most activities introduced by cooperatives and community based organizations (this is discussed in more detail in subsequent chapters). In Msuka, like other places, shifting cultivation is most commonly practiced. The most common crops cultivated include: bananas, cassava, sweet potatoes,
rice, peas, maize, spinach, coconuts, cloves, oranges, and mangoes. The majority of women cultivate. While men fish, most also farm. Men are more likely to claim the cultivation of tree crops than women. Livestock grazing is more common in Msuka than
136. Middleton refers to what I imagine as neighborhoods as moieties. He attributes this type of organization to a few northern tovms in Unguja and to towns in Pemba. This differs from wards (which I also think feel like neighborhoods) in that a moiety is a larger or more encompassing division. See Land Tenure in Zanzibar and the World of the Swahili. 279
people complain of acute crop the other three towns. In regards to cultivation,
to address this plague. Since 1980, destruction by diseases and that little is being done
People must cultivate large areas disease prevention measures have not been taken.
Despite both articulated because they receive only a small yield due to disease.
cultivating for reasons of agricultural problems and land disputes people continue
purposes. subsistence and even borrow land from others for cultivation
encouraged fisherman Fishing has its obstacles also. The government had
fishermen formed a throughout Zanzibar to establish cooperatives. In Msuka, a group of
Fisheries cooperative in the hopes of purchasing a boat and modem equipment. The
Department encouraged them to construct a fish market and establish a port for a taxing
the taxing of daily system instead. Following the advice of the government, they initiated
boat catches to go towards the purchasing of new equipment. The money vanished, no
was purchased, and the system of taxation has ceased. In addition to cooperative
problems, the dilemmas regarding fishing gear and methods continue to plague fishermen
in Msuka. Local methods of fishing with small nets are prohibited but continue because
fishermen do not have access to modem fishing gear and need to continue fishing. Large
holed nets are too expensive for fishermen to purchase, so they purchase the small mesh
nets sold in shops. No fishermen have been caught yet using illegal methods around
Msuka. They continue because there seems to be no threat of enforcement and there is no
assistance provided to find alternatives. However, to fish one must have a license for the
boat and all equipment. In a contrasting account of fishing around Msuka, some
fishermen relayed that in the past there has been a problem with the Department of 280
nets to the fisherman in Msuka. When the Fisheries. The Department sold the small mesh
fined them. Some fishermen used the nest, the fisheries officers caught them and
small mesh nets are fishermen received six month jail sentences. People realize that
however, they question banned because they catch small fish and destroy the coral reef,
possible alternatives. why the Fisheries Department sells the nets, and fail to see other
but people The sheha explained that by-laws exist to govern the use of the sea and land,
system and in dispute these by-laws. On land, the sheha is responsible for a monitoring the sea the marines monitor resource use.
Msuka faces similar environmental problems and development challenges as the above three communities. Deforestation threatens various aspects of everyday life in
identify Msuka. The forest is used for building materials and fuel. While people in Msuka deforestation as a problem, they suggest that no plan for afforestation exists. However, restrictions exist on the types of trees people can cut and use for building. In addition, fuelwood can only be collected from fallen and dead trees. People are aware of sustainable forest use but sustainable utilization and management have not been practiced.
There are two forests in the area: Ngezi which is an protected area where forest use is prohibited and disputed, and Vumawimbi which is the subject of ownership disputes.
What intensifies these disputes is that no one has rights to use the forests in this area and the government has offered no compensation for the implementation of these conservation policies which are interpreted by some people as stripping them of land because they no
longer have use of the resources. 281
possibility of improvement in the People in Msuka feel both a direct threat and a
the Vumawimbi coast for tourism. quality of life by the prospects of the development of
Four hotel From 1992-1997 the process of proposal submissions and approvals ensued.
Zanzibaris, one initiated by projects have been approved along this beach: two owned by
However, a South African company, and one proposed by a Scandinavian company.
pressure construction has not begun for "unknown reasons," while investors continue to
there is the government for leases to begin. In the view of the Commission for Tourism,
no problem of infrastructure which would obstruct construction. However, there is no
While piped water, electricity, nor paved roads (or even two lane roads) into this area.
people realize tourist development along the Vumawimbi coast will bring these desired
amenities, people are concerned about being included in the process of planning and
development. There is concern that their exclusion will lead to the destruction of their
construction is way of life. The dispute that has arisen over land in the area prior to any
not reassuring for many in Msuka. While most land disputes in Msuka are between
families over boundaries and trees, the plan to develop the Vumawimbi coast has
generated a host of complicated disputes over the land. Msuka "landowners" want
adequate compensation for land which the government cannot decide who possesses.
Even within Msuka who can claim land in these disputes is up for interpretation. CHAPTER 5 EPONYMOUS EPITASIS: DEFINING THE TERRITORIALITY OF NATIONALITY
Epitasis
of the play in which the main In ancient Greek drama, the epitasis was the part
eponymous refers to giving one's action was developed. It followed the protasis. As
here will entail theoretical naming in two name to something, the struggles which unfold
their struggles to redefine ways. Echo and Narcissus will give their names to citizens in
material conditions. The coral rag or preserve meanings of citizens and their relations to
and by doing so will townspeople will give their "names" to refer to citizens and foreigners
This combination impart new meaning into these terms as defined in the western tradition.
that Echo can give her of naming is meant to illustrate: first, that by remembering
once name—and not simply Narcissus—in allegorical social inquiry, the social possibilities
like the neglected or even silenced can be seen or heard (though only as rearticulation
not only echo); and second, that listening to the echoes of subaltern struggles does
reappropriate question the relevance of Western theories and concepts but offer ways to
and redefine them.
cosanguinal In her critique of subaltern studies, Spivak suggests a tension between
territoriality and spatial accounts of territoriality. Subaltern studies acknowledge that
obstructed resistance and thus a concept of nation was needed to facilitate this resistance.
282 283
the primordial ties of kinship, community,' Yet, "[tlerritoriality is the combined 'pull of
mobilization."" Spivak asserts . . autonomous which is part 'of the actual mechanics of.
exchange of are anchored and consolidated by the that "it is evident that notions of kinship
historians "that it was the woman, women."^ As Spivak points out, it is accepted by
or mythic patrilineage; and without proper identity, who operated this cosanguinal
primordial ties were the although, in the historian's estimation, 'these village-based
that we may not stop to investigate the . , it seems principle means of rebel mobilization'. .
mobilization and this solidarity." subject-deprivation of the female in the operation of this
consciousness, whose Spivak observes that, "if the question of female subaltern
attention from the real issue, then the instrumentality is so often seen to be crucial," diverts
understood to do the same.^ question of subaltern consciousness as such must also be
imperialist Spivak's critique can be extended to the materialist historians and their
the importance of colleagues of the Zanzibar Epic and generally to Africanists who stress
kinship as a means of resistance to the imposed modem system of capital."
Historiography," The 1. Spivak quotes Guha in "Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing
Spivak Reader . 228.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid., 229.
the 4. In African studies, Hyden's economy of affection provides a discussion of importance of kinship ties in Tanzania. See for another example, Sara Berry, Fathers Work for Their Sons: Accumulation. Mobility and Class in an Extended Yoruba Family (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985). Work has also been done to question the de-genderization of the kinship community in African Studies. See for example. Women and Colonization. 284
of power" there is a similar tension In the question of the "communal mode
perceptions which is based on the "gender- between explanations of kinship and "political"
reason, domestic society sublated and neutralizing of the world finally explained through
and Spivak highlights the clash between subsumed in the civil."' As we have discussed
points. But Spivak asks, what role does kinship and politics is one of Chatterjee's main
through the different examples of the figure of woman play here? She asserts that
"the figure of the woman, moving fi-om territoriality and the communal mode of power,
and wife/mother, syntaxes patriarchal clan to clan and family to family as daughter/sister
I want to give testimony to continuity even as she is herself drained of proper identity."*^
lens to illustrate that defining who Spivak's commentary but also extend her interpretive
complicated practice. The question of belongs (or not) in the rural town as a citizen is a
struggle. what it means to belong constitutes a site of
of class relations, and In the above epic discussion of colonialism, the formation
depicted territoriality in the form of the struggle for independence, scholars perceived and
were eventually organized by rural towns as the incoherent mobilizers of resistance. They
asserted that the an urban-based political force defining Zanzibar once and for all. It was
communities in peasantry could be divided into two: a rich and a poor. The smallholder
as a conservative element. more fertile land (the rich peasantry) were often understood
up the poor The squatters along with imported migrant labor from the mainland made
populations. peasantry. The rural towns of the coral rag were depicted as marginalized
5. "Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography," 230.
6. Ibid., 231. 285
claimed that their political structures alienated from the more fertile land. It was either
while their economic status was were absorbed into the Sultanate and colonial system,
lumped together with the squatters in the interpreted as subsistence farmers, or they were
they became dependent on the poor peasantry as neither proletarianized nor self-reliant as
suggested that the coral rag rural towns cash of the clove economy. However, it was also
as labor. resisted incorporation into the colonial economy
plantation-owners and the Resistance against both the Sultan's extensive family of
rural/urban, African/Arab conflicts, colonial administration became articulated in terms of
poor peasantry-based and wealthy peasant-based political parties/urban appropriated
the peasantry is that this political parties. What can be concluded from the stories of
rigorous efforts to articulate its peasantry is a complicated and confiised category, despite
propriation (in divisions and roles lucidly. The coral rag "peasantry" was (is) subjected to
alike in convenient moments, but is its various forms) by scholars and political movements
unfolding of more often neglected or silenced.^ In this chapter the coral rag hosts the
intense struggles over the resources of the land and sea.
out of 7. In African Studies, the question of the peasant identity has come in and fashion over the past several decades. While studies always strive to identify the peasant
with more precision and thereby capture it once and for all, conclusions and critiques augur that the peasant will remain ambiguous. See Martin A. Klein and G. Wesley, eds., Johnson, Perspectives on the African Past (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972); Nelson Kasfir, "Are Peasants Self-Sufficient? A Review of Goran Hyden" Development and Change 17, no. 2(1985): 335-358; Gavin Williams, "Primitive Accumulation: The Way to Progress?" Development and Change 18 no.4(1986); Lionel Cliffe, "The Debate on African Peasantries," Development and Change 18, no. 4(1986): 625. Goran Hyden "Final Rejoinder," Development and Change 18, no. 4(1986): 660-668; Allen F. Issacman, "Peasants and Rural Social Protest in Africa," Afiican Sttidies Review 33 (September, 1990): 1-120. 286
T and in Territoriality
the rag towns, sets the stage to consider The brief review of territoriality, as coral
which um-avel such territoriality. Rights complexities in the form of struggles and silences
of many articulated by scholars as tenure systems in land and in trees have been commonly
the customary the govermnenfs eyes, but also from types." It is suggested that not only in
cannot be owned but only possessed. interpretation of communities in the coral rag, land
of proprietorship (or rights of occupancy) than Therefore, it is more appropriate to speak
a set of relations between persons land ownership.' Land tenure is understood to mean
be understood as part of a set of social and groups in respect of land and as such can only
rights of foil ownership in trees but hold relations.'" By Shirazi custom a person may hold
no personal rights in the land in which it grows."
revolution to include a series Middleton depicts life in the rural towns prior to the
are associated with each of the local of rights. Rights in land, trees, and crops produced
attached a stretch of and kinship groups. The largest social group is the town to which is
communal) land (which is land comprising residential area, gardens or farms, and bush (or
voice on land here because all 8. The work of Middleton, however, will be the scholarly accounts of land in Zanzibar refer to his interpretations.
Krain has written several 9. See "Farming Systems of the Coral Rag Area in Zanzibar." land reports for the Ministry of Agriculture and is cited as the contemporary voice on ownership will be tenure. Though this is the case, in this chapter the terms owner and refers to possession rather than used. However, it should be noted that ownership here the specific notion of ovmership involving the private individual.
10. Land Tenure in Zanzibar . 21
11. Ibid. 287
tumbo) of a ward not areas) ^ Members (ukoo and the unique feature of the coral rag
the townlands town lands but hold certain rights in only hold rights in property within the
the right to the right to plant trees anywhere, outside the viambo: the right to konde,
boundary but for (a stone wall which is not a cultivate under trees, the right to build bigiU
right to gather fuel to dig wells anywhere, the protection of crops from animals), the right
anywhere, the right to gather and bum lime anywhere, the right to cut wood for building
and palm fronds anywhere, the right to graze anywhere, the right to gather fallen coconuts
anywhere, the right to hunt anywhere, livestock anywhere, the right to gather wild fruits
shore to right to exploit the sea (the sea from the right to gather mangrove poles, and the
of must pay rent). Wageni (having the meaning reef is owned by a town and strangers
both short term, as in for work, and tenants, guests, and strangers) on the other hand—
can receive the rights to long term, as in marriage—request certain rights. Wageni
rights. However, wageni cannot cultivate food crops, to build a house, and other town
acquire the right to plant trees, or any rights over land.'^
settlements had not In 1961, Middleton commented that although Hadimu
occurred regularly. These increased greatly in forty years, local shortages of land
increasing population and the shortages are the results of discrepancies between an
of the more valuable land sustaining capacity of the land. There has been fragmentation
small kin groups since the and the guarding of rights in the more valuable property of
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., 27-29. -
288
cannot be increased limited by soil distribution and available planting and building land is
of rights in the does not arise between holders Middleton asserts that customarily, conflict
has dissipated as absence of conflict over property same property. Thirty years later, the
the margins of contending members both within and on the question of land arises between a territoriality.
the internal organization of As previously acknowledged, Middleton articulates
and descent local or territorially defined groups, rural towns in terms of relations between
words of importance for understanding this and kinship defined groups. There are two
form of the adjective =cjm meaning territoriality. First, the Swahili word mwenyeji-a
possessor and thus comes to signify the having or possessing—refers to the regular
place), or a host in relation to householder, owner, occupant, citizen, native (of a
word Mgeni (singular of wageni) refers not only to guest guests—or wageni . The Swahili
form of the adjective ::geni signifying but to a stranger, new-comer, foreigner (it is a
wenyeji (plural of mwenyeji)—who are strange or foreign).'' Only the citizens of atown—
settlement and landholding. Wageni are bound in kinship, have fiiU rights (haki) of
may become wenyeji by purchasing land or wenveii of other places. Wageni , however,
receiving it as a gift from a mwenveji .
articulated in the modem liberal In this rural community land is not property (as
identity and property. Identity marks sense), but is the very place upon which to create
14. Ibid., 22.
is a combination form of wanit 15. Wananchi can also be substituted for wenveii which signify the people in meaning they have and nchi meaning land. Wananchi was invoked to nation, that is Tanzania. the struggle for independence and then as the people of a 289
a territoriality. through re-production establishing the land with name, family, kinship,
crops, houses, identity materializing as trees, Property takes form as the products of that
in the material-produced and identity is articulated fences. The bond between the
This articulation arises to determine identity-mwenyeli (or citizen)-and property.
seemingly or loosely conceptualized) which inclusion and exclusion (however friendly
Citizen camiot be reduced in produces yet another dialectic, that of citizen/stranger-guest.
transforms and gives more meaning to territoriality, and of itself because property is what
self-define because citizen establishes the thus, giving rise to citizen. Property cannot
rights-to create property. Without the inclusion/exclusion of the ability and capacity-as
citizen, property does not materialize.'*
ofmgeni (stranger-guest) which Out of this though a remainder is produced, that
of this study mgeni will be forms a dichotomous relation with citizen. For the purposes
transformative character of the translated always as stranger and guest to highlight the
abides by the rules of the community concept. The mgeni is a welcomed guest when s/he
differs from citizen as and an unwelcomed stranger when s/he agitates. The stranger-guest
citizen can. Yet citizen also has no meaning it does not hold rights and perform as the
a group must define without the articulation of the wageni from which it differs. That
rights are defined (or claimed), rights inextricably involves a group against which these
Both the however, citizen and wageni do not constitute a neat binary opposite.
play of political citizen/property and citizen/wageni opposites spiral in an irreducible
is what marks it as different fi-om 1 6. Land, on the other hand, is always there. This property. 290
boundary in property creates the inclusion/exclusion struggle of re-defining. As citizen
the two create differences in property rights between thereby estabUshing wageni, the very
clear citizen seeks to remove by deUneating the disruptions which the construction of
between citizen and wageni is not so boundaries. Finally, as will be illustrated, the line
land in the coral as sea, which is treated similarly to rigidly defined or fixed. Land (as well
for occurs, while also constituting the reason rag) provides the terrain on which struggle
of contestation. struggle, since territoriality is not fixed but a site
Tprritnrialitv as Citizen and Property
The Different Wenveii and Wageni
in terms of The consideration of how territoriality is invoked and identified
notions—the feminine and property and citizens will center around two closely related
been conceptually discussed, that of meeni (the stranger-guest). While wageni has already
articulation of struggles. The feminine the feminine needs a brief introduction prior to the
of in the coral rag here will be understood as the socially constructed positions women
broadly speaking, but towns. Echo will be used to consider not only citizens and wageni
the feminine position will also specifically the feminine position. This understanding of
wenyeji/wageni, women then inform the understanding of citizen. In the identification of
either wenyeji have play a silenced role.'' Woman is defined to echo the identity of
practice of 17. Identification here is not only the practice of a community but the feminine. Such scholars who have written in the past on the mere instrumental use of the discussions of the role of women do not attempt to interpret socio-economic issues through woman as a theoretical or analytical position. 291
In this notion of leaving home for her husband. because of her father, or wageni because
the feminine as either mwenyeU dissolved and it is the use of of citizen, blood ties have not
of citizenship. It define the presence or restriction or mgeni to create these ties which
use as a a mwenyeii in terms of her social makes no difference whether she is a mgeni or
produce What matters is that she labors to vehicle through which to pass citizenship.
has the .'^ the very being of a stranger-guest children which expand the wenveii Thus,
is only a mgeni raises no concern because she possibility of creating the citizen. But this
woman.''
introduce Echo into the discussion of the Dali's poem on Narcissus offers a way to
fishermen in an exchange over a man gazing feminine citizen. Dali's poem opens with two
narcissistic complex (in the psycho-analytic at himself. It is asserted that the man has a
intimating the context of the masculinized sense). The two fishermen can be interpreted as
so that the possibility of struggle within rural community (neither fisherman is feminine)
fragmented creates the possibility of the community is opened. The community as
(as the two fishermen suggest). visualizing and commenting on the problems of narcissism
alienation in which she contends that 18. Spivak offers a critique of Marx's dialectics of production, the womb. This he overlooks the woman's possession of a tangible place of labor renders his concept of oversight of a fiindamental human relationship to product and must be undone because it alienation inadequate. Spivak asserts that alienation of labor re-interpretation of undermines the agency of the subject in his work and his property. A of women's work and childbirth labor, alienation, and the production of property in terms Theory," The Spivak would open such a possibility. See Spivak, "Feminism and Critical
Reader .
(domestic economy) can provide 19. Spivak has commented that the power of the oikos in "Feminism and Critical "a model of the foreign body unwittingly nurtured by the polls" Theory," 62. 292
Dali parallels the as historical figure' in which The arrogant Narcissus can be read as 'man
between man and woman to the socio- creation of humanity in terms of reproduction
reflecting Narcissus is both in reflection and political in which man attempts to dominate.
dizzy space snow, his dazzling head bent over the on himself in admiration. "[Tlhe god of
of minerals, or himself loudly among the excremental cries of reflections. . . amiihilating
the veils of winter having disappeared, he between the silences of the mosses. . . in which,
can be read as the masculine human has newly discovered ... his faithful image." This
death, reproducing itself while again condition as the creator of violence, destruction, and
the implications to the environment arrogantly killing itself off with its decadence, despite
mosses" suggests, the masculine history does around it. However, as the "silences of the
rebirth. She is recognized again as such this in the feminine. The feminine is symbolic of
realm (subsequent to assisting by the masculine once she returns to her place in the private
The feminine is the place in the violent social struggles, once those battles are won).
son. where the masculine can create his image again in the form of the
. crashes and crumbles "[W]ith the loss of his divinity the whole high plateau. .
man loses his complete among the solitude and the incurable silences of iron oxides." The
of nurturing power over the woman with the birth of the son and through her silent work
hard, the the growth of this son. "[W]hile its dead weight raises, erect, tender, and
narcissi." innumerable floral spears of the deafening armies of the germination of the
of While the masculine had given itself the burden of being the resources for the raising
in the the family, the sons mature to go on and assume the same arrogant positions 293
to the father's dismissive of the feminine and a threat private/public world becoming again constructed masculinity.
are the closely comiected because they both The lake (or water) and the moss are
can be of the feminine or where the seed forms of the feminine. The moss is the sex
of an opening and further intimates a plurality planted. That the seed is planted implicates
two together nurture the son who goes on to the feminine. The water is the womb. The
identity, selfishly seeing the self as he be the citizen. The son looks to the womb for
daughters and the other pluralities of woman, receives nurturing. However, where are the
that is the echoes, in Dali's poem?
remembering the larger context in Spivak contends that Echo is feminine through
myth of Narcissus—received his which her punishment occurs. Tiresias—the augur in the
for the punishment of blindness cast gift of divination from Jupiter which compensated
for her punishment it does upon him by Juno. Though Echo is rewarded to compensate
reward Echo, Ovid—the not occur in a symmetrical way. Not only does Jupiter fail to
possibility of echoing. myth teller—punishes Echo in the moment of denying her the
echoing equalizes the punishment According to Spivak, the moment of the impossibility of
asymmetrically and compensation cycles experienced by Echo and Tiresias, but again
the opening Ovid because her reward must be created by the reader (in this case Spivak) in
punishment occurs created by denying Echo even the chance to echo in his account. This
Narcissus but specifically when Ovid does not permit Echo to echo the words of
that Echo's intervenes to relate the exchange. Nevertheless, what Ovid cannot undo is
opposite of, the sender's (her) response is always a "deferment independent of, indeed the 294
who speaks. Her is obliged to echo everyone intention."^" Spivak elaborates, "[f]or Echo
an obstinate choice. into absolute chance rather than desire and performance are dispensed
monument' to the fulfillment of ever-renewed narcissus flower is a 'natural . . If the
bony remains merely point to world. . . Echo's Narcissus's desire-as punishment out of this
imperfectly and identity itself It is obliged to be the risk of response. It has no proper
Spivak suggests that Echo produces the interceptively responsive to another's desire."^'
against her intention which constitutes her possibility of relief from her responses which go
channels of sufficient political imitation. As reward. Thus, Echo is never pulled into the
come simply because of the fact of Spivak comments, the '"practice of freedom' does not
difference in that she desires not gaining something called independence."^^ Echo signifies
to be like anything. She simply desires to be.
Coexisting as Wenveii and Wageni
It remains a A gendered division of space has a visible presence in the coral rag.
market after work and prayers common practice for men to meet in cafes, shops, or at the
and locations. Women for playing board games and to discuss politics in its many forms
production. The home as meet in their homes as they continue to engage in some act of
prayer since not all mosques the domain of women often serves as their place to observe
20. "Echo." Spivak Reader . 185.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid., 186-187. 295
where her most prized and unacknowledged permit women to enter. It is in the home
work is done.
the children are not her property as Despite that the woman labors to re-produce,
her patrilineage. Even her security is tied to they receive their territoriality through
to land through her husband or the children, not her own identity. She has access
her (or in the event of his death), she community as a guest. If her husband divorces
children's rights. In Zanzibar, as in keeps her access to property and land, through her
than a sacrament. While divorce Islamic custom, marriage constitutes a contract rather
Women may divorce their does not generate shame, it can create inconvenience.
return the bridewealth (the price of the husbands, but to do so they (or their family) must
through being divorce. As wenyeji , bride). This serves as a deterrent to female-induced
property. In accordance with daughters of the father, women are entitled to land and
share of inheritance. The Islamic law, a daughter can receive one-half of her brother's
for his wife, children, justification for this practice is that the man (son) is responsible
woman's share of unmarried/divorced sisters and elderly parents. Most often the
inheritance is held in common with other siblings.
cultivate most Men plant and own trees, though women can inherit them. Women
areas for the of the foodcrops on private and borrowed land and use the communal
portion of the collection of firewood. Men tend to farm cash crops and hold a larger
communal land private land. While men may collect firewood to sell, they mostly use the 296
aggregated the following statistics from their for grazing livestock?^ Donkerlo and Aboud
women in eighteen towns in Zanzibar research in which they surveyed issues of land for
(Nungwi was included):
96% of women farm annual crops 70% do not sell produce or very rarely 24% received a share of profit from jointly owned trees 70% farmed on borrowed land 86% have access to some private land as a joint inheritance (ukoo land) and 56% of this 86% elaborated that they held the land
1 7% have individually inherited land Mkangale where extensive 7% have bought their own land (occurred mostly in Pemba in land purchasing for cashcrop farming occurs) have purchased land) 7% hold documents on the land (most attained among those who 88% were involved in some economic activity
Since The majority of women in rural areas are involved in subsistence farming.
and thus, must the majority of women farm on borrowed land, few farm near their homes,
in walk one half to two hours to reach their plots. In addition, most women also engage
income earning economic activities including selling firewood, fishing (for octopus and
shoreline net fishing), and poultry raising. In addition to these mentioned by Donkerlo and
Aboud, seaweed cultivation has become an economic activity among women and is on the
earnings rise. While, women have no obligations to share possessions of inheritance or
with their husbands, traditional income earning activities for women provide them with
very low income. Seaweed farming has offered a change to the traditionally low economic
status of women. Our discussion of women in the community will first revolve around the
23. Janneke Donkerlo and Asha Aboud, "Women and Land in Zanzibar" (Zanzibar: Zanzibar Enterprise Development Organisation, March 1994), 18.
24. Ibid. 297
Paje to ascertain how this introduction experience of women in seaweed cultivation in
will broaden to consider briefly women's indeed offers change for women. Finally, it experiences in Nungwi and Fumba.
representatives of the A Besmirce Not Onite on the Land nor in the Sea. The
1980s as waged. In June 1989, seaweed company, Zascol, arrived in Paje in the late
intentions of providing employment Zascol organized farming within the company with no
laborers into Paje.^' The citizens of Paje to villagers, opting to import employees as wage
resistance, a few members of the Paje opposed this type of establishment in their town. In
town) and community purchased plants from farmers in Jambiani (a neighboring
failed and seaweed farming established small farms. The company's fanning experiments
small seaweed stopped a few months after initiation. However, by the end of 1989 the
based in the farms were ready for cultivation and Zascol's buyer (a multinational company
(a multi- United States) urged the company to buy the seaweed from the farmers. ZMC
provide the national company based in the United States) provided Zascol with loans to
supplies needed for cultivation to fanners and to purchase the first harvests.
however, Initially, more men than women became involved in seaweed cultivation,
it offered them women slowly began to farm seaweed and surpassed the number of men as
suggest that 45 a real source of income that was previously nonexistent. Zascol's records
percent of registered seaweed farmers are men, however, men comprise approximately
only 10% of active cultivators.^* According to a 1991 Zascol report, there were 720
25. This story is taken from "Mwani is Money": 24-25.
26. Ibid., 44. 298
of Paje) from which they seaweed farmers (or more than half the total population
of 1991." In 1992, Eklund and purchased a total of 8,321 tons of seaweed in November
way involved in seaweed Pettersson estimated that 90 per cent of adults were in some
the number of male farmers cultivation in Paje. Their research also suggested that by 1992
farms may stem from the division of was on the rise again. However, confusion over who
to maintain their plots; labor in cultivation. Male agricultural farmers often hire women
villagers supposedly have open this practice carries over to seaweed cultivation. While all
disappeared. Farms and free access to the cultivable area, cultivable space has virtually
about Who vary from a few strings to several hundred with the average consisting of 200.
owns the farms and who labors can also vary. Women in Paje explain that initially
everyone cultivated seaweed when first introduced. As time passed, men abandoned
seaweed cultivation because of the declining price of seaweed and its labor intensive
nature with relatively little pay.^* They sought alternatives like tree cutting for poles, but
women have no other alternatives.^' Indeed women are aware of the confines in which
they may pursue their desires, but nevertheless their intent is present. It is articulated and
acted upon within the means possible to them.
The market price is 100 Tsh per kilogram of dried seaweed. A seller can earn
about 20,000 Tsh (approximately $33), in a complete cultivation cycle but this is
27. Ibid., 26.
28. Group discussion with women in Paje, 1 1 October 1997.
29. Interview, Paje, 2 October 1997. 299
however, often is a different dependent on the size of the area cultivated.^" The seller,
a woman, can earn 6,000 Tsh person from the grower.^' The grower, who is most often
However, cultivators must (approximately $10) in one harvest from 100 pieces of rope.^^
harvest and drying which detracts from hire a porter to transport the seaweed both after
relation to the amount of labor and their earnings. Growers complain of low profits in
concerning money, the majority of time involved. Regardless of the adamant complaints
important source of income farmers reveal that seaweed cultivation constitutes the most
cultivators, "the price of seaweed is a for their household. In the words of some women
tend to problem, but most women own a cupboard from the profit of seaweed." Women
appliances/utensils or fiimishings use their profit to buy food and clothing for the family,
build schools, if there for the house, and as contributions to the development committee to
is surplus.
30. "Baseline Survey: Paje," 4. NGORC suggests (based on interviews) that the average income for a farmer (who the organization identifies as a woman) is 20,000 Tsh suggest it per harvest. I believe this statistic is suspect and thus why I more conservatively
is possible for a farmer to make 20,000 Tsh per one complete cycle which normally involves two harvests. Eklund and Pettersson calculated from data collected in 1991 (both on their own and from Zascol records) that the average monthly income for a farmer was l,700-3,300Tsh. (approximately US$7-14 at the 1991 exchange rate of 230Tsh to US$1) where the price for one kilogram of seaweed was 60Tsh ("Mwani is Money," 48).
distinction in their report. 3 1 . NGORC does not acknowledge this
32. "Baseline Survey: Paje," 4. The minimum monthly salary for a government employee for the same frame of time was 20,000 Tsh. However, this statistic is also questionable when compared to Eklund and Petterson's statistics. Based on NGORC's
statistics 100 ropes of cultivated seaweed produce about 60 kilograms of dried seaweed. However, based on Eklund and Pettersson's statistics 100 ropes can produced 41.6 kilograms during a profitable harvest. 300
families have been able to cover the With the introduction of seaweed cultivation
power had difficulties. However, the enabling costs of basic necessities, where before they
supplement to a pre-existing income. Households of seaweed cultivation is in the role as a
cultivators are asked why they speak cannot survive on seaweed cultivation alone. When
academic reports suggest seaweed of earning so little money when government and
profit is made at the ownership level. farming is profitable, they retort that the
problem regarding their health. Women cultivators complained of another serious
over time, more and more As women continue to farm seaweed and have been doing so
to leave some blind. women are complaining of eye problems which are beginning
hours in the water reflecting sunlight. Blindness is caused by the sun as women work long
they explain that no one While the women are aware of the solution—protective lenses—
purchasing glasses, they has corrected the problem. While they have begun to consider
is the lack of money. have not done so. Their reason for not buying the protective lenses
When women were asked by Eklund and Pettersson why they became involved in
seaweed cultivation, they stated the rate of inflation in terms of the rising price of
consumer goods along with the decline in income from agriculttire. Today, women can
earn more than their husbands as a consequence of their involvement in seaweed
cultivation. Yet, men generally do not understand the earning potential of their v^ves to
be a challenge to their positions as heads of household. In their view, as long as money
flows into the household, it does not matter "who brings it in."" Nevertheless, Eklund
and Pettersson believe the "traditional role" of women is in the process of a
33. "Mwani is Money," 52. 301
the ability of the woman to be able to transformation. For them, this translates into
a man without being dependent on his divorce her husband and also to choose to marry
read as it change the use of marriage— ability to support her and her children. But does
Eklund and Pettersson overlook this daughters-by families to acquire status and wealth?
they can demand a higher bridewealth as patriarchal constraint. However, families do not;
cultivation. a consequence of their daughter's work in seaweed
also comes a new means Along with the benefits and complaints of wage income
the most from the introduction of of social differentiation. Those who have benefitted
laborers) with large farms and seaweed are seaweed cultivators (who most often hire
reaping the benefits of an shopkeepers (who provide the supplies such as sticks, while also
groups are predominately male; increase in the purchasing of their commodities). Both
benefit from their profit. Eklund nevertheless it cannot be denied that their households
the earnings of men and Pettersson also neglect to consider that in Paje as a community
from the seaweed farms exceed the earnings of women, since most women earn wages
which men own.
cover the While seaweed cultivation may give women a means to earn income, to
it not give her cost of living with more ease, and to even acquire surplus cash, does
rights of citizens. enough money to buy land and thereby change the rights of wageni into
Paje are wenyeji In Paje, women remain waeeni as seaweed cultivators.^^ Most women in
private from other places. Even many of the women bom in Paje claim not to have any
of family land. On the whole, women understand the problems of land to be the problems
34. The majority of women live in Paje as a consequence of marriage. 302
the rise of disputes over land as an husbands and men to resolve. While women articulate
does reform. From their position owning land effect of money, they see no need for land
(though means to assert themselves as citizens not seem a possibility and yet they have a
of facilitating social projects which not defined as such) through their work in the form they choose.
one knew land had value. The Women suggest that before the selling of land no
in the near future there will be no land on selling of land is a perceived problem because
women in Paje in terms of their which to build. This problem was never articulated by
is not a possibility, but as a position as wageni because the buying and selling of land
cultivation echoes their problem of the patrilineal family. Though their role in seaweed
echo the demands placed on position on the land, this is not to suggest that they perfectly
remain silent on the them by male citizens, government agencies, and donors. While they
cultivation disrupt a issue of land, their perpetual cries about low wages from seaweed
else to do with previous silent role. While women may claim that "we don't know what
to create natural resources, because ideas are introduced to us ... we don't know how
ideas of our own," this perspective of their own lives is articulated with a laugh. What
they are acknowledging are the obligations in which they must act, whether or not, it
involves an appearance of submissiveness to the masculine figure—husband, father, or
donor. Intentions to affect changes in their economic status, however, generate their pleas
for assistance vdthin the confines articulated to them. Thus, they do not look to or depend
upon the land though they may express that they would like to own land through their 303
change of their economic status through identity proper. But they have pursued the seaweed cultivation despite its shortcomings.
in the various local government In Paje, women do not hold any head positions
the Natural Resource Committee, institutions. Men predominantly make up the sheWa,
Development Committee. The Natural the Environmental Committee, and the Village
twenty-one members which Resource Committee, for example, has four women out of
and women. Of course, represents the largest distribution of political power between men
government if one is not a citizen. Women it is difficult to hold a position within the local
land. In Paje, women's who are members were bom in Paje and have private (family)
Paje only one is a CBOs are also few. Of the ten community based organizations in
mirrors women's organization.^^ Women's relative low participation in local town affairs
their position as wageni and without inherited land.
articulations Gendered Coexistence Through Reanpropriatine Land Tenure . The
of women's issues in Nungwi and Fumba continue to highlight how land rights influence
the difference between choice and chance of actions. In comparison, women in Nungwi
and Fumba have more active roles in organizations than in Paje. In Fumba, there were
seven community based organizations by 1997, five of which were women's organizations.
Women suggest that if they make associations with men they will lose their rights. In
Nungwi, organizations on a whole are more prevalent which stems from a general
imderstanding that community based organizations facilitate development. Of the thirty-
35. This organization is strictly an economic association in which women collectively cuhivate timber trees for future sale. 304
women's organizations.'* However, only three community based organizations, eight are
Committee are women. Not a five of the eighteen members of the Natural Resource
Committee, despite that the water single woman sits on the Village Water Development
lives. Women's access to land shortage problem in Nungwi most directly affects women's
is a gendered economic activity (the is greater than in Paje, because in Nungwi agriculture
Like work of women). However, gender disparities also surface in the economic sector.
and in Paje, other economic activities have a gendered asymmetry within them. Men
suggest that women engage in seaweed cultivation and fishing. While some women
argue participation by both men and women is evidence of a more equitable tovm, others
fish in that it is necessary to look beyond this deceptive portrayal of the economy. Women
groups with silk nets along the shoreline in the shallow waters. Few fish are in these
waters and the fish that do swim into shallow waters are small in size. Women
consistently have minimal catches and have begun to quickly deplete their supply. Men on
the other hand fish in deeper waters using boats, hooks, and nets. As a woman active in
CBO activities stated, "Do you think because no division of labor along resource lines
exists that men and women are more equal? There is no equality though both fish.""
36. The majority of men and women in Msuka claim family land. Communal land does not exist in Msuka. From a 1997 survey of community based organizations, it was ascertained that eleven CBOS existed in Msuka. Of the eleven four were women's organizations. However, most of these organizations had dissolved by the end of 1997 as a consequence of political contention. This will be discussed in a subsequent section of this chapter.
37. Interview, Nungwi, 29 October 1997. 305
in Nungwi were also bom there. It is In contrast to Paje, most women residing
However, many owning family land in Nungwi than in Paje. more: common to find women
not possess private family land. Since land of the women who reside in their birthplace do
there is no first in the inheritance of land. As is scarce in Nungwi, women lose out
to borrow land. What is most communal land in Nungwi, it is common for women
general perception of women on land interesting to note is the difference between the
among men, provided it reform and that of men. An openness to land reforms surfaces
women there is involves the surveying of family land to establish clear boundaries. Among
rights. Women a tendency to claim that land reform is impossible because of inheritance
owners losing land. suggest that they fear land reform because it might result in original
While many women may not possess family land, their husbands do and this is whose land
they most often borrow.
In Nungwi, men rarely engage in agriculture as most are fishermen. Thus, women
their are responsible for most cultivation. This dependency on the land, whether through
own family-inherited land or their husbands, underlies both their land security and
insecurity. Women sustain their families through cultivation, yet land is becoming scarcer
and increasingly contested as soil degradation becomes an acute problem. Tourist
development intensifies land scarcity. As land gains value, many citizens sell their family
land. Women support the preservation of existing land tenure though it may favor male
inheritance because having land through men provides more security than no land at all.
Though research reports often argue that women suffer the greatest fi-om existing land
tenure practices, some women argue against land reform because they believe the 306
Though women might have to alternatives will generate more detrimental consequences.
assert and achieve their intentions. echo the structures preserved by men, they find ways to
birthplace of Fumba as their place As in Nungwi, many more women maintain their
predominantly asserted of residence. Of the women who can be considered wenyeji, it is
land. While the wageni women that they have inherited family land and use of communal
There is a have no private family land in Fumba, they have access to communal land.
land in Paje. difference between having communal land in Fumba and using communal
has user rights Even the communal land in Fumba is owned, meaning that every family over a defined plot in the communal lands. Thus, a woman, who is a mgeni through marriage, can claim a defined plot in the communal lands.
Their ties to the land carry over to politics. In Fumba, the diwani—an elected
local official—is a woman not bom in Fumba. She moved to Fumba through marriage. In a discussion with women over the issue of defining resource use and management, women as a collective agreed that both the sheha and the diwani should determine the natural
resource management system. It was stated, "[t]he local diwani has been elected by us
and we want her to do this for us. The sheha is put here by the government and this is his job." For the women in this group the sheha signifies the government which cannot be
circumvented in the definition process. The diwani signifies their own feminine voice participating through the government.
In a discussion with men, a different response was offered in regards to where the power to define should be located. Men suggested that all Fumbans should make
decisions over resource management because it is the people who use the resources. A 307
the government because of the past man in the discussion raised the need to involve
on their own. The men stated problem the town has had with resolving resource disputes
alone does it, it cannot do so the problem in the following way: "If the government
alone do it they cannot because effectively because they have much to do. If the people
Fumbans," they often are they have no power." However, when men speak of "all
women, men did not invoke referring to men (of Fumba). In contrast to the responses of
hand, the diwani (herself) claims that the people of the power of the diwani . On the other
she remained silent on Fumba are defining (and should) resource management. However,
a major concern a serious wenveii/wageni conflict festering in Fumba which constituted
subsection as it and struggle for women cultivating land. This will be discussed in the next reveals the complexities of the broader wenveii/wageni issue.
Women without land in their towns of residence—whether in Paje, Fumba, or
Nungwi—express that they would like to own land. Unequivocally, their own land signified a fi-eedom not experienced in its absence. Whether the land tenure is accepted or critiqued by women, they interpret land as critical to their lives because it is the place in which they can create property. Property may generate independence but freedom is an
entirely different matter. The achievement of property is an echoing of what the social
system demands: "feed your family!" The woman unavoidably submits "feed [your]
family," with the intention of feeding her products of her womb despite the inequalities [or constraints] in which she finds herself.
Women's intents to survive and sustain their families take them beyond
land—though desired—and the political power it guarantees. The freedom they can claim 308
into the trap of adequate replication of the is in their ability not to be completely dragged
look for their change outside the articulated development before them. Women in Paje
possess shoreline, not because Paje structure to the seaweed company whether or not they
global economy, but they have embraced capitalism and their handed-out role in the
cultivation of seaweed because in a constrained context that demands quick decisions, the
they have no was the most immediate activity to echo which would give returns. But
complete commitment to nor dependency on seaweed cultivation which capitalist modes
of production normally demand of their workers. The diversity of their economic
activities may imply unwelcomed hardship but it also carries their echo imperfectly.
Finally, the question remains, how do women unravel the very local political
structure as defined by their exclusion? In the case of Fumba, women did so in their
struggle over agricultural land. It is through the patrilineal line as inherited land that
children received their identity and which women serve to reproduce. The idea of the
citizen defined through land unraveled as women insisted on defining the boundary
between wenveii and wageni in the struggle over use of communal land. They demanded
political action to exclude the migrants (Wanvamwezi) fi-om the mainland who requested
use of the communal lands, despite their ovm status as wageni or wenveii . They
succeeded in excluding those who do not have land ties through blood in a system that can
exclude them for the very same reason. They could demand this because only they—as
wageni—can produce what is needed to perpetuate citizen claims to land—a bloodline.
However, for the very same reason, women will face another political challenge when land 309
once (sub)national interests are articulated as it taken by the (sub)national government more important than family ties to land.
Negotiating the Rights of Wageni and Wenveii
between women and the Wanyamwezi in Ugeni Problems on Land . The struggle
issue of wageni. The Fumba shifts the discussion at the same time to the second
temporary Wanvamwezi migrated from the mainland into the Fumba area to cultivate on a
the communal lands. basis. They received permission from the diwani to cultivate in
began to After settling in temporary huts built near their plots in the communal land, they
the cultivate seasonal crops by practicing shifting cultivation—a practice not acceptable to
people of Fumba.^* In the eyes of the Fumbans, the Wanvamwezi clear their bush
(communal land), cultivate, and leave the now barren land behind. The sheha had
approached the Wanvamwezi to discuss the problems of shifting cultivation and asked
them to discontinue the practice.^' Many of the Wanvamwezi disagreed and openly stated
to the sheha that they would continue shifting cultivation. The sheha warned that if they
did not discontinue its use then he would not be responsible for the consequences that the
Wanyamwezi might suffer.
38. At least not quite in the same way. Shifting cultivation is practiced in Fumba, however, not without rules. For example, one problem has been that in the process of
clearing the land the Wanyamwezi cut the large trees. In contrast, it is only acceptable by Fumbans to cut the smaller trees.
39. When interviewed the sheha claimed that there are no problems and conflicts in regards to land and resource use in Fumba. Interview, Fumba, 2 September 1997. 310
they agreed not to implement shifting From the perspective of the Wanvamwezi , if
more land for cultivation and would cultivation, then they would not be able to acquire
a sufficient track of land to cultivate, remain confined to a very small area. If they had had
discontinue shifting cultivation."" they probably would have agreed with the sheha to
problem he consulted the district office. When the sheha had no success in resolving the
the Economic Processing The District Office arranged for the Regional Commissioner,
with the sheha in resolving Zone Office (EPZ), and the Forestry Department to collaborate
government offices concluded that the the conflict with the Wanvamwezi . The various
Wanvamwezi should be granted three months to harvest their crops at which time they
ended, the must abandon the communal land in Fumba. When the three month period
overlapped with the Wanvamwezi had not left. However, this three month deadline
harvest harvest period for the vegetable crops. The Wanvamwezi wanted to complete the
cycle and infracted the government decision. The Fumbans had grown impatient.
A walk across the jagged white communal land, splotched with patches of
vegetation and stained red with the remains of rotting tomatoes, visually tells the story of
this conflict as it ends abruptly on scorched earth where huts once stood. With the
acquiescence of the Regional Commissioner, some Fumbans set aflame the houses and
gardens of the Wanvamwezi .
A dissenting Fumban relayed the issue of the Wanvamwezi in a different way than
most Fumbans. He suggested that the people of Fumba knew the Wanvamwezi were
entering the area in order to cultivate and nothing was said until they began harvesting
40. Interview, Fumba, 1 September 1997. 311
sympathetic voice about what had their tomatoes/' He was the first to speak in a
that the I told him that the diwani warned happened to the Wanvamwezi . When
they would not dare and Wanvamwezi would throw rocks at intruders, he responded that
be made when the sheha offered to expedite a visit. The man insisted that the trip must
the town proper in the travelled out of town. The Wanvamwezi stayed a distance from
earth severing patches of communal land. The jagged white coral rag jutted out of the
under a sprawling tree, rose fertile soil into small oddly shaped gardens. A man, squatting
and pointed to where to greet the man with a friendly hand. He talked of the burning huts
Fifteen huts, he had set up camp. Now he lived under the tree for shelter from the rain.
reminder. burnt to the ground, leaving behind charred bits of woods and grey ashes as a A
man, single hut was spared because it housed a sick child. According to the Nyamwezi
many who was the very first to come to Fumba, the Fumbans became concerned because
began coming into Fumba and they feared their bush would be completely cleared. If so
many Wanvamwezi hadn't come into the area the problem would never have surfaced. A
Fumban citizen echoed his sentiment when discussing land, "it is difficult to buy land in
Fumba if you are not from Fumba. Fumba people do not like to sell land to strangers.'"*^
The Wanvamwezi had no choice but to leave as strangers, yet they had no place to
go. This violent conflict highlights the importance of defining who belongs to the
community and who does not in terms of land and property rights. Land is what defines
one as a citizen in Fumba. Only the citizens have the right to decide who can possess or
41. Interview, Fumba, 1 September 1997.
42. Interview, Fumba, 19 August 1997. 316
presents the major weakness of The report reaffirmed that the lack of enforcement
Environmental Committee and the efforts to manage resources around Fumba. The
resources: Department of Environment assumed the actual work of conserving sea
underlying this part of the creating rules and monitoring sea activities." The enthusiasm
the equation. The project slowly dissipated as enforcement remains absent from
between a local Environmental Committee has an ambiguous identity laying somewhere government committee or agency and a community based organization.
Kojani The problem with the fishermen from Kojani endured. The fisherman from
necessary, to would come into the area armed with knives and stones prepared to fight, if protect their claimed rights to fish in the area. The government institutional efforts initiated have had no results, according to the people in Fumba. According to fishermen, although the Department of Environment installed a two way radio system so that Fumba could inform the department when the Pembans enter the area, the Fisheries Department
(in charge of enforcement) does not come when contacted. People of Fumba believe the department has an interest in permitting the Pembans to fish around Fumba. It is also believed that members of the Fisheries Department ovm the boats and hire them out to the
Pemban fishermen ftirther complicating matters.
A CBO in Fumba, with the consent of the Environmental Committee, in the past
used its boat to patrol the area and search for illegal fishermen both from Dar es Salaam using dynamite and Pembans. However, the boat provided by WWF was taken to
Kizimkazi by order of the Fisheries Department. The conservation project was extended
52. Ibid. 317
Fumba (the illegal fishermen must pass the to Kizimkazi but the problems begin around
The two-way radio system was taken Fumba peninsula before traveling onto Kizimkazi).
combat illegal fishing practices. to Bweleo, leaving Fumba without the tools to
efficient techniques of fishing to meet Illegal methods such as koiani and juya offer
the fishermen from coming demands and increase profits. The only thing that can prevent
had become discouraged because into this area is patrolling and enforcement. Fumbans
nothing is done. when fishermen are caught and handed over to the proper authorities
not serious about From their perspective, the relevant government agencies are
that if Fumba had this enforcement. A member of the Environmental Committee suggests
authority the fishermen would stop coming into the area."
The Environmental Committee has petitioned the Department of Fisheries to give
the committee power to make arrests and file court cases. The response continuously
decision has been given is that the issue has been taken to the Attorney General and no
made yet. Bribery constitutes another major impediment which has frustrated the
initiatives of Fumbans. The problem with government mediation is that one government
institution encourages the problem as another attempts to mediate it. In this case there is
a consensus that the problem is the Department of Fisheries.
Fumban fishermen finally decided to handle this problem for themselves. When the
Pemban fishermen came the Fumbans cut their nets and broke their poles. From the
perspective of the fishermen from Fumba, the sea is an extension of the land. There are
areas in the sea to which they have "ownership" rights as Fumbans. To these fishermen.
53. Interview, Fumba, 1 September 1997. 318
because their labor guarantees the the fish and other resources are their property
Pemban fishermen took the Fumbans to conditions for the sea resources to replenish. The
fishermen, ordering the Fumbans to pay a court and the court ruled in favor of the Pemban
The court based its decision on fine of 500,000 Tsh and replace the fishing equipment.
belonged to the Pembans. In property damage. The Fumbans damaged equipment that
not done damage to the contrast no one owns the sea resources, thus Pembans have
the area around Fumba property of anyone. The Pemban fishermen continue to travel into
to fish.
Disputes over sea resources also provoke concerted efforts to define the
margins. boundaries and rights of a town citizenry from those neighboring town on the
The fishermen of Paje have engaged in such a dispute with the fishermen of Jambiani--a
the right town to the south of Paje. The contention centers around which fishermen have
to fish in the deep water fishing reserve off the coast where the two towns sit. Razak
Musa offers the following history of the dispute:
thirty-five years ago an incident occurred between people of Paje and Jambiani. People from Jambiani travelled to Paje to fish and the people of Paje attacked with weapons. They appropriated the fish caught to their own market. On the verge of bloodshed, an elder intervened and resolved the issue. Kilindi area--a reserve in the sea--is for the people of Paje, but the influential people residing in Jambiani have gained access to it for the people in their village. KiHndi was claimed by Paje. The area is used for
social affairs (uganga or spiritual belief ceremonies). Money used from fishing in Kilindi area support these activities.^''
54. Interview with Razak Musa, Paje, 8 November 1997. Though in retirement, Razak
Musa is an advisor to the president. He has served in the government since the Revolutionary Government was formed in 1964. 319
fishermen of dispute it is suggested that the However, in another account of the fishing
where only fishermen fi-om Jambiani Jambiani have reserved a place in the sea for fishing
arises. travel in the area to fish the problem are permitted. When fishermen from Paje
reserve, but only when the fish Jambiani fishermen can invite others to come in this
to Kizimkazi and Makunduchi to fish using population is high. "Fishermen from Paje go
fish around Paje."" illegal fishing methods because there are no more
others may fish in the The government attempted to resolve this issue. By law
prohibits other from fishing in the reserve. area, but Jambiani invokes traditional law which
who want to fish The Department of Fisheries finally created a regulation requiring those
that the dispute has been in the area to notify the government. Some villagers suggest
the problem continues resolved pointing to the intervention of the government. However,
prohibited for all, to arise and always the resolution reached is that fishing in the area is
by the whether from Paje or Jambiani. Even despite the complete ban of fishing, declared
government, minor disputes persist which reveal the disregard of the government ban. In
Paje and an attempt to assert who has rights over the fishing area, fishermen from
Jambiani tore each other's nets, each claiming the culprit was the other. This matter was
resolved by the ex-Chief Minister who purchased new nets for both sides. Despite
the government efforts to define citizen rights, citizen resistance and claims endure which
government must console. What is interesting to note in this case is that both the
fisherman of Paje and Jambiani are so self-assured in their narcissistic claims to the sea
that they are prepared to destroy the object that actually defines their existence by
55. Interview, Paje, 11 September 1997. 320
depletion-an acknowledged problem by the continuing to fish to the point of risking
citizens. fishermen—in an effort to stand their ground as
struggles over land (and sea) and their The Limitations of Property Rights . Such
complex. From the perspective of a resources illustrate the precarious property/citizen
destroy the property of others because group of men in Fumba, citizens of Fumba did not
they did to their land and resources. of their identity, rather because of the damage
citizenship as rights to land/sea and Therefore, they were justified.'' Communities define
labor practice) of land and property property, and as the right to define access and use (or
being gives them these rights. because of the tie to the land through blood. Their very
these rights (or the The ideas which define the citizen also undermine the citizen. When
to counter it. This identity of citizen) are challenged the very same rights are invoked
authority- invocation must occur in the presence of a witness in the form of a mediating
citizen as self-evident. even in their own territory—which chisels away at the meaning of
means. The community must seek to confirm through another authority what citizenship
the very basis Such efforts to finalize or fix citizenship through property are frustrated by
of property from another position.
Though land may define the citizen as citizen, neither land nor property
consistently provide security and thus never completely stabilize the meaning of citizen.
On the one hand, the very definition of citizen permitted the Fumbans to violently act out
concept of property which define citizen, against the Wanvamwezi . On the other hand the
undermined the citizen in the sea conflicts. Both in Fumba and Paje the idea of property
56. Group discussion with men, Fumba, 20 August 1997. 321
The their ability to use their property rights. as their identity as citizens robbed them of
self-evident nor reducible. It is contingent idea of property as the product of labor is not
the hegemonic complex. on the changes in the defining position of the citizen in
Territoriality on National Property
land (at least for the The colonial administration defined property to include
In doing this, the colonial subject-citizens which were the loyal subjects of the Sultan).
guarantee the administration sought to establish secure priyate property rights to
colonial maintenance of the cloye economy. Like Chatterjee reveals in India, the
colony, though administration could not grant citizenship but only subjecthood to all in the
liberty as by then, the modem understanding of citizenship as necessary to protect
property reigned supreme in the colonizing country (i.e. England)." As groups rioted
within the colonial constructions of associations to demand citizenship (as representation
in the goyemment), the colonial administration granted some citizenship while others
remained subjects. The rise of anticolonial nationalism ruptured colonialism in two ways,
if interpreted from the epic accounts. First, it occurred through the citizen, based on
territoriality as kinship, by using the idea (or identity) of generations of intermarriage
which have created a Zanzibari kin. Second, national rose through the citizen, based on
generations of ex-slaves and immigrant territoriality as mgeni , by using the idea of
mainlanders (over the ages) which have created a Zanzibari kin. The former disrupts
57. Mamdani makes this argument in regards to colonies in AfHca, highlighting that
customary law facilitated the divide between citizen and subject. See Citizen and Subject . 322
of property through the invocation of blood, citizen, as a political identity with the security
the liberty of property as land security. The in the face of colonial efforts to establish
territorial identity by demanding land as a latter ruptures citizen, as a politically secure
roots in the Zanzibar soil. liberty and right of the waeeni who have sprouted
the citizen through land, While the postcolonial state attempted to radically reform
property in the form of land such efforts met resistance when the abolition of private
property had not nationalization and distribution occurred because land as private
the rural citizens through informed past territoriality. The postcolonial state oppressed
the Afro- implementing the reforms based on a new political community—allegiance to
effective in coral Shirazi Party read as a national identity. Land nationalization was not
status rag areas because customary law endured.'^ Land is held in these areas for social
and people have resisted the radical transformation which land nationalization would
bring." Much of the land granted or claimed by expropriation in the coral rag (as a resuh
of land nationalization) is held by CCM party members.
From 1985 up to the present, the postcolonial state has resorted to conventional
modem forms (as new colonial forms) of citizen and property with the implementation of
economic liberalization measures. The land issue parallels this change as it slowly is
incorporated through the revision of land and economic policy with one important
exception. The government determined that land alone still does not have value despite
58. Customary not in the colonial form as Mamdani discusses, but customary of rural tovras.
59. Interview with Ali Khalil, Director, Department of Land, COLE, Zanzibar, 19 March, 1998. 323
value of land was once perceived to have no the affects of liberalization. However, where
despite value by strangers and citizens alike, and its own, it has been infused with
attempt to define citizen (making government attempts to insist otherwise. As towns
terrain of (sub)nation defined at inclusions/exclusions), they are located within a larger
over land and property independence in which the state plays a role. Contestations
and the problem of the national illustrate both how local citizen land disputes arise
entangled. citizen/town citizen dichotomy in which state institutions become
to begin consideration of land Dali's poem again offers a vivid picture from which
leans down to the obscure mirror struggle. "When the clear and divine body of Narcissus
frozen, in the silvered and of the lake, when his white torso folded forward fixes itself,
flowers of the sand of hypnotic curve of this desire, when the time passes on the clock of
loses itself in the abyss of this his own flesh The body of Narcissus flows out and
is the attempt to be reflection, like the sand glass that will not be turned again." Narcissus
because it produces a clearly defined material based identity. The lake or womb is obscure
does differences. Though Narcissus sees himself in the product of the womb, the womb
not create an exact image.*"
Those who attempt to uphold rigidly defined customs as self-knowledge become
other swept up in challenges and struggles by not only subsequent generations but by
differences produced by the womb—that is, the feminine challenge. Such social norms
and identities undergo change which renders the idea of a fixed past an illusion. The
60. This is how the feminine could be appropriated to define a nation by politicians and historians alike as she was intermarried producing mixed children and political allegiances in blood. 324
constraints, illusions, and change. forgotten Echo alludes to the unavoidability of
of these induce complete destruction However, for Echo—in contrast to Narcissus-none
manipulation, nor inability to struggle of customs, the impossibility of re-interpretation and
of the effort to be self-defined, self- and endure. Narcissus signifies that the impossibility
desired and pursued. Echo offers the satisfied and therefore self-preserved though it is
via the illusion of compliance. possibility of disrupting this chain of events as enduring
Incomplete National Change for Complicated Local Land
land struggles Despite the understanding of territoriality in each of the four towns,
is not only contested ensue at a proliferating rate in all of them. Land and resource use
citizens often between citizens and strangers but also between citizens. Struggles between
have a role for the stranger and/or the central government. Common disputes between
citizens include contending understandings of boundaries, ownership of trees, and
unauthorized sales of land.
The Conmiission for Land and Environment holds the government role in issues of
land. Because COLE issues land titles, it is involved in negotiations with the community
in regards to compensation for land, surveying, and the writing of leases. The
Commission assesses land into six classifications: direct grant, inheritance, direct purchase,
gift, lease, and customary tenure. Though COLE has the central role in resolving land
disputes, people involve the Commission in citizen disputes as a last resort. The typical
procedure for settling land conflicts unfolds first within the family or between families (at
the ward level). If they are unable to settle their differences, the sheha is approached to 325
mediate an agreement between the mediate the dispute. When the sheha fails to
district office, then on to the regional contending parties, he passes the matter on to the office, and up to COLE if necessary.
interesting way because the people Conflicts over land in Paje have unfolded in an
land in the town.*' People began to sell of Paje were the first to begin selling their own
mediation, not only out of recognition that their land cheaply and often without COLE
would confiscate it to redistribute land has value but also out of fear that the government
land transfers, people only receive for sale or lease. In the government process of
government stands to gain compensation equivalent to their trees on the land. The
claim land has no value, to tremendously in this transaction because though they may
The government insidiously appeases those who buy or lease it, land indeed has value.
adamantly it claims otherwise. this sense of value, thereby valuing land no matter how
malleable as the government might People in the coral rag towns are not as passive nor
valueless land and minuscule want to believe. Increasingly, people resist the notion of
allocate land." The compensation for trees which frustrates the policies of COLE to
the communities themselves and resistant acts of people also complicate relations within
generate new land struggles.
applies to foreign The law that no one can buy land, but rather the resources,
the government (COLE) investors. For foreign investors the process begins by contacting
shareholder must to negotiate the purchase. Two conditions must be followed. First, one
61. Interview with Ali Khalil, Zanzibar, 23 June 1997.
62. Ibid. 326
the development committee in be Zanzibari. Second, the investor must pay a 10% tax to
According to one citizen in the village." This can initially appear lucrative for the town.
says to find investors to Paje, "[b]efore, nobody knew about the land, but the government
over land."*^ make guesthouses, and now people realize the value of land and struggle
monetary value, several In Paje, now that people have begun to realize land has
problem. If someone types of disputes arise over land. Boundaries present a common
for the potential buyer in wants to sell land s/he might shift the boundaries of the land
seller has claimed— order to acquire more money." Once the owner whose land the by
appear to contest the purchase. crossing a boundary—is aware of this transaction, he will
also often Boundary disputes of this sort did not exist in the past. The reverse now
happens. Someone may want to build on or sell his/her family land, respecting the actual
claim the defined boundaries, but because compensation for land occurs a neighbor may
argue for a seller (or builder) has crossed a boundary onto his/her land. Families even
place to build a house.
Another common dispute that arises involves a more expansive claim over an
that entire piece of land once the "owner" sells it. In these cases an individual will contend
the piece of land sold actually belongs to him, thus the "pseudo owner" has no right to sell
the land. He will seek the assistance of the sheha in resolving the dispute. In some
instances people who do not have claims to a piece of land try to sell it. In other cases an
63. Interview, Paje, 25 September 1997.
64. Interview, Paje, 25 September 1997.
65. Interview, Paje, 25 September 1997. 327
attempts to make claims to the individual sells land to which he has claims and another land. The possibilities of perspectives are limitless.
family land of the manager For example, the seaweed company in Paje sits on the
onto a neighbor's land. The manager of the company. The builder crossed over six meters
however, once the neighboring believes that the whole parcel of land belongs to his family;
land, he came forth with his man knew of the possibilities of receiving compensation for
it higher government land claim. The sheha resolved this matter but had to direct to a
all land is government level. According to the manager, since the government believes
had no trees, land the government would only compensate for permanent trees. The man
thus he received nothing.
ago local boundaries did not In Paje it is commonly understood that generations
boundaries, marking exist. Paje looked like a forest. Their ancestors came and established
arose. trouble off their land. As more people began to plant coconut trees, disputes Now
created a arises in the attempt to identify who owns land. Years of tree-planting have
town densely scattered with coconut trees which generates problems when people want to
build houses.*^ Farmers do not have these problems because people know their
boundaries in the farming area. It is building that is the biggest problem. The descendants
of those who created the boundaries can only use the land their parents claimed. No one
can simply come to Paje and build a house without informing the owner. However, a
problem persists within extended families (ukoo and wards) over ancestry lands. A man,
66. Interview with Mohammed Mzale, Secretary of the Shehia . Paje, 1 1 September 1997. 328
and younger members of whose profession was construction, explained, "[tlhe new
pieces of land belong to their family. families confront one another claiming particular
boundaries because they were These younger generations are uncertain, though, of their
must be open-hearted and agree not present when the boundaries were drawn. One side
oftentimes the sheha must become that the other family can have the land. However,
involved and people even go to court.""
be able to resolve the While the sheha or the district court may for the most part
permit others to use their numerous land disputes, people are becoming more hesitant to
inherited land (family land) and people land. The secretary of the shehia asserted, "I have
anyone to use the land to must seek permission to use this land. But I now do not allow
leases) and if someone uses avoid problems. Problems arise because nothing is written (no
s/he doesn't have any land. the land then s/he might decide now it is his/her land because
of their land for To avoid this people have stopped permitting other people use
very understanding of cultivation." This change is significant because it strikes at the
without seeking citizen and property. Where once citizens could use any of the town land
permission permission (because permission was understood), citizens hesitate and reftise
attached to it, nor an to use land. No longer does a piece of land inherently have a citizen
understood openness to the citizenry.
As stated above, people attempt to build houses on land that does not belong to
them, or people perceive others as building houses on land that does not belong to them.
this In this possibility a person must cut down coconut trees to build a house. When
67. Interview, Paje, 25 September 1997. 329
as his/her property which also occurs the owner of the trees will appear and claim them
one man's experience with marks the land as a possession. The following account of
of property: purchasing land and having his own claimed illustrates the confusion
owner can sell the A man can plant a tree on land which is not his, but the questioning why the land with the trees. Thus the planter will complain, approaches a land owner sold this land with his trees on it. If someone wants to purchase owner and asks to use land to build, but later if someone investment on the land, the owner will not consider that you have also an s/he is not this land. The builder will not agree to this sale because compensated. Someone came and tried to take my place. We went to another piece of court over the land. I was given back my land. I bought land. I just land to build a house and someone else also purchased this
I asked the owner of forgave the person who bought it. I have a house and owner agreed but then the land on which it sits if I could buy the land. The another person came with the same request and the owner also agreed that
he could buy it.**
land In a group discussion, women of Paje suggested that disputes arise because
implications of this new found now is money. Before no one knew the value of land. The
knowledge include fights over boundaries and building. According to this group of
cemeteries women, in the future a problem will arise over where to build houses and place
as land disappears.
Most people in Paje attribute the arrival of tourism in Zanzibar to the emergence of
the realization of the value of land. In the eyes of an advisor to the president: "[tjourist
investors bought land. Now I would like to buy land. People who sell land should not
only think about receiving capital but should lease land and get a percentage of profits
from the use of that land, rather than a one time purchase. Land reform is needed. The
68. Interview, Paje, 2 October, 1997. 330
the government has made is the government still owns the land and the biggest mistake
Nevertheless, individual citizens in Paje selling of land. It is better for owners to lease.'"'
understanding of eagerly pursue chances to sell land and in doing so they frustrate their
citizen conveys, "[a] citizenship as a sealed relationship between blood and family. As one
wanted to man approached our family to buy land to build a guest house. Two members
it. Once we discovered sell the land while the others including me did not, yet they sold
lies empty and the court case this, I went to court to stop the transaction. Now the land remains to be resolved. The problem was the lack of full participation of the family."™
And yet, a popular sentiment circulates that no need for reform exists.
There are those citizens who suggest that if contracts existed the confusion over land and property ownership would cease. COLE continues to stress this idea of land registration. However, in this attempt there is a built-in discrimination which upholds such confusion and affects women in particular. According to new land legislation, land less than 3/4 hectare will not be registered. However, in the case of inheritance, the plots of women become quite small as they receive either 1/2 the brother's share or 1/8 of the son's share in the case of a deceased husband. Thus, even where knowledge exists of the power of land registration, a large proportion of the population is denied the possibility of such protection. The most revealing comment about the state of affairs in Paje is that, "[a]ll
69. Interview with Razak Musa, Paje, 8 November 1997.
70. Interview, Paje, 24 September 1997. 331
people can plant permanent trees people of Bwejuu, Paje, and Jambiani have agreed that
on the coast. It depends on how quick you are..."''
(perfectly) land Nungwi faces similar problems of land conflicts. Echoing
of the past owned land (and) complexity in Paje, one Nungwi citizen explains, "[a]ncestors
children, and the children don't could invite friends to use their land. But once they had
of the absence of leases know exactly who actually owned the land, disputes arose because
disagreement over how land to articulate ownership."" There is a general and perpetual
want to should be used, particularly between farmers and pastoralists. People in Nungwi
hold use the same land in the fanning area; because of this, they clash. Often those who
of one land fight over the same land because of confusion over boundaries. In the words
land citizen, "There are a lot of people in a small area, thus if people attempt to use
without permission misunderstandings will arise." However, more serious disputes have
emerged. As one citizen elaborates, "[t]here are land disputes because land was divided
among families of generations past. Disputes occur between new generations because
land has become wealth. In Nungwi a very small parcel can acquire four million shillings
(approximately US$5,000). People now have this awareness of land value. If someone
cultivates on another's land it can be interpreted as snatching wealth from the possessor
because an expectation lingers that one day someone will come wanting to purchase that
land." Although, like in Paje, it is affirmed that people only receive compensation for what
is on the land through the government, when foreigners arrive on their own to buy land,
71. Interview with Razak Musa, Paje, 8 November 1997.
72. Interview, Nungwi, 29 October 1997. 332
not want to sell land but do to avoid people sell because money is involved. Owners may
in turn leases (or sells) the land. having it confiscated by the government which
through the town of The idea that people are controlled by money resonates
"People fight Nungwi. Again another citizen offers an explanation of how disputes arise,
the possibility over the land along the coast because they know the value of land now and
of receiving money. For example, now within the village it might happen that someone
planted coconut trees on a piece of land and someone else also planted trees among the
other planter's trees. When a prospective buyer proposes to buy the piece of land
sustaining the coconut trees, both planters will claim to have rights to this land."
The previous sheha foresaw what would soon happen and ceased the selling of
land as people began selling land. However, not before he also became entangled in land
selling. He was forced to resign because of an agreement he made with the government
for a large development project on Nungwi land. The new sheha with the shehia created a
written regulation prohibiting the selling of land.
When someone does succeed in initiating the process of selling land to investors
problems arise since no clear boundaries have been recorded. Fighting within families
presents an enduring issue to resolve. Such disputes arise usually when a family member
sells a parcel of land, or the products of the land, without sharing the profits or consulting
with the other family members. In response to such complications, both wageni and
citizen express a need for land reform. In the view of a South African hotelier, who
established a guest house and scuba diving company in Nungwi, "land tenure is a real
problem and [Zanzibar] will never have major investment here because of this problem. I 333
II 73 because the government has no money. pay inspectors to come and inspect the premises
need of reform because people own land In the view of one citizen in Nungwi, "[tlhere is a
and classify all land, everyone but do not hold leases. If the government would assess
However, would know who owns which parcel of land, putting a halt to the disputes."'"
perceived universally through Nungwi. the issue of land disputes and land reform is not
enough to Many suggest land disputes do not occur in Nungwi, at least not seriously
the use of fences and articulate them as a problem: "Land is not a big issue because of
over people know boundaries here, in contrast to Paje where people fight excessively
is. These are internal boundaries."''' Another citizen suggested, "[l]et us leave land as it
people issues to be dealt with in the village. They are family problems."'^ While some
land tenure may not want to understand land as a problem, others articulate the present
inheritance," system with its disputes in fatalistic terms. "Reform is impossible because of
one Nungwi woman claimed. Others suggest that land reform will be difficult and not
possible to implement fairly." The claim that fair reform is not possible intimates a fear
that families will lose their land in a system that does not provide evidence of land holdings
in the form of written documentation.
73. Interview, Nungwi, 14 October 1997.
74. Interview, Nungwi, 22 October 1997.
75. Interview, Nungwi, 22 October 1997.
76. Interview, Nungwi, 23 October 1997.
77. Interview, Nungwi, 28 October 1997. 334
and differing Land disputes in Paje and Nungwi are intricate. Overlapping
understandings do understandings of land can compatibly exist when the objects of such
conflict emerges; however not constitute subjects of struggle. The moment the two meld,
understandings. That this does not preclude the possibilities of the coexistence of land towns understand land as their families' land, that this land gives them their identity as
understands town citizens, along with the right to govern their lives, while the government
guardian is a case in all land as national land over which the government serves as the point. The government often does not want to get involved in land disputes within a town because they are perceived as family matters. When tovm citizens call upon the
government to settle such disputes, officials reluctantly enter the role of mediator.
However, the government eagerly enters the sticky web of land conftision when—as the — townspeople claim "money is in control."
While people attempt to preserve their identity as tovm citizens they are often
confronted with the difficult choice of whether or not to invoke a different citizen identity
and power to preserve the very thing which gave them their status as town citizen.
Neither the status of town citizen nor national citizen guarantees them the ability to
preserve the citizen/property link since such struggles are located on complex contested
terrain. On such terrain the government itself can be understood to move between the
identities of contestant, ally, and traitor. What is citizen and what is property begins to unravel from within the very notions themselves because rights to property undermine a
citizen's claim to land which defines the citizen. What remains is the use of citizen and
property to further define what is citizen and property. 335
government involvement but In the high-stake context, people not only solicit
wenyeji to legitimize their claims. employ strategies that can undermine the very notion of
very premises in the definition of However, once the gesture is made which challenges the
notion of citizen perpetually remains citizen, the possibility to struggle against an existing
use of land (which is their open. For example, once a citizen family is challenged on their
to the challenges of a redefined right) by another family, the contending family opens itself
the government as an ally, citizen. While citizens may realize the importance of having
deployed it echoes each citizen realizes this in the struggle over land. Each time citizen is
differently.
Coexisting Land Understandings as Competin g Narcissisms
The complicated issue of land—on which Msuka only sits at the
margins—intricately illustrates contesting attempts to define property both up against and
as national territoriality. The conflicts around this land also highlight the role of written
documentation of land ownership. The land comprising Msuka, Verani, Makangale, Ngezi
Forest Reserve, and Vumawimbi has a long contested history. According to Middleton,
most of the land outside the town of Verani (a neighboring town but on the other side of
Ngezi forest) has been sold to individuals, most of them from Msuka, who are absentee
landlords (as people of Verani emigrated from their town to the more profitable cloves
areas after the abolition of slavery).^* Virtually all the communal land of Verani is owned
78. This occurred by the late 1950's as this is when Middleton conducted his land survey. 336
The land (other than the by families of Msuka who use it for grazing their cattle.
owners rent it or permit squatters to communal land) is not used for cultivation, rather the
(mostly Wanvamwezi, Makonde, and Kikuyu). use it, who mostly come from the mainland
landlords" who permit The area is thickly planted with coconut palms by "Msuka
do not cultivation provided they keep the area under the trees clean and weeded. They
frond, permit the building of permanent structures (i.e. stone), only temporary (i.e. palm mud). Middleton asserts that the Mainlanders are subject to discrimination as descendants of squatters are often reftised continued use of land. They are not understood as "ftill members" or citizens as are Arabs and Shirazi.''
The most serious dispute now engulfing Msuka centers around land to the northwest of Msuka which comprises a strip of coastal land referred to as Vumawimbi.
People of Msuka relay that the origins of the land dispute emerged during Portuguese
intrusion. The people of Makangale were harassed by the Portuguese and even had
children stolen. They decided to migrate to the Msuka area. People from Chake Chake
and Micheweni migrated later into Makangale for agricultural production.*" According to
some accounts, these migrants met with the elders in Makangale and sought permission to
enter the area for agricultural purposes for an agreed upon period. However, when the
period of agreement ended, the migrants did not vacate the land. The government avoided
involvement in the potential conflict. The Msuka people, who claim to be owners of the
79. Land Tenure in Zanzibar . 67.
80. The heaviest migration was in the 1970's as a consequence of serious food shortages. This area is particularly fertile and has been an important food production area. 337
this occupation, despite that land, assert that they have no rights nor recourse to dispute
claim that the migrants sold the many owners have leases. This group of Msuka owners
the land to lease to investors. land to the government when it entered the area to purchase
sold the land to People in Msuka affected by this purchase have taken the people who
the investors not court. The people who sold the land have received compensation from
rather the government. The people of Msuka have no hope of having the land returned,
they seek compensation.
In the view of the Commission of Natural Resources, the whole of Mkangale area
is ovmed by people of Msuka and owners have a path of recourse.*' They may file a
dispute with COLE. If COLE is unable to settle the dispute the case may go to court, in
the form of a case against COLE by the owners. Of the cases which have gone to court
no resolutions have been reached. Up to the present, many people in Msuka claim to have
land in the Makangale area, particularly around Vumawimbi. However, those who
migrated to Makangale claim the land. The head of the Commission for Natural
Resources explains that the whole area of Ngezi was gazetted as a forest reserve in 1968.
When a management plan was designed in 1996, the participants saw no reason to include
the whole of the Vumawimbi area, so in the process it was degazetted. It was decided
that the area near the shore would be free for tourism development and for local use.
According to institutions such as the Commission of Natural Resources and
COLE, if the Msuka people can prove this is their land, then they will be compensated.
81 . The view of the Commission of Natural Resources has relevance because the forest
reserve in this area falls under its jurisdiction. Thus, CNR has more direct dealings with this area than COLE. 338
can only be compensated for the Because all land is government land, however, they
ownership by past resources. Some people of Msuka have old titles which document
holders the government does generations within the family. However, in eyes of the title
provide evidence to resolve not understand the claims and the documents do not seem to
the dispute.
Three investors COLE zoned this stretch of coastline for tourist development.
government have proposed hotel projects and COLE leased land for the projects. The
compensated people of Makangale, but people of Msuka claim that land belongs to them
and they should receive compensation. From the perspective of COLE officials, the land
in dispute is indeed a complicated issue. COLE has acknowledged that people in Msuka
have objected to the government survey of the land in the Makangale and Vumawdmbi
areas, claiming land belongs to them.
One particular "owner" holds a document written in Arabic demarcating land
boundaries which COLE had translated the first time the case was brought against the
Commission. Thedocumentheldby members of Msuka dates back to 1318.*^ It
describes the boundaries demarcating them in terms of north, south, east, and west. It
states that the western border is shared or marked by land of another. However,
according to the deputy secretary of COLE, the land in dispute in this court case is
bounded on the west by the seashore. Thus, the land in dispute by the people of Msuka is
not even the same land they claim they own based on the document. In addition, despite
the documentation of ancestral ownership dating to 1318, the people on the land now
82. The titles are in Arabic. 339
consequence of migration or have have either been on it for over one-hundred years as a
poHcy. been given parcels by the government as a consequence of the three acre
of the Another dispute around the Vumawimbi coast compUcates understandings
local dispute of ancestral ownership. An investor from Unguja purchased land from
land people in the same area under dispute. The government had already surveyed this
permanent trees marking and decided it belonged to no one because it had laid idle with no
ownership on it. The government distributed the land to a number of people. The
Zanzibari filed a court case against COLE because his purchase is not recognized by the
Commission. An injunction was placed on the land in 1997 by the magistrate's court
(regional level) but COLE contested the injunction and it was lifted. The Zanzibari resorted to supporting the court case filed by the people of Msuka, probably with the hopes of finding an ally in them which will eventually lead to acquisition of the land for him. He had initially purchased the land from villagers but outside the formal system. In the opinion of the Deputy Secretary, such land disputes will not be sorted out any time soon. His speculation, made in 1997, has proven correct. Almost two years later, the issues over the Vumawimbi remain in dispute in the courts.
The complicated dispute over land for Msuka citizens highlights the issue of the written document as a sign of attachment. In previous conflicts over land in Paje and
Nungwi it was often suggested that land reform did not constitute a possible and just solution to land problems because of inheritance and lack of past documentation. On the other hand, many suggested an urgent need for land reform in the form of documentation
to easily resolve disputes in the context of land attaining value. In either case, the stress 340
claims, where in the past on documentation implicates its importance in legitimizing land
Nevertheless, in Msuka such written titles seemed less than significant forms of evidence.
families have documentation of the land from centuries ago to which they are entitled.
Once people began to sell land in Makangale, Msuka families, knowing the importance of
documentation in the system of law, provided written titles which imprint their family
names on parcels of land. Their success in claiming land through written documentation
remains uncertain in a system where documentation has been emphasized as the necessary
evidence for resolutions.
For the government, documentation now has the irritating affect of visualizing the
creation of new national citizens on the land without regard for past citizens also
incorporated into the new nation. The land document draws attention to the layers of land
claims that correspond to the layers of citizen and national constructions. None have been
destroyed, but rather placed in the same terrain and granted rights. The town-citizens of
Msuka have rights to the land through blood. Some of the migrants have user-rights as
mgeni, while other migrants have user-rights as national citizens.
Until land itself was given value as property—in the guise of transferability by the
government—the overlapping understandings may have co-existed in conflict, but none
had the urgent fear of the loss of a very piece of their identity. If the government had
looked to the trees, or the absence of, as serious evidence in the layered identity of the
land, a resolution may have already been found. The government has done this in other
disputes over land in Paje. However, the government has its own interests in the land.
While it may not be possible for land to be property for the citizen, it is possible for the 341
aggressively seeking fertile government to think of land as its property. With investors
property and terrain, the government has much to lose, if it considers the ties between
policy if it citizen. The government also undermines the legitimacy of its redistribution rules in favor of Msuka citizens with documentation from the year 1318. The inward reflection of the Msuka citizens to acquire knowledge of the true owner of the land seems to have sealed their fate in the loss of a part of their very being. This narcissistic group has not learned the tricks of Echo yet.
National Territoriality and Partisan Citizen
Political Parties
The re-legalization of multiple political parties has provided another form of political articulation of differences. Scholars have debated the causes and purposes that gave rise to the different political parties prior to the revolution. Some have argued the parties emerged out of racial differences in an effort to address racial interests and efface past racial discriminations. Others have written against the colonial grain and argued that political parties initially arose as class and anti-colonial interests. While initially parties cut across class boundaries through their shared anti-colonial struggle, parties became increasingly fragmented, conservative, and eventually racially differentiated as the colonial administration attempted to control the strength and agendas of political parties. Political parties, however articulated, embodied varied struggles—expressed in terms of colonial oppression of different sorts—and the need for change. However, for many, when the 342
the very purpose of votes were counted and their political party did not come out on top,
seemed frustrated. political parties—that is, liberation through political power—
of Gumah's character, Rukiya, exclaims in a discussion about the re-introduction
only have all that political parties, "What's the point of legalizing political parties? We'll
nasty bickering again, then these monsters will get provoked and state their business as
capacity to they did before."*^ In Gumah's story it is the feminine voice which has the
admit not only the problem with the current form of government but also problems of
political parties. Perhaps because she, like Echo, has been neglected. Rukiya is not part
of the political realm, however, that does not mean she has lost her voice and she certainly
is not echoing perfectly. This is not to suggest that political parties have no "point" nor
place in Zanzibar, but to remember that the idea of political parties has a colonial/post-
colonial history in Zanzibar which should inform a consideration of their purpose in the
post-liberalization days.
While attempts have been made to illustrate the historical links between the rise of
CUF and the past political parties of ZPPP and ZNP, I will refrain from this debate to
briefly consider political parties more abstractly and thereby provide a frame for a
continued discussion of land and resource struggles.*'' I do not mean to disregard the
significance of the actual attempts to make such historical links. Such attempts have
significance because they become part of political struggle simultaneously as they write
83. Admiring Silence . 168.
84. See The 1964 Revolution for an attempt to show the historical link between ZPPP and CUF. 343
Zanzibar's history. The gesture to history. ASP (CCM) has been very active in writing
an act to de-legitimize the link CUF with ZPPP/ZNP revolves around land and constitutes
Arab-identified party which political party for the people. CCM interprets CUF to be an
speaks of the need to wants to return land to the plantation owners. Indeed, CUF itself
as an compensate people for the loss of their land. This perspective can be interpreted
party. As the attempt to de-legitimize the land nationalization policy of the revolutionary
people—not members of both parties struggle to assert a more rightful claim to power, the directly involved in the high-politics arena—are called in as reinforcements.
On the other hand, citizens do not simply constitute loyal soldiers nor passive
political subjects. Citizens not only can have an understanding of parties and agendas as instruments of manipulation for their own use, but also have an awareness of the tragic flaws of parties and the problem of association with any of them. Citizens invoke political parties in local struggles as one more and increasingly powerful means to draw
inclusive/exclusive boundaries in the town. The intensified conflicts over family land
boundaries indeed correspond to a new interest in the coastal land of the coral rag areas.
The use of political affiliations has given such struggles a new pernicious character.
Political affiliation becomes entwined with property affiliation either in the rise of the
dispute, the interpretation of the conflict, or the resolution. In the context of multiple
parties it has become known that affiliation with a particular party offers the possibility of
disproportionate access to resources. Some disputes over boundaries arise between
people of differing party affiliation with the hopes that the government may rule in their 344
favor. Through the citizen's interpretive lens disputes can be dismissed as the attempt of
some to create poUtical problems.
Finally, resolutions are inextricably tangled in party politics. Once multiple parties
received the right to exist, the local government was restructured. During the rule of the
single party, local governing matters were first handled through the local party branch.
Preceding the introduction of political parties, the shehia was revived because two or more
local party branches existed in tovras. In a multi-party system, CCM could not
legitimately control local affairs. The local leader became the sheha with his council
wrested the power of (shehia). However, in an effort to establish hegemonic power, CCM
appointing the sheha (the local chairman of CCM is different from the sheha). Regardless
of the town and its dominant political affiliation, the sheha is always a CCM man.
Some citizens claim a system of conflict mediation in land disputes is not fair (non-
partisan), because of the sheha's political commitment. The four shehas in this discussion
are careful not to state disputes in terms of politics. The Paje sheha acknowledged the
main problem over land to be between owners and users of land. The Nungwi sheha
explains the land problems as complex because all land is public, yet people in Nungwi have been owning land for a long time. They now want to sell when investors come seeking land and without government permission. In the process since there are no clear
boundaries disputes arise over who really can sell the land. All of this is occurring within the context of increasing population pressures on the land. The Fumba sheha claimed that their were no problems of land and resource use and no disputes over land. Finally, the
Msuka sheha articulated land problems in terms of environmental problems, such as 345
forests despite by-laws diseases, insects, and climatic changes, and the local use of the
a little more of the prohibiting use. However, the explicit discussion of politics reveals
not directly raised, shehas ' perspectives. The Msuka sheha, with whom politics was
politics in the form of asserted that the biggest obstacle to development in Msuka was
had explicitly opposition party's lack of cooperation. On the other hand, the Fumba sheha
through his assertive demonstrated to me that politics was not a topic open for discussion,
politics in general. request to avoid speaking with the CUF party branch and about
friction exists in However, the secretary of the shehia claimed that unfounded political
they have been Fumba. According to him, the problem has arisen because CUF believes
shehas spoke succinctly swindled, but what they want is not their's. The Paje and Nungwi
However, their about the need to resolve the political conflict between the two parties.
silences in above mentioned conflicts can be read as political acts.*'
To place struggles in their political context in terms of the 1995 elections, the
following charts provides the official (government) results of the presidential and
parliamentary elections.
85. In 1999, the Nungwi Sheha (interviewed) was removed from his position because some members of CCM (Nungwi branch) were not satisfied with the way he governed. According to the sheha, he worked with both CCM and CUF members, offering services equally to both parties. When invited to CUF meetings or events, he would attend both and give his cooperation. CCM party members reported the sheha to the district and regional authorities. His position was given to another CCM member more supportive of the ruling party. 346
Figure 5 .1 1995 Presidential Election Results
Constituency Salmin Amour Juma SeifShariff Hamad
Konde (which includes Msuka) 890 (12.8%) 6080 (87.2%)
Nungwi 4538 (68.4%) 2093 (31.6%)
Dimani (which includes Fumba) 6857 (69.9%) 2959 (30.1%)
Muyuni (which includes Paje) 6149 (87.6%) 872 (12.4%)
Source: Zanzibar Electoral Commission, Report for the General Election of the 22nd October. 1995 (Zanzibar: Government of Zanzibar, 1996)
Figure 5.2 1995 House of Representative Election Results
Constituency Candidate Names Candidate Votes Party Representation
Konde (Msuka) Ali Suleiman Abdulla 1,002 (14.5%) CCM Miraji Ramadhan Hariri 5,989 (85.5%) CUF
Nungwi Mussa Ame Silima 4,440 (68.4%) CCM Makame Ramadham 2,050 (31.6%) CUF Mjaka
Dimani (Fumba) Mohammad Hashim Ismail 5,663 (74.1%) CCM Siba Abdulkadir Ahmed 1,979 (25.9%) CUF
Muyuni (Paje) Ramadhani Nyonje Pandu 5,988 (86.3%) CCM Suleiman Mohammad 947 (13.7%) CUF Hassan
Source: Ibid
Because constituencies do not perfectly reflect the voting within each town specifically,
the election results provide only an imperfect sketch of the political climate of each town. 347
Land and Politics
The complex of land disputes in Msuka illustrates how land and politics become
as reflecting entwined at the hand of citizens. Middleton depicted pre-revolution Msuka
the the situation of the Verani side. Msuka land-owners rent plots to tenants for
to mark them as cultivation of rice.** Arabs fell into the category of Msuka land-owners
original kiambo distinct from the more recent immigrants. In Msuka proper, little
According to remained as most of the area was occupied by immigrants from elsewhere.
Middleton, there was no longer any indigenous local community organization in Msuka.*'
After the revolution some land in Msuka was confiscated and redistributed. Those who
had land confiscated but remained in Msuka have not forgotten old boundaries.
These memories have a political voice now with the rise of political parties. As
articulated by the sheha, the problem in Msuka is politics. A land problem due to
population pressures does not exist, the land here can hold people and is owned by
the families. Yet, disputes between families over land no longer are family squabbles that
mediation of the sheha can resolve. At one level, the past policy to nationalize land
presents a conflict between the government and families, and at another level, it haunts the
interactions between neighbors. Those who had land confiscated resent that no discussion
has ever surfaced to resolve the problems created by the three acre system. It is suggested
that land disputes occur between families because the government confiscated and
redistributed land. The sheha and even the police can be asked to mediate such conflicts.
86. Land Tenure in Zanzibar . 67.
87. Ibid., 68. 348
animosities between families built but rarely are agreements reached between families. The
carrying over to along political lines as a consequence of land nationalization
land are perceived as interpretations of land disputes. Those who dispute confiscated
at all by CCM CUF supporters making trouble, if the disputes are acknowledged
supporters.
sides fighting over land with The Vumawimbi dispute is not even as simple as two
mediate. Whether such a a government caught in between and not knowing how to
the dividing line separating dispute actually exists is even in dispute within Msuka and
in number) feign unawareness contending views is political. CCM supporters (though few
have been imagined by of the Vumawimbi and Makangale land disputes, claiming that they
the town and some members of a Msuka neighborhood (CUF oriented) on the outskirts of
proper, the group of closest to Makangale. In a discussion in the sheha's office in Msuka
heard of this men stated when asked about the Vumawimbi dispute, "[w]e haven't
problem, unless people come from there to sell land with investors. The problem is
between (and within) families. One sells land, then another quarrels over it."** They
dispute or supposedly are simply grasping for land. Others claim no knowledge of such a
discuss such that they have heard simply that such a dispute exists. Their apprehension to
matters stems from their awareness of political consequences.
the at night and drag In Msuka, it is not uncommon for the police to enter town
suspected CUF supporters out of their houses to beat them. There is a split in Msuka now
the between CCM and CUF families that is not only geographical within the town but on
88. Group discussion, Msuka, 15 November 1997. 349
the refusal to give them issues facing the whole of Msuka. Disputes are silenced by
questioned, efforts at articulation by CCM supporters. Depending on the perspective community development through community-based organizations are frustrated through
Neither politically the refusal of participation by or lack of inclusion of CUF supporters.
ties as wenyenji and split group wants a success to be attributed to the other, despite
poverty has family which cross the political boundary. In a place stricken with poverty, become a fated choice.
in The conflict with the Wanvamwezi in Fumba was also articulated implicitly
terms of political party contestation. What is interesting to note about the conflict
towards between Fumbans and the Wanvamwezi is that the climax of the conflict occurred
the incident upon my the end of my visits to Fumba. I was not only surprised to learn of
the few arrival in Fumba one morning; but also quite concerned to realize only over next
final days that not every one shared a sense of animosity towards the Wanvamwezi. What
was particularly striking was that the difference of opinion over the Wanvamwezi
paralleled a difference of political affiliation. To begin research in each of the towns, I had
to first meet the sheha and seek his permission. With his permission my work would
become easier as people would be willing to speak with me. However, the very political
identity of the sheha--as he is always a CCM member-could influence who spoke with
me. It took some time to discover that not everyone understood the conflict with the
Wanvamwezi in the same way.
Marginalization can occur at many levels. Often how the government marginalizes
the poor is a focus, and usually an entire village or rural community is depicted as 350
During a discussion marginalized or poor. In Fumba the marginalized were marginalizing.
explaining that, group, women offered more information on the Wanvamwezi conflict
Wanyamwezi, "[t]here are some villagers who hinder the case and work in support of the
and return with helping them to stay here. There are some ordinary villagers who go there
tomatoes and parcels. Thus there are receiving bribes. So when any attempts are made to
get rid of them, they inform the Wanvamwezi and then tell them to stay."
This interpretation entwines support for the Wanvamwezi with support for CUF.
The mentioning of bribes particularly indicates this as bribery always has a political (or
government) connotation in Zanzibar. The man willing to expedite a meeting with the
Wanvamwezi revealed that actually in Fumba more people supported CUF than CCM,
explaining that historically in this area people supported ZNP at the time of the elections in
the 1950's and 1960's. Many joined the Afro Shirazi Party in hopes of change. However,
when the advent of change never came people shifted their support to CUF.*' It did not
take long for word to spread through Fumba that I had spoken with the Wanvamwezi .
The sheha's anger with me once he had received word that I was asking political questions
gave testament to political sensitivities in Fumba. The sheha had invited members of both
CUF and CCM to our group discussion. He felt this was an adequate non-partisan
gesture. He did not want me speaking with active CUF party members individually which
suggests his understanding of the silencing power of the community group and the sense
89. Salum Simba claims that CUF support has more to do with Fumban feelings of neglect by govenmient. The same can be suggested about Msuka. Msuka has been neglected by the government. The majority of people in Msuka now support CUF which only perpetuates government neglect and abuse. 351
I learned to improve my of freedom to speak in the context of confidentiality. In Fumba, reading of silences and metaphors.
agendas, and Political parties may provide a means to organize complaints,
existing conflicts. struggles for citizens, but they also can increase the risks and losses in
liberalization. Changes in the understanding of land have accompanied economic
and the Resources, if not the land, have multiple forms of value now for people, towns, government. Along with new forms of value, the possibilities and severity of losses also increase.
The allegorical use of Echo makes possible the visualization of the ways in which citizen/property struggles can risk destruction, but also the consideration of how struggles move beyond narcissistic acts of self-destruction. While Narcissus indeed highlights the destructive tendency of self-definition and self-knowledge in the hegemonic context which
is anything but self-defined, the inclusion of Echo opens analysis to considering the possibilities of struggles which deploy the terms of others to undermine them, and thereby, provoke change. Echo offers the possibility to consider the ways in which a system (e.g. a town, a nation), conceptualized as self-constructed, unintentionally creates space and
support for that which is considered foreign, not only to exist, but to struggle.
As land continues to undergo transformations and remains central in conflicts at multiple levels, political parties place the question of land on their agenda. However, parties' agendas are articulated only in terms of supporting or rallying against the previous
policy of land nationalization and redistribution. Such rhetoric may seem to do little to intentionally support citizens in their difficult choices in resource and land access and use. 352
charged climate in which the past and present On the other hand, it generates a politically
and to move beyond collide and refract proliferating struggles. The inability of CUF CCM
issues within communities such narcissistic positions has implications, not only for land and between towns, but also for the (sub)national context in which global actors increasingly feature.
The Echoing Citizen
Dali's Narcissus arrogantly admired himself to the neglect of how his surroundings played a role in knowing (or realizing) that construction of himself which he so admired.
This would soon produce his own downfall. Reading the forgotten Echo with Narcissus, however, offered a way to include those surroundings that even Dali dismissed. Echo is
not Narcissus and thus is outside of Narcissus, but she is part of Narcissus in that she
echoes him. As such Echo is a new form of interpretation and struggle that is informed admittedly by others. Echo acknowledges that struggle is never fixed by material
conditions because she is aware that property relations are not entirely stable. In doing so she disrupts the Narcissistic fate to realize that either at the level of the (masculine) private individual or a citizens/property system, the very individual or system destroys itself when
it destroys the property rights it cannot have or the property itself
In the above struggles, the town citizen was considered likewise. He was satisfied with a territoriality determined by land and blood guaranteeing his place in which to
produce his life as he desired. However, the reproduction of this system was always being
disrupted. As a disruption occurred the citizen would seek to remove it by upholding and 353
frustration. He understood the invoking his own interpretation only to experience more
other citizens and end of his land, the end of his property as the end of himself However,
of it, but not wageni had learned from this system, established as they were partially part
easily completely. In their interpretations they created struggles which were not as frustrated because the struggle itself was understood as part of existence. There is loss, but not the fear of complete loss, because the struggle does not rise out of a complete possession or position. Such struggles acknowledge the possibilities, negotiations, and changes produced out of struggle, without dismissing the difficulties, discriminations, and oppressions within conflicts. Struggle can thus be understood as intricate, complicated, layered, explosive, and implosive, that is to say, as deconstructive. CHAPTER 6 CLIMAX BY INTERPOLATION: WHOSE NATION UNDER ELABORATION?
The Meaning of Interpolation
the plot. In the In a drama, the climax is the decisive moment or turning point in previous chapter, each story of community struggle had a climax. However, it can be asserted that the more significant climax occurs in the larger (sub)national context, once the sub-state decides either to enter or to avoid the action. When the sub-state (or state) decides that a particular resource constitutes a (sub)national interest, or a development project serves the (sub)national project, the intensity of struggle culminates. Because subaltern groups realize the potential power of the sub-state, they also induce turning points by demanding the involvement of the sub-state. Subaltern groups establish decisive moments in the national project in their decisions to echo sub-state demands or narcissistically stake their ground against the sub-state. The interpolations of the numerous participants in the (sub)national project set struggles into motion. Interpolation
is the act of altering (a text) by the insertion of new matter, especially deceptively or without authority. Interpolation can occur from a subaltern, sub-state, or extra-state position in the narcissistic form of an insistence on the way to define or address an issue.
This insistence is inserted into another way of defining or addressing the issue at hand.
Echo is a more subtle form of interpolation. In the echo, the demand or project is
354 355
inserted into the very demand or received; but in the reception, new meaning or matter is
such, who has the authority to project and then relayed. In interpolation understood as
in defining and directing define and direct the (sub)national project and who participates the project are open for interpretation.
The elaborations of nation themselves present problems in Zanzibar. In this
attempt to actually chapter, how sub-state institutions and specific actors interact and
donor shape citizens and property will be considered. Political parties, state institutions,
multiple countries, extra-state organizations, and citizens all have featured roles in the struggles to define the nation. This chapter comments on the positions of substate and extrastate agents in subaltern struggles. While most often studies articulate state projects either as failures because they fail to incorporate society or as failures because they
subordinate and repress society, this chapter will consider the complexities of attempted nation-building where indeed state projects come into struggle with local groups.
However, the struggle is often to co-exist and not to destroy, capture, or undermine.
Because many actors are involved (local citizens, substate institutions, NGOs,
international financial institutions, and donor countries), the attempts to negotiate what is
intended are complex and involve multiple combinations of echoing and narcissistic
struggles.
Dali's poem will again assist in the consideration of how Narcissus loses himself due to the limits of self-knowledge (or excessive pride). In Dali's account. Narcissus realizes his own demise and fate to serve as a material reminder of the destiny of hubris, in
the form of a flower. Then, the demise of the flower itself occurs as it undergoes a 356
questioned through remembering metamorphosis. Dali's metamorphosis, however, will be
frustrated than where Echo. Where narcissistic positions are held, struggles appear more
more narcissistic one is, echoing positions are taken. While this chapter suggests that the
is not frustrating. the more frustrated one will be, this is not to suggest that echoing
fitting into the Rather the comparison highlights that by not completely (or perfectly)
the possibility terms of struggle, the position of Echo permits the expression of intent and
(sub)national state. Like the to endure—be it at the level of the local citizen or the subaltern citizen, the subaltern state can echo the demands of the international community,
but it does so with its own intentions inserted.
The Bipartisan State
The (Sublnational Dilemma of the Multi-Party System for the Nation
On 7 May, 1992 the Tanzanian Parliament passed a bill to install a multi-party system. Several amendments to the Constitution accompanied the bill. Amendments deleted language which declared CCM as the final authority in respect of all matters in the
United Republic of Tanzania. A subsection was added which guaranteed the right to freedom of association. The subsection prohibited registration of any political organization which seeks to promote or combat particular religious beliefs or sects, or sectional interests along tribal groupings, color, sex, or region of any part of the United
Republic. It also prohibited registration of any organization that advocates the break up of the United Republic, accepts and believes in the use of force or confrontational politics
as a method for realizing its political goals, intends to conduct its political activities only in 357
leaders to be elected at intervals one part of the United Republic, and/or does not allow its and through democratic methods.'
CUF organized and received the status of a registered political party. CUF
1 to form a commission to proceeded to make three controversial election promises: .
return investigate who was involved in the killings during the 1964 Revolution, 2. to
Union. nationalized land to pre-revolution owners, 3. to re-negotiate the Articles of the
Zanzibar would now have contending political parties in the (sub)national political arena, despite national government efforts to control the rise of (sub)national interests.
Within the poetics on Narcissus, Dali abruptly inserts the following, "Already the
libidinous cataclysm, the carnivorous heterosexual group. . . ponders over the threatening
bloomings of its latent morphological atavisms." He continues with several verses commenting on different national groups. The nation is portrayed as heterosexual because
the intent behind the rise of a nation is to reproduce itself However, in this reproduction
the nation creates its own threatening undoing, through the melding of new interpretations
and conditions with past ones which it did not succeed in erasing. Politics constitutes the way the nation ponders over the threatening and lustful upheavals that arise out of latent reappearances of the past. Politics is how the nation—with its multiple generations—studies and acts out the differences of interpretations and visions it harbors.
In Zanzibar, the government fears the return of pre-revolution politics and parties
that it reads into the emergence of a multi-party system. The government (as a single
party sub-state) understands the rise of other parties as a threat to its power. Some
1. Tanzania's Eighth Constitutional Amendment . 161. 358
in the form of present day leaders, citizens fear the return of violent revolutionary ghosts
in Zanzibar. The rising while some citizens eagerly provoke and facilitate political change
change. However, that is opposition party actively and lustfully embodies the desire for
not occur without struggles and not all the party embodies. Transitions in the nation do
actual atavisms. The birth of new political parties in Zanzibar began prior to the
political legalization of multiple political parties, as was discussed above. While several
meaningftil support parties, in addition to CCM, exist in Tanzania, only one new party has
its roots in in Zanzibar—the Civic United Front (CUF). CUF asserts that does not have former political parties of the pre-revolutionary era.^ However, members did belong to previous underground political movements and parties of the 1980s. Kamahuru was a political movement for democracy which emerged between 1987-1989, sparked by the detainment of Self Shariff Hamad.^ CUF grew out of Kamahuru to be formed in 1992 at the advent of multipartism.
Political tension intensified in 1995, the year of the first multiparty elections. As previously discussed both citizens affiliating with CUF and CCM complained of harassment during voter registration. Nevertheless, campaigning continued and elections were held on 22 October, 1995. The Zanzibar Electoral Commission announced a presidential victory for Salmin Amour, who officially received 165,271 (50.2%) of the
2. The roots of CUF were provided by Mohammed Ali Yussuf, Director of CUF and a member of CUF's Central Committee, and Abubakar Khamis Bakary, Leader of Opposition in the Zanzibar House of Representatives (interview, Dar es Salaam, 25 March 1998).
3. In 1989 Hamad was arrested on unlawful assembly and possession of secret government documents. 1
359 votes. SeifShariff Hamad received 163,706 (49.8%) of the votes. CUF secured 24 of the
50 seats in the House of Representatives. Of the 50 seats, 21 are located in Pemba and all were secured by CUF. CCM secured 26 of the 50 seats in the House of Representative.*
CUF and international election monitoring teams disputed the official results of the
presidential election. CUF claims that Hamad received 166,522 (51.42%) of the votes
and Amour received 157,351 (48.58%) of the votes. The difference according to CUF is
a loss of 2,816 votes for Hamad and an excess of 7,920 votes for Amour. The following
table illustrates the differences in Fumba, Nungwi, Paje, and Msuka:
Figure 6. 1995 Presidential Election Results in Selected Constituencies
Total Valid Votes CUF CCM
Constituency official disputed diff. official disputed diflF. official disputed diflF.
Konde (Msuka) 6,970 6.970 0 6,080 6.080 0 890 890 0
Nungwi 6,631 6,439 141 2,093 2,050 43 4,538 4.440 98
Miryuni (Paje) 7.021 6.935 86 872 947 (75) 6,149 5,988 161
Dimani (Fumba) 9,816 8,814 1.002 2,959 2.883 76 6,857 5,931 926 Source: International Foundation for Election Systems, 1995
According to these figures, Fumba had the fourth largest discrepancy in presidential votes
of all fifty constituencies. This should come as no surprise, if the politically tense chmate
within the town ofFumba (as was briefly discussed in the previous chapter) is recalled.
Of the twenty-one constituencies in Pemba, only six had differences in the voting resuhs
4. Election results are fi-om Report for the General Eleaion of the 22nd October. 1995 360
comparison to the results in between the official count and the contesting count, in
That the Unguja, where the contending counts matched in only four constituencies.
suggests the extent to majority of election discrepancies occurred in Unguja implicitly
unquestionable stronghold of CUF. which it is commonly understood that Pemba is an
despite urging The government stood firmly by its interpretation of the elections, from a number of embassies to reconsider the results. CUF was unprepared to accept the results of the presidential elections. CUF representatives announced that they would boycott House sessions.' They explained that they could not participate in a government whose president they did not recognize as legitimate. The differences in terms of votes may seem minor, but what these votes represent is not. Winning the presidential election
is winning the power to direct the future (and the resources) of Zanzibar. Not only do
Hamad and the CUF representatives understand the election in this way, citizens also do.
CUF supporters feel they have been cheated of a victory as a consequence of election rigging by CCM. Much of the international community supported this belief which CUF in turn interpreted as legitimizing their stand.
Political tension intensified as both explicit forms of violence and subtle forms of harassment.* In Pemba, children were withheld from school to boycott government institutions as a form of protest against the election results. Schools were set aflame in a
5. Although they boycotted participation, they showed for sessions to be eligible to receive their salaries as member of parliament. They remained silent in the process to demonstrate that they could not speak in a political process which they did not understand to be legitimate.
6. An wave of CUF supporters (mostly young men) fled to the United Kingdom, fearing repercussions after the elections and seeking political asylum. 361
Field Force Unit (FFU) number of towns across the island. In one town, Shengejuu, the
the occurrence of rapes, was sent in to "re-establish order."' Their presence resulted in
of the town by its the killing of several townsmen, and the complete abandonment
Kenya). Immediately residents. Most fled to Tanga (in Tanzania) and Mombassa (in
Many feel it following the elections in Zanzibar Town, an electric transmitter exploded.
plant were fired was a political act of sabotage by CUF. Two engineers from the power
unemployed and detained as suspects in the explosion. For over two years, they remained
began a and without the standing trial. Subsequent to the explosion, the government
systematic attempt to eliminate CUF supporters in the bureaucratic structures of the
government by firing anyone suspected of voting for CUF in the elections and/or of
continuing to support CUF. Pembans working in the government were particularly
targeted in Zanzibar (Unguja). Pemban civil servants would either lose their jobs or
receive a transfer (and/or a demotion) back to Pemba. The government based such
demotions and firings on the lack of political support or enthusiasm in employees. For the
government, political neutrality was read as secretive support of CUF. The civil servants,
who abided by government policy which discouraged civil servants from being politically
active, interpreted government accusations of neutrality to be accusations of not
supporting CCM.*
7. The Field Force Unit is a special police unit of the military under the Union
Government. It is a colonial relic in a new form. In Zanzibar, the acronym commonly
refers to fanya fiijo none (make trouble and you will see).
8. During the 1995 elections, the government discouraged opposition party involvement among civil servants, but permitted ruling party activity. in Ng'ambo. The government also began to demolish housing of CUF supporters
lack of compliance with Building in this area has always been controversial because of the
urban planning urban planning rules (though much building began prior to an articulated scheme during colonialism).' Many houses built in neighborhoods of Ng'ambo are not
the legally zoned, surveyed and registered. Though much of Ng'ambo is like this,
rise of government does little to enforce policies of urban planning. However, with the
political tension after the elections, the government used illegal construction as a strategy to repress CUF supporters. The government marked houses with a red "X" in neighborhoods know as CUF strongholds. This X marked the site demolition. When enough houses were marked in an area, the government would enter with bulldozers and demolish them.'"
Donors began an aid freeze to Zanzibar reflecting their dissatisfaction of the election results, their belief that election fraud had occurred, and their concern with human rights violations subsequent to the elections. In April 1996, Norway, Sweden and
Denmark imposed an aid freeze on Zanzibar. By August 1997, Finland joined the aid freeze. Nine months into the conflict between CCM and CUF, Emeka Amyaoku,
Secretary General of the Commonwealth, initiated talks with Salmin Amour, Self Shariff
Hamad, Benjamin Mkapa (President of Tanzania since 1995), Frederick Sumaye (Prime
9. See Garth Myers, "Reconstructing Ng'ambo: Town Plarming and Development on the Other Side of Zanzibar," Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of California, Los Angeles, 1993 for discussions of rise of Ng'ambo and urban planning as a colonial and post-colonial strategy of power.
10. Amnesty International's 1997 World Report documents the various human rights violations which occurred after the 1995 elections. 363
(former President of Tanzania, 1985- Minister), Julius Nyerere, and Ali Hassan Mwinyi
Exacerbating the problem of the donor 1995), to discuss the Zanzibar political crisis."
the clove crop would be harvested, freeze, the government feared that only 40 percent of
higher percentage having a dire impact on the economy. The inability to harvest a
election stemmed from apathy towards clove-picking in Pemba as a form of protest of the
only heighten the resuhs.'^ Without donor aid the loss of revenue from cloves would
financial crisis of the government.
in this As explicit violence diminished, the use of words and psychological tactics
in conflict between parties continued. Such tactics are important to consider as strategies
conflict because they constitute subtle forms of struggle and oppression that acquire their
effectiveness from precisely the difficulties to systematically expose and combat them.
Both CCM and CUF engaged in the deployment of subtle forms of resistance and
oppression. In addition, the media became a vehicle through which such strategies
received articulation. The media gave voice to the conflict between the two parties for the
public. On 20 January, 1996, Ibrahim Lipumba addressed a political rally in Pemba in
which he accused the Chairman of the Zanzibar Electoral Commission of purchasing a
house worth 60 million Tsh. (following the 1995 elections) with bribe money he received
1 1. At the same time, many newspaper articles were being MTitten to suggest
resolutions to the crisis. Most suggested some form of coalition government until the next elections. See for example, "Zanzibar: What is the future?" Guardian. 16 and 21 September 1996.
12. Despite efforts to diversify the economy and the increase of revenue generated by
tourism, the Zanzibar economy still depends on cloves. Ali Saleh, "Political Feud
Threatens Zanzibar Clove Boom, The East African . 23-29 September 1996. 364
Tanzanian newspaper, reported for assisting Salmin Amour win the election.'^ Maiira , a
Chairman filed a court this story. The government banned Maiira from Zanzibar, and ZEC
Business Printers Limited. Over a case against Hamad, Lipumba, the editor of Maiira . and
the claims of the defense year later, the media covered the case in court. In one report, were articulated as follows:
Two defense witnesses claimed before the High Court here yesterday that circumstantial evidence made them believe the Zanzibar Electoral Commission Chairman, Mr. Zubeir Juma Mzee, had bought a 60m/- house after the elections. to substantiate their The witnesses. . . said they had no documents claims that Mr. Mzee bought the house using bribe money. They said they believed Mr. Mzee could not afford such an kickback for expensive house. . . after the election, without getting a allegedly helping Dr. Amour win the Isles presidential race. Mr. Miraji claimed that the commission chairman was given the bribe by President Amour.'''
This point here is not that the media itself has constructed a story which should or should not be printed, but that through the media, political accusations made by actors in the political conflict receive voice to reach the public. The media becomes a powerftil tool for both parties to use in shaping public interpretation of the conflict. The government gesture to ban newspapers, which report on political activities deemed inaccurate or inappropriate, suggests awareness of the power of media use. Neither party needs to explicitly engage in violent conflict because a conflict of words can be equally powerftil and devastating within a society.
13. Lipumba was the CUF Union presidential candidate in the 1995 elections.
14. Ali Uki, "Witnesses adduce evidence over house," Daily News . 13 July 1997. The
Daily News is formerly the government-run newspaper and only English newspaper. 365
to the crisis; however, Over a year after the elections, no solution had been found
Bakari Mbonde, Minister of State in the it remained in the forefi-ont of political concerns.
members of the House of Vice President's Office stated, "My advice is that both MPs and
government and Representatives from Pemba and Zanzibar should recognize the Zanzibar
start attending sessions, for start discussing development issues. CUF members should
Jakaya development issues are discussed in the House and not at the Starlight Hotel.""
Kikwete, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, stated, at the
International Conference on Democracy and Development held in Zanzibar in July, 1997,
seeking support. . you will that "[y]ou cannot escape the Isles issue w^henever you go out . finally be asked about Zanzibar."'* Initially, Mkapa remained silent on the Zanzibar
political crisis. However, at the same conference, Mkapa criticized CUF's boycott of
House sessions making the following remarks:
It is both irresponsible and undemocratic on their [CUF] part to deliberately forego the opportunity to advocate what the electorate voted them to do and instead engage in a boycott that was never part of the manifesto they presented to the electorate One would expect this elected forum for dialogue to be the focus of all subsequent controversial issues and their resolution in the interests of the electorate.'^
15. Paschal Dismas, "CUF MPs advised to recognise Dr. Salmin," Guardian . 8 January
1997. The reference to the Starlight Hotel is meant to state that the political process is not staged at CUF headquarters in Dar es Salaam.
16. Ali Uki, "Conference urges dialogue in Isles," Dailv News . 8 July 1997.
17. Lwaga Mwambande, "Attend Isles House Sessions, Mkapa tells CUF Reps," Guardian, 8 July 1997. 366
negation of democracy, reducing Mkapa asserted that the boycott amounts to a "veritable
default.'"* Though CUF called Zanzibar to an essentially one-party autonomous polity by
to revive the party on the for a boycott of the conference, two CUF members who wanted mainland attended. Nyaruba, the secretary general of the committee to revive CUF- mainland, questioned why CUF members who have refused to participate in the Houses
payers sessions continue to receive their salaries and fringe benefits through the tax whom
they fail to represent in the House sessions."
At the conference, David Martin revealed with Salmin Amour's confirmation that
CCM was prepared to offer CUF cabinet posts in the government to resolve the conflict.^"
Following the reports on the conference, Abubakar Bakari, leader of the opposition in the
House of Representatives, retorted that CUF would never accept cabinet posts in a
government which did not win the 1995 elections because such a gesture would
undermine democracy.^' CCM had the final retort on the matter, when the CCM
Government spokesman repudiated Amour's offer.
The active role of the media in reporting on the political crisis also deserves
attention. Since the rise of the conflict, the various newspapers in Tanzania have provided
virtually daily reports of and commentaries on developments in the political conflict. Most
18. Ibid.
19. Correspondent, "CUF faction plan demo over Reps' salaries," Guardian . 8 July 1997.
20. David Martin is the journalist who interviewed Karume once he became Chairman
of the Revolutionary Council (i.e. president).
21. Ali Uki, "CUF declines cabinet posts," Daily News . 9 July 1997. 367
between the two 1995 often the conflict is articulated as a personal political dispute
political conflict. The presidential candidates, and/or a Pemba versus Zanzibar (Unguja) media has focused on Pemba and Zanzibar as separated by "politics, history, distance,
facilitating the ethnicity, orientation, and hatred," and the role of multi-party politics in organized political articulation of this divide. The emphasis in the press is that CUF and
CCM represent the historical differences between Pemba and Unguja.^^ Thus, the political
crisis is an ethno-regional conflict nurtured by political personalities.
Commentaries on the political crisis proliferated around the International
Conference on Democracy and Development." The conference became controversial because CUF refused to participate and discouraged international participation. The
conference, however, was the first organized public discussion of the events up to that point in the political conflict. The conference highlighted the efforts of the donor community and international organizations to pressurize CCM (and Salmin Amour) to
resolve the political tension and in doing so it suggested the uncompromising position of
CUF. The solution aggressively advocated in newspapers was that Zanzibar must resolve this problem itself, and that CUF needs to agree to dialogue with CCM. The intentions of
CUF's stance of resistance began to be questioned.
22. See for example "Zanzibar: Continuing Mystery?" Guardian Sunday Observer . 13 July 1997.
23. See for example above and in addition Ali Nabwa, "Time unveils CUF's mysterious posture," Daily News . 18 July 1997; Everist Kagaruki, "Dialogue only solution to Isles crisis," Express . 24-30 July 1997; Nimi Mweta, "Tower of Babel in Zanzibar Conference,"
Guardian . 12 July 1997; Makwaia wa Kuhenga, "Wanted: Movement towards dialogue in
Zanzibar," Guardian . 1 1 July 1997. 368
critical stance against CUF. A However, not all newspaper commentaries took a
interpretation of the Zanzibar political crisis. letter to the editor attacked David Martin's
the ZPPP/ZNP represented Arab The letter depicted Martin to "parrot the old cliche that
carried out." The letter interests against which the Revolution is supposed to have been further contended that,
several decades, most [a] Revolutionary regime reigned with an iron fist for severely in Pemba; and yet Mr. Martin thinks that the election of 1995 was merely a replay of the elections of the early 1960s Why are such outsiders so blinded by race that they fail to understand both the real situation in Zanzibar before the Revolution and the current political conflict?^"
The comments of the author of this letter highlight the role the media plays in shaping
(sub)national tensions and more generally the national understanding of political
differences. Though it may not be the intention of the media (particularly, a pro- government newspapers such as the Daily News) to nurture anti-union sentiments, it can be perceived to do so. On the mainland, the "ethno-regional problems" of Zanzibar become understood as a problem that the nation does not want. The political crisis thus constitutes evidence of the problem of a Union for the mainland with Zanzibar. For the
(sub)national arena, the media portrays the Pemba versus Unguja perspective as the accurate understanding of the conflict. In doing so, the media plays a role in defining the
nature of the conflict and framing the way in which it should be handled. The message is
24. Abdullah Suleiman, "David Martin wrong on Zanzibar," Guardian . 31 July 1997. Indeed as Suleiman points out the press tends to highlight the political crisis in terms of race. In addition to the above commentaries see Mkumbwa Ally, "The Zanzibar crisis caimot be wished away," Daily News . 4 August 1997. 369
quickly to put an end to its that Zanzibar should take care of its own problem and do so
irritating impact on the Tanzanian nation.
Suspicious Partisan Intentions
Salum On 31 July, 1997, the seeds of a new controversy were planted when
Town, Msabah Mbarouk, the representative for the Mkunazini constituency in Zanzibar appeared personally on television to announce his resignation.^^ After seeking temporary reftige at the Swedish Embassy, Msabah explained to the press that he was approached by
CCM officials and asked to resign in exchange for 20 million Tsh., an appointment as a special advisor to the Zanzibar President on Middle East issues, and the opportunity to run in the by-election for the Mkunazini seat as the CCM candidate. When he refused he was forced at gunpoint to announce his resignation on television. CCM retorted that Msabah's account was a fabrication of CUF. CCM launched an investigation of the incident, contending that CUF accusations constituted an attempt to undermine the government.
CUF prepared to block the Zanzibar Electoral Commission from holding a by-election.
The party filed a court injunction to restrain the Zanzibar Electoral Commission from proceeding with the by-election for the Mkunazini seat. However, CUF also decided to field a candidate in the event that the injunction did not succeed.
In the political unrest subsequent to Msabah's resignation, 132 people were arrested. Unrest continued as cars were periodically set aflame. An attempt was made to
25. Mkunazini constituency is in Zanzibar Town and was one of three seats secured by CUF in Unguja. 370
on the night of 9 September bum the Zanzibar Urban District CCM party headquarters
by-election during the 1997. Violence also marked the voter registration process for the
of the town as a same period. The Field Force Unit became a virtually permanent feature
Twenty-four people visual reminder of the power of the government to put down protest.
the were arrested in connection with the numerous arsons. By the end of September,
conducting media reported that police, intelligence officers, and maskani youths were nightly house searches to arrest CUF sympathizers.^^ Nevertheless, in a press conference
political to commemorate two years in power, Salmin Amour asserted that there was no
crisis in Zanzibar and thus no reason for the question of conflict mediation to arise."
The by-election was scheduled for 30 November with a week of heavy political campaigning. The CUF candidate, Juma Duni Haji, spoke of the eventual break of the
Union and freedom for Zanzibar. At a rally on the last day of campaigning, CUF members declared that if CUF did not win the election blood would be spilled. The CUF candidate
secured the Mkunazini seat in the by-election with 5 1 .4% of the votes. However, the election process did not conclude without exacerbating the political tension. Between 29
November and 6 December, 1997, fourteen CUF officials (including two members of the
26. Maskani is historically a social institution in Zanzibar. It was a meeting place for men and youth (boys) at the end of the work day to engage in conversation and discuss social (community) problems. In this sense it was defined as non-political (the issue of whether the social can be understood as non-political will not be discussed here). After the revolution, Maskani was used as a political institution by CCM to link people at the local level to the (sub)national govenmient. It is now often depicted political instrument used by the militant wing within CCM to frustrate multi-party politics. See The
Anticlimax in Kwahani Zanzibar for a detailed discussion of the Maskani .
27. "Amour maintains no crisis in Isles, rules out mediation," Daily News . 25 October 1997. 371
bail. At their House of Representatives) were arrested, charged with sedition, and refused
activists staged a hearing, the prosecutor trumped up the charges to treason. CUF women demonstration outside the Zanzibar High Court to protest the arrests as human rights
government and violations. CUF members continued to schedule protests, while the police warned that protest without permits would not be tolerated. CUF members of parliament planned to boycott the National Assembly to pressurize the Union government and president to intervene in the political turmoil in Zanzibar. The High Court began a new strategy of frustration by adjourning trials based on technicalities.
On the thirty-fourth anniversary of the revolution, Salmin Amour stated in a public
address that "[t]here is no political problem here. The citizens can bear witness that this country [Zanzibar] has been run very smoothly."^* Paradoxically, he also stated that any solution to the current political problems would be achieved by Zanzibaris themselves. He claimed that there was a conspiracy to generate a conflict in Zanzibar, perpetrated from outside by using internal forces. According to Amour, the government would not tolerate attempts to make a mockery of both the rule of law and the constitution.^' Indirectly,
Amour's comments were directed at the use of the courts by CUF to undermine CCM attempts to frustrate CUF political participation. Ironically, prior to the aimiversary of the revolution and the announcement that preparations for the 2000 elections would soon begin, the Zanzibar Attorney General announced plans to amend the constitution so that
28. Ally Saleh, "Zanzibar President warns groups causing disunity," Guardian . 13 January 1998.
29. Gabby Mgaya, "Amour warns of conspiracy against Isles." Dailv News . 13 January 1998. 372
of rule of law in Zanzibar is Amour would be able to run for a third term. The mockery
party, when very hardly an accusation to be directed at any one particular political gestures of those within the government deride its principles.
The fourteen accused of treason began a hunger strike on 19 January 1998 to
again been re- protest the handling of their case by the government. Their trial had once
scheduled when the prosecutor failed to execute court orders properly. After nearly a
week, the accused ended their hunger strike upon receiving the assurance from the
Registrar of the Zanzibar High Court of a fair trial. Despite such pledges, the trial
proceedings remain plagued with adjournments over improper"procedures. The accused
have yet to stand trial for treason and remain in prison.
Both sides have been accused of a rigid failure to compromise. After a conference
on conflict resolution in Afiica in January 1998, Nyerere finally stated, "[tjhere is a
problem in Zanzibar which needs to be discussed—it should have been discussed."
Though he expressed astonishment that the Zanzibar question was not raised in the
workshop, when asked why he hasn't intervened in the conflict, Nyerere responded that he
has not been asked to mediate.^" The Secretary General of CCM responded to Nyerere's
admission by asserting that his understanding of a political crisis was a personal
understanding and did not reflect the views of CCM.^' It has been suggested that initially
30. Paul Chintowa, "Union, Isles governments should solve Zanzibar problem-
Mwalimu," Guardian . 24 January 1998; Asha Mnzavas, "Zanzibar Crisis: Will Mwalimu's confession solve the problem?" Guardian , 27 January 1998. Nyerere comments coincided with the hunger strike of the seventeen accused of treason.
31. Laurent Mapunda, "Mwalimu's view on Zanzibar conflict 'not CCM stand,'"
Guardian . 31 January, 1998. 373
not welcomed, particularly by Nyerere wanted to intervene to mediate the crisis, but was
suggestion of a few cabinet Hamad, but also by Amour. Amour had reftised Nyerere's
the conflict, asserting that the posts for CUF members. Mkapa has refused to intervene in
Yet most constitution does not permit his involvement in Zanzibar internal affairs.
which includes political analysts claim Mkapa's mandate covers the whole of Tanzania
suggest Zanzibar. Mkapa's refusal to become involved begs the question of why. Some
that Mkapa possibly has a commitment to avoid involvement because Amour was
instrumental in securing the CCM presidential candidacy for Mkapa. Mkapa received the
CCM nomination because of the Zanzibar block vote within CCM. Throughout Mkapa's
presidency, he has remained silent on issues in Zanzibar and only hesitantly has spoken
when confronted with no other choice.^^
On 29 January 1998, CCM stated its willingness to engage in talks with CUF in
reaction to a CUF memorandum to Emeka Anyaoku, the Commonwealth Secretary-
General. The memorandum rejected Anyaoku's package of proposals on the grounds that
it did not include the amendments proposed by CUF. CUF asserted that is was prepared
for dialogue with CCM provided the issue at hand was treated as a CUF/CCM conflict
and not as CUF against the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar. The package
included the following measures to resolve the conflict: both parties should cease to issue
confrontational statements that go beyond normal competitive political rhetoric, full
participation in the House of Representatives, equal treatment of all former leaders of the
32. For a more detailed discussion of Mpaka's silence see Asha Mnzavas, "Zanzibar
Crisis: Will Mwalimu's confession solve the problem?" Guardian . 27 January 1998. 374
opposition parties should Union regardless of current political affiliation, governing and
give balanced begin a dialogue to address other issues, encouragement of the media to
members coverage of both political parties' activities, and appointment of up to five new
of the House of Representatives from within CUF."
During a CCM National Executive Committee meeting in February, the party
finally admitted a political crisis in Zanzibar, though the party held CUF solely responsible
for the problems. The following excerpts illustrate CCM's position:
[T]he NEC has concluded that the root cause of political tension in Pemba
is the CUF leadership's stand of rejecting the Zanzibar Presidential Election results Such irresponsible political acts have invariably given rise to chaos, civil wars and bloodshed in many African countries This CUF position of boycotting the House for more than two years now has given rise to political problems in Zanzibar whose root cause is CUF, because as a result of their action, thousands of voters find themselves without representation [B]esides dissuading their followers from participating in development activities, CUF leaders have had the audacity of even calling upon the international donor community to cut aid to Zanzibar Their new position that they have no conflict with the Zanzibar government
is wise and welcome. . . . The NEC of CCM insists unequivocally that CCM has no conflict with CUF in respect with the Zanzibar general
elections NEC makes it clear that it is ready for talks with other political parties, at any time, as long as such talks are aimed at furthering the national interest and consolidating democracy.^''
At the same time, the Commonwealth special envoy began serious diplomatic talks with
Mkapa and CCM and CUF leadership to persuade Amour and Hamad to accept dialogue
33. Staff Reporter, "Anyaoku emissary in bid to solve Zanzibar crisis," African . 23 February 1998.
34. From the Statement of the National Executive Committee of CCM on the Political Situation Prevailing in the Country Issued in Dodoma on the 19th February, 1998, printed in Daily News . 23 February 1998. 375
parties and the political paralysis on the to resolve the political tensions between the two
to enter dialogue, it first required Isles. CUF stood firm that while the party was willing
talks in which Amour Amour to relinquish his claim to the presidency, because agreeing to
there is no was a participant would amount to accepting him as the president and that
coalition political crisis in Zanzibar. CUF realized that CCM was not about to create a government to share power, thus they permitted CCM to have the facade of complete power, but attempted to rob CCM of popular support. CUF strategy has been to stunt all development to motivate the people into rising up against CCM. People have agreed to sacrifice whether actively or passively.
Both CCM and CUF embody the narcissistic inability to engage in constructive
struggle because their limited focus on their own position as hegemonic is more important to each than compromise. Either party would rather be destroyed than not have the power to define the government and the (sub)nation in its own terms. The political tensions between CUF and CCM at the level of high politics illustrate the implications of hubris in the struggle for hegemony. Hamad and Amour can only imagine either the acquisition or preservation of presidential power as the realization of their power. Without the presidency, Hamad wants no part in the actual processes of government. He is prepared to be the tragic figure in the drama of politics. CUF officials and representatives are
prepared to at least appear as if they are willing to literally whither away in prison if they carmot bask in their self-determined fi-eedom of self-expression. CCM officials arrogantly stand firm in their self-adoration of the successes of their regime. They are prepared, for the entire nation which they "represent," to languish if they cannot determine the face of 376
because the party did not the government as CCM. Elections are meaningless to CCM
preserve its power with them. At the achieve its stature through these means and need not
to preserve their access to level of the central government, officials aggressively attempt
the government. This the materiality of power—that is, the property which defines
is the property of property is land. CCM itself has produced the meaning of land. Land
to financial no one, except the state. This land ownership gives the government access resources and the power to define the nation. CUF poses a direct challenge to this very idea which CCM is not prepared to entertain. The response of CUF is to accept its own absence from government as the party attempts to erase the possibility of the functioning
of government because it cannot have the power it desires.
The Substate. Policy and Citizens
"Narcissus, you are losing your body, carried away and confounded by the
millenary reflection of your disappearance. . . your white body, swallowed up, follows the slope of the savagely mineral torrent of the black precious stones with pungent perfiimes.
Narcissus, do you understand? Symmetry. . . already fills up your head, with that
incurable sleep, which withers up the brain. . . your nearing metamorphosis." This passage of Dali's poem can be politically interpreted in two ways. First, Narcissus can parallel the colonial form of power which was swallowed by the Zanzibari revolution. However, the
new postcolonial state tragically held within it the pursuit of the same form of power held
by the colonial state and which led to its final demise. Secondly, when the masculine state does not nurture the other elements in the heterogeneous mix and pursues only self- 377
which can never be preservation, (in a haze of self-deception) it pursues a sameness
derived achieved. This very act—a tragic act—brings about the death of the mascuUne
position. However, for DaH, it is not a final death.
"The seed of your head has just fallen into the water Narcissus, in his
immobility, absorbed by his reflection with slowness becomes invisible There remains
splits. . it will be the flower, of him only the white oval of his head. . . When that head .
the new Narcissus, Gala " Two questions must be asked of Dali: why is the new
Narcissus, that is, the feminine Gala, new? Secondly, why must the feminine be
transformed out of the masculine? In the case of the former, though Dali attempts to
glorify the feminine, like Freud, he forgets Echo. In the case of the latter, Dali establishes
(dis)semination to replace reproduction and in doing so strips the feminine of the ability to
reproduce. The metamorphosis (though it assumes a feminine form) is the production of phallic knowledge without a body, but nevertheless erect. Dali mockingly suggests that
only the "while oval of his head" remains. However, this is an important remainder
because it signifies the power to (dis)seminate and the replacement of feminine reproduction with masculine semination.
If a parallel is drawn with the state, then the transition to a multiparty system is
understood as a radical change though springing from the state itself However, if Echo is
not forgotten, then the transformation in the state is not interpreted as a metamorphosis.
The elements of change are understood as partly within the nation-state and partly outside
of it. The elements of change reproduce multiple forms of struggle with what is disseminated. Such changes do not result in complete destruction nor complete rebirth. 378
state of Zanzibar This can be understood to happen in two ways. First, the (sub)national
and later the does not perfectly echo the colonial idea of the post-colonial nation-state
do not donor idea of the liberalizing state. Second, citizens of the (sub)national-state
this frame of perfectly echo the dictated construction of a post-colonial society. Within
visible Echo, the affects of various struggles on the process of policy formation become without forgetting the affects of self-imposing dictates of the state and the donor community. This section re-considers the intricate hegemonic interplay between citizens, sub-state, and extra-state agents.
The Theoretical Conceptualization of Property Rights as Institutions
The theoretical discussion of property in Chapter 2 highlighted the theory of property rights and the shift in emphasis to the idea of common property rights as a form of private property rights. The theoretical focus on property rights as institutions has come to dominate discussions and policies of sustainable development. Scholarship has shifted to suggest that sustainable use of natural resources is dependent on a well- articulated set of property rights and the compatibility of that set of rights with the social and ecological context." From this perspective, most politico-environmental problems can be understood as problems of incomplete, inconsistent, or unenforced sets of property rights. The institutional perspective stresses that no single model of property rights can be offered for natural resource degradation and overuse. Policy must consider the context in
35. Susan Haima and Mohan Munasinghe, "An Introduction to Property Rights and the
Enviroimient" in Property Rights and the Environment , ed. by Susan Hanna and Mohan Munasinghe (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1995). 379
are which property rights are to be implemented and the extent to which they enforceable.^^
that In general, there is an agreement in the literature on sustainable development
systems of natural resource use are complex, and thus, systems to govern resource use must take into account this complexity. Particular rules must differ in accordance with the
specific conditions of the natural system, cultural views of the worid, and the economic
and political relationships within this context. Ostrom, however, asserts that seven design principles shape the most vigorous institutions." First, rights around a common resource pool must entail clearly defined boundaries. Second, appropriation of resources and
provision rules must relate to local conditions. Third, because no external official has
sufficient involvement in the daily enforcement of rules, individuals most affected by rules
must participate in modifications to the rules as needed. Fourth, monitoring must be
accountable to the appropriators or handled directly by the appropriators. Fifth,
appropriators who violate the rules receive graduated sanctions from other appropriators.
Sixth, appropriators and officials have access to immediate, low-cost, local forums to resolve conflicts among appropriators or between appropriators and officials. Finally, external government authorities do not challenge the rights of appropriators to design their own institutions.
36. Susan Hanna, Carl Folke, and Karl-Goran Maler, "Property Rights and
Environmental Resources," in Propertv Rights and the Environment .
37. This discussion of the seven principles is taken from Elinor Ostrom, "Designing
Complexity to Govern Complexity," in Propertv Rights and the Environment . 34-40. 380
managers of smaller-scale Ostrom contends that because local users are "effective
policy-making on resource systems," they should be included in the process of
relatively secure tenure over conservation issues.^^ Ostrom adds that only when users have
considers future the resources they use, will they use resources at a rate which seriously
romanticizing the local use—that is, sustainability. However, Ostrom warns against against the grain of organizing issues of environmental sustainability in terms of the national or global. One threat to the capacity of local institutions is the availability of external funding.^' External funding always has the potential of creating dependency in terms of financial support. In addition, this dependency on support creates the tendency for problems and solutions to be conceptualized in a way that will continue to acquire the support of external funders. When this happens the local users sacrifice their own interpretation out of dependency to subscribe to the external interpretations that does not necessarily adequately understand local conditions of resource use.
This dominant paradigmatic treatment of sustainable resource use has become the favored approach to development issues by international financial institutions such as the
World Bank. The resonance of this paradigm can be heard at varying levels in political regulation from donor contracted experts to (sub)national government agencies to local community organizations. The following discussions of forestry, land and tourism policies illustrate the persuasion, compliance, and/or agreement with the institutional
understanding of property rights and natural resource use. However, it is difficult at times
38. Ibid., 40.
39. Ibid., 41. 381
has had a persuasive to understand whether the common property rights approach
confirm a theory hegemonic affect or if understandings of resource use at differing levels
framing of common property rights. As Ostrom has pointed out there is a danger in
occur problems in the ways articulated by those funding solutions. Indeed, this seems to
even within the very establishment of fool-proof enduring institutions. While the failures
of resource management policies in Zanzibar would be explained by theories of common
property rights as failures to comply to the critical principles of rule-making, the politics of
rule-making and compliance are as complex as the natural resource systems (and systems
of governance). While both local users and government officials who believe in the
institutional approach to natural resource management will also explain problems within
the language of theories of common property rights, it becomes apparent in the following
discussions that, for example, assertions of the need for clearly defined boundaries do not
preclude nor erase the endurance of and support for fluid boundaries.
Forestry and Land Policies
The Articulation of Evolving Policies . Prior to the nineteenth centviry, dense forest
covered Zanzibar, however, the introduction of cloves rapidly transformed the landscape.
By 1 849, Zanzibar's forested land was rapidly being cleared for clove cuhivation. The
British colonial administration acquired an awareness of the value of "protecting" the forests for commercial exploit. In the 1920's, the colonial administration conducted a forest inventory to establish the value of forests in Zanzibar. Subsequently, a forestry management plan was designed to harvest timber for commercial purposes. The 382
despite the management plan did not place any significance on reforestation efforts,
conducted the survey.^" recommendation of tree re-planting by the colonial adviser who
use, village Though the colonial administration did not place any regulations on forest
level management systems did exist in some areas of Zanzibar.
the In 1950, the administration issued the Forest Reserve Decree which vested in
British Resident and colonial administration the power to establish forest reserves in any
area of government land. The decree prohibited anyone to use forest reserves without
written permission. The uses and acts restricted were articulated as follows: cut, take,
work, remove, damage any forest produce; clear, cultivate or break up land for cuhivation
or any other purpose; construct or re-open any road or saw-pit; reside or erect any
buildings or cattle enclosure; graze cattle or allow any cattle to be therein; possession of
any implement for cutting, taking, working or removing any forest produce which cannot
be proven to be in possession for another purpose than to violate the decree. Forest
officers had the power to search and arrest without warrant. The new restrictions on
forest use constitute a harsh change to the understanding of use rights of citizens and
wageni in the rural coral rag areas. However, the endurance until today of forestry use as
articulated by rural towns suggests that colonial policies to restrict forest use in the coral
rag areas was either less than successful or not a priority.
40. Sub-Commission for Forestry, "Management Backgroimd and Future Prospects of Ngezi Forest Reserve," in Saleh Khiari, ed.. Proceedings of a Seminar on Conservation of the Ngezi Forest . Zanzibar Forestry Department Project Technical Paper, Number 14, (Zanzibar: Commission for Natural Resources, 1993), 5-6. 383
The An actual Forestry Department was established only after the revolution.
Department which was located within the Ministry of Agriculture, held the responsibility
Forestry for all matters related to forests and their management."' Initially, the
Department primarily managed forest use in terms of generating state revenue in the form of licenses and fees for harvesting forest products in state forests. Other major concerns included soil and water conservation and maintaining a fiielwood supply for Zanzibar town. Thus, the department stressed policing and protection of the forests from use by the local population which generated an antagonism between local communities and the department."*^ By the end of the 1970's, the government understood problems of agricultural production (decline and subsequent food shortages) in terms of increasing population and urbanization, and land use. The resulting problems, which perpetuated a cycle of declining agricultural production, included soil degradation and deforestation.
The government turned to FINNIDA to seek assistance in addressing these natural resource problems. The Zanzibar Forestry Development Project was designed in 1980 and ftmded by FINNIDA.''^ In the 1980's the Forestry Department shifted their emphasis
to involving local communities in forestry management. Phase I (1980-1988) of the
4 1 . The Ministry of Agriculture is now the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, and
Natural Resources under which the Commission of Natural Resources is located.
42. "Forest Policy Formulation and Legislation Review for Zanzibar," 8.
43. This account of development of the Zanzibar Forestry Development Project is taken from Commission for Natural Resources, Zanzibar Forestry Development Project. Phase
III: 1993-1997. Volume I: Main Document (Zanzibar: Commission for Natural Resources,
1993). It should be noted that the project was launched in Unguja, and only extended to
Pemba seven years later (in 1987). This document will be referred to as Phase III . 384
conservation measure, but project focused on afforestation not only as a soil and water
fuelwood with the aim also to increase the production of timber, construction wood, and
involved of eventual self-sufficiency in wood production."" The objective of afforestation
However, the establishment of nurseries and improvements to government plantations. the project attempted to involve local communities through the establishment of the
Village Forestry Unit in 1982."^ This extension programme incorporated the efforts of villages, co-operatives, and other organizations into the afforestation campaign through study-tours and training programs. The main objectives of the village forestry component of the project were to increase awareness in the value of forests, facilitate tree planting, and develop agroforestry as an alternative to shifting cultivation."* Though involvement of people was an articulated objective, incorporation was a more appropriate characterization of the achievement of the project."^ All forest-management planning was conducted by the head office staff which included the project manager (from FINNIDA), and did not involve lower levels in the program.
44. Zanzibar was increasingly relying on the Mainland for wood products.
45. It is estimated that 2.7 million seedlings have been planted by people in rural areas under the direction of the Village Forestry Programme between 1980 and 1993. Phase III . 13.
46. Eli S. Heguye, "Report on Findings and Recommendations on Causes of the Problems at the Maziwa Ng'ombe Forest Reserve and Surrounding Areas," Zanzibar
Forestry Development Project, Technical Paper, no. 11, (Zanzibar: Commission for Natural Resources, 1993), 5.
47. By the end of Phase III, 3.7 million seedlings had been distributed to villagers and 432 million trees had been planted over 2300 hectares of new forest reserves. 385
all project activities to the Forestry Phase II (1989-1992) entailed the transfer of
institution-building, systems Department. During Phase II, the project focused on development, and human resources development. In regards to local level activities, the
pursued the involvement project defined its "target group" as the "users of the wood," and of individual farmers and groups in agroforestry and tree planting activities. The articulated achievements of this phase included: the participation of all senior staff in decision-making, the village forestry unit trained in the participatory approaches to extension work with communities, a shift in focus to conservation and environmental issues, inventory of coral rag and mangrove areas and Jozani and Ngezi forests, conducted studies on rural and women's participation, and nurseries have the ability to do research. Articulated problems included: Forestry Sub-commission continues to have
difficulties making decisions, "engaging rural farmers in producing fiielwood. . . is inadequate to meet farmers' needs for income and sound management of natural resources," competing demands (tourism) for uses of the remaining forested areas have emerged, conflicts arise over resource use between the government and the "local people,"
and efforts to introduce the use of alternative fiiel sources failed.
In 1991, FINNIDA published a review of the project's mission in which it was acknowledged that forest policies are in conflict with the general economic and
agricultural policies.''* Interestingly, during the 1 990's, liberalization measures included the introduction of a Zanzibar Envirormiental Policy and Act, and new Agricultural Policy,
48. FINNIDA, "Zanzibar Forestry Development Project: Review of Mission," (Helsinki: Government of Finland, September, 1991). 386
increased participation of and a Forest Policy. The Environmental Policy (1992) called for
address the critical concerns people in conservation and resource management activities to of degradation of the coral rag forests and land, threats to mangroves, and increasing pressures of the limited forest resources. The Agricultural Policy articulated the objective
production, along to increase in farm production through improvements in small-holder with diversification of cash crops. Finally, the Forest Policy (1995) advocated an increase in forest products, while implementing measures to conserve forest resources.'" The policy also placed a high priority on the involvement of local communities in the management of forest resources. The policy provided directives and vested power in communities to establish community managed forests and participate in the creation of by-laws (with the government).'" The mission analysis noted that where land is in short supply old traditions have begun to erode. Land hunger raises the value of land, thus,
breaking dovra the communal nature of its ownership. The notion of common property resources becomes simply a transitional step on the way to individual ownership.
According to the report, such changes had become evident in the north around Nungwi and in southern villages (including Fumba) where almost permanent cultivation of the
same land has resulted in exclusive rights to its use.''
49. The Forestry Department was also relocated under newly created Commission of Natural Resources and renamed the Sub-commission of Forestry.
50. The brief overview of the forestry policy is taken from Khamis A. Said, "Conmiunity Resources Management and Environmental Education in Zanzibar," unpublished paper.
51. "Zanzibar Forestry Development Project: Review of Mission," 9. 387
the coastline, the coral rag As the affect of tourist development proliferated along
cause for deforestation areas became the focus of concern. It is proclaimed that the major
shifting cultivation, commercial in Zanzibar is rural poverty, which creates pressures for
such fuelwood production, charcoal-burning and other wood-based commercial activities,
that "rural as lime-burning. To restate this critical problem, government programs assert environmental degradation underscores the impact of abject poverty and inadequate management of scarce resources on the natural forests and bushlands."" Phase III (1993-
1997) focused on the problems of rural poverty. The project emphasized the need to
acquire the co-operation of the rural population and institutions to address deforestation,
because most forest products come from public (or communal) lands and not gazetted
forests. The focus remained on afforestation, but more aggressively pursued the
participation of rural communities in the coral rag. Sustainability also became a new trend
in this period. Thus, not only did Phase III emphasize the need to practice sustainable use
of forest resources, but also to improve strategies for financial sustainability of
government programs. The project advocated measures such as increasing government
revenues and license fees from forest products to achieve financial sustainability.
Phase III highlighted the ways in which a policy outlook can undermine itself
Rural poverty is articulated as the cause of environmental problems because the poor use
natural resources at an unsustainable rate and yet the policy advocated generating more
revenue from resource use which is practice by the very people who are subjected to
poverty. Such a perspective also neglects its own previous articulated problems of
52. Phase III . 7. 388
occurred due unsustainable urban resource use. Where once the production of fuelwood
rural poverty and the to increasing urban demand, fuelwood production occurs due to
coral rag areas was need to generate income. The ZFDP understood a major issue in the
constraints on the creation of sustainable income-generating activities. However, major their own efforts both to establish conservation practices and sustainable economic practices were the lack of land and the insecurity of land. Land insecurity has been identified as the major constraint to the success of tree planting and soil conservation in
Zanzibar, and yet, it does not feature as a priority in policy.
The Commission of Natural Resources was established in 1995 to combine and co- ordinate the efforts of the Department of Fisheries and Department of Forestry (now referred to as sub-commissions) which previously worked independently. In 1995, the
Sub-commission for Forestry initiated pilot projects to include the local communities in the management of forest resources." The Sub-commission implemented a Participatory
Rapid Rural Appraisal, which was conducted by the local communities in the project areas, under the direction of the forest officers, to identity problems in forestry use.
Together they concluded four main problems existed: 1 . most areas are open (in term of
use), 2. low quality of forest products, 3. an immense portion of women's time is
concerned with the collection of wood, 4. low yields of agricultural crops are a
consequence of the low rainfall which is related to the depletion of the forest. Three
solutions were recommended: 1. tree planting in depleted areas, 2. bee keeping, as an
53. The largest project covers the Jozani Forest/Chwaka Bay area. At a later date Paje was included in the project. 389
generate income, 3. small- alternative to cutting of trees for charcoal and lime burning, to
of the Village scale nurseries in communities for their own use and sale. The main role
planting but in Forestry Unit in the Subcommission was to involve people not only in tree the articulated needed conservation efforts. The work of officers entailed organizing village meetings with the assistance of local leaders to mobilize people around issues of conservation. As a consequence of the formation of the Unified Agricultural Extension
Service, forestry officers collaborated with extension officers in other departments such as agriculture and livestock, fisheries, and environment to co-ordinate information disseminated to communities in an effort to avoid giving farmers contradictory and confusing messages about sustainable environmental management.^"
The general model installed for forestry management at the local level is as
follows. Forestry use is permitted once a fee is paid. The money acquired from fees is used to hire guards to monitor forest use. If someone is caught illegally using the forest s/he receives a warning. If the individual is caught again s/he must pay a fine. If caught a
third, the individual is taken to the district level court where a higher fine is issued and possibly an order which would permanently ban the individual from use of the forest.
Natural Resource Committees were established through the Department of Environment with a focus on natural resource management and with a later goal to initiate income generating activities. These committees were given the power to create by-laws with the
54. This description of the work of the Village Forestry Unit is constructed through interviews with forestry officers. 390
through which the government assistance of COLE. The by-laws constituted strategies
monitoring. wanted to establish a self-sustainable system of both use and
government to create FINNIDA also worked in collaboration with the Zanzibar
project. The the Zanzibar Integrated Land Use and Environmental Management (ZILEM)
Zanzibar government requested assistance from Finland in 1985 to design a comprehensive land use plan and reconstruct the land administration. In 1988, FINNIDA
planning. began to coordinate project formulation and advise in land development and
ZILEM was designed as a five year project to begin in 1991 with a total budget of 20.5 million FIM (approximately US$3,600,000) of which FINNIDA contributed 16.2 million
FIM (approximately US$2,850,000)." The main objectives of the project were to resolve land and sustainable use of natural resources problems in Zanzibar, which were articulated as issues of planning. Thus, the following four sub-objectives were established: 1. institution building to improve the capacity of COLE, 2. land management to develop the necessary legal and administrative structures to implement land tenure practices, 3. land use planning to develop balanced land use, 4. environmental management to support the implementation of the Environmental Policy. A COLE official explains that both COLE and ZILEM were designed to address the complex land issue which revolves around a confusion over what land belongs to whom and on what basis. Such confusion is at the heart of Zanzibar's economic problems because along with land reform came a change in how to value land. Subsequent to land reform, the condition of large portions of land deteriorated due to neglect and abandonment. The National Land Use Plan designed
55. "Lands, Forests and People in Zanzibar," 13. 391
economic, under ZILEM constituted the government's attempt to integrate the environmental, and social issues regarding land.
zoning ZILEM was conceived as a two phase project in which Phase 1 involved
continuation of and documentation, and Phase II involved information dissemination and a
land legislation Phase I objectives. Phase I involved the creation and passing of new
(previously discussed) along with the National Land Use Plan, the surveying of all land to
the document it, the granting of individual ownership rights (titles) to people, and resolution of any existing disputes. To promote an understanding of this worlc, ZILEM comprised two pilot projects, one in Jumbe (Unguja) and one in Kwale (Pemba), which
would serve to design and implement Phase II. According to an official in COLE, both were progressing satisfactorily as people began to request to have their land surveyed.
However, ZILEM was phased out in 1996, and thus, the education program was never implemented. With donor aid on hold due to the political tensions, the government could not sustain ZILEM.
It has been suggested that COLE attempted to worlc with the district and regional levels of government to address land speculation and educate communities about the problems of giving away their land. At these levels, committees were to be forums to
address land issues under their jurisdictions, however, at this level little has been done/*
Other officials in COLE have suggested that no assistance has been provided to the people regarding the selling of land. One COLE official has suggested that as the value of land
56. This description of COLE efforts to assist communities was provided by Salim Rashid (interview, Chake Chake, 21 November 1997). 392
sell off the land to increases, the rate at which investors flock intensifies, and the poor
plagues even meet immediate needs. The question of why people have not received advice officials within COLE."
While boundary disputes remain as major challenges confronting COLE, the other major land problem actually stems from the master land plan which divided land into uses.
Problems arise when owners come forth and claim land that the government wants to use
it in a particular way. Usually, COLE attempts to resolve these issues by allocating 60% of the contested land to the claimer and 40% to the government. The compensation
2. system comprises two strategies: 1 . compensation for crops is provided to the owner, the owner receives a set amount of money for the use of the land every year. The first has been most extensively used and the source of further discontent. The second strategy has recently been implemented since 1997. This system has more acceptance by ovmers.
The ZILEM and forestry projects share an articulated objective to reduce poverty by catering their efforts to the needs of the rural population, more specifically to rural landless, rural women, and rural poor. Chachage suggests that the appearance of success of the tree planting campaign and forest resource management programs—once the participation of local people was added to the policy equation—coincided with liberalization measures introduced by the mid-1980's. Economic liberalization measures and the encouragement of private (foreign and local) investors had a greater impact than government efforts to include and influence rural community management of natural
57. Interview with Rhasid Azan, Chake Chake, 20 November 1997. 393
of land to favor resources.^^ Economic liberalization placed pressure on the development
However, individuals and the exploitation of resources for new and varied purposes.
Chachage contends that the projects have aggravated tensions among people in rural areas, instead of addressing them, because they have created more competition over resources. As FAO points out there is severe under-reporting of the value of forest products in official statistics. Environmental and other indirect benefits of forests are not
at all recorded in national accounts. Annual records also only report harvest of forest products that are reported by authorities responsible for issuing permits. This is only a fraction of forest use because most users do not seek permission." Both the ZILEM and forestry projects may be formulated to highlight the rural people participation but the agendas and strategies have already been established. Seeking participation to validate or
to confirm the relevance of policies is different. The incorporation of rural communities into government projects has indeed proven to be difficult work for government institutions.
Incorporating citizens into (sublnational forestry agendas . Paje joined the forestry project involving Chwaka Bay and Jozani forest by 1997. Twenty years ago forests covered the land around Paje which meant villagers walked no more than 1/2 mile for firewood and to cut poles. Citizens of Paje expressed an interest in receiving assistance to manage their forests before the affects of deforestation became too serious. At times, they may even buy wood from town. Now on average women travel 2 to 3 miles to collect
58. "Land, Forests People in Zanzibar," 27.
59. "Forest Policy Formulation and Legislation Review for Zanzibar," 16-17. 394
their interest by arranging a firewood.<^° The Sub-commission of Forestry responded to
as an area by the series of cross-visits with other towns. Interestingly, Nungwi is used
deforestation and sub-commission to illustrate what can happen if a town does not curtail sustainably regulate the use of forests. The Commission of Natural Resources also organized discussions in Paje to inform people of the importance of sustainability.^'
With the assistance of the Commission of Natural Resources, Paje established a
Natural Resource Committee and an Environmental Committee. The Environmental
Committee is responsible primarily for issues regarding pollution. The Natural Resource
Committee is responsible for issues of forest, sea, and general land use. The Committee serves the role of monitoring forest and sea use for Paje. The responsibilities of the
committee include: 1 . to protect the natural forest and marine environment from
destruction and extinction, 2. to discourage the use of illegal fishing techniques and equipment, 3. to regulate and monitor seasonal use of the forests, 4. to discoiu-age sand and stone mining along the shores, 5. to monitor marine activities." In 1997, the
Committee was in the process of writing by-laws to establish the complete system of forest management with the assistance of the Sub-commission of Forestry. Again under the direction of the Sub-commission of Forestry, the community agreed to a set of boundaries created to rotate use of the forest. After use of a demarcated area of the forest
60. This history of the degradation of the forests was conveyed by Ndame Haji (interview, Paje, 8 September 1997).
61. Interview with Secretary of the Environmental Committee, Paje, 2 October 1997.
62. Baseline Survey: Nungwi . 22-23. 395
area and use is prohibited. Large comes to an end, a process of re-planting begins in that
People have access to tree-cutting and lime-burning are prohibited throughout the forest.
permission. When disputes and the area of the forest allocated for use provided they seek
resources takes the violations arise over natural resource use the committee of natural
resolved by the shehia, the dispute is settled matter to the shehia . If the matter cannot be
the in the High Court. The graduated penalty system established comprises: a warning by sheha to discontinue, fines, and imprisonment for three months.
According to the secretary of the Natural Resource Committee, people of Paje understand and practice forest conservation; however, despite the creation of a forest use program, people continue to use the forest in ways that conflict with the laws for reserving part of the forest. The shehia can only claim success in resolving disputes and violations in a fraction of cases. Politics often becomes an obstacle in the handling of cases of violations. The Natural Resource Committee comprises members of both CUF and CCM.
When a case of violation is brought before the committee members, those who share a political affiliation with the violator will defend the actions of the violator. It is also
suggested that if someone is willing to pay money, the continuation of the violation will be permitted. As Committee members testify, competing political interests and corruption can complicate the processes of conflict mediation and enforcement.
Varying understandings of forest use also complicate the practice of sustainable management. Village to village disputes are ongoing as people continue to attempt to 396
people of Mugoni prevent others from having access to particular resources." In the past,
trees for lime-making. The (a neighboring town) would cross into the Paje area and cut
Sub- people of Paje opposed their intrusion. The sheha, with the assistance of the
commission of Forestry, had to intervene to resolve the problem. The Sub-commission
arrests in such had to assist in the intervention because it has the only authority to make
disputes between towns. The sheha and the Natural Resource Committee have had
success in arresting violators from neighboring towns with government assistance. On the
other hand, they have been successftil in sanctioning people within town boundaries.
Within Paje people understand that everyone "owns" the forest, thus they continue to cut
the forest whether or not they have arrangements do so.^
In discussions, most people suggested that they were either unaware of any
problems in forest use or that no problems existed. In contrast, a majority of people
mentioned the problem of fishing grounds with Jambiani which was discussed in the
previous chapter. Paralleling this understanding of forestry and fishing, a majority of
people suggest there is no need for land reform or the redefining of land use, while a need
exists to regulate fishing. This could suggest that a fairly successful forestry management
institution has been established in Paje. However, few people are able to discuss forest
regulations. By those who can, it is suggested that problems still arise. Despite that
people may not directly acknowledge problems of forest use, indirectly they refer to the
63. Interview with Razik Musa, Paje, 8 September 1997. Musa also suggests that such prohibition proves difficult because people marry between villages.
64. Interview, Paje, 11 September 1997. 397
regarding cuUivation, possibility of such problems in the mentioning of other problems
of deforestation. such as, the lack of rain and soil infertility which are consequences
and/or some Finally, the majority of people asserted that the sheha, influential villagers, government agency should define resource management programs. Silence on the issue of forestry management can be read as a compliance with government constructed regulations or as a strategy to conceal violations on forest-use rules. This depends on the interpretative position one chooses to assume.
Msuka also lies on the fiinges of a forestry project and has never fully participated in the sustainable management program created around the area. Ngezi Forest Reserve is classified as "the only remaining large patch of tropical moist forest" that once covered
Pemba. Efforts to preserve the forest were initiated as early as the 1950's. In the late 19th century Ngezi was used for tapping rubber. By the 1920's the colonial administration had recognized Ngezi as an important source of forest products and acknowledged the need to protect this resource. Plarmed harvesting of timber for commercial purposes began.
However, harvesting became more systematic after the declaration of Ngezi Forest as a
Forest Reserve in 1958. From 1957 to 1966 a sawmill operated from within Ngezi Forest
Reserve. Through the 1970's and 1980s Ngezi remained the main source of timber for the
Kizimbani sawmill run by the government. It was not until 1988 that the government articulated the need to emphasize the conservation of Ngezi Forest Reserve.*' Finally in
1968, the entire northwestern tip of the Vumawimbi peninsula was gazetted as a Reserve.
65. The mangroves were gazetted in the area in 1965 when all mangrove in Zanzibar were declared forest reserves. Mangroves grow along parts of the coast near Msuka. 398
People in The gazetting of Vumawimbi has generated part of the tension in the area.
never accepted Msuka consider this land to be in their possession. The gazettement was
land as their own. by the people. In the absence of enforcement, they continued to use the
turned Thus, most of the northwestern part of the peninsula has been cleared of forest and into agricultural land.
Subsequent to the establishment of the Commission of Natural Resources in 1995,
one of the first projects given priority in Pemba was the creation of the Ngezi Forest
Reserve Management Plan. The entire Vumawimbi peninsula came under re-evaluation during the design of the plan. The Commission decided that the entire peninsula need not constitute a Reserve and degazetted the area along the coast to permit its use for tourist development.** Msuka lies in the core zone for forest conservation efforts which means that some areas of forests and mangroves once used by people in Msuka are under total restriction while some areas are identified as multiple use zones. The future of mangroves as a resource and an ecosystem became an issue when the government established Ngezi as a protected area and prohibited tree cutting. People responded to the forest restriction by shifting from cutting trees in Ngezi to using the mangroves.*' The Commission of
Natural Resources thus altered the type of policy determining resource use to establish
66. Interview with Mbarouk Ali, Head of Subcommission of Natural Resources- Pemba, Wete, 17 November 1997.
67. Interview with Omar Shaame, Officer in Charge of mangroves, CNR, Wete, 16 November 1997. 399
created the position of areas of mangroves as multiple purpose zones.*" The commission
the mangroves. The Mangrove officers to educate communities about sustainable use of
general, is the largest problem in implementing not only these programs, but policies in
lack of funds and infrastructure.
In general, education about sustainability constitutes the largest articulated concern
of the Commission (in Pemba and near the Msuka area). Efforts involve convincing
people that the land is theirs and that they must manage it and the natural resources on it
wisely. Local participation in management was adopted because theoretically it is easier
to sustainably managed resources in this way for the government. However, the problem
is educating about sustainable use. People often don't accept as true what field officers of
the commission assert and explain in terms of resource use; rather they think the
Commission is "tantalizing them."*' When the Commission uses the terms "people" and
"local people" the reference implies some homogeneity which disintegrates upon further
inspection. Those who feel tantalized are the residents or wageni of Makangale because
they know the land is not their possession, whether it is because the land comes from the
government or permission to use the land comes from the people of Msuka. The people
of Msuka perhaps feel tantalized if emphasis is placed on tantalization as a violation.
While the Commission may suggest that the land belongs to the people, in Msuka people
understand their land use rights to be usurped from the them by the government.
68. Ibid. The cutting of mangroves was permitted for fuel and boats but not for timber or poles.
69. Interview with Mbarouk Ali, Wete, 17 November 1997. 400
problem the Commission The illegal use of sea and forest resources endures as a
participation, the must confront. Under the new management plan with its focus on local
it been Commission gives people the responsibility of monitoring resources because has
of forests realized that a policing system is not effective. In Pemba, local management started with two pilot villages in which village committees were established and
subsequently created by-laws.™ Now however, the government does not have the funds to extend projects to other areas. Even projects already established need follow-up which the commission cannot provide. According to the Head of CNR-Pemba, in the past the
government would enforce management but this was a difficult strategy because
enforcement involved fines and jail. The problem lies in that people do not have the
luxury to follow rules. "If the government tells people that they cannot use the forests just near them, they may listen for awhile, but eventually [they] will cut the trees because they
are poor. There will come a time when they decide that they have no alternative but to use the forests for survival and are prepared to be penalized." However, the Commission has now adopted the understanding that by involving the people the government benefits.
According to this shift in perspective, resources become wisely used as people realize, if the resources are not managed properly, then they will not possess a means of survival.
Once this realization occurs, government enforcement becomes unnecessary.' ' However, when government officials make such assertions they seem to forget that there are local
70. For example, near Micheweni, the community set laws permitting only women to collect firewood on Fridays and only dry fallen wood.
71. Interview with Mbarouk Ali, Wete, 17 November 1997. 401
possession for centuries. This groups that already understand resource pools to be their
government enforcement of local understanding of ownership motivates resistance to
These management and even government initiated community management programs.
does not preclude groups continue to understand such resource pools as their own. This
an issue the possibility of struggle erupting over the resource. Resource use in not simply
use. Such is the case of poverty. It is also an issue of ownership and the rights to define
for the people of Msuka who claim ownership over Vumawimbi.^^
Forestry officials suggest that few people of Msuka use the forests around the
Ngezi Forest Reserve. Instead they mostly use the mangroves around the Msuka area and
forests around Micheweni.'^ However, the neighborhoods of Msuka which sit closest to
Ngezi forest do use the forest, particularly to collect raffia to build fishing traps. When
forestry officials make this claim, they are generalizing forestry use in Msuka from use by
the half of Msuka that borders the Micheweni area. They are neglecting the
neighborhoods that border the Ngezi area. Though Msuka was not included in the studies
and the planning of the Ngezi Forestry Management Plan—because it was claimed they do
not directly use the forest—^the town was consulted about the Plan. Forestry officials
went to Msuka to educate about tree planting and sustainable forest use. Forest officers
72. It should be noted that the government acknowledges past ownership of Vumawimbi by people from Msuka villages. See Hamoud S. Abdullah, Mbarouk S. Ali, and Tuula Kurikka, "Ngezi Forest Reserve Management Plan," Zanzibar Forestry Technical Paper no. 31, (Zanzibar: Commission for Natural Resources, 1996), 18.
73. All interviews with forestry officials in Pemba suggested this. 402
address deforestation by organized meetings with villagers in which it was agreed to conserving the forest for 10 years and planting trees in the deforested area.
peninsula is At present, the only other area covered by forest in the Vumawimbi
(i.e. Vumawimbi directly north of Ngezi forest. In 1995, CNR established this forest
apply forest) as a reserve to prohibit unregulated tree-cutting in this area. Villagers must for a permit through the sheha to cut trees. This also applies to the use of most communal resources, clove trees, and mangroves (mentioned above). In contrast to the Paje area, where a Natural Resource Committee was established to self-monitor forest use, forest officers have the responsibility of monitoring around Vumawimbi. If a violator is caught
s/he is apprehended and turned over to the shehia . and as necessary, to the police, the
Regional Commission, and the Commission for Land and Environment which compose the enforcement hierarchy. The area remains a primary source of forest products for surrounding villages (including ones of Msuka). Many cases of breaking the forest use rules occur and go unpunished or undetected by the appropriate authorities. Officials suggest their work particularly in Msuka has limited success. They attribute their failings to political problems. Officials assert that people of Msuka understand government outreach as CCM imposition.
In Msuka, some villagers suggest that no problems exist over resource use, while
others acknowledge use problems but claim effective systems of regulation exist. Still others assert that there are problems of expansion of farmland into the forest which
requires the cutting of trees. It is explained that the destruction of forests occurs, but no system to regulate or prevent expansion into the forest exists. The people affected by the 403
of forest Vumawimbi dispute claim that previous to government intrusion, a system management was established by the people of this area. The system regulated seasonal
its use during use of the forest preventing forest use during the dry season and permitting wet seasons. The government took the area without consultation of the people and established a protected area which prohibited forest use. Now people have no rights of access, but use the forest "illegally" whenever they feel they can without getting caught.
From this perspective, the forest was used for timber, fishing equipment, and construction materials, and mangroves were used for fuelwood. Now people must search for land where trees can be cut, seek permission for the wood, and pay for it. The government does not provide any other alternatives.^'' An interesting contrasting view to this interpretation provided by citizens involved in the forest dispute, surfaced in another
group discussion, arranged and observed by the sheha . It was explained that the government controls forest use in the area, but the government also consulted the people of Msuka to educate them about their responsibilities of taking care of the forests. Now the coastal area around people's farms are used to collect wood for construction and fuel.
The use of the coastal area requires a permit to cut trees. In addition, people can travel to
Micheweni where tress are cut and sold. From this interpretation no problems exist with this management strategy.
It is possible to believe, as many people in Msuka do, that they were not included in the Ngezi Forest Management Plan precisely because of political tensions. Perhaps the government does not intend to label Msuka as an opposition stronghold, and on that basis,
74. This accoimt provided from a group discussion, Msuka, 14 November 1997. 404
that they, are exclude the town from government programs. Instead it is possible
the attempting to avoid the difficulties of such political tensions. Nevertheless,
government was aware of the Msuka citizens' claims to Vumawimbi and chose to ignore
them. The government could interpret the exclusion of Msuka from the establishment of
management programs as choice made by the people of Msuka, because they knew
citizens (who claimed possession of Vumawimbi) would refuse to comply with regulations
for use of "their possession." Such gestures of silence and avoidance can be perceived as
efforts to exclude, even on the basis of political affiliation. When interpreted in this way,
they perpetuate conflict between government agencies and citizens, and between
contending political parties. Gestures of silence which reftise acknowledgement and
participation are expressions of disapproval and strategies of resistance which can have the
intent of inducing change. The refusal to acknowledge that the government had a right to
development a sustainable management plan for Vumawimbi facilitated the next path of
resistance which was to engage in illegal use of the forest. This serves as a direct
challenge to the legitimacy of the conservation efforts of the government and as a
simultaneous way of coexisting with the (sub)national agenda.
Insubordination of citizens provides a thread that weaves through the transition
from one party rule to political party opposition. Highlighting resistance in the case of
forest policy reveals the imperfect actualization of hegemonic struggle, both in terms of
firustrating government and donor policy and for citizen struggle itself. Initially in the
implementation of FINNIDA funded forestry development policies, there was no consideration of social relations of production, local forms of control and appropriation of 405
impositions of the natural resources, and relations of power. In response to the technical government and donors, citizens did not perceive the potential benefits of projects, despite government interpretations to that affect. Thus, people refused to cooperate. Project encroachment onto land cultivated by people provoked discontent. Nevertheless,
FINNIDA persisted in its demands that the government should allocate more land for tree planting in the form of government plantations. FINNIDA linked continued support of
such projects to compliance with its demands.'^ Local resistance took the form of arson.
In Unguja residents in the gazetted areas of Chaani and Masingini, set parts of the forests on fire in 1986. In the same year, most state forest plantations were also set aflame.
Despite such resistance, the government, with FINNIDA, established similar projects in
Pemba in Micheweni District. The government extended the forestry project to Pemba at the request of a Pemba Representative of the Revolution Council of Representatives. The government planned to relocate rural residents of Kiunyu and Maziwa Ng'ombe in order to gazette the area in 1987. The protests of residents resulted in the reduction of the gazetted area from 2,620 hectares to 999 hectares. Conflicts between forest officers and rural residents resumed two years later when tree planting was extended to an area along the shoreline. In an effort to reduce the risk of fires, the Forestry Department initiated agroforestry projects in which migrant farmers were recruited to cultivate between planted
trees.'*
75. See "Land, Forests and People in Zanzibar."
76. This summary of incidents of resistance is taken from "Land, Forests and People in Zanzibar." For a more elaborate account of conflicts in Pemba see "Report on Findings and Recommendations on Causes and Problems at Maziwa Ng'ombe Forest Reserve." 406
an Eventually, the Forestry Department shifted to encouraging tree planting on
policy individual basis in coral rag areas where family land ownership predominated. This
secure was more successfiil because trees were understood not only to have value but to
land tenure. However, as previously discussed, tree ownership generated conflicts within
communities over landholdings. The aggressive promotion of tree-planting may have
succeeded in the intensive re-planting in some areas, but not without generating new
conflicts within rural towns. The antagonism between forestry officers and citizens
endures until today as evidenced by resistance to forestry management in Msuka. While
people in Muska understand a need for sustainable forest use, different people understand
it in different ways. CCM supporters and those without claims of land possession
understand forestry management to involve by-laws for regulations, monitoring and
enforcement, as articulated by the government and FINNIDA. CUP supporters and those
with unresolved claims to land understand goverrmient management plans as violations.
Consequently, people use the forests as desired and land claims remain unresolved.
Tourism Policy
When the clove market crashed, Zanzibar desperately needed a way of generating revenue which would revive the economy and subsidize the clove industry. Tourism
offered a possible remedy. Until then tourism fell under the direction of the Department of
Archives. The Union Government consulted the World Tourism Organization to carry out an assistance mission to prepare a tourism plan for Zanzibar. In 1983, the World Tourism 407
Organization produced a ten-year tourism plan for 1983-1992." According to an official within the Commission for Tourism, because the government delayed the implementation
19927* of the Tourism Plan, only a few of the objectives had come to fruition by In 1992, the Commission for Tourism was established to govern all matters in tourism which
include planning, development, and marketing." Zoning of land for tourism occurred in
1993 under the direction of COLE.*° The Tourism Zoning Plan established general guidelines for tourist zones. Six tourism zones—two in Pemba and four in Unguja—were
established. Nungwi is located in Zone two (North Corridor) and is specifically marked as a tourist area for development. COLE and the Commission of Tourism have targeted
Nungwi for a large-scale, high-class hotel and international financial center to be developed at a later time (Nungwi has not been given priority status). Zone 4 (South-east
Corridor) includes Paje which also is specifically marked for tourist development. Hotel
construction was to begin immediately. Although Paje was included in the first phase of
tourist development, it does not constitute a high priority area. Paje has been left to
develop tourism on its own. Zone five (Vumawimbi) includes Vumawimbi which has been
77. The policy was never followed. For an account of history of tourism and rise of ecotourism in Zanzibar see Ecotourism and Sustainable Development: Who Owns
Paradise? .
78. Interview with Issa Mlingoti, Director of Planning and Development in the Commission for Tourism, Zanzibar, 20 Feburary 1998.
79. This Commission may have been fiinctioning in 1992, however, it was only formally established in 1996 under the Promotion of Tourism Act.
80. The following discussion of Tourism Zones is informed by Commission of Land and Environment, National Land Use Plan (Planning Policies and Proposals') (Zanzibar:
Commission of Land and Environment, 1 995) and Tourism Zoning Plan . 408
Plan recommends that the reserved exclusively for eco-tourism development. The Zoning
in Pemba. lack of basic infrastructure be addressed before tourism development begins
to Pemba is a This is interesting to note because the issue of bringing infrastructure perpetual source of political tension. People of Pemba feels that the lack of infrastructure
such a policy is a product of political discrimination against the island as a whole. Thus,
recommendation can be interpreted as a gesture to uphold the denial of development to
Pemba.
The Tourism Zoning Plan preceded the more comprehensive National Land Use
Plan because the number of tourism investment proposals by the 1990's was staggering
and unexpected. The swell of prospective tourist investment required an immediate plan
to properly deal with such projects. Local citizens particularly rushed to build
guesthouses, restaurants, and boutiques. They would often establish businesses on land
without legally purchasing or leasing it, and without registering the land or the business.
Only once construction of the establishment was complete would these entrepreneurs
approach the Commission of Tourism for a permit to operate their business. Because the
government wanted to encourage local tourism investment, few restrictions were placed on this type of development and a co-ordinated plaiming strategy was not implemented.
The justification of this policy (or lack of) is based on an articulated cultural concern. It was believed that development without planning would possibly deter the destruction of the local culture by foreign tourist development.^' From the perspective of the
81. Interview with Issa Mlingoti, Zanzibar, 20 February 1998. However, those who didn't build on the land, sold land to foreign investors, often without government mediation. 409
government the only possible way to peacefully deal with local investors' lack of planning
was to let the investors develop as they wanted because competition in the service
oriented sector would weed out those who could not provide the services tourists wanted.
The government, thus, avoids problems with the people and the burden of investing into
the sector. However, the type of tourism facilities that the government hoped would be
weeded out have endured. The government continues to face the problems of eliminating
low-budget tourism which it defines as undesirable and promoting high-class tourism
which it had originally wanted to develop.
The National Land Use Plan acknowledged land speculation, existing and potential
land use conflicts, construction of low quality facilities, lack of infrastructure, lack of
planning, and minimal involvement of local communities as the most critical problems to
address. However, the government has done little to address any of the articulated
problems.*^ Initially, when Zanzibar opened its shores to tourism, investors surged onto
the island and pressurized the government to put the required infi-astructure in place. The
government responded only with the Land Stipulation Act—designed by COLE—which
stated that land can be leased for thirty-three or sixty-six years. In 1996, the government
enacted the Promotion of Tourism Act. The act established the functions and powers of
the Commission of Tourism, the terms of licenses, and the requirement of tourism
business. Hotel levies were to contribute to funding of the Commission. However, the
government never responded to tourism investors' demands for infrastructure by providing the requested amenities. Rather, the government permitted investors to develop their
82. See Ecotourism and Sustainable Development: Who Owns Paradise? 410
set up their means of leased land as they wanted which meant, for example, that they could generating of electricity and water.
Until 1996 a classification system of hotels did not exist. In May of 1996, a
French consultant arrived to survey all tourist accommodations in Zanzibar. It was reported that over 65% of the hotels and restaurants were not capable of handling tourists whom the government had targeted as desirable tourists. Contrary to government
aspirations and the desires of many of the local investors themselves, most tourist
establishments attract backpackers. Most of these establishments are owned by local
people. The Commission for Tourism is in the process of attempting to assist local
investors to improve their services and facilities through education and awareness
schemes. It seems that the Commission had a change in policy philosophy. The
Commission now claims that it subscribes to the belief that the government must provide
incentives for local investors, such as exception from taxes for two to three years so that
they can put profits into improving facilities. At the beginning of 1998, the Commission prepared legislation proposing to present to the House of Representatives a tax exemption
scheme. The system, put in place, required every hotel to pay $3.00 for every tourist to the government. But in the rural areas most hotels charge only about $10.00 per person
per night. The Commission claims that this system of taxation is intended to serve as a catalyst for improving services. The hotels will have to charge more, and thus, will need to provide better services for the tourists.
Additional problems have surfaced around tourism development. Investors
pressure for leases but once they attain leases, actual construction is delayed and 411
the seriousness of postponed. The slow rate of project completion raises the question of
lack of investors in Zanzibar. According to investors, their delay is due to the
such capital infrastructure in Zanzibar, which is compounded by their reluctance to assume
that investors costs. While this may be one part of the reason, it can also be highlighted
value want to secure land now at a minimum cost in anticipation of the increase in land once the infrastructure is in place. Another problem which has arisen concerns the collection of hotel levies. While the Commission of Tourism depends on levies to sustain
its budget, the Ministry of Finance holds the responsibility for levy collection which it handles haphazardly at best." Finally, along the east coast of Unguja where tourist
development is most intense, the problem of poor quality endures. Local guesthouses
continue to emerge along the beaches, because people want to reap the benefits associated
with tourists. Such ventures involve little planning, thus, construction of poor quality
structures with poor facilities occurs along beautiful beaches.*"* What is interesting to note
is that tourism development is constructed by the government in terms of a dilemma, namely, whether to support locals, who do not attract high class tourists, or foreigners, who propose high-class project, but delay in the deliverance of their promises. As already
suggested little tourist development has occurred in Pemba. An official of the
Commission of Tourism in Pemba suggested that they hope not to repeat the mistakes of
Unguja. The lessons learned from Unguja involve two main concerns: 1 . the seriousness
83. Interview with Jamal Salamy, Tourism Officer, Commission for Tourism-Pemba, Chake Chake, 20 November 1997.
84. Ibid. 412
only. In Pemba, this has of investors, 2. the desirability of high class hotels and resorts
four translated in policy terms to the rejection of any project which does not propose a
to illustrate star hotel. In addition, the Commission claims it has held discussions in areas
businesses. the benefits of tourism, i.e. employment and creation of market for local
However, what they fail to address is that the area in which high class hotels are to be
constructed by serious investors must be first clearly understood as a zone for tourist
development by the locals they educate. In other words, contestation over the site will
also impede the process of tourist investment. The Vumawimbi coastline is an illustrious
case of such problems. Three areas of the Vumawimbi peninsula have been zoned for
tourist development: Verani, Vumawimbi, and Ufiikweni. Of the three, only Verani has
any completed facilities for tourists. A hotel has been constructed only Verani Beach. As
discussed in the previous chapter, people of Msuka make claims to the Vimiawimbi
coastline. Though the people may not have had their claim legitimated, the matter remains
in court which consequently frustrates the plans of the government to develop the area for
tourism.
Nungwi offers another controversial site of tourist development which illustrates the problem of the seriousness of investors. Nungwi was previously mentioned as a visit-
site to learn of the affects of deforestation. While the government initiated steps to address deforestation in the area, Nungwi was not incorporated into the village forestry project to establish a sustainable management program, largely because there are no forests to regulate. Near complete deforestation makes Nungwi an ideal place to design a massive construction project. Nevertheless, the Commission for Natural Resources 413
advised Nungwi launched efforts to assist Nungwi with its environmental problems. CNR
tour to to establish a committee on natural resource management and arranged a study
another village to learn how communities can plan, manage, and conserve natural
resources. In 1997, Nungwi created a Natural Resource Committee which was in the
process of preparing a monitoring system, requiring the collaboration of the committee
and Commission for Natural Resources. Deforestation in Nungwi is extensive. It has
implications not only for previously forested areas but also for agricultural land and the
coast. Coastal erosion has become a serious problem along the stretch of beach where
hotels have been constructed. The cutting of coconut trees and heavy stone and sand
mining also occur along the coast to meet construction demands. Both practices
contribute to beach erosion. Aware of the extensive and related environmental problems
in Nungwi, a number of governmental institutions have collaborated to provide Nungwi
with education and advice on natural resource management. The Department of
Enviroimient advised Nungwi to prohibit the cutting of trees along the beach to prevent
erosion. The shehia enacted a complete ban on tree cutting and assumed the responsibility
of overseeing the planting of trees along the beach.*' The Commission of Tourism
organized a study tour in which members of the Natural Resource Committee participated
in a study session on how communities can develop sustainable local tourism sensitive to
biodiversity and the natural environment. Such efforts though did not seem connected to other initiatives on the part of the Commission of Tourism, Zanzibar Investment
85. Despite the prohibitive regulations people continue to cut trees. 414
Promotion Agency (ZIPA), and the Department of Lands located in COLE (along with the Department of Environment).
The potential threat to all of Nungwi surfaced in 1997 when the government entered into discussions with several investors over the possibilities of a massive development project, built on dreams to transform the Nungwi peninsula into the Hong
Kong of Africa (that is, an international off-shore financial center). The government began usurping land for the project, prohibiting all activity within demarcated areas, including tree planting to prevent beach erosion. The project planned to develop, in total,
47 square kilometers of the Nungwi Peninsula. Several companies initially contended to win the right to develop the peninsula; the East African Development Company succeeded. ZIPA announced the approval of the project in October 1997. Over the next three to five years the company proposed to develop the peninsula into a tourist, trade and education center.** The company plarmed to undertake a total of 39 projects on the peninsula. The projects included the construction of eleven hotels, a hospital, a resort
village, a time-share village, an 1 8-hole golf course, a racecourse, an airport, schools, a university which would include an institute for business, accountancy, and law, a trade and
conference center, and a housing estate for employees and offshore banking facilitates.*'
Thomas Wells, company director, also promised the construction of a mosque and social
amenities. Thus, it also included the creation of adequate water and power supplies for
86. Correspondent, "Zanzibar's Nungwi Peninsula to Undergo Metamorphorsis," Express. 9-15 October 1997.
87. Anonymous, "'$4b Investor' in Zanzibar Arrested at Dar Airport," The East African . 10- 16 November 1997. 415
raised four million US dollars the area. By the end of 1997, the company claimed to have
Zanzibari to begin construction and proposed a starting date of early 1998. The
revenue government agreed to a 49 year lease for £1 annually in return for 26% of the
generated from the project.
Scandal scarred the proposed financial and resort center by November, 1997.
Police detained Thomas Wells, the claimed mastermind of the project, on the 4th of
November at the Dar es Salaam airport following an Interpol alert of fraud charges
brought against him in the Sultanate of Oman. Tanzanian police asserted that they had
been tracking Wells since mid- 1996, but felt unable to apprehend him in Zanzibar because
he had "highly-placed friends in the government."**
Nevertheless, by October, 1997, EADC and ZIPA had announced that the Nungwi
Peninsula Project was ready to start and would be the largest infrastructure undertaking in
East Africa and the largest leisure resort development in East Africa. The EADC press
release also proclaimed that, "[w]e expect Zanzibar to rival Hong Kong, Singapore, and
Mauritius as a tourist and business destination." The Finance Minister Amina Salum Ali
asserted, "Zanzibar is now set to become one of the economic lions of the emerging
nations of Africa."
ZIPA ignored the scandal which broke in the newspapers, contending that Wells presented the ideas of the project but was not the financier; EADC as the company assumed this role. Once ZIPA evaluated the seriousness of the investors and established that the company could raise the ftmds, other Ministries became involved. COLE
88. Ibid. 416
frame, 2. that small islands recommended three conditions for the project: 1 . a time
also advised that a nearby not be included, 3. the inclusion of the local population. COLE
ZIPA social impact assessment and an environmental impact assessment be conducted.
compiled a socio-economic benefits projection in which the benefits to the employment,
projection education, and health are listed, in place of a social impact assessment. The
also asserted that agriculture and fisheries would benefit from the introduction of modem
equipment and facilities. ZIPA highlighted the company's projection that the entire project
would employ 20,000 Zanzibaris. However, ZIPA never mentioned that it was also
projected to displace 20,000 people from the peninsula. According to ZIPA, the interests
of the local people were a priority. As a consequence, ZIPA changed the policy of
compensation to people for their products to the land to giving the community a
percentage of the profits from the investment.*' In this new approach land is articulated as
the contribution of the community and in exchange the community receives a development
trust fund. The Nungwi development project was to be the first project to implement the
new policy.
ZIPA claimed that because the Nungwi project covered a vast portion of the area,
an agreement was reached with the investors that the culture and livelihoods of the local
community should not be disrupted.'" Improvements to the town could be made but there
should be no interference in people's lives. However, without the holding of discussions
89. Interview with Fatma Jumbe, Public Relations and Promotion Officer, Zanzibar Investment Promotion Agency, Zanzibar, 24 February 1998.
90. Ibid. 417
would and a social impact assessment of the area it is difficult to contemplate how ZIPA know how the people of Nungwi want this project to affect their lives. ZIPA's claims are dismissive political rhetoric which simply construct an attractive picture of the project.
Like most projects in Zanzibar, the imagined project need not be substantiated because
there is a complete absence of institutions which will hold the government accountable to the actualization of the project. On the other hand, the political vmfolding of a
development project is more complicated than the lack of central government accountability. According to people of Nungwi, the town and surrounding villages were
not consulted, included in the initial conception of the project, nor included the in the negotiations. Community awareness of the project surfaced only when the field officers of
NGORC brought word of the scandal in the newspapers.^' Promptly, the shehia discussed the project at the regional level and with the Department of Environment to discern whether the project entailed plans to displace the entire village of Nungwi and assess whether Nungwi could expect to benefit in any way. However, according the Head of the
Department of Lands in COLE, the sheha was notified of the project and a discussion ensued between him, the Minister of Minister of Land and the Head of the Department of
Lands, before the leased was signed with EADC. From the perspective of COLE, if the
community was imaware of the project, fault lay with the sheha .
At the level of the central government, ZIPA continued to support the project.
Towards the end of 1998, newspapers reported another scandal v^th the Nungwi project.
91. Non-governmental Organization Resource Center (NGORC) is a pilot project of the Aga Khan Foimdation (an international organization). 418
plots and EADC had sub-divided the 47 square kilometers of land into one-hectare
press advertised the plots for sale at a price of US$50,000 in the Tanzanian press. The confronted President Salmin Amour who responded, "[t]he government is not aware of
then will take legal action the selling of the Nungwi land. . . If that is the case, we
immediately." ZlPA's admission of its awareness of the sale of the land contradicted
Amour's claim. In June 1999, the government announced that it reversed the offer of the
Nungwi development project to EADC.'^
Export Processing Zones
In development policy, the economic processing zone became the hot trend pushed to resolve problems of economic underdevelopment once states in Southeast Asia began to accept economic liberalization and implement economic restructuring policies. Though export processing zones have been slow to impose upon nation-states in Africa, they are pushed as the remedy which created the Asian Tigers. Mauritius was one of the first
states in Africa to embrace the idea of EPZ's and is consequently hailed as the economic success story of Africa. The government of Zanzibar has participated in study tours to
Mauritius and Seychelles to learn from their proclaimed successful experiences with EPZs and tourism. Just as the government implemented few if any of the lessons learned about
tourism policy, it has not been able to apply others' experiences with EPZ's.
92. James Mwakisyala, "Zanzibar's Billion-Dollar Venture Fails to Take Off," East
African . 1-7 July 1999. 419
To attract foreign investment for industrial development, the government of
Zanzibar has established three export processing zones—Amaani Industrial Park and
Fumba in Unguja and Micheweni in Pemba." The Economic Processing Zone Agency
was established in 1992 to handle the establishment of the EPZs. The government
allocated 825 hectares of land in Fumba for the EPZ. Fumba was chosen because it was
not demarcated as a site for tourist development as a consequence of the lack of beautiful
beaches. In addition, it is located near the airport and the port (in Zanzibar town) which
would provide industries with access to these necessary components of infrastructure.
However, the area itself lacks the basic infrastructure needed to attract foreign investment.
The National Land Use Plan articulated the need to focus on building infrastructure and
linking this development to not only existing infrastructure, but also to other production zones in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries. In 1997, the EPZ Office claimed roads were being built, and both a electricity generation company and a telecommunications company had approved projects to develop their services in the area.'* However, in this fifth year of
93. The government contracted Tata Consultancy in 1994 to conduct a study of the development of EPZ's in Zanzibar. To the satisfaction of the government the firm projected that the EPZ's could reach a level of manufactured exports equivalent to US$ 60 million within five years (see National Land Use Plan).
94. An EPZ official explained that the construction of a 14 kilometer road that will ring the peninsula was in progress with 1 1 kilometers already laid. The part that has been laid provides people with access to the beach. What is interesting to note is that at the time of this discussion I had completed my research in Fumba and consequently was quite familiar with the tovm and its surroundings area. Eleven kilometers of laid road did not exist. The EPZ official knew I had already finished my work in Fumba, and yet chose to assert that the road did indeed exist. I believe that such an assertion is a strategy of power. It does not matter whether the road exists or not, what matters is that the statement made stubbornly contradicts what the recipient otherwise knows. As a consequence, the recipient is left feeling frustrated without a means to struggle. It is a powerftil strategy in 420
phase) there are no paved Phase I of the EPZ project (Phase I is designed as a fifteen year
roads in or leading to Fumba, and electricity nor telephone lines.'^ Phase II of the project
will entail the construction of housing for incoming people. The government is expecting
five thousand families to migrate into the area for employment. However, the articulation
of Phase II occurred after a small scandal involving a housing construction project. In
1993 the government approved the construction of Star City by the State Engineering
Company, an Australian firm. The project involved the construction of 600 flats for
foreigners that would come into the area as employees and owners of industries. Three
thousand acres of land were acquired for the project through the displacement of people in
Fumba who received compensation only for their trees. The land was fenced to deny
access to people in Fumba. The foundations for building were laid. Abruptly, the project
came to a halt. The State Engineering Company pulled out due to financial problems.
Now the land can be used by people in Fumba as communal land though it was at one time
used by individuals (or individual families). However, if another project is proposed the
government will most likely demarcate this land again.
The EPZ Agency states its main intention is to create employment for the people
of Fumba. The office also understands people's expectations to be compatible with what
the EPZ will accomplish. For example, according to the EPZ office three fishing and fish
the pursuit of hegemony. It is a strategy employed frequently by the government of Zanzibar.
95. Zanzibar receives its supply of electricity from the mainland. It is interesting to note that there is no electricity in Fumba because the place of entry of the island's electricity supply is Fumba. 421
processing projects have been approved for this industrial zone. This v^ill serve the
interests of Fumba because 15% of the population are fishermen. Indeed, fish processing
plants may serve the interests of Fumbans, but it is questionable whether 15% of Fumba's
population would meet the demands of three plants. On the other hand, I would suggest
statistic that more than 1 5% of the population is involved in fishing activities. EPZ's takes
into consideration only male fisherman. Such an uninformed position on Fumba is
astonishing precisely because the government has made a public commitment to a serious
development project.
The establishment of EPZs faces intense international competition.** The
government of Zanzibar narcissistically has asserted a price of US$2.5 per square meter
for foreign investors in an international context in which Dubai (a leading export center)
96. For example, Kenya provides a tax break for the first ten years, a reduced tax of 25 percent for the following ten years; permission to maintain offshore hard currency
accounts; exemption from all withholding taxes to non-residents during the first ten years; exemption from import duties on machinery, raw materials, and intermediate inputs; no exchange controls; no restrictions on management or technical arrangements; exemption from value added tax; advantageous customs treatment; and no restrictions on the employment of foreigners in managerial, technical and training positions (Sammy Adelman, "The International Labour Code and the Exploitation of Female Workers in Export-Processing Zones," 198). Zanzibar offered a similar package to companies to establish manufacturing at Amaan Industrial Park. Pars Banafsheh Company (Iranian) was to set up a plastics factory in 1994. The company received a ten year tax break with a 10 percent tax rate thereafter; no exchange control restrictions, exemptions on income taxes for ten years; exemption from import duty on machinery equipment, raw materials, and other supplies; complete foreign ownership (Sebastian Paschal, "Zanzibar export zones a failure, so far," Financial Times . 16-22 July, 1997). Pars Banafsheh instead established a home supplies bazaar which imports all of its merchandise, contrary to the very idea of EPZ. 422
investments in charges US$0.5 per square meter." Export processing zones require initial
infrastructure on the part of the state, if such infrastructure is not already present. In a
place with low levels of industrialization, initial net exports will be low due to the high
level of imports of manufactured goods to support export production (and the government
receives no revenue on imports only on exports from industry in the EPZ). Thus, the EPZ
as a strategy of development is a long-term commitment. The government is aware of this
as the discussion of EPZs in the National Land Use Plan suggests. The government also
acknowledges that people's enthusiasm and support of such strategies is sustained by a
visibly progressive pace of development. However, the seriousness of the government's
commitment can be questioned when little 'visible progress' can be actually seen and when
the few visible signs of progress stand abandoned in the town.
Nevertheless, (sub)national promises can be enticing enough to believe when they
match the desired changes of a community. In Fumba, a path of grass depressed by tires
streaks through the part of this community most densely covered with trees and grasses
and leads to the communal land. The path marks the place where EPZ anticipates the
construction of a tarmac road. At the end of the path is the site for future construction of
industries. While Fumbans no longer welcome the Wanvamwezi out of fear of their
destructive agricultural practices and the disappearance of communal land, they eagerly
invite the Economic Processing Zone, despite government intentions of clearing exactly
the same land that the Nyamwezi occupied. Unlike the Wanvamwezi . the EPZ will leave
97. The comparison of prices was provided by Ali Khalil, Director of Lands, COLE, (interview, Zanzibar, 20 March 1998). The price of industrial space in Dubai also includes access to amenities such as electricity which it, for now, does not in Zanzibar. 423
their minds about the Fumbans with no recourse to reclaim this land, if they should change permitting waeeni onto their land. At present, the EPZ Agency offers Fumbans compensation in the form of the value of their trees and the prospects of employment opportunities in the industries.
A CUF supporter in Fumba explained that when Fumbans permitted the Nyamwezi people to cultivate in the communal land, the EPZ Agency was strongly against it because
the communal land is now understood by the agency as government land.'* However, the
EPZ Agency deferred to Fumba's decision. The Agency decided to later appease Fumbans and hear the complaints against the Wanvamwezi to sustain peaceful relations with
Fumbans because, in the future, the agency would have to contend with Fumbans over the same issue. The EPZ and the regional officials had smoked stained hands because they were present when the people of Fumba torched the huts of the Nyamwezi people. EPZ officials were not serious about resolving the conflict because what happens to the
communal land at this time has little impact on the plans for the EPZ. Soon enough the communal land will be cleared for the EPZ. In neighborhoods within Fumba large concrete square markers augur the arrival of the EPZ. As a consequence people living in these areas will be displaced. The Fumbans will lose their communal land not to the
Wanvamwezi and destructive cultivation practices but to the EPZ.
Fumbans generally welcome the establishment of the EPZ, because it will bring
employment opportunities. This is not to suggest that people in Fumba have not had problems with the initial surveying of the land for the EPZ. Some people even suggest
98. Interview, Fumba, 19 August, 1997. 424
interpretation, that the EPZ was at the root of the Nyamwezi problem. According to this
the EPZ Agency marked off land and told the people of Fumba that they could not use this
land. However, outsiders have misinterpreted this zone. Thus, for example, the
Nyamwezi understood such a free zone to mean that they could claim land in Fumba.
Fumbans also raise concerns about the process of construction and the potential negative
changes to their community. The largest concern with the process of planning the EPZ is
the handling of compensation for land. Although people admit receiving compensation,
they imderstand that in other places, such as Paje and Bwejuu, people have received
compensation, in terms of the value of land rather than of trees, via individual sales not
mediated by the government. Fumbans now either want compensation for the value of
their land and the right to decide for themselves what that value is, or the opportunity to
lease the land themselves. Some Fumbans have filed complaints to claim land
compensation with COLE. However, as one COLE official has suggested, their
complaints will conclude without any further compensation because the government is not
yet willing to place a value on land for its citizens.
Another issue involves the Fiunban way of life. Women in Fumba are quite aware
that with the influx of wageni, their conventional way of life will change but the prospects
of employment for their children are articulated as worth such risks. Men, on the other hand, stress the idea that though changes cannot be avoided, they want guarantees that the
Fumban way of life will be preserved. They suggest that if changes are introduced which are not compatible with the conventions of the citizens of Fumba, then clashes will arise
[again]. 425
(Sub^national Policy Frustrations
because it The actions of the (sub)national-state can be understood as narcissistic
citizen arrogantly pursues its own understanding of development to the disregard of
dissent. Subalterns choose from several strategies to give voice to their perspective. They
can manipulate sub-state institutions and agendas to support or assist their positions.
They can place their support in the opposition to frustrate policy processes for
development projects. As they deceptively accept sub-state policy terms, they can insert
their own understandings and intentions into policies and projects to alter them to support
the endurance of their perspectives. As people refuse to completely accept the terms of
projects articulated, the (sub)national-state experiences the frustrations of stubbornly
holding on to the belief that it directs the formation of the (sub)nation. While the sub-state
may have narcissistic ambitions of creating and controlling a (sub)nation, many sub-state
institutions and officials realize that in certain situations coexistence with community
interpretations constitutes a less frustrating alternative. Sub-state officials also consider
when deceptive acceptance of community perspectives presents a compatible strategy with their intentions to control the direction of (sub)national development. In Zanzibar today,
the most ironic policy question enduring since the time of the revolution is: "[h]ow should we value land, our land, with foreigners coming in to buy it?"'' The government can continue to insist that, "land does not have value." But the people are echoing, "have value."
99. This question was posed by Ali Khalil (interview, Zanzibar, 20 March 1998). 426
The Northern Grasp
When the external influence is highHghted in complicated struggles over resources,
echoes do not resonate only from subaltern citizens. The articulations of the sub-state can
be interpreted as echoing strategies. Efforts to conserve forest, tinker with land tenure,
and attract new forms of generating revenue such as tourism and EPZs—in general
liberalizing the economy—echo the desires of donors and international financial
institutions, however imperfectly. When donor countries and extra-state organizations
realize their definitions of development and reform are not being implemented in the ways
they had intended, they experience a frustration of narcissism similar to the one
experienced by the (sub)national-state.
Donors and Government
The flow of money from places harboring ambitions to direct development has
been a global condition both in the colonial and postcolonial contexts. In the United
States, the Marshall Plan gave rise to an articulated agenda to assist countries without the
means to induce their own development. Donors emerged on the scene providing bi-
lateral aid. While Julius Nyerere spoke of the virtues of self-reliance and non-alignment in
'°° the post-colonial era, such principles proved more difficult to practice than to preach.
Soon after the 1964 revolution, Zanzibar found itself in a precarious Union, partially due
100. There is an abundance of literature on the limitations and failings of the socialist project in Tanzania. See for example, Dean E. McHenry, Jr., Limited Choices: The Struggle for Socialism in Tanzania (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1994); Severine Rugumamu, Lethal Aid: The Illusion of Socialism and Self-Reliance in Tanzania (1997). 427
assistance to embrace in the to the dilemmas of which donors to consult and what types of
the attempt to ironically achieve independence. Scholarship and fiction in Africa speak of evils of accepting donor assistance, and nevertheless, governments find themselves in a seemingly inescapable condition of sustaining their very survival with such funds.
Zanzibar has not proven an exception. Gumah eloquently captures the idea of donor assistance:
Perhaps calling it funding made it seem less like begging and dependence, less like taking the guilty money of our betters to throw away on trinkets and petty exhibitionism. Funding. Words like that transcend hypocrisy. They become like liturgical language, solemn and layered with intimations, but no longer precise enough to resist proliferating meanings.""
Indeed funding in Zanzibar has assumed multiple meanings. Initially, after the 1964 revolution, members of the Revolutionary Council reflected on donor assistance as an ideological and imperialistic tool. Assistance from China and East Germany was welcomed to contribute to the building of socialist reform, while assistance from the West was understood as suspect. However, the disappearance of funds and the collapse of the clove market induced the need to reconsider what funding means. Assistance from
anywhere was welcomed and it could assume whatever meaning donors wanted to imagine, provided the funds filtered into the government purse. Policies to encourage
foreign investment could after all open new avenues to generate revenue, provided the government preserved land as state property. Donors were willing to comply.
101. Admiring Silence . 152. 428
in However, the government officials of Zanzibar are not the only cunning actors
subtle the drama of funding. Donor influence over national development can seem more or insidious than past colonial policies. Nevertheless, it assumes a similar paternalistic and patronizing stance. For example, aid from Scandinavian countries was instrumental in the acceptance of the World Bank structural adjustment program and in securing government
assurance that it will seriously enforce tax collection and make the transition to a multiparty democracy.'"^ Finland began development assistance to Tanzania in the early
1960's as part of a join Nordic aid initiative emphasizing technical assistance.'"^ In the
1980's Finland's aid program was re-defined in response to global political and economic changes, namely the stress on economic and political liberalization. Finland articulated assistance to require the partner country to assume responsibility for its ovm development as the Finnish role would change to one of merely support. Thus, the recipient was expected to "manifest a will to develop," and this development should be sustainable
"environmentally, economically, socially, and administratively."
Donors always offer assistance with a set of accompanying conditions. The
Zanzibar government can agree or disagree with the conditions with some space allotted
for negotiations at the highest levels of government.""' However, it is difficult to refiise aid when the government has become dependent on such assistance to simply plan and
102. "Land, Forests and People," 32.
103. This brief discussion of Finnish aid is from Bob Karashani, "Finland Joins in Aid
Freeze on Zanzibar," The East African . 4-10 August, 1997.
104. Interview with Mbarouk Ali, Wete, 14 November, 1997. 429
as they imperfectly function. Government officials may resist donor strategies of discipline implement handed-down policies of political and economic liberalization or blatantly misuse allocated funds, but donor countries do not always passively accept such insubordination. The government of Zanzibar pushed the donor community too far when
thought that the 1995 elections did not produce the expected outcome. Donor countries the Zanzibar government had a great deal to lose in the rigging of elections.
Several international organizations and donors other than FINNIDA were involved
the efforts to in not only the forest conservation efforts in Zanzibar but in linking them to increase agricultural production. UNDP funded a biodiversity project in East African through the Global Environmental Facility (GEF). The project, implemented under FAO in Tanzania, allocated US$220,000 for conservation activities in Zanzibar beginning in
1993 for a three year term. UNDP and FAO again implemented a project in Zanzibar to
reorganize all extension services within MALNR into a Unified Agricultural Extension
Service in an effort to increase agricultural production. Finally, the British Overseas
Development Agency (ODA) supported the Zanzibar Cash Crops Farming System Project
which focused on the production of cloves and tree crops.""
In 1997, the FINNIDA funded forestry project ended and the execution of the long
term forestry improvement project was handed over to the Zanzibar government.
FINNIDA emphasized that the government would need to take seriously people's participation and the financial responsibilities of the project. This would mean that the
government would have to find the resources to replace the financial assistance FINNIDA
105. Phase III . 18-19. 430
approximately had provided. The numbers are staggering. FINNIDA had contributed
the US$9,000,000 (51.4 million FIM) to the project from 1980 to 1997, compared to
Zanzibar government's expenditures of 295 million Tsh.'°*
In response to the controversial 1995 election results, the Scandinavian countries
froze foreign aid to Zanzibar. As previously stated, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark
issued an aid freeze in April of 1996. In August 1997, Finland joined the freeze by putting
all projects currently in progress on hold and not renewing any ending projects.'"' For the
government of Zanzibar this translated into the loss of support for the $ 1 .64 million
ZILEM project, $10 million urban water supply project, and the end of the forestry
project. In terms of total annual aid from Finland, the freeze amounted to a loss of
approximately US$1,137,600. Due to the freeze of financial assistance in 1997, Finland
only provided Zanzibar with approximately US$269,292."'*
In Zanzibar, both COLE and CNR experienced the affects of the donor freeze.
Neither Commission had the frinds to carry out any of their programs as articulated in
above sections. Prior to the freeze both Commissions had initiated campaigns to educate
rural communities on issues of land tenure, environmental sustainability, and new resource
106. Shepard, et al.. Thematic Evaluation on Enviroimient and Development in Finnish Development Cooperation—Forestry (Helsinki: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland, 1999). To be able to roughly compare Finland's contribution with Zanzibar's, the amount contributed was approximately 341 billion Tsh.
107. The European Commission followed suit and decided not to begin any new projects in Zanzibar.
108. Statistics are from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland. These figures do not include financial assistance from Finish NGOs. 431
The donor freeze management regulations as they pertain to forest and marine resources.
of Forestry, the left such programs completely incapacitated. The Subcommission
Department of Environment and the Department of Land did not have the resources to
all these even fuel their vehicles to reach the rural communities. Officials in of
Commissions pointed to the donor freeze as one of the largest obstacles to conducting their work in (sub)national development."" Under the donor freeze the government had simply enough ftinds to pay salaries to its employees who have little work.
In February 1998, Finland increased pressure to resolve the political impasse by
completely excluding Tanzania from its annual bilateral aid budget. Tanzania was denied an estimated US$12 million in assistance until the Zanzibar government entered talks with
CUF. It can be assumed that Finland's position to exclude Tanzania as a recipient of aid was a gesture to persuade the Union government to become involved in the resolution of political tension in Zanzibar. The Union government along with the Zanzibar government publicly refused to admit a political crisis existed in Zanzibar until the end of January 1998 at which time Nyerere initiated the acknowledgement and CCM reluctantly followed. It is not merely coincidental that the government acknowledgment of a crisis came at the time
of the threat to withdraw aid.
Donors. NGOs. and CBOs
Another post-colonial participant in the effort to shape the direction of national development is the non-governmental organization. NGO refers to any non-governmental
109. The other two obstacles are land tenure and politics or multipartism. 432
is often located organization that provides funding and initiates development projects but
both in a donor country. However, the concept is a bit more ambiguous because
international NGOs and governments encourage the creation of NGOs in recipient
countries. While the state and the project of nation-building will not soon whither, the
place of this rising institution in national hegemonic struggle should not be neglected. As
donors become frustrated with development aid to the state, due to gross mismanagement
of funds, embezzlement, and general corruption, NGOs seem to offer a promising
consolation both at the international and national levels. Donors began the slow process
of abandoning states in AfHca with the onslaught of economic liberalization. NGOs, as
the agents of civil society, filled the recipient void.
Paralleling these political developments, scholarship on the necessity of a viable
civil society and the virtues of NGOs rapidly proliferated. A growing perspective in the
literature on development suggests that NGOs can facilitate a more participatory process
than the state."" The literature on conservation also advocates NGOs, voluntary
110. See Elena Borghese, "Third World Development: the Role of Non-governmental
Organizations," The OECD Observer , no. 145(1 987); Michael Bratton, The Politics of Govemment-NGO Relations in Africa," World Development 41, no.3(1989): 407-30 and "Non-governmental Organizations in Africa: Can they Influence Public Policy?" Development and Change 21(1990): 87-1 18; Michael M. Cemea, Nongovernmental
Organizations and Local Development . World Bank Discussion Paper No.40 (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1988); Kabiru Kinyanjui, ed., Non-government Organizations: Contributions to Development (Nairobi: Institute for Development Studies Occasional Paper, University of Nairobi, 1987); David Korten, "Third Generation NGO Strategies: A Key to People-centered Development," World Development 15 (1987), supplement; Stephen N. Ndegwa NGOs as Pluralizing Agents in Civil Society in Kenva (Nairobi: Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi, 1993); Eve Sandberg, ed.. The Changing Politics of Non-governmental Organizations and African States (Westport: Praeger, 1994); and Norman Uphoff, "Grassroots Organizations and NGOs in Rural Development: Opportunities with Diminishing States and Expanding Markets," 433
led development.'" In the associations, and/or civil society as a viable alternative to state
development, scholars and literature concerned with conservation and its relation to
conservation projects practitioners suggest that NGOs can facilitate the implementation of
retain a top-down which feature local level participation."^ However, NGOs often
structure of approach to conceptualizing programs via the bureaucratic decision-making the organization. The politico-social/cultural nature of development is often either overlooked or intentionally avoided by NGOs. In response to such criticism, the potential of the community based organization (CBO) is highlighted. CBOs are grassroots organizations that are designed and managed at the local level. Local communities establish CBOs to address the issues they deem important—issues that may be overlooked or misinterpreted by NGOs and the state. Recently, in the literature on NGOs and CBOs, a critical re-examination of both in the production of an actual civil-society has emerged.
The focus has been on the role of the international NGO and its distant and at times incompatible relation with national and local NGOs and CBOs."'
World Development al. no.4(1993): 607-622.
111. See Anthony Bebbington and Graham Thiele, Non-governmental Organizations and the State in Latin America: Rethinking Roles in Sustainable Agricultural Development (London: Routledge, 1993); Julie Fisher. The Road from Rio: Sustainable Development and the Non-governmental Movement in the Third World (Westport: Praeger, 1993).
1 12. See Thomas Princen and Mattias Finger, Environmental NGOs in World Politics: Linking the Local and the Global (London: Routledge, 1994).
113. See Bill Derman, "Environmental NGOs, Dispossession, and the State: The Ideology and Praxis of African Nature and Development," Human Ecology 23, no.2(1995): 199-218; Susan Dicklitch, The Elusive Promise of NGOs in Africa: Lessons from Uganda (1998); David Hulme and Michael Edwards, eds., NGOs. States, and Donors: Too Close for Comfort (1997); Jesse Lutabingwa and Kenneth Gray, "NGOs in 434
NGOs are quickly, yet subtly, establishing a position paralleling the nation-state in directing social change. Thus, how NGOs engage local perceptions of development and attempt to influence the (sub)national development agenda need critical examination.
While international NGOs have intentions of bringing about constructive changes in
Zanzibar, their interpretations of problems and strategies of resolution are not necessarily accepted by the communities targeted. However, citizens in subaltern positions recognize the demands placed on them by NGOs and the ways in which they can reappropriate NGO objectives to suit their intentions. The rise of the community-based organization has generated another political instrument and serves as another agent in (sub)national hegemonic struggle. By treating NGOs and CBOs as participants in the contested arenas
of citizen and property, it can be considered how they contribute to defining the role of the citizen and framing development in terms of property. Finally, including NGOs and CBOs in the discussion of (sub)national struggle as political instruments reveals how subaltern citizens and the (sub)national state use them imperfectly to achieve their agendas. The following experiences of three NGOs and the varying perceptions of CBO members and non-members in the four towns of this study illustrate these issues.
Evergreen Trust is a British NGO (nonprofit), established in 1995, which aims to save Afiican's wildlife by preserving the environment. As articulated in their brochure.
Sub-Saharan Africa: Developing Capacity for Policy Advocacv." International Journal on World Peace 14, no. 3(September, 1997): 35-57; Henrik Secher Marcussen, "NGOs, the State and Civil Society," Review of African Political Economy 23, no. 69(September 1996): 405-423. 435
and burning them for fuel." "[t]o do this we have to stop people cutting down trees
Evergreen Trust articulates the problem in the following way:
For the poor of Africa, trees are the only cheap source of fuel. As population increases, the daily destruction of trees for firewood and charcoal burning—simply to cook an evening meal—is on a terrifying also scale. They are therefore competing directly with the animals which need those trees for their survival The result is also widespread soil erosion and damage to the environment.""
The solution according to the NGO is to "plant new firewood trees and teach young
Africans how to manage them and preserve their natural forest." Thus, Evergreen Trust provides "the poor" with fast-growing seedlings to establish their own firewood forests close to their communities. In Pemba, the work of Evergreen Trust entails distribution of seedlings to individuals farmers and launching a number of agroforestry pilot projects.'"
In regards, to the distribution of seedlings. Evergreen Trust has established a set of
criteria. First, the farmer must have land that is either leased or family land. Secondly, the
number of seedlings given is contingent upon the amount of the landholding. The
Evergreen Trust field director asserts that organization has not had any problems with trees and their social significance as a marker of land possession. Evergreen Trust works on a voluntary basis and suggests that farmers come to the organization willing to plant trees. However, the organization has never had discussions with farmers over the problems of planting trees as permanent crops. The organization does articulate another
1 14. Excerpt from the Evergreen Trust pamphlet distributed to potential donors or contributors. The organization relies mostly on individual donations to sustain its work.
115. This discussion of Evergreen Trust in Zanzibar is based on an interview with the Field Director, 18 November 1997. 436 problem. While women cultivate more than men, they benefit less from the tree-planting and agroforestry programs. Farmers who participate in the organization's activities tend to be men. The organization is at a loss as to why this is, though it collaborates with both the Ministry of Agriculture and the Subcommission of Forestry. The second problem is that many of the seedlings soon die after planting which is related to the lack of continuous maintenance. The organization identifies the solution as education through which issues of sustainability must be stressed in order to relieve Evergreen Trust of the responsibility of constant follow-up. If the organization had considered rural populations' social (such as land tenure practices) and gendered understandings of natural resources at the inception of their project, perhaps the articulated problems could have been avoided.
Government officials, directly dealing with residents in the rural areas, commonly understand perceived failures or problems with natural resource management projects in terms of land insecurity and social understandings of the resource pool (despite the endurance of government policies which contribute to such problems).
Some non-governmental organizations are more successfiil in their approach to influencing national or (sub)national development. In Zanzibar, The Aga Khan
Foundation constitutes such an organization."* The foundation's core principle of
extending development assistance is that development is not political, and thus, AKF is a
non-partisan organization. In addition to its historical preservation work of Stone Town,
AKF established a pilot project to facilitate the creation of a viable civil society. The
1 1 6. The Aga Khan is the religious leader of the Muslim sect of Ismalis. The Aga Khan Foundation is the development assistance branch of the Aga Khan's religious empire. 437
support the NGO Resource Center was established to provide resources and facilities to
to CBOs in rural functioning of NGOs in Zanzibar and to provide organizational training
establishing communities. For AKF, the policy of non-partisanship explains the success of
as political."^ training programs in a context in which access to any resource is understood
does not necessarily However, AKF fails to understand that a stance of non-partisanship
decision to mean that others don't perceive the organization in political terms. Leaving a
the commimity may be respected by some in the community, but those who the
community decision excludes can understand the international organization as political.
AKF cautiously decided not to include Pemba in its pilot run the training program,
precisely because Pemba is understood as the more politically tense area of Zanzibar and
the stronghold of CUF. A decision not to offer training in a particular place, does not
necessarily translate into non-partisanship. The avoidance of a place due to political
affiliation can be interpreted as a political move.
In contrast to Evergreen Trust, NGORC is staffed completely by Zanzibaris which
locates the Center in the position to establish a viable civil society more along the lines of
a popular movement. In addition, field officers are more aware of the cultural norms
which shape why particular social issues are understood and addressed in certain ways by
rural communities. Field officers are also aware of their limitations because they are
perceived as outsiders to the rural towns.
117. In Nungwi, there were more CBOs than could participate in the NGORC training program. All CBOs wanted to be included. Because NGORC takes a non-partisan stance and understood CUF/CCM political tension in Nungwi to be strong, the field officers placed the decision of which CBOs would participate with the community. A decision was made and the program continued. 438
have The affects of NGORC for local communities remain to be seen. CBOs
the skills successfully completed training programs but their success in implementing
Regardless, learned will determine how useful the programs are to rural communities.
NGORC has been well received. The organization has supported many NGOs in terms of needed infrastructure to operate, and has initiated popular discussion forums on a host of
social issues. It is the process of knowledge production at the citizen level which is often neglected by donors and international organizations. In the context of NGOs and donors in Zanzibar, NGORC has a radical approach to development work in that the Center does not impose or insidiously implant the seeds of civil society building, it participates in its conceptualization. In the rural towns, however, the Center functions as an educator. This
role is more complicated as it can be associated with the imposition of knowledge. To compound the delicate position of the NGO which is outside the rural town but inside
Zanzibar, NGORC must work within the structure of AKF. NGORC may have some autonomy and may be considered an "indigenous NGO" participating in the formation of
civil society, but its plans and decisions are bounded by AKF policies and philosophies.
Rural communities have a post-colonial history of collective action in small groups,
first, in the form of co-operatives at the urging the Revolutionary Government, and second, in the form of community-based organizations at the urging of international organizations and the "liberalizing" government. Co-operatives have had a less than successful history of generating development because this type of social organization was 439
against not universally accepted throughout the countryside in Zanzibar."* Resistance such structures occurred in some places. The defining lines between what is a co-
faint, if not operative, what is a CBO, and what is a local governing committee are blurred. Indeed, the idea of the community based organization has built on the other two.
building It was an easy step for government to encourage the creation of CBOs by simply on the idea of co-operatives. Most CBOs in Zanzibar are income generating collectivities, and thus, function like co-operatives. The most popular activities are agriculture, handicrafts, poultry-raising, and business for women; and agriculture, fishing, livestock raising, and carpentry for men.'" At present, the government also encourages the creation of village committees to handle village matters. This notion easily takes root because
there is a history of governing committees in rural town-namely, the shehia and watu
wanne . At present, governing committees are also considered CBOs. Thus in Zanzibar, the idea of the CBO slightly differs from what international funding organizations want to
see established and from how scholars define it.
Government officials in Zanzibar articulate the NGO trend as one in which NGOs will soon take over the role of the government. There is a general awareness that donors now are willing to put money into development through NGOs more so than through state institutions. While international NGOs are willing to work with government institutions,
118. Debates over the limitations and successes of cooperatives feature more in the general literature on Tanzania. See for example, Limited Choices : Goran Hyden, ed.. Cooperatives in Tanzania. Problems of Organisation Building (Dar es Salaam: Tanzania
Publishing House, 1976); and Rural Development Research Committee, ed.. Rural Cooperatives in Tanzania (Dar es Salaam: Tanzania Publishing House, 1975).
1 19. NGO Resource Centre, "CBO and NGO Study," 1997. 440
government of Zanzibar and they have begun to favor collaboration with CBOs. Thus, the
the creation of CBOs. international NGOs alike have launched a campaign to encourage
money. The generation of CBOs has quickly become defined as the strategy to acquire
in which the The following story of a water shortage in Nungwi highlights the subtle way government, international NGOs (including NGORC), and CBOs are entwined in the process to achieve development objectives.
As already discussed, tourist development has soared in Nungwi. The surge of visitors has agitated the problem of water use for the town. Though Nungwi receives water from a pipeline laid by the government, towns lying along the pipeline have illegally tapped into the system.'^" The pressures of these tributaries create a shortage of water for
Nungwi. The town established a system of water rationing to address the water shortage.
Regardless, the shortage problem was exacerbated for people by hoteliers who violated the rationing schedule (agreed upon by the village and hoteliers). To meet the water usage demands of hotels, hoteliers buy water from other neighboring towns (the very ones tapping into the Nungwi pipe). The people of Nungwi have raised the issue with their political representative. Though he has taken up the water cause in Nungwi, the issue has become phrased as an impediment to tourist development. While this may be a clever
political strategy on the part of the representative, the people of Nungwi interpret it to mean that their hardships do not matter enough to require action. The government
120. The following discussion of the water shortage issue was provided by women in a discussion group, Nungwi, 10 December 1997. 441
and response was to suggest that Nungwi initiate and fund the building of a pump
subsequently the government would contribute.
The problem remained as a consequence of poor technical advice. The pump
mechanically could not generate the amount of water used. The Water Development
Committee was then established by Nungwi to handle the matter. The committee
approached COLE for assistance. Again the government suggested Nungwi contribute
money and pursue sources of funding to buy a new pump. The Committee requested
contributions from the hoteliers. Foreign hoteliers agreed to contribute, while,
interestingly, local investors did not. Though the Committee acknowledged the
contributions of foreign hoteliers, the hoteliers themselves offer a slightly different
interpretation of the matter. According to one foreign hotelier, the people of Nungwi do
not have a "business-like" approach to handling matters such as the water shortage in
town. The Water Development Committee approached the foreign hotelier requesting
twenty-five percent of the funds needed. From the perspective of the hotelier, the
Committee believes he should pay this much because he is an mzungu .'^' The hotelier was
willing to contribute a fair portion and explained that he already pays US$1500 per month
in taxes to the central government for the purpose of community development. The
'^^ problem is that the people of Nungwi never see the affects of the tax revenue.
121. Mzungu refers more specifically to an European foreigner. Even white South
Africans are considered wazungu .
122. Kevin Stopford provided the hotelier's perspective in this discussion (interview, Nungwi, 14 October 1997. 442
Resource Centre, wrote a Finally, the Committee, with the assistance of NGO
Cross. The Committee funding proposal to seek assistance from the International Red
kilometres from Nungwi) proposed setting up a pump closer to Nungwi in Fukuchani (six
the Nungwi proposed to serve only the greater Nungwi area. The Red Cross did not fund
provided water project; however, early in 1999, Red Cross officials revised the project and
Nungwi with a water pump in accordance with the redesigned plan. The pump failed to handle the water demands of the area and the Red Cross had to install a pump at
Fukuchani. The Red Cross had resolved the problem that their re-designed plan created by implementing the original plan designed by citizens of Nungvd.
In rural communities, the role of the European has been one of bringing funding and imposing ideas. The hotelier above failed to consider (or chose to neglect) that the people of Nungwi feel that the foreign European contribution of twenty-five percent is a
fair share of the costs. Rural communities, at large, and community based organizations specifically, are aware of concepts of funding and donors which they interpret as a means to finance their own development initiatives. NGOs (and CBOs) embody the access to financial resources. International NGOs themselves nurture this understanding. In the
contemporary funding climate, the rhetoric is not only people's participation but people's
initiative. The initiative is the incipient sign of civil society formation for the international funding community. If international NGOs directly establish development projects in a rural community, initiatives can no longer be understood as development from below, or
in other words, acts of civil society. However, what is neglected in this paradigm is the extent to which initiatives begin within the community and the form the initiatives take. 443
the Water Development Committee What is additionally interesting to note about
the water shortage most directly is that not a single member is a woman, despite that
do not participate in affects the lives of women. The explanation that traditionally women
is not an decision-making organizations and thus their participation is slow in coming,
if acceptable offering in policy-making and academic circles for two reasons. First,
conceptualize the people's initiative are critical, it suggests that those affected must problem and solution. That the lack of women's participation, in the political process of designing the solution to the water development problem, was overlooked in the support
of the Nungwi initiative, suggests that the general idea of people's initiative is not a priority as suggested. Second, the explanation that women do not participate in politics
and development directly through formal channels cannot be completely claimed in the
case of Nungwi (and Zanzibar more generally). Women do serve on the Natural Resource
Committee in Nungwi, but it has limited significance since there are no forests to manage.
This would suggest that broader participation is acceptable only when the resource is not
too important or valuable. More generally, this suggests that if people's initiatives are
indeed important to the success of development it must be asked to what extent, under
what circumstances, and by whose standards they are so. To suggest this is to assert that
'^^ development, contrary to AKF philosophy, is political.
Women's experiences with CBOs in Fumba highlight the complex dilemma of forming such organizations. The President's Office for Women and Children implemented
123. Hyden has suggested during the 1990's there has been an increasing realization that development is about politics. See "Governance and the Reconstitution of Political
Order" State. Conflict and Democracv in Africa . 444
co-operatives (understood as CBOs) and a campaign to encourage women to create
investment. The government program provided groups with small loans for initial capital
among women. In was funded by UNICEF to encourage small-scale enterprise
institutions, support for small-scale international development organizations and financial
the preferred development strategy production to increase standards of living has become
started in Fumba. Women's at the grass roots level. A number of groups were
who work organizations suggest that they work collectively, as opposed to men
can. However, as a individually, because they cannot receive individual loans as men
campaign. collective women can benefit from the government co-operative
Msione Ajabu was an women's organization which manufactures soap.'^" It is of
not feel interest to note that the name of their organization refers to someone who does
wonder or astonishment. This group indeed feels disillusionment with their economic
gradually venture. Initially, soap manufacturing was lucrative for the women. They were
paying back their loan. However, when the Bakhresah soap factory opened in the Amaan
manufacture Industrial Park (EPZ), it undercut Msione Ajabu's market. Bakhresah could
soap more cost effectively and sell it at cheaper prices in Zanzibar, but could not produce
a quality of soap which could compete in the international market-precisely the purpose
of establishing the factory in the EPZ. By 1997, Msione Ajabu could no longer make its
loan payments and was slowly dismantling. The women of Msione Ajabu had no choice
but to accept a small loan to begin their company and were aware that a larger scale of
124. Small-scale soap production is a common economic venture for women in Zanzibar, probably too common to be productive except for a few groups. 445
their community. economies pushed them out of the market, yet they welcome the EPZ to
means of production and From their view, they have two choices—either to own the produce a product on a small scale in a context in which large-scale production
establish undermines their own production, or encourage large-scale industries to
women production in their communities and seek employment with such companies. Most
receive greater in Fumba have chosen to support the latter because they expect to
economic benefits. Their position seems tragically located between the adamant
imposition of deteriorating small-scale production and the future reality as exploited labor
in the international market.
A brief comparison of CBO development in the four towns of this study reveals,
first, similarities and differences in the towns' understandings of community based
organizations, and, second, that CBOs offer a medium through which to interpret and
articulate (sub)national political tensions between parties. The leadership in CBOs
articulate the role of such organizations as providers of employment and services for the
community. CBOs claim to work with other organizations and participate in the defining
of development objectives for the community. In general, members of CBOs in all four
towns suggest that they joined organizations to acquire development or improve their
standard of living because working collectively attracts funders and government
assistance. However, their understandings of the role of government vary between towns.
In Fumba, the importance of a balance between both CBO and government involvement in 446
organizations.'" In realization of development objectives is a common thread between
government and an Nungwi, however, CBO leaders are less concerned about the role of
contrast, emphasis placed on the need for CBO direction of community development. In
large enough organizations in Paje and Msuka claim that the government does not play a
but for role in community development. The two towns may have the same complain
quite different reasons. In Msuka people feel frustrated due to what they perceive as a
lack of development due to government neglect. In contrast, Paje has received the fruits
of development with the assistance of the government, but people want government
assistance in a way which will address the problems that accompany changes already
experienced by the community. While in Fumba, Nungwi, and Paje there is a general
recognition of the value of CBOs to the community, in Msuka even the leadership of
CBOs express that their organizations do little to benefit the people of Msuka.
The differences do not only occur between towns but within each community
between people who belong and do not belong to community based organizations. In all
four towns, how development is defined does not vary between members and non-
members. Both CBO members and non-members articulate many of the same obstacles
and prospects for development for their towns. Nevertheless, within the articulation of
obstacles and prospects, people reveal differences and even political tensions. In Fumba,
members of CBOs more often discussed obstacles and prospects of development than
125. I would suggest this acknowledgement stems from the community's experiences of attempting to solve resource use conflicts. The community was penalized for actions taken without the assistance of the government (the case of fishing) and supported in their
actions taken against the Wanyamwezi . 447
presence of both, they were non-members. While non-members might acknowledge the
majority of non-members claimed an able to specifically articulate them. In Nungwi, the
was the government. The obstacle to development (in the community and in Zanzibar)
members.'" Non- mentioning of politics as an obstacle rarely occurred among CBO
membership in a members also suggested that membership in a CBO could function like
intense. The vast political party. In Msuka, the tension surrounding CBOs was most
that they majority of people in Msuka do not participate in CBOs, though many suggested would like to form such groups. Non-members suggested they did not belong to CBOs
either because such organizations are not sustainable, do not even exist, or are not
possible due to politics, lack of capital, and lack of government assistance. The stark
difference of opinion between members and non-members was expressed in terms of
development prospects for Msuka. While all CBO members discussed the prospects of
development in Zanzibar, many non-members suggested that Msuka had no prospects.
Many non-members suggested politics and the government presented an obstacle to
development, in comparison, this obstacle was never articulated by CBO members.
However, the most interesting aspect of political interpretation in Msuka is in regards to
discrimination. Not only did two-thirds of non-members claim that political discrimination
existed in Msuka, but half of the CBO members acknowledged its presence.
The experiences with CBOs in all four communities suggest that the idea of a
community-based organization is political, despite international organizations' beliefs to
126. In Nungwi, three-quarters of non-members interviewed considered politics and the government an obstacle to development. One-eighth of the CBO members expressed the same. 448
pursue campaigns to the contrary. Both government and international organizations may encourage communities to establish their own organizations to facilitate their own development. However, people within the coral rag communities realize the limitations in the possibilities of such projects. First, they interpret the government to present a limitation on achieving their own development in the form of political discrimination.
People perceived the involvement of the government as necessary to the success of CBOs either in the form of direct assistance or in the form of approval of their work and thus non-interference. If either if not achieved, failure to do so is understood in terms of
discrimination on the part of the government. Second, people understand political parties
to intersect with CBOs. Thus, political tension has implications for the possibilities of
CBOs. This is not to suggest that people do not endure in the struggles to form CBOs.
Instead, it highlights that the formation of CBOs is a conflictual political process in the
view of people.
The Imperfect Echo
As discussed in the previous chapter. Echo marks a truth outside intention.
Narcissus signifies the acknowledgement that if the self makes disappear what it (cannot)
want, then the self also disappears. In the death of Narcissus the body disappears but is
memorialized in nature as the flower. The flower bears witness to the limits of self-
knowledge and strict interpretation through materiality. On the other hand. Echo's — echoing farewell (to Narcissus)—though she is already dead "comes from a space
already insufficiently inscribed" not in terms of the limits of self-knowledge but in terms of 449
beyond the possibility of deconstruction.'" Echo permits us to theoretically move
Narcissus, a dissemination. If Echo is not abandoned in the consideration of
present, metamorphosis out of the masculine is not a concern, because she is already refining her intentions and struggles as she echoes what she is given.
Extending this feminine critique of masculine philosophical articulation, Echo can constitute a position of knowledge and action (perceived and articulated as resistance) precariously located within and outside of the nation-state and embodied in the citizen. As multiple claims are made on the nation-state in regards to who occupies a legitimate position from which to determine what character the nation will assume and into what the
state will transform, citizens have their ovm ideas and intentions. Citizen intentions do not perfectly match donor and state plans. Citizens are labelled unbusiness-like, corrupt, uneducated, untrained, not serious, or unprofessional out of frustration on the part of government institutions, donors, or investors. However, masked behind this
reinterpretation of actions is a subversive intention to enable coexistence on the part of citizens. The imperfect implementation of government and donor articulations on the part
of citizens is intentional because they do not share the same visions. This applies even to
government officials because, after all, they are citizens too. Thus, there are several locations in which struggles over resources as property unfold.
Struggle as coexistence has a complexity because it must operate within the changing hegemonic structures of the nation-state. In the case of Zanzibar the relevance of the nation-state has deferred to the significance of the (sub)national state despite
127. "Echo." The Spivak Reader. 84. 450
arisen with articulated policy and law to the contrary. The exception to state passivity has
only persuasion of the international community. The Tanzanian state (and CCM) seemed convinced to pressurize Zanzibar to resolve political tensions once donors threatened to cut state aid and not merely sub-state assistance. Donor and extra-state participation raises two issues. First, northern state and extra-state interventions both in terms of the political impasse and the management of resources (both fiscal and natural) suggest that their own knowledge of appropriate forms of nation-building (which includes development) takes precedence over the particular issues of property, ownership, and struggle of located in the Zanzibar (sub)nation. In other words, there is an attempt to either define political or economic property in terms that do not consider the complexities of such specific struggles. In terms of the political, other states have pressed for the quick materialization of democracy in the form of multiparty elections. When the results were not acceptable in Zanzibar, a call was made to quickly make amends between two parties and fix the democratic process, until the next election. There were no public calls put forth to consider the political dilemmas and difficulties created by the installation of a multi-party system for subalterns. In terms of the economic, external agents have pressurized Zanzibar (and Tanzania) to liberalize, while permitting the neglect of
addressing the question of how land fits into the concepts of property and ownership.
However, the Zanzibar government has been able to imperfectly echo external demands by deceptively complying with economic reforms without including land. External compliance with the Zanzibar government serves the interest of foreign investment in 451
has a low value Zanzibar because in such conditions of ambiguous land tenure, property
attractive for initial investment.
The second issue raises both the limits of such self-knowledge and the possibilities
of imperfect strategies constructed with clear intent. Both CCM and CUF understand
extra-state affection for multi-party democracy and liberalization though in different ways.
CCM complied with the holding of elections and claimed victory. The government also
indiscriminately welcomes investors to bring in the money it lustfully needs. On the other
hand, CUF sought legitimation in the international community on the basis of the violation
of rights and campaigned for the donor freeze to dispossess the government of its
productive capacity. While CUF is explicitly more skeptical of foreign investment, it has
made a commitment to the privatization of land.
People in rural towns are conscious of the problems of political party bickering.
While some become absorbed in it, others quietly and partially mimic political desires.
Communities form CBOs to comply with government advice in the effort to gain access to
sub-state and external assistance. Organizations accept external assistance but often
employ it in ways contrary to external expectations. Collective projects are a favorite of
funders, however, once groups receive funds, they often divide them for individual use.
For example, in Fumba most women's CBOs received financial assistance as a collective,
but divided the money among the members. Each member started her own income
generating project. Communities also establish various types of development committees
in compliance with donor and sub-state efforts to manage resources. The Natural
Resource Committees in all four communities in the study were established at the urging 452
often does not of the Subcommission of Forestry and FINNICA. However, compliance
use political carry over to the designed resource management strategies. Finally, groups
intrusion on parties to articulate their claims, whether to avoid government (read CCM) their property and life-styles, or to gain government favor (via support of CCM) to facilitate them. In policy, whether at the local, (sub)national, national level, or extra-state
level, enforcement is not taken seriously though it is created to appease donors because the issues of resource and political management are in contestation. Government neglect of communities, due to lack of financial resources as a consequence of the donor freeze encouraged by CUF, indeed frustrates people's efforts to manage their resources. It also frustrates their understanding of the benefits of a bi-partisan system. The most common interpretation of the political tension in all four towns explained the differences as a family feud. For some, a family feud requires an external mediator because brother and sisters are too close to reconcile their differences. For others, a family feud is a family matter.
Regardless of how and whether this dispute is resolved, people continue to struggle to
hold onto, exchange, or improve what they have, before it is lost.
Struggles over the meaning and form of property of the (sub)nation are complex and involve agents who can claim to be anything but (sub)national. Government officials, donors, investors, political parties, and different citizens, enter into contestation or
alliances in efforts to assert what is property, who should have claims to it, and how
should citizens use it. Access to resources, the power to inscribe resources with identity, and the ability to define their purpose constitute the basis of struggles to define the material identity of the (sub)national. Thus, not only do people struggle as citizens for 453
which will material resources, they struggle for the possibilities to generate the knowledge
shape the (sub)national identity or simply enable them to coexist with the (sub)national
understood project. Depending on which perspective is consulted the same policies can be
as successful, ineffective, participatory, oppressive, unavoidable, dismissible, or irrelevant.
When government agencies and extra-state agents alike focus merely on the material needs
of people, they neglect the ways in which people struggle to contribute to the political
defining of that material world. A self-interpreted failure of a donor- initiated or state-
initiated policy, can be understood as the possibility of coexistence for those who
frustrated the policy. For example, when a community group accepts the funds of donors
and the government, without using them in the ways expected, the group wrests not only
the economic resources it wanted but also the power to direct its ovra development.
However, in such struggles the group potentially can never realize either. For the
(sub)nation, the question of power is a national one concerning what epistemic position
will take priority in the articulation of these issues. What becomes challenged is whether
an identity of a location is needed. What is at issue in this struggle is how various
epistemic positions seep into each other. The (sub)national citizen is an identity
positioned in the (sub)nation but it does not constitute the only one nor an exclusive one.
The citizen is the ongoing site of struggle to re-defme the multiple claims and impositions imploding the nation. Such complex struggles suggest that clear boundaries are an impossibility and at times not even desired. CHAPTER 7 EPILOGUE: PERPETUAL PERIPETEIA
The purpose of this concluding chapter is to provide two sets of reflective
comments on this study. The first section places my findings in the context of ongoing
and still incomplete negotiations about the future of Zanzibar between CUF and CCM.
This discussion is appropriate to add to the text although it seems as if the negotiations are
detached from social struggle and have been simply added on to the political history of
Zanzibar. These negotiations are relevant to subaltern spaces, such as the coral rag. The
second section extends this commentary to articulate the purpose of approaching a
political study of Zanzibar by focusing on interactions of multiple interpretations of
(sub)national issues. It draws some conclusions about understanding hegemonic struggle
as a perpetual process involving sudden changes and clever efforts to endure. Thus, both
sections involve peripeteias, that is, sudden changes, in terms of events and epistemes.
From Zanzibar, with Amour '
In Admiring Silence . Gumah's characters offer the following political discussion of parties and donor assistance:
'What will other parties bring us that we don't have already?'
1 . I must thank Goran Hyden for this clever subtitle.
454 455
rather have sat in 'Funding,' I said. I couldn't help it. I would is a big thing at^ dignified silence, but I couldn't stop myself. 'Democracy will bring more funding.' the moment, and I am sure multi-party elections thoughtfully, 'That's what the 'It's true,' the branch chairman said will Prime Minister says and you can see the sense of it. But these parties take us back to the bickering of the old days, when for so long now we have had nothing but peace and prosperity.'^
and Not everyone in Zanzibar would agree with the idea of having attained peace prosperity, though many might fear the bickering of the past. This is a political dilemma that confronts not only Zanzibar, but also many postcolonies that chose to construct national projects directed by a single party subsequent to independence.
There is an irony in the juxtaposition of Gumah's political commentary and the writing of politics currently in Zanzibar. Indeed, pressure by donors such as Finland, persuaded Tanzania to hold multiparty elections. However, political protest, political discrimination and violence, eventually led to a donor freeze scarring the multiparty election process. The transition to multipartyism created confusion among citizens and extra-state agents alike about the purpose of multi-party democracy. The transitional experience with multi-party democracy has even prompted David Martin, a British journalist, to radically change his view. Martin left his imprint on Zanzibari revolutionary history by asking Karume when there would be elections in Zanzibar. Karume responded with the now famous proclamation that elections would not be held in Zanzibar for fifty years. Today the journalist who asked the question suggests that he has a better understanding of Karume's response than at the time of the interview over thirty years ago.
His conclusion is that a Western model of democracy cannot simply be transported and
2. Admiring Silence . 192. 456
donors and imposed in another country without a consideration of history, as Western
diplomats seem to believe.^ But to which history does the journalist refer? CCM
his government officials praised the journalist's commentary. The government interpreted
view to confirm that foreign envoys want to remove CCM from power completely in
Tanzania/ However, as discussed in the previous chapter, some citizens do not accept
Martin's notion of Zanzibari history, nor his commentary on the present political struggle.
Even the choice of interpretation has implications for understanding the context in which
political transition occurs.
Extra-state agents continue their search to make sense of the problems of
establishing or transplanting the multi-party system. Subsequent to the controversy over
the presidential elections, it has been suggested that the problem lies in the type of election
system. The system of majority vote has been questioned in general throughout Africa,
wherever it is in place.' The majority vote electoral system is interpreted as a culprit in the
agitation of ethnic conflict. Thus, proportional election systems have been offered as a
more appropriate option for countries undergoing democratic transitions. However, in
3. David Martin, "Democracy versus Diplomacy: The Case for Dialogue in Zanzibar," International Conference on Democracy and Development, Zanzibar, 5-7 July, 1997.
4. Gabby Mgaya, "Bilal adjourns Isles House Session." Dailv News . 24 July, 1997.
5. Former British colonies tend to use the majority vote system, in contrast to former French colonies which have adopted a proportional electoral system. See Patrick Chabal, "A Few Considerations on Democracy in Africa," International Affairs 74, no.2(April 1998): 289-204; Timothy Sisk and Andrew Reynolds, eds.. Elections and Conflict Management in Africa (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1998); Tom Young, "Elections and Electoral Politics in Africa," Africa 63, no. 3(1993): 299-342 for discussions on the electoral process. 457
would have avoided a political Zanzibar it is doubtful that a change in the electoral system impasse between the two presidential candidates that was based on a narrow margin of
voting would victory (0.4 percent) and accusations of election fraud. A second round of only prelong an election process rife with harassment and intimidation to achieve the same
results.
Weak or state-controlled media, the absence of state-respected political rights for citizens, and constitutional reform prior to elections are also suggested to obstruct the process of transition. Speaking in Zanzibar, Chissano, President of Mozambique, said the following about transition:
Democratisation is a process; sometimes a very long process; a complicated and expensive process; a process that is profoundly marked and conditioned by the environmental circumstances surrounding those
who are involved in it. These circumstances and their details which are best known to the peoples concerned themselves, do, often, escape detection by visitors and even by the closet of friends. Because circumstances vary from country to country we strongly feel that no
society is in a position to teach another society how it should implement its
own democratic process. . . Hence, all we can do is to exchange notes and experiences about how in each one of our countries specific aspects of democratisation have been implemented and with how much success or failure.
As president of another postcolonial nation-state, Chissano is in a precarious position to condemn the election results in Zanzibar and support Northern desires to influence the transition process; by implication he would be welcoming more meddling than already occurs on his own national terrain. Nevertheless, donor countries, international organizations, and international NGOs are not as open to the idea of simply offering anecdotal experiences when for decades they have fancied themselves as the bearers of 458
antidotal blueprints (whether, for example, they resource management plans or a
procedure for holding elections). Such agents are especially leery of a sharing or
interactive approach when their money is invested in development projects. Besides,
donor states don't tend to think of democratization as a mutual sharing experience. Donor
countries have already completed the process of modernization. Transition and learning
are post-colonial and post-communist conditions. Thus, in Zanzibar, donors have kept the
pressure on both CCM and CUF.
Nevertheless, it is Salmin Amour who is having the last laugh in the narcissistic
politics of persuasion. On 29 April 1999, CCM and CUF signed an agreement to end the
political impasse. The agreement stated that the two parties realize there is a political
impasse which will heighten social divisions if not resolved. Both parties, thus, are willing
to put the past behind them and work together towards consolidating democracy.
Measures to resolve political conflict include: reform of the Zanzibar Electoral
Commission to assure its independence in time for the elections in 2000; promotion of
human rights and good governance through balanced media coverage of political activities
of all political parties, and legal political activity free from harassment; reform of the
judiciary; and the restoration of normal political life. In accordance with the agreement,
the government is expected to reinstate CUF members who were dismissed or demoted
for political reasons and compensate those whose properties were damaged or destroyed by authorities. CUF officials have agreed to recognize Amour as president. CUF representatives are expected to attend House sessions. The parties agreed to establish an
Inter-Party Committee (IPC) composed of CUF and CCM members. The IPC will 459
in an effort at national facilitate the implementation of the agreement. Finally,
independent assessor to reconciliation and reconstruction the president will appoint an
claims and evaluate the validity of political discrimination and property damage
charges recommend redress. The agreement did not address the issue of the treason against fourteen CUF members.
to facilitate Six months later, little more than a signed agreement has been achieved the implementation of the agreement. The Inter-Party Committee has not been established, due to the lack of financial support. The Special Envoy to the
Commonwealth Secretary General, however, continued to mediate talks with the two parties. A budget of US$150,000 was finally allocated for the creation of the IPC in
September 1999. While the IPC is still to complete its work, another issue also remains unresolved: the fourteen accused of treason remain in prison awaiting trial.
Two questions arise. First, what motivated the acceptance of Amour as president by CUF at this particular moment? Second, how could CUF neglect to demand the status of the accused to be part of the negotiations? After the International Conference which focused on the donor bias in their support of CUF's stance on the elections, international pressure has been placed on CUF and Hamad to accept Amour as president in an effort to at least begin a dialogue. However, Zanzibar citizens have never ftilly embraced the demands of extra-state agents. In Zanzibar, international pressure does not convey the entire story. CUF supporters are dissatisfied with the negotiations and compromises that
CUF has made. Those who have struggled, including the families of the accused, felt slighted by the agreement. CUF supporters, who did not agree with the CUF boycott of 460
support CUF, now feel they the House of Representatives but nevertheless continued to have gained nothing, except an end to a boycott with which they never agreed.
CUF provided people, who understood the government as failing to fulfill its
discontentment responsibilities, with a formal political channel through which to express
process as formal than and expectations. It is more appropriate to describe the political legitimate, because in Zanzibar legitimacy is not an issue. Though parties may be legitimate structures in a multi-party system through written law, if the ruling clique does not respect the change in the way politics is conducted, legitimacy has little relevance.
Expressions of dissent and mockery throw into question the relevance of legitimacy.
Zanzibaris have grown accustomed to a government that acts on its own accord with little regard for popular participation. Those too frustrated by such impertinence emigrate from
Zanzibar.^ Of those who have remained, some perceived CUF as offering hope for popular change within the government. However, the rise of the political tensions, the inactive political stance of CUF, and the reconciliation between CUF and CCM have all dampened that sentiment.
In the four communities of this study, three comments most frequently arose about
the political tension in Zanzibar. First, tension existed between the two parties which
would not be resolved without the assistance of an external mediator, be it the Union government or an extra-state agent. Second, a tension existed between the two parties, who are like two bickering siblings, and thus, the resolution must come from within the
6. This can be understood as a slow painful strategy to demand accountability. For example, see Aristide Zolberg "The Formation of New States as a Refugee-Generating Process," Annals of the Academv of Political and Social Science 467(May 1983): 24-39. 461
I feel can be family. Finally, a political tension did not exist in Zanzibar. The last
the repressive interpreted as either a strategy to avoid political discussion because of
often used in implications if one is perceived to support CUF, or as a political strategy—
Zanzibar—to control the production of knowledge on a situation (in this case a CCM supporter strategy). In the case of the first response, people do not place their confidence with the (sub)national state structures to resolve peaceftilly and democratically the differences between the two political parties. Finally, in the case of the second, there is also an implied absence of the idea of a democratic resolution process in Zanzibar by the use of the metaphor of the patriarchal (understood) family. If political tension is
increasingly understood as an obstacle to everyday life, as it has been by many in the rural towns of this study, support of both parties will begin to dwindle, because neither can be understood as enacting people's articulated directions for the future.
Meanwhile, Amour continues his campaign to amend the constitution to allow him to run for a third term. As talks continued between CUF and CCM, negotiations are occurring over the possibility for Amour to run for a third term in office. Until the recent death of Nyerere, Amour undoubtedly needed CUF support to pass the amendment because Nyerere and mainland CCM are against this change in the constitution. Without mainland CCM support, the decision to amend the constitution must receive two-thirds majority approval in Zanzibar to keep the Union government out of "Zanzibar affairs."
However, the death of Nyerere will most likely have the affect of dampening mainland concerns with Zanzibar's political difficulties and agendas. 462
question of the Union. The other issue in Zanzibar which demands consensus is the
initiated a study to Last year, the Presidential Commission on Constitutional Reform
Zanzibaris ascertain public opinion on the relationship between mainland and Zanzibar. overwhelmingly wanted to adopt a federal state which would entail the creation of three
strengthen it governments. It was concluded that the Union must be reviewed either to
Zanzibar. If institutionally or break it.^ The Union is indeed not a domestic affair of
Zanzibari politicians and citizens want to pursue a split with the Mainland, they will need to confront the Mainland unified. Attitudes in the four towns of this study suggest that most people do not identify themselves as Tanzanians but think of themselves as
Zanzibaris. At the leadership level of political parties, CUF is not alone in its desire to see
Zanzibar break from the Union. Amour is commonly thought to have the same desire.
Again, CUF and CCM will need to form an alliance in the effort to dissolve the Union.*
The relevance of the negotiation process, between CUF and CCM, to subaltern struggles in the coral rag raises the issue of coexistence. The negotiation process has the appearance of being completely detached from the rural communities in the coral rag. The
Commonwealth involvement in the political impasse constitutes an attempt to "normalize"
politics and avoid more serious (i.e. violent) repercussions. In other words, the international community wants to see the election process, which had gone awry, corrected in order to restore the process of democratization. The resolution process
7. The general results of the study were reported by "White Paper to Test Tanzania,
Isles Union," East African . 25-31 August, 1999.
8. While many in Zanzibar may support the idea of an independent Zanzibar, a concern resonates about the implications it would have for relations between Pemba and Unguja. 463
Saif Sharif involved simply the leadership of the two parties, President Salmin Amour, and
conception of Hamad, the contending CUF presidential candidate. Contrary to the donor democracy, the negotiations generated measure such as Amour appointing CUF members to the House of Representatives, and a discussion to change the constitution as a power
vested in two politicians (i.e. Amour and Hamad). As such, the negotiations seem to have
little relevance to politics in the coral rag. Subalterns will continue to struggle to coexist and to deceive or collaborate with substate institutions, international NGOs, and foreign investors, regardless of an end to the impasse.
However, just as Zanzibar politicians have deceptively relayed the demands of the international community by altering the political outcome they were expected to produce, subalterns echo these political developments in their interpretations of the purpose of multiple political parties. The issue of the resolution of the impasse has implications for the coral rag communities in two ways. On the one hand, the outcome of the negotiations define the (sub)national political scene in which subaltern struggles must unfold. On the other hand, subaltern interpretations of the political impasse and negotiations also contribute to the ways in which (sub)national struggles unfold. Prior to the negotiations, the political conflict served as a way for (sub)national state institutions to discriminate against or avoid whole communities (such as Msuka). Local substate institutions used political difference to inform mediation in land disputes and enforcement of natural resource management regulations (as in Nungwi and Paje). Subalterns interpreted the difficulties of resolving family struggles over land, struggles over natural resource
management, and problems of cooperation within the community in terms of the political 464
provided a justification for bickering between members of the two parties. Party affiliation
subaltern citizens non-cooperation to the point that (sub)national government officials and
organized efforts at alike accused the political divide as the culprit in disrupting any
implementing development schemes.
However, struggle over land and natural resource use were present prior to the
conflict between the political parties. Struggles are also defined by various people in the
coral rag, and in government institutions, in terms of other issues than party tensions.
More specifically, struggles are more often based on differences in how the very issues
that constitute concerns in the development of the subnation—such as land use and access
and citizen rights—are understood. These various understandings derive from multiple
epistemic positions. They are also derived in relation to other perspectives. The women
(wageni) in Fumba who struggled with the Nyamwezi residents (wageni) defined land use
differently from them. They also defined Nyamwezi rights to land and property as
different firom their own, based on a concept of citizenship which excludes them in relation
to men within the community. The people of Msuka, who struggled over land and forest
management with government institutions, defined land ownership and natural resource
use differently from the (sub)national state. The decisions to sell family owned land in
Nungwi and Paje are based on different understandings of land from those of the
(sub)national state. Finally, the fishermen of Fumba, who took enforcement of fishing regulations into their own hands, understood natural resource management differently from other fishermen and from the government. 465
excluded These numerous struggles in Zanzibar involve contestation over who is
of citizen has and included in the citizenry, what does citizenship mean, and which notion
of primacy in which situation. Thus, what policy-makers define as (sub)national problems
political development do not constitute problems to solve by imposing the appropriate
election system and democratization procedures. These struggles strike at the very core
of the meaning of the (sub)nation as they contest the concepts that define it. Subaltern
citizens in the coral rag towns assert that territorial notions of citizen have more
importance at times than the (sub)national notion of citizen, in order to secure their claims
to land. The gesture to emphasize the territorial citizen identity over the (sub)national one
is not an attempt to resist or destroy the (sub)national understanding of citizen held by the
government. Rather, the attempt is to establish a way for both to coexist since they mean
and provide different things. For example, the (sub)national meaning of citizen does not
provide the rights over land that some subalterns desire.
Different citizens have different relationships with property. In an attempt to
preserve or change citizen-property relations, different understandings of property also
feature along with the contested notion of citizen. In the coral rag, existing land tenure is
defined as providing security through family land by both men who own family land and
women who only have access to it through their husbands. Some subalterns citizens do not interpret the (sub)national distinction between land and property, put forth by the
government, to offer security. Thus, people in all four towns attempt to sell their land
before the government takes it without the subaltern perceived appropriate compensation to serve (sub)national interests. Finally, while some subaltern positions attempt to 466
preserve existing land tenure and property rights systems, others are willing to abandon
in the limited security they receive so as to endure in their life struggles. While women
Paje defined land as security and fi-eedom, they realized their limited ability to acquire
land, and thus, pursued the alternative of seaweed cultivation presented to them. In
Fumba, women expressed a willingness to give up the security of land and property work
in the industries that the EZP was expected to bring. From their perspective, the EPZ
promised a means to adequately sustain their families not yet realized on the land and with
their property produced both on the land and through their work in cooperatives (as
income generating CBOs).
In Zanzibar, the understanding that property—as the products of labor—and land
provide security is an enduring perspective based on the experience of the agricultiiral
lifestyle. The (sub)national state has attempted to build a (sub)nation and to direct
(sub)national development through policies based on this understanding. However, land,
property, and citizen are understood in different ways in Zanzibar, and in different ways by
external agents seeking to influence postcolonial national projects. Zanzibaris and external
agents have been pursuing strategies to govern and to direct the economy, while creating
ways to coexist with the differing understandings of these issues, since the struggle for
independence.
In Zanzibar, the skepticism about the role of political parties to guide a subnation is a colonial legacy and a post-colonial condition. Political party contestation over elections led to a revolution in the not so distant past. The revolution ushered in a single party for which people also developed a disdain. Again, citizens are faced with contending 467
about the agendas of political parties. However, citizens have a general ambivalence
purpose of a (sub)national government, regardless how many political parties it includes.
Negotiations by Amour to assure his position of power for another term do not suggest
treason that citizens should feel any different since CUF could not even bargain over the
that comprise trial. The negotiation process has implications for the contested concepts
parties the (sub)nation because it offers only an incomplete resolution. While these may
be able to put the dispute over the elections behind them, they differ over substantial
issues that bear on the direction that the (sub)nation can take. The two parties articulate
different understandings of land and property, the freedoms of citizens, the degree and
forms in which capital should circulate through their society, and the degree to which
Islam should give meaning to people's lives. It remains to be seen whether the two parties
can meaningfully debate these issues in ways that provide alternatives within the political
system for people to reinterpret, deploy, frustrate, negotiate, or relay in their attempts to
endure. Up to this point, in the coral rag towns citizens interpret the tensions between
political parties to exacerbate their struggles instead of channeling them into a democratic
political process. Regardless, if there is one or two parties, subalterns will continue to
have their own interpretations of land, property, and citizen as they fit into the (sub)nation.
They will continue to struggle to change their circumstances and endure in the
(sub)national constraints that they have little choice but to accept, (sub)national struggle
in Zanzibar reveals that the (sub)nation and its development is not built on a consensual understanding of this process. In the context of political transition which emphasizes the importance of differing political party perspectives, one would have thought that the 468
influence of subaltern epistemic positions in definition of the (sub)nation would also
feature as significant. In Zanzibar, regardless if politicians, policy-makers, or scholars
want to acknowledge and listen to subaltern voices, at times, subaltern positions recognize
the significance of the constraints imposed by other perspectives in order to echo them
imperfectly, and thereby disrupt the (sub)national project.
The Illusion of Echoing in Epistemic Struggle
The challenge to the authority of science has a rich history. The authority of the
social scientist, the western (or northern) scholar, and the masculine scholar have
undergone criticism from numerous theoretical and epistemic positions.' More
specifically, postmodernists have questioned the assumptions that rational thought and
technological innovation guarantee progress. They cast doubt on the assumption that
Western science can predict outcomes and prescribe solutions in the march to achieve
such progress. Grand theories of progress have been redefined as privileged discourses
9. Paul Feyerabend, Against Method: An Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge (London: New Left Books, 1975); Donna Haraway. Primate Visions: Gender. Race, and Nature in the World of Modem Science (New York: Routledge, 1989); Sandra Harding. Whose Science. Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Women's Lives (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986); Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970); Deepak Kumar, Science and Empire: Essays in Indian Context (1700-1947) (Delhi: Anamika Prakashan/National Institute of
Science, Technology and Development, 1991); A. Musgrove and I. Lakatos, eds.. Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970); Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Post-modem Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Miimeapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984); Ashis Nandv. Science. Hegemony, and Violence: A Requiem for Modemity (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990); Andrew Pickering, Science as Practice and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); Ziauddin Sardar, ed.. The Revenge of Athena: Science. Exploitation and the Third Worid (London: Mansell, 1988). 469
social or that silence other discourses which also contribute interpretations of the
becomes an political.'" From this perspective the project of modernity (or modernization)
to object for critical inspection, in order to locate the strategies and mechanisms used
that legitimize it as truth." The possibility to question science as truth highlights knowledge and meaning can be thought of as products created to secure and guarantee power for a particular position. The attempts to control knowledge through social institutions and in social relations are attempts to conceal (or eliminate) the possibility of different forms of knowledge. A knowledge position that desires hegemony (as traditionally defined) interprets the acknowledgment of different knowledges as a threat to
its dominant position. Thus scholar have proposed considering how knowledge (meaning)
is constructed and used to understand how bodies of knowledge attempt to acquire and preserve dominance.'^
This perspective for social inquiry can highlight how the modernization approach to understanding national development in Africa and policy formulation, informed by modernization scholarship, are efforts to control the production of knowledge on postcolonial societies and legitimize this knowledge as objective truth. More importantly
10. See for example. The Postmodern Condition .
1 1 . See for example, Frederick Apffel-Marglin and Stephen A. Marglin, Decolonizing Knowledge: From Development to Dialogue (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996); William Connolly, Political Theory and Modemitv (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988).
12. See for example, Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatologv . trans. Gayatri Spivak (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976) and Michel Foucault. The Archaeologv of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language (New York: Travistock Publications & Harper Colophon, 1972). 470
admits the presence of multiple ways of for social science, because this perspective also
epistemic perspectives on the ideas of thinking, it becomes possible to consider different
struggles that ensue between the nation, the political, and the social, along with the
(sub)national struggles in Zanzibar, as various perspectives. I have attempted to highlight
have such epistemic struggles, to reveal that the interactions of different perspectives implications for the possibilities of policies to achieve their objectives.
The authority of Western science has also been questioned within the context of colonialism. Specifically, postcolonial scholars indicate Western science as legitimizing colonialism in African and Asia.'^ They further contend that Western scholarship continues to benefit from the dominant position colonialism conferred upon Western
philosophy. It is assumed that the Enlightenment ethics of modernity are desirable and unproblematic.'" Thus, the postcolonial world is rendered an object appropriate to study.
In addition, postcolonial positions of knowledge production are only acknowledged if
Western philosophy legitimizes them.
Subaltern studies in India have featured the subalterns in shaping the national project by revealing their resistance to the state and their struggles to achieve their own objections.'^ Scholars, focused on issues of postcolonialism, have shifted the study of the
13. See for example. Dominance without Hegemony . The Invention of Africa, and
Orientalism .
14. See Aim Ferguson, "Resisting the Veil of Privilege: Building Bridge Identities as an Ethico-Politics of Global Feminisms," Hvpatia 13, no. 3(Sunimer, 1998): 95-113.
15. See Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Spivak, eds.. Selected Subaltern Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). 471
coexistence nation-state in Africa to consider the ways in which not only collaboration but are relationship that define the struggle to build a nation. For example, Mbembe has suggested the metaphor of zombification to conceptualize the ways in which dominating and subaltern subjects drain each other's position of vitality. Postcolonial scholarship offers more refined epistemic political positions (than strict postmodern perspectives) for social analysis by focusing on both the ways in which colonial knowledge continues to inform the positions of postcolonial state elites, and the specific epistemic positions that lie outside of colonial epistemes though they may interact with them. In this study, I have attempted to consider the ways in which the epistemic position of the Zanzibar substate remains informed by Western imposed nation-building knowledge, in addition to the they
ways in which it attempts to manipulate such knowledge. Finally, I have attempted to listen to subaltern voices of the coral rag to relay the presence of coral rag perspectives that indeed influence the process of nation-building.
Finally, feminist theorists have challenged the authority of Western science.
Feminists have critiqued the Western philosophical tradition as based on masculine experiences to the neglect of feminine experiences.'^ Further, Western philosophies offer gender neutral or gender blind understandings of the social and political, though they are conceptualized through masculine positions. While the masculine philosophical tradition
may recognize the need to consider social issues as they affect men and women, it is resistant to the possibility that theorization can occur from feminine positions. Feminist scholars have refiited that theorization cannot not occur in the feminine position by
16. See footnote 9. 472
offer feminist considering such theorizing in the history of philosophy and by continuing to
the ways social theories for social analysis.'' In addition, Feminist scholars have illustrated
revealed institutions construct and preserve feminine and masculine roles. They have also
support how political institutions deployed particular feminine and masculine images to their programs and define and manage the social.'* Finally, feminists scholars more recently are considering the ways multiple social identities intersect to alter the feminine identity and experience, as forms of feminism are subjected to the types of criticisms regarding universalizing knowledge that they have launched against other epistemes."
Building on feminist perspectives, I have featured women's specific experiences with issues of citizenship and property to highlight how they have provided possible positions to conceptualize and engage in struggle. In considering such struggles, how women influence the specific unfolding of imposed politics and social knowledge also emerged.
Different postmodern, postcolonial, and feminist positions have moments of collaboration and moments of conflict. However, scholars within some combination of the
three share a couple recurring themes that I find convincing. First, while theories.
17. See for example, Butler and Scott, Feminists Theorize the Political : Luce Irigary,
This Sex Which is Not One : Linda Nicholson, ed., Feminism/Postmodernism (New York: Routledge, 1990); Wendy Harcourt. Feminist Perspectives on Sustainable Development (London: Zed Books, 1994); bell hooks. Talking Back: Thinking Feminist. Thinking Black (Boston: South End Press, 1988).
1 8. See references to feminist literature in Chapter Two.
19. See for example, Leila Ahmed, "Western Ethnocentrism and Perceptions of the
Harem," Feminist Studies . 8(1982): 521-34; Feguson, "Resisting the Veil of Privilege;" T. T. Mihn-ha, Women. Native. Other (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989);
Mohanty, Russo, and Torres, Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism . 473 concepts, and objects are open to debate within the realm of rational scientific inquiry, the epistemic position from which to pursue social inquiry is not so agreeably open. At the
level of philosophy there is a hegemonic struggle to determine a dominant way to think
(episteme). The power to think is a power to define the social or political. The power to define the social creates instruments of understanding to control, direct, or participate in the social or political. Subtle institutional, societal, and philosophical forms of discrimination have the most powerfiil influence over shaping thought and policy-making in this struggle. Thus, they need to be revealed and critiqued to consider how they silence other perspectives.
Second, positions from which to theorize or give meaning to the social or political are varied and only self-legitimating. Nevertheless, these varied positions are meaningfiil, understandable, and influential (for example, whether a subaltern or a modernization position). Specific epistemic positions and informed acts do not have influence only when there is a successful attempt to silence, neglect, or avoid them. Work within these varied
bodies of scholarship illustrate how this is done through knowledge production either at the level of theory in scholarship and policy or everyday politics. Work has been done to consider subordinate, subaltern, marginalized, or silenced knowledges. More recently, there has been a call for attempts to consider the interactions between competing discourses.
In this study, I have created a theoretical frame that lies partially outside of a positivist approach to inquiry in order to provoke a theoretical and epistemic shift in social 474
approach takes into account the science.'" This shift acknowledges three issues. First, my
dominating hegemonic boundaries and relations of struggle in terms of a controlling or
and knowledge which establishes the terms of political discourse for national
multiple interpretations developmental agendas. Second, I have been able to consider the
constraints of a of the contested realities at issue in this study as they interact within the dominating episteme. Third, by broadening the scope of struggle beyond simply
involves resistance, I have been able to consider the ways in which struggle not only resistance, but also entails efforts to coexist with contending interpretations—both on the part of subahem groups and sub-state institutions. This suggests, first, that the process of
nation-building is a perpetual process of struggle, and thus, cannot be theoretically conceptualized simply teleologically. Second, the meanings of citizenship and property are perpetually contested in and around the nation (or (sub)nation), and thus, cannot be
theoretically conceptualized strictly ontologically. I have illustrated how citizenship and property can be expanded to include the proliferation of meanings and involve the very contestations over meaning.
More specifically, in the study of nation-building and development, participation has become the key concept in conceptualizing processes, problems, and even theories.
However, the emphasis on participation conceals that consensus does not exist over the very meaning and practice of participation. What the donor agency considers participatory (which thereby self-legitimizes their attempts to incorporate people to be
20. I suggest that my approach lies only partially outside of positivist position because my study entails theoretically informed empirical analysis. 475
officials in state institutions consider involved) is not what subaltern groups and even
differences in perspective participatory. This study provides a theoretical way to visualize
differences in rather than overlook or silence them. In addition to simply considering
that practicing and studying interpretation, I have placed them in power relations to reveal nation-building cannot be thought of simply in terms of participation or compromise.
Both involve the political acts of defining terms, boundaries, and agendas in an attempt to incorporate people and silence perspectives. Finally, I have highlighted that incomplete
incorporation is both a possibility and a way for different epistemic positions to endure.
Conceptualizing and analyzing struggle in this way has been possible by building on the foci of subaltern studies (including the work of Scott) on subaltern interpretations and strategies of resistance, the work of Mbembe, Bayart, and Goheen which focuses on coexistence and reappropriation of meanings in struggle, and Mouffe's concepts of hegemony and antagonism which have been reworked to challenge ontological interpretation. By assuming this theoretical and epistemic perspective, this study has thrown into question modernization approaches, and more generally positivist approaches, that deny people epistemic positions of struggle.
The modernization approach to social, political, economic analysis, specifically in the study of Africa, has focused on nation-building and development, since the crumbling of colonial empires, as problematic processes which usually end in failed attempts to unify a nation under a nation-state, to create a democratic nation-state, and to progress economically. The modernization project (in the social sciences) thus involves attempts to locate problems and provide reasons for failings, in order to correct them and set 476
particular developing countries onto the right path. The perspective was built on
Eurocentrism with experiences. Modernization has even been criticized internally for its
to accommodate varied the intention to discern how it can be expanded and altered
abandon experiences. However, despite these attempts, modernization approaches cannot
concepts, interpretation that uses the modernization set of analytical standards, theoretical
and epistemic beliefs which have been abstracted from the very specific Eurocentric positions that modernization approaches have critiqued from within. That the abstract
(transformed into objective) principles of modernization should be universally pursued and
can be (however loosely) universally understood is never questioned. More importantly,
modernization approaches (like all approaches to social inquiry) must choose what is
applicable to different issues and contexts, and how they are to be conceptualized and
analyzed. However, there is never an admission that this occurs from a particular
epistemic position with a particular political agenda. This is what the intellectual
modernization project has (almost) persuasively concealed in the social sciences.
Theorists and practitioners in approaches informed by modernization (even e.g.
Women in Development (WID), civil-society approaches, and approaches advocating
grassroots participation) have tended to represent both postcolonial societies and specific
subaltern groups as backward, vulnerable, or victimized. Postcolonial states have been
identified as weak, predatory, or suffering from some sort of malaise. Both postcolonial
societies and states are, thus, in need of salvation and reform. Such representations reinforce the myth of a North/South divide with the assumption that the developed North
holds and controls the knowledge and technology of modernity that is required by the 477
South.^' Thus, as Parpart states, "The poor, vulnerable Southern woman is a powerful
theorists image, and its ready adoption by both mainstream and alternative development
and practitioners is understandable Yet this very image reinforces and maintains the
discourse of modernity so essential to Northern hegemony and development practices.""
In the process of identifying people as either victims or culprits, policy-makers and
scholars alike deny various perspectives roles in the definition process (or the construction
of knowledge)—when they do not acknowledge and listen to the many contending
epistemic positions. This method of interpretation carmot see the complexities of
contestation over issues, understand the importance of acknowledging these complexities
to the policy-making process, nor interact with the multiple positions because it is too
concerned with directing the articulation of problems and solutions.
Postmodern approaches have ironically undergone criticisms of apoliticism and
promotion ofjudgement-free stances.^^ The irony of the criticism arises because
postmodern approaches have contested the possibility of apolitical and objective positions
within science and philosophy. Irrespective of this debate on the postmodern, in the realm
of the social sciences, postmodern approaches cannot assume apolitical objective stances
because, from their own standpoint, the production of knowledge is a hegemonic struggle.
Thus, policy formulation to direct postcolonial nation-building and development will
21. Jane L. Papart and Marianne H. Marchand, "Exploding the Canon: An
Introduction/Conclusion," in Feminism/Postmodemism/Development . 16.
22. Ibid., 16-17.
23. See Pauline Marie Rosenau, Post-modernism and the Social Sciences: Insights. Inroads, and Intrusions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). 478
continue, while modernization approaches will endure in such projects. Approaches that
accept and learn from difference and the power of discourse can contribute to challenging
the authority of approaches that refuse to acknowledge other epistemic positions. Such
approaches can open dialogue and contestation over social, political, and economic
conditions. Finally, attention to various lived realities and the various ways in which they
are interpreted offers the possibility of analyzing and creating policies that do not ignore
subaltern knowledges.^'' Thus, modernization approaches can choose conceptual tools and
interpretive lens from an extended field of options.
Two related concerns have informed my reflection on the study of Africa. First,
modernization and Marxist social analyses have neglected and silenced various epistemic
positions through the very way analysis is conceptualized. For my study, the conventional
use of social concepts did not permit me to think about the complex interactions between
the ways people realize the constraints in which they must function, while they deceptively
reinterpret them, and the ways people arrogantly stand firm in their beliefs though they
may be aware of other interpretations. Second, scholars, policy-makers, government
officials, donor countries, NGOs, CBOs, and subalterns neglect, silence, and rework
epistemic positions in the hegemonic struggles that surround the (sub)nation. I believe that the allegorical rereading of the myth of Narcissus and Echo provides a way to handle both concerns as related. The use of the myth offers a ways to reconceptualize social
analysis that does not forget the presence of multiple interpretations, as it serves to listen
24. Ibid., 19. 479
surrounding a to and imperfectly interpret struggle between multiple perspectives
(sub)nation.^'
The re-reading of Narcissus and Echo provides a way to highlight the neglect of epistemic positions and acknowledge their presence. This is done by remembering Echo.
In the study of Africa, various neglected epistemic positions, like Echo, must acknowledge the modernization approach to social inquiry. They are constrained by the concepts, language, and theories deployed in the modernization approach, if they want to be heard.
However, if an epistemic position wants to endure as another way of interpreting (i.e.
remain partially outside this approach), precisely because it understands issues differently,
it must be able to acknowledge and move between different ways of thinking. Echo is a way to reveal neglect because as an allegorical tool she is a familiar method of social inquiry (metaphor and allegory are often used in various positions of social inquiry including modernization). However, Echo also lies outside of the possibility of perfectly representing social phenomena and establishing perfect opposites—such as state and society, domination and subordination—which is different from the impossibility of speaking about these ideas.
Thus, the myth of Echo and Narcissus, in echoing the demands of social science,
provides a way to conceptualize how difference is created, remains imaccounted for, and contributes to the process of interpretation and knowledge construction. This
25. Writing about subaltern perspectives can only be done imperfectly because it involves interpretation. For a nuanced discussion of the possibilities of subaltern theorizing, see Gayatri Spivak, "Can the Subaltern Speak?" in Marxism and the
Interpretation of Culture , ed. by Cary Nelson and Larry Grossberg (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 271-313. 480
the endurance reconceptualization permits the realization that difference as such facilitates
subaltern of positions in struggle.^* Echo, in particular, provides a way to listen to
positions and (imperfectly) relay them. Narcissus, provides a way to acknowledge the
dominant assertions already known. In this way. Echo and Narcissus are also re-read
through neglected subaltern positions. Thinking through Echo permits the
acknowledgment of constraints to be taken into account in struggle without completely
undermining the intentions in struggle. In comparing Echo and Narcissus, it is shown how
the (narcissistic) stubborn refusals to acknowledge constraints outside of the self (or some
system as a self) frustrates the achievement of what has been self-defined and desired. The
case of the fishermen in Fumba provides an example. They shared a concern over the
regulation of fishing in their area with government institutions. However, when they
attempted to prevent fishing on their own terms by defining property in their own way, the
government fined them for damaging the property of fishermen who used illegal methods.
Government institutions have been frustrated in their attempts to implement forestry
management schemes because people do not comply with the rules, although they agree to
implement the management systems. In addition, the government experiences fi^stration with enforcing their land policy as disputes over land proliferate. People do not imderstand land issues in the same way as the government. Thus, they sell land wdthout government mediation because they want appropriate compensation which the
26. Spivak made the call for Echo to mark that which is outside of the difference
created by binary opposites. See "Echo," in The Spivak Reader . I have attempted to reply with an Echo who is different from and yet outside of the narcissistic chain of signification, and who is interpreted outside of binary difference by subaltern positions in Zanzibar. 481
over the sale, government does not provide from their perspective. When a dispute arises
wants to avoid they then seek government mediation. At this point, the government involvement in a complicated land tenure system that it play a role in creating.
On the other hand, Echo, does not permit the romanticization of the subaltern, because she signifies a complicated position which does not articulate a win or loss (a success or failure), but a struggle which produces dilemmas and ambivalent feelings that reproduce struggle as continual. This interpretation allows the acknowledgment that people continue their struggles. Echo is a bit fatalistic, but not quite. She is not tragic like
Narcissus, nor is she un-tragic, as in the binary opposite of Narcissus. For example, women in Paje decided to accept the presented idea of seaweed cultivation. They continued to cultivate (though men discontinued) despite the intensive labor involved.
They accepted the constraints of working on plots of shoreline owned by men because it offered them a way to earn income that they desired. But they continued to struggle to demand higher wages for their exploited labor.
This study has been able to illustrate how the notions of citizen and property are contested and manipulated, even within the community, as attempts are made at the subahem level to include and exclude. Subaltern positions use their own notions and
s(sub)national(or govenmiental) notions of citizen and property with varying results. Thus,
national development is not a simple matter of state versus society (as is often argued in
African studies), but an issue of people attempting to coexist and negotiate with both a
national agenda or project and other differing local agendas and interpretations. Thus, it
could be understood that women in Fumba, who struggled with the Wanvamwezi . 482
against the reinterpreted citizen and waeeni in ways to work to their advantage and
(sub)national constraints to accept the idea of the Wanvamwezi . They also echoed the
EPZ because the social constraints of their own community placed them in a position of
not quite belonging. Thus, they interpreted what they had to lost as less than what they
might gain. Finally, the women complied with the government and UNDP initiatives to
form CBOs, though they divided the funds to pursue independent income generating
activities. Thus, they did not employ the concept as a perfect reproduction of the
government and UNDP interpretation.
Echo and Narcissus are particularly theoretically alluring because they do not
conceptually fix nor perfectly parallel positions in struggle. Thus, substate institutions
may experience narcissistic frustrations as noted above. However, they can also engage in
echoing strategies to endure. The EPZ Agency and Regional Commissioner echoed the
demands of the women in Fumba to permit the torching of huts of the Wanvamwezi . In
doing so, the government officials continued to receive the support of the community to
build the EPZ though it will consume their communal land. In addition, the sub-state complied with the demands of the Union government and the international community to
hold elections. However, the sub-state inserted its ovm version of elections by rigging them. When the sub-state's echoing appeared as narcissism, the donor's cut assistance.
The government again complied with international demands for negotiations to end the political impasse. Again, the outcome match international expectations less than perfectly.
This study accepted the frame of hegemonic struggle to consider the different positions that interact to define, interpret, and negotiate the national project. By doing so, 483
often overlooked in the effort it has been able to focus on the nuances of struggles that are
to locate a variable (or small set of connected variables) around v^hich a particular
problem or failing of the national project hinges. Within the nuances of struggle, this
study has been able to highlight the complicated ways sub-state institutions and
(sub)national citizens bind together complexes of ideas and information to make claims to
resources located on (sub)national terrain, and to define the boundaries of the
(sub)national state. Two particular complications draw attention. First, national struggles
weave through conventional levels of analysis—such as, the individual, the community (or
local level), the (sub)national level, the nation-state, and the international arena. Thus,
struggle does not occur in a single arena without the influence of members of other
analytical categories. Secondly, because a melange of individuals and groups interact in
positions that are not mutually exclusive, knowledge deployed in struggle assumes the
form of a collage which can bind together seemingly inconsistent, contradicting, and
undermining ideas. Thus, in struggle, inaccurate, valid, or legitimate information and
arguments are not necessarily at issue. Instead, the frustrations of struggles are contingent
on the coherent meanings participants (in struggle) are able to establish and the extent to
which they are persuasive enough to either induce changes or negotiate coexistence.
In the study of politics, the role of elites in shaping national development is commonly emphasized to the neglect of subalterns. The ways in which subalterns struggles over issues and resources—that have been defined by the state to serve national interests—have featured in this study to highlight how they shape and finastrate national
and international agendas. The neglect of subaltern politics, as an epistemic politics, 484
for undermines theoretical studies of political development because they cannot account
and correct the ways in which subaltern groups understand the national project as they
subaltern positions can also coexist in it. The intent of this study has been to illustrate that
inform the theorization of politics. To begin to understand the shortcoming of
modernization perspectives one must first realize that their epistemic positions do not
permit the deconstruction of their conceptual tools and political agendas. Concepts such
as citizenship, civil society, private property, and progress (development) are assumed as
desired ends rather than as contested arenas. However, opening up the concepts of citizen
and property as contested sites—as this study has—reveals that the multiple meanings
serve to both perpetuate (sub)national struggle as never-ending and to assist subalterns to
maintain positions partially outside of a dominant system of differences designed to
identify and control them. Concepts such as citizen, property, and nation do have
relevance in the politics of nation-states in Africa. The acknowledgment of such concepts,
as contested, can also open the possibilities of reinterpreting their meanings and use, not
only in the African context, but through the African context to reconceptualize their
deployment elsewhere.
Subaltern positions indeed are limited by systems of domination, but they need not
be powerless in the hegemonic struggle over the politics of the nation or the epistemic
politics of scholarship. Echo does not permit apolitical nor objective reflection because
she constitutes a position, forced into interaction, within struggle, and with an intent to be heard. If we can avert our eyes from the reflecting pool for just a moment, we might hear
the voice of Echo, revealing that there is more happening outside our world of self- 485 admiration and dissemination. To speak in the language of modernization, modernization policies create problems as they try to solve them, while subalterns and postcolonial states
intentionally instigate the frustration that becomes part of the nation-building process in the effort to have their ideas heard. APPENDIX
The following people in the four communities of this study graciously agreed to be interviewed:
Fumba
Tatu Mosi Khamisi Mwana Isha Shehe Khadija Mtumwa Nezuma Pandu Mwsiti Mohanmied Radjab Zuleha Hassan Shoka Rukia Saidi Ramadhani Khamis Mwinchumu Makame Mwinyi Khatibu Abdulmalik Shoka Pili Haji Mwajina Dakari Sipato Tadjo Mwanisha Jabu Janati Talib Mwanakhamisi Abdul Arafa Mwarabu Saidi Mwanaharusi Masoud Ahmada Omar Haji Piru Rafi Hassan Khamis Ali AbduUa Kombo Makame Mlekwa Juma Khamis Mkame Khamis Kombo Mohammed Sheha Kheri Ratibu Mwinyi AbduUa Ali Juma Hamaji Mikail Mohammed Suleiman Mohammed Said Mtumwa Mohammad Hassan Shoka Issa Shani Mwasiti Mohammed Radjab Asha Fume Khamis Mwasiti Barkari
Pale
Zainabu Vuai Haji Shumbagi Mwatumu Bakari Simba Mwaka Mwazini Nchono Juma Mpini Binti Mila Makame Fatma Ali Khamis Maji Haji Makhafudh Haji Abdulla Issa Mussa Kassim Lyoub Haji Jecha Hemed Abdul
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Kimberly Pfeifer received her Bachelor of Arts degree in international relations at
Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland. She received her Master of Arts degree in political science at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida.
520 I certify that I have read this study and that in my opinion in conforms to acceptable
standards of scholarly presentation and is fully adeq in scope a ty, as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Goran Hyden, Chairmar Professor of Politicalls(;ience
I certify that I have read this study and that in my opinion in conforms to acceptable
standards of scholarly presentation and is fully adequate, in scope and qualit}', as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
lichael Chege Professor of Political Scier
1 certify' that I have read this study and that in my opinion in conforms to acceptable
standards of scholarly presentation and is fully adequate, in scope and qualit)', as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Leslie Thiele Professor of Political Science
I certify that I have read this study and that in my opinion in conforms to acceptable standards of scholarly presentation and is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Ofalia Schutte Professor of Philosophy
I certify that I have read this study and that in my opinion in conforms to acceptable standards of scholarly presentation and is fully adequate, in scope and qualit)', as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Barbara McDade Associate Professor of Geography This dissertation was submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Department of Political Science in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and to the Graduate School and was accepted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
May 2000 Dean, Graduate School