Abstract
The chapter studies popular cultural memory and official (state-promoted) representations of the history of the Arab slave trade in East Africa and the Indian Ocean in the context of nation-building in the United Republic of Tanzania. The chapter is based on field evidence on different aspects of nation-building in Tanzania collected by the authors since the early 2000s and especially during the field seasons of 2018 and 2019 completely devoted to the study of the memory and representations of the Arab slave trade. In these years, fieldwork was done in the localities related to the slave trade and on the (re)production of the memory of it, such as in Bagamoyo (and the adjacent Kaole village), Zanzibar (the city and Nungwi village), Tanga, Pangani, and Dar es Salaam. Besides doing structured and non-structured interviews in English and Swahili, fieldwork included analysis of museum expositions, public memorials, and school history textbooks. One of the conclusions that can be drawn from the study is that association of Arabs with the exploitation of Africans in the past is present in the minds of many African Tanzanians, but the Tanzanian government tries, generally successfully, to smooth over this negative attitude and promote the Arabs’ inclusion in the nation by African Tanzanians by corrupting historical facts and manipulating historical memory. However, there is an important dualism in the perception of the Tanzanian Arabs by the African Tanzanian majority: The Arabs are recognized by them as co-citizens in the formal, political, or legal sense but not as people who belong to the cultural community of ‘Tanzanians’. For African Tanzanians, the latter is based on Swahili culture to which the Arabs, in their view, do not belong.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alexander, J. (2001). Islam, Archaeology and Slavery in Africa. In: World Archaeology, 33 (1), pp. 44–60.
Allen, James de Vere (1993). Swahili Origins: Swahili Culture and the Shungwaya Phenomenon. Oxford: James Currey.
Alpers, Edward A. (2005). Introduction: Slave Routes and Oral Tradition in Southeastern Africa. In: Zimba, Benigna / Alpers, Edward A. / Isaacman, Allen F. (Eds.), Slave Routes and Oral Tradition in Southeastern Africa. Maputo: Filsom Entertainment, pp. 1–12.
Austen, Ralph A. (1988). The 19th Century Islamic Slave Trade from East Africa (Swahili and Red Sea Coasts): A Tentative Census. In: Slavery and Abolition, 9 (3), pp. 21–44.
Baldwin, Kate (2016). The Paradox of Traditional Chiefs in Democratic Africa. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Banshchikova, Anastasia A. / Ivanchenko, Oxana V. (2019). Historical Memory of the 19th-Century Arab Slave Trade in Modern-Day Tanzania: Between Family Trauma and State-Planted Tolerance. In: Bondarenko, Dmitri M. / Butovskaya, Marina L. (Eds.), The Omnipresent Past: Historical Anthropology of Africa and African Diaspora. Moscow: LRC, pp. 23–45.
Beetham, David (1991). The Legitimation of Power. London: Macmillan.
Bennett, Norman R. (1978). A History of the Arab State of Zanzibar. London: Harper & Row.
Blommaert, Jan (2014). State Ideology and Language in Tanzania. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Blommaert, Jan (2006). Ujamaa and Creation of the New Waswahili. In: van der Walt, Christa (Ed.), Living through Languages: An African Tribute to René Dirven. Stellenbosch: Sun, pp. 5–22.
Bondarenko, Dmitri M. / Butovskaya, Marina L. (Eds.) (2019). The Omnipresent Past: Historical Anthropology of Africa and African Diaspora. Moscow: LRC.
Bondarenko, Dmitri M. (2016). The Postcolonial World: Nation-Building and the Historical Past. In: Tishkov, Valery A. / Filippova, Elena I. (Eds.), Cultural Complexity of Modern Nations. Moscow: Politicheskaja entsiklopedija, pp. 224–240. (in Russian).
Bondarenko, Dmitri M. (2014). Historical Memory and Intercultural Tolerance: Students’ Attitudes to the Colonialism-Born Minorities in Tanzania and Zambia. In: Social Evolution and History, 13 (2), pp. 97–118.
Bondarenko, Dmitri M. / Krishna, Kamini / Krishna, Radhe (2013). A View from Campus: The Attitude of University Students to the European and South Asian Minorities in Tanzania and Zambia Compared. In: Anthropos, 108 (1), pp. 77–95.
Bondarenko, Dmitri M. (2010). Education and Tolerance in Tanzania (by the Evidence Collected by the Russian Anthropological Expedition in 2003 and 2005). In: Vinokurov, Yuri N. (Ed.), Julius Kambarage Nyerere: the First President of Independent Tanzania. Moscow: Institute for African Studies Press, pp. 56–62 (in Russian).
Bondarenko, Dmitri M. (1997). The Theory of Civilizations and Dynamics of Historical Process in Precolonial Tropical Africa. Moscow: Institute for African Studies Press (in Russian).
Breuilly, John (1993). Nationalism and the State. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Campbell, Gwyn (2016). East Africa in the Early Indian Ocean World Slave Trade: The Zanj Revolt Reconsidered. In: Campbell, Gwyn (Ed.), Early Exchange between Africa and the Wider Indian Ocean World. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 275–303.
Chittick, Neville H. (1970). East African Trade with the Orient. In: Richards, Donald S. (Ed.), Islam and the Trade of Africa: Papers on Islamic History. Vol. II. Oxford: Bruno Cassirer, pp. 97–104.
Cohen, Ronald / Toland, Judith D. (Eds.) (1988). State Formation and Political Legitimacy. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
Collins, Robert O. (2006). The African Slave Trade to Asia and the Indian Ocean Islands. In: African and Asian Studies, 5 (3–4), pp. 325–346.
Cooper, Frederick (1977). Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Croucher, Sarah K. (2015). Capitalism and Cloves: An Archaeology of Plantation Life on Nineteenth-Century Zanzibar. New York, NY: Springer.
Denisova, Tatiana S. (2020). The Role of Traditional Leaders in the Political Life of West Africa: The Case of Ghana. In: Bondarenko, Dmitri M. / Kowalewski, Stephen A. / Small, David B. (Eds.), The Evolution of Social Institutions: Interdisciplinary Perspective. Cham: Springer, pp. 371–384.
Earle, Timothy (1997). How Chiefs Come to Power: The Political Economy in Prehistory. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Ellis, Stephen / ter Haar, Gerrie (2004). Worlds of Power: Religious Thought and Political Practice in Africa. London: Hurst & Company.
Fabian, Steven (2013). East African Gorée: Slave Trade and Slave Tourism in Bagamoyo, Tanzania. In: Canadian Journal of African Studies, 47 (1), pp. 95–114.
Feierman, Steven (1974). The Shambaa Kingdom: A History. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Fouéré, Marie-Aude (2014). Julius Nyerere, Ujamaa, and Political Morality in Contemporary Tanzania. In: African Studies Review, 57 (1), pp. 1–24.
Gathara, Patrick (2011). Have Tanzanians Kept Faith with Nyerere’s Ideals? In: The East African, 12–18 December, p. 8.
Gellner, Ernest (1983). Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Gerbeau, Hubert (1979). The Slave Trade in the Indian Ocean: Problems Facing the Historian and Research to be Undertaken. In: UNESCO (Ed.), The African Slave Trade from the Fifteenth to the Nineteenth Century. Paris: UNESCO, pp. 184–207.
Giblin, James (2005). The Slave Trade, the Hegemony of Paternalism, and Their Place in the National History of Tanzania. In: Zimba, Benigna / Alpers, Edward A. / Isaacman, Allen F. (Eds.), Slave Routes and Oral Tradition in Southeastern Africa. Maputo: Filsom Entertainment, pp. 31–57.
Glassman, Jonathon (2011). War of Words, War of Stones: Racial Thought and Violence in Colonial Zanzibar. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Glassman, Jonathon (1995). Feasts and Riot. Revelry, Rebellion, and Popular Consciousness on the Swahili Coast, 1856–1888. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Graetz, Tilo (2002). A Social Anthropological Critique of a Political Science Approach to Power: The African Case. In: Beliaev, Dmitri D. / Bondarenko, Dmitri M. / Frantsouzoff, Serguei A. (Eds.), Second International Conference “Hierarchy and Power in the History of Civilizations”: Abstracts. Moscow: Center for Civilizational and Regional Studies Press, pp. 158–159.
Gromova, Nelli V. (2012). The Present and the Future of Swahili Language in East and Tropical Africa (Ethno-Linguistic Situation). In: Balezin, Aleksandr S. (Ed.), African Studies in Russia and Abroad: Stages, Trends, and Prospects. Moscow: Institute of World History Press, pp. 255–263 (in Russian).
Hart, Keith (2011). Jack Goody’s Vision of World History and African Development Today: Goody Lecture 2011. Halle/Saale: Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology.
Haskin, Jeanne M. (2005). The Tragic State of the Congo: From Decolonization to Dictatorship. New York, NY: Algora Publishing.
Hassler, Malin (2012). Neotraditionalism – Examining the Role of Traditional Revival in Vanuatu. BA thesis. Kalmar; Växjö: Linnaeus University, http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:540690/FULLTEXT01.pdf, accessed February 8, 2021.
Hooper, Jane / Eltis, David (2013). The Indian Ocean in Transatlantic Slavery. In: Slavery and Abolition, 34 (3), pp. 353–375.
Horáková, Hana (2011). Introduction: The Predicament of the Concept of Power in Africa. In Horáková, Hana / Nugent, Paul / Skalník, Peter (Eds.), Africa: Power and Powerlessness. Berlin: Lit, pp. 9–21.
Horáková, Hana / Nugent, Paul / Skalník, Peter (Eds.) (2011). Africa: Power and Powerlessness. Berlin: Lit.
Hurreiz, Sayyid H. (1985). Origins, Foundation and Evolution of Swahili Culture. In: Ogot, Bethwell A. (Ed.), Distinctive Characteristics and Common Features of African Cultural Areas South of the Sahara. Paris: UNESCO, pp. 101–123.
Ivanchenko, Oxana V. (2019). School Textbook as a Way to Stable Nation: Sources of Historical Memory about the 19th Century Arab Slave Trade in Modern-Day Tanzania. In: Krylova, Natalia L. / Grishina, Nina V. / Ksenofontova, Natalia A. (Eds.), Young People in Political and Socio-Cultural Life of Africa. Moscow: Institute for African Studies Press, pp. 90–102 (in Russian).
Ivanchenko, Oxana V. (2013). Tanzania: National and Ethnic Self-Consciousness. In: Azia i Afrika segodnja, 6, pp. 53–59 (in Russian).
Jakwa, Tinashe (2017). African Realism: Reconceptualising Notions of State Weakness in Western Thought. In: Lyons, Tania (Ed.), Conference Proceedings. “Africa: Moving the Boundaries”. 39th Annual African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific (AFSAAP) Conference, 5–7 December 2016, The University of Western Australia. Perth: AFSAAP, pp. 72–85. Retrieved from http://afsaap.org.au/assets/9-Tinashe-Jakwa.pdf.
Jewsiewicki, Bogumil (2010). The Historical Memory and Representation of New Nations in Africa. In: Diawara, Mamadou / Lategan, Bernard / Rüsen, Jörn (Eds.), Historical Memory in Africa: Dealing with the Past, Reaching for the Future in an Intercultural Context. New York, NY: Berghahn Books, pp. 53–66.
Kake, Ibrahima Baba (1979). The Slave Trade and the Population Drain from Black Africa to North Africa and the Middle East. In: UNESCO (Ed.), The African Slave Trade from the Fifteenth to the Nineteenth Century. Paris: UNESCO, pp. 164–174.
Kanana, Fridah Erastus (2013). Examining African Languages as Tools for National Development: The Case of Kiswahili. In: The Journal of Pan African Studies, 6 (6), pp. 41–68.
Kavina, Alexander (2020). Positive and Negative Aspects of Globalization in Nation Building in Africa. In: Journal of the Institute for African Studies, 1 (50), pp. 59–70.
Klein, Martin A. (2005). Slavery: Mediterranean, Red Sea, Indian Ocean. In: Shillington, Kevin (Ed.), Encyclopedia of African History. New York, NY: Fitzroy Dearborn, pp. 1382–1384.
Korotayev, Andrey V. / Khaltourina, Daria А. (2008). The Arabs in Tanzania. In: Korotayev, Andrey V. / Demintseva, Ekaterina B. (Eds.), Interracial and Interethnic Relations in Contemporary Tanzania. Moscow: LENAND, pp. 8–27 (in Russian).
Kurtz, Donald V. (2001). Political Anthropology. Paradigms and Power. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Kurtz, Donald V. (1994). Cultural Identity, Politics and Legitimation. In: van Bakel, Martin / Hagesteijn, Renée / van de Velde, Pieter (Eds.), Pivot Politics: Changing Cultural Identities in Early State Formation Processes. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis, pp. 31–46.
Lentz, Carola (2006). Ethnicity and the Making of History in Northern Ghana. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Lindström, Jan (2019). Muted Memories: Heritage-Making, Bagamoyo, and the East African Caravan Trade. New York, NY: Berghahn.
Lodhi, Abdulaziz Yusuf (1986). The Arabs in Zanzibar (From the Sultanate to the People’s Republic). In: Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 7 (2), pp. 404–418.
Lofchie, Michael F. (1965). Zanzibar: Background to Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Longair, Sarah (2016). Cracks in the Dome: Fractured Histories of Empire in the Zanzibar Museum, 1897–1964. Abingdon: Routledge.
Mann, Michael (1986–2012). The Sources of Social Power. (4 Volumes) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mbogoni, Lawrence E.Y. (2012). Aspects of Colonial Tanzania History. Dar es Salaam: Mkuki na Nyota.
Mtavangu, Norbert (2017). The Tanzanian Multilingual State: Hostility towards It and Strategy to Protect It. In: Negga, Delombera / Chan, Daniel / Szirmai, Monika (Eds.), Language Policy, Ideology and Educational Practices in a Globalised World. Paris: Éditions des archives contemporaines, pp. 71–85.
Ndaluka, Thomas Joseph (2012). Religious Discourse, Social Cohesion and Conflict: Muslim-Christian Relations in Tanzania. Münster: Lit.
Niang, Amy (2018). The Postcolonial African State in Transition: Stateness and Modes of Sovereignty. New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield.
Nugent, Paul (2011). States and Social Contracts in Africa: Time, Space and the Art of the Possible. In: Horáková, Hana / Nugent, Paul / Skalník, Petr (Eds.), Africa: Power and Powerlessness. Berlin: Lit, pp. 22–43.
Ogot, Bethwell A. (1979). Population Movements between East Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Neighbouring Countries. In: UNESCO (Ed.), The African Slave Trade from the Fifteenth to the Nineteenth Century. Paris: UNESCO, pp. 175–182.
Pearson, Michael N. (1998). Port Cities and Intruders: The Swahili Coast, India, and Portugal in the Early Modern Era. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Petterson, Don (2002). Revolution in Zanzibar. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Poncian, Japhace (2015). Christian-Muslim Relations in Tanzania: A Threat to Future Stability and Peace? In: Research on Humanities and Social Sciences, 5 (3), pp. 54–64.
Prins, Adriaan Hendrik Johan (1967). The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of Zanzibar and the East African Coast: Arabs, Shirazi and Swahili. London: International African Institute.
Rhodes, Daniel T. (2018). History, Materialization, and Presentation of Slavery in Tanzania. In: Journal of African Diaspora Archaeology and Heritage, 7 (2), pp. 165–191.
Rukyaa, Julian Joseph (2007). Muslim-Christian Relations in Tanzania with Particular Focus on the Relationship between Religious Instruction and Prejudice. In: Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 18 (2), 189–204.
Sheriff, Abdul (2005). Slave Trade and Slave Routes of the East African Coast. In: Zimba, Benigna / Alpers, Edward A. / Isaacman, Allen F. (Eds.), Slave Routes and Oral Tradition in Southeastern Africa. Maputo: Filsom Entertainment, pp. 13–38.
Sheriff, Abdul (1987). Slaves, Spices, and Ivory in Zanzibar: Integration of an East Africa Commercial Empire in the World Economy, 1770–1873. London: James Currey.
Spear, Thomas (2003). Neo-Traditionalism and the Limits of Invention in British Colonial Africa. In: Journal of African History, 44 (1), pp. 3–27.
Strandes, Justus (1961). The Portuguese Period in East Africa. (First published in German in 1899). Nairobi: East African Literature Bureau.
Tetti, Martin B. (2014). What Went Wrong in Tanzania: How Does Religious Tension is threatening National Unity and Cohesion. In: International Journal of Education and Research, 2 (6), pp. 503–510.
Vernet, Thomas (2009). Slave Trade and Slavery on the Swahili Coast, 1500–1750. In: Mirzai, Behnas A. / Montana, Ismael Musah / Lovejoy, Paul E. (Eds.), Slavery, Islam and Diaspora. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, pp. 37–76.
Werbner, Richard P. (1998). Smoke from the Barrel of a Gun: Postwars of the Dead, Memory and Reinscription in Zimbabwe. In: Werbner, Richard P. (Ed.), Memory and the Postcolony: African Anthropology and the Critique of Power. London: Zed Books, pp. 71–102.
Winans, Edgar V. (1962). Shambala, the Constitution of a Traditional State. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Wynne-Jones, Stephanie (2011). Recovering and Remembering a Slave Route in Central Tanzania. In: Lane, Paul J. / MacDonald, Kevin C. (Eds.), Slavery in Africa: Archaeology and Memory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 317–342.
Young, Crawford (2012). The Postcolonial State in Africa: Fifty Years of Independence, 1960–2010. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Young, Crawford / Turner, Thomas (1985). The Rise and Decline of the Zairian State. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Zimba, Benigna / Alpers, Edward A. / Isaacman, Allen F. (Eds.) (2005). Slave Routes and Oral Tradition in Southeastern Africa. Maputo: Filsom Entertainment.
Acknowledgements
The research is supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, grant # 20-09-00361 “Cultural Memory about 19th Century Arab Slave Trade and its Influence on Interethnic Relations in Modern-Day Tanzania.”
The authors are grateful to Edward Alpers and Benigna Zimba for sending them a copy of the extremely valuable Slave Routes and Oral Tradition in Southeastern Africa, edited by them with A.F. Isaacman, which is unavailable from Russian libraries or on the Internet.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bondarenko, D.M., Banshchikova, A.A., Ivanchenko, O.V. (2021). Whose State? Whose Nation? Representations of the History of the Arab Slave Trade and Nation-Building in Tanzania. In: Steinforth, A.S., Klocke-Daffa, S. (eds) Challenging Authorities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76924-6_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76924-6_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-76923-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-76924-6
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)