In Goanet Digest of 10th January 2012, you have a review by Roland Francis, of Mervyn Marciel's fine account of his days as a civil servant in colonial Kenya. In that account, he comments thus:
"It must have been a frightening experience for the Goans settled there, especially since many of them were employed and well regarded by the Sultan who was deposed by a ragtag rough and ready African band of Zanzibaris. The Brits probably allowed this to happen, for their own reasons. No flea could make a move without the Brits allowing it to happen in the Africa of the day." As one of those Goans scared witless by the shock events and gratuitous violence that characterised the Zanzibar Revolution, I would take issue with the reviewer on at least three significant points. One, the revolutionaries were by no means altogether "a ragtag rough and ready" band. To start with, the Police Force and the embryonic military force were weak and not all that well armed and it therefore did not need much of a superior force to overcome them. Accordingly, initially it required a fairly small number of revolutionaries to overcome the military unit (located at a single camp) but once they had overcome the unit in a trice and got their hands on the armoury, they were pretty well armed and were able to impose their will upon the islands without much opposition. However, what was certainly present at the time unbeknown, it would appear, to the coalition Government that was overthrown, was a well-trained unit of "Comrades" - Zanzibar Arab youths, members of the (pro-Peking, as it then was, Communist) Umma Party led by the internationally renowned socialist, Abdulrahman Mohammed 'Babu'. These youths had received their training in Cuba primarily, and having known some of them as friends in my youth, believe me, they were no "rag tag" band. As the Revolution developed, however, more Africans joined the revolutionary forces and that would have given the appearance of a rag-tag band. Given that the Revolution did not happen just by chance but would have been planned (the BBC's Keith Kyle suggested that three separate groups were planning revolutions at the time of Independence) , one can reasonably assume that a contingent of fighters would have received at least some training on a clandestine basis. However, the sharp spine provided by the 'Comrades' was present in the background and, in my view, were the ones to have taken a firm grip of the Revolution. In retrospect, it served a useful purpose to present the Revolution as a spontaneous uprising of the population. The reviewer then suggests that Goans were "well regarded by the Sultan". Well they may or may not have been. In any event, whilst a number of Goans certainly did occupy the middle and lower ranks of the Civil Service (with a sprinkling of them in the higher reaches), they were by no means the backbone of the Civil Service, overwhelmed as they were by other Asians and Zanzibar Arabs. Indeed, the one Goan - Wolfango Dourado - to rise to an influential level (as Attorney General) did so *after* the Revolution. It also has to be remember that the Sultan of Zanzibar was a constitutional monarch and would, therefore, have played no role in determining the composition of the Civil Service. That was developed by the British administrators who the reviewer appears to deride! Presumably, Goans in Zanzibar were also "well-regarded" by "the Brits". Thirdly, the reviewer states ever so categorically: "The Brits probably allowed this (i.e. the Revolution) to happen, for their own reasons. No flea could make a move without the Brits allowing it to happen in the Africa of the day." This is cynical nonsense. He hedges his bets with "probably allowed". "The Brits" had split the scene by then! Zanzibar was an independent state, an independent Sultanate by then, the British having restored Zanzibar's independence (from its previous Protectorate status) a mere month before then and an Arab-dominated, Arab and Shirazi coalition Government was in charge. Indeed, the allegation before independence was that the British administration had gerrymandered constituency boundaries to ensure the return of the coalition Government. So, they could hardly have "allowed" the Revolution to take place. The "No flea could make a move" reference is dresedup to make the colonial administrations in "the Africa of the day" seem inbued with Nazi-like efficiency. However, any student of colonial history would confirm that, despite any shortcomings on the part of the British in Africa, their administrative prowess was not that tight. Indeed, it could be argued with much credence that the British administrations --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Protect Goa's natural beauty Support Goa's first Tiger Reserve Sign the petition at: http://www.goanet.org/petition/petition.php ---------------------------------------------------------------------------