African Arabs survivors of Zanzibar: journey back home

Zanzibar-born Omani Arabs - expelled by African rebels in 1964 - are still trying to accept the loss of their former African homeland, despite more than half a century since the revolution forced them to leave their homeland in East Africa.

In their report, published by the Middle East Eye website, writers Sebastian Castellet and Quentin Muller said that Oman, which had only one hospital and three primary schools at the time, was radically transformed, while Omanis from Zanzibar are still struggling with memories and trauma.

The Sultan of Oman, Said bin Sultan, ruled a vast country stretching from the outskirts of the Indian subcontinent to the lakes of Central Africa, and lived in Zanzibar, which was the second capital of his country.

But a crisis erupted between his two sons that began in 1856 and lasted five years, and the Sultanate was divided - according to the English arbitration agreed by the parties - to an African side is the Sultanate of Zanzibar led by Sultan Majid bin Said, and an Asian side is the Sultanate of Oman led by Sultan Thuwaini bin Said.

Oman has centuries-long trade links with the region, where more than 100,000 Omanis were born in East Africa or have family ties there.

Omani Zanzibaris speak Swahili, a Bantu language that has been enriched by vocabulary from Arabic, German, Portuguese, English, Hindu and French over centuries of colonial presence in the region.

Arab - African Sultanate
In the 18th and 19th centuries, Omanis ruled a powerful naval empire, including the east coast of Africa, the vast coasts of the Gulf and southwestern Iran.

In 1840, Stone Town in Zanzibar became the capital of the empire and a logistics hub linking East Africa with the wider world.

During the second half of the 19th century, Zanzibar became a sultanate under the protection of the British Empire, and the Omani sultans and politicians ruled the majority of the African population, but this era ended in 1964 with the Zanzibar Revolution when the Arab Sultan was overthrown.

Arab killers
The authors explained that African rebels killed between 5,000 and 15,000 Arabs and imprisoned thousands during the Zanzibar revolution, according to academic sources. Zanzibar-born Omani artist Madani al-Bakri recalls that "African rebels killed my aunt who was pregnant, cattle her stomach and pulled the baby."

Al-Bakri, who writes Arabic calligraphy as well as landscaping in Zanzibar, left the island in 1971. “On the day of the revolution, I woke up and saw guns all over the living room table. I wondered what was going on. Dad would go to deliver milk to our customers. "

Bakri said that when he arrived on the street, he saw an Indian man riding a motorcycle screaming "They are coming", but did not want to escape so people do not think he is afraid. When he saw an Omani man carrying a gun to protect the street, he hid in his home.

Al-Bakri said that his father had been arrested during the revolution and had been held twice for eight months and six months respectively. In contrast, Bakri made the decision to flee Zanzibar when his father was imprisoned for the third time.

The story of Ghassani
The authors point out that the crisis since 1964 has pushed thousands of Arab families to the Asian side of the Sultanate of Oman, in a long journey to their ancestral homeland. However, the Omani Sultan at the time, Said bin Taimur, feared external influences, and prohibited the return of most Omani-born in East Africa.

"I knew I was from a country called Oman, but I didn't think about going back to it," said Zanzibar-born Harith al-Ghassani.

Under Sultan Said bin Taimur, life in Oman was very simple, and Ian Cobain of the Guardian revealed that it was forbidden to have radios, bicycles, sunglasses, shoes or pants, as well as to use electric pumps in wells.

Al-Ghassani was born in Zanzibar in 1958, where his father was Undersecretary of the Ministry of Agriculture. In this context, he stated that his father was from a large family in Zanzibar and did not leave the country after the revolution.

Omani-born East Africans began to return after the new Sultan Qaboos bin Said granted them Omani nationality, although the journey home took years.

Madani al-Bakri lived in many countries, including Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, until he finally arrived in Muscat in 1974 to discover primitive living there. The contrast with the booming economy of Zanzibar was a shock to newcomers. Bakri also remembers the lack of infrastructure, schools or even a single road.

Start from scratch
According to Ibrahim bin Noor bin Sharif al-Bakri, a professor at Sultan Qaboos University, Omani-born East Africans returned in time to help build the country, prompting the Gulf state to experience the world's fastest progress in human development index over the next four decades. .

As Oman gradually strengthened its economy, the skills of many Omani East Africans educated in Zanzibar, including doctors, teachers and engineers, were needed. Al-Ghassani, who did not finish high school, was able to secure a job at Oman Petroleum Development, the country's main energy company.

The legacy of slavery
Back in Zanzibar, Omani-born East Africans were not accepted in their former homeland.

"People in Zanzibar are not satisfied because we have been expelled from them since 1964 and are now returning to a richer lifestyle," said Harith al-Ghassani, a frequent visitor to Zanzibar, adding that the same country he was born in 1958 now deprives him of his humanity. .

This contradiction is due to a dark legacy to which East-born Omanis are still linked, due to repeated allegations about the slave trade dominated by Arab traders from Zanzibar.

The export of slaves continued into the 20th century despite the agreement of the sultans of Muscat and Oman to end the slave trade in 1847.

The writers quoted the historian Matthew Huber's book "Slaves to one master", that 800 thousand Africans were transferred to the Persian Gulf in the latter half of the nineteenth century until the thirties of the last century, where most of them were kidnapped from East Africa and sent to Yemen and Oman. However, this version of events is not accepted by all Omani Zanzibaris.

It is worth mentioning that Dr. Ibrahim bin Nur bin Sharif al-Bakri was born in 1941 in Zanzibar, and falls within the descendants of Omanis who ruled the city of Marka Somali.

Bakri wrote a book in Swahili about the history of Oman, stressing that there was no "one Arab" wandering through the vast interior of East Africa to seize the slaves. He denied to Middle East Eye the allegations.

The plight of the Arabs
In his previous article on Al Jazeera Net, Professor of African and Islamic History at the University of Missouri, Abdullah Ali Ibrahim, told painful stories of Arab killers in Zanzibar, saying it was not a revolt against the Sultan of Arabs, but intended to liquidate the existence of Arab race, and described what happened as ethnic cleansing, blaming the The extreme African nationalist movement that views the continent exclusively for blacks and views Arabs as invaders.

Ibrahim said that Marxist Zanzibari thought also played a role in the context of the Cold War, while Arab nationalism under the leadership of former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser took precedence over the alliance with the African national liberation movements over the salvation of an Arab people that it considered belonging to Arab sultans.