The Afro-Shirazi Party and its political role in the formation of the Tanzanian state (1957-1964)

Abstract

     Zanzibar Island has been an area of ​​competition and conflict for all European powers since the beginning of geographical discoveries until today, due to its strategic location. It is the most important point of access to India (the jewel in the British crown). For this reason, Britain sought by all means and methods to try to impose its hegemony and authority over it, as it clashed with the Omani Arab presence that preceded it since 1698 AD.

Therefore, it resorted to a gradual policy in imposing its hegemony, leading to the declaration of its protection in 1890 AD, as it transformed the Omanis from masters into one of their tools in imposing rule on the island as a minority that began to implement the unwanted policy of the West, as the election law had a role in extending their rule period, coinciding with the awareness and intellectual and national rise of the Africans of the mainland (Tanganyika) and Zanzibar and those who lived with them from the minorities such as the Asians and the Shirazis.

As a result, a union was formed between the Shirazi Party and the African Party, expressing the cohesion in which nationalism and patriotism were fused, mixed with the Swahili language that brought them together to stop the Omani occupation and takeover of Zanzibar’s resources. Then came the revolution and the massacre in 1964 AD, after the ballot boxes failed to give them a real opportunity to participate in managing the island’s resources as a majority, to announce the birth of the state of Tanzania in the same year, to become the United Republic of Tanzania on April 26, 1964 AD.