Book Summary Excerpt: by Nathaniel Mathews: An Afrabian Diaspora: Swahili-speaking Omanis recall their pasts in East Africa

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Across Africa and Asia, governments are increasingly concerned with recruiting capital investment from overseas diasporas as a solution to domestic revenue troubles. From India’s overtures to ‘non-resident Indians’ (NRIs), to the Kenyan state recently declaring its Indian community a recognized ‘tribe’, states utilize their diasporas as a source of remittance and investment.1 Their appeals to the diaspora are often couched in the language of heritage, ancestry and ethnicity. But what happens when appeals to that heritage collide with memories of the violent ethnic trauma these diasporas experienced in leaving their country of origin? And how do those tensions influence how a diaspora produces its history and identity? My book manuscript, “Children of the Lost Colony: Memory, Empire and the Making of an Afro-Arab Diaspora”, excavates the forgotten journeys of a group of Afro-Arab refugees from a 1964 revolution in Zanzibar, historicizes their transformation into a Swahili-speaking ‘Zanzibari’ community in modern Oman, and analyzes the contemporary work they do remembering their displacement and migration.

Oman may seem rather distant geographically from East Africa, but the cultural highways of the Indian Ocean have long knit the two regions. Omanis have been traveling to East Africa and intermarrying with its inhabitants since the fourteenth century, and the island of Zanzibar was the capital of a nineteenth century Omani empire. In fact, nationality on the East coast of Africa dates to the establishment of this independent trans-oceanic empire by an Omani sultan. His successors were what the late Ali Mazrui called “genealogical Afrabians”, descended on one side from Omani Arabs who arrived in the eighteenth century, and on the other from various lineages of locally born Africans. Zanzibar and parts of modern Kenya and mainland Tanzania were once part of the domains of these sultans. They were eroded and then ‘protected’ in the age of the scramble for Africa by European powers, foremost among them the British. What is unique about the case of Zanzibar and Oman is that the Omanis, like the Tutsis in Rwanda, had been king and rulers, while many contemporary Zanzibaris are descendants of Africans brought as their slaves.

The revolution of 1964, despite having only a small socialist participation, led western powers to label Zanzibar ‘the Cuba of Africa.’ The revolution helped influence a pan-African union of Zanzibar in April 1964 with mainland Tanganyika, creating modern Tanzania. Since 1985, declining state revenues have shifted Tanzanian state policy towards a more pro-business and pro-corporate strategy of seeking overseas investment Zanzibar’s political leadership now have a vision of the island as Hong Kong, Dubai, or Singapore-- a wealthy city-state sitting at the center of the global economy. To accomplish this, Zanzibar’s government made and continues to make frequent and repeated overtures to the Afro-Arab exile community in Oman, a group it once feared as counter-revolutionary. Zanzibar’s leaders couched these appeals in terms of the permanent and unbroken ties of religious, cultural and ancestral heritage between Oman and Zanzibar.

In this twenty-one-year period from 1964-1985, thousands of Zanzibaris made refugees by the revolution negotiated a path to citizenship in modern Oman. At the eastern end of the Gulf, Oman in the 1960s was poor and isolated, ruled by a sultan who shunned the outside world. With the development of an economy based on oil and gas, and the ascendance to the throne of a new sultan in 1970, Oman entered a period of unprecedented economic growth and prosperity. The one-time refugees from Zanzibar were one of the few population groups in Oman to have received a modern colonial education, thus they were appointed to lead key ministries and played a formative role in the making of modern Omani national institutions.

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Connecting the Gems of the Indian Ocean

Had the privilege to travel to Washington, DC in November to participate in the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art's roundtable entitled "Connecting the Gems of the Indian Ocean." Lots of great nuggets to chew on here. Thanks so much to Nicole and the Smithsonian staff for inviting me!

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Speak Swahili Dammit (Book Review)

James Penhaligon. Speak Swahili Dammit! Trevelyan Publishers. Falmouth, Cornwall, 2012.

James Penhaligon is a doctor who grew up on a remote gold mining town in colonial Tanganyika. The book is a memoir of childhood, told through a child's narration. The resulting narrative is rich in affect and Penhaligon exploits the hilarity of a child's point of view with great skill and relish. Penhaligon, whose father dies at the beginning of the book, grows up between two worlds--the white colonial world of the wazungus, whom he hates, and the African world of the watu.

Jim is gradually (and reluctantly) incorporated into wazungu society through his boarding school experience, though he hates every minute of it, and rebels by running away several times. He describes the sense of "double-consciousness" he feels as someone straddling both worlds, and how people around him call him a social chameleon. The book ends with the closing of the mine after Tanganyikan independence.

Penhaligon has a gift for vivid description, and succeeds in both skewering the provincial racism and insularity of the white colonials, while also showing some of its internal diversity--Germans, Italians, Greeks, Scots, and Austrian Jews, survivors of the Nazi death camps. He portrays a rich tapestry of life choices that bring people to Geita, the mining town. There are surprisingly perceptive observations on the elaborate internal social hierarchies that pervade the town.
The book is also rich with Swahili vocabulary, although it is obvious from the many oddly spelled Swahili words and strange grammatical constructions that the author is remembering a language he picked up orally and then likely stopped speaking for many years. As someone who learned Swahili in a formal setting, I cringed each time Penhaligon quoted people using the word kuja to command someone to come. (The imperative command for come in Swahili is, in fact, njoo; kuja is the infinitive form of the verb). But I am also not familiar with how Swahili was spoken in the 1950s around Lake Victoria; perhaps my "Kiunguja" snobbishness has got the better of me!

As a boy, Jim loves nothing more than running and playing in the bush, creating imaginary kingdoms with his best friend Lutoli, harassing the "night soil" man (who comes during the day and is called in Swahili, machula) and listening to war veterans from the first and second world wars recount their exploits.

As a historian, these stories were one of the most interesting parts of the book. I learned about General Paul Von Lettow Vorbek, the enterprising German general whose military genius during the first World War routed superior British forces time and time again, and who was only forced to surrender by the German declaration of surrender. I also learned about the local askaris, trained by Germans, who carried themselves with pride and dignity as members of an elite fighting force. Through Jim's inquisitiveness, we also learn snatches of the experience of the Africans who were brought to Burma to fight agains the Japanese, and the impact of this experience on their consciousness.

The other part of the book that particularly interested me was the author's recounting of the Zanzibar Revolution, through an Indian clerk who works with his mother at the store. Here is Amil Mistree, the Indian clerk's account, as described by Penhaligon:

"At Bagamoyo, Amil and his relatives are woken in the small hours by the distant sound of explosions and gunfire. Zanzibar is only four miles away. They're alarmed. Later that morning, towards noon, bodies began to float up onto the beach below his cousin's house. Many have chunks bitten off by sharks. Flies carpet the rest. Panic-stricken, Amil takes his wife and children and flees the coast. Three days later, exhausted, dusty and terrified,, he arrives back at the mine. His is the first news of the massacre to reach Geita. Until then all that's known is that the 'corrupt' sultan has been overthrown by 'valiant freedom forces' on Zanzibar."

The passage is remarkable. I do not believe that Bagamoyo and Unguja were close enough to actually hear gunfire from the island on the mainland. And certainly Unguja is further than four miles offshore from Zanzibar! This is the first account I have read of mainlanders actually seeing corpses from Zanzibar float to the mainland. Finally is the death toll, which Penhaligon quotes (without attribution) as 17,000, claiming this figure was only admitted to years later (by who, he does not say). This is almost double the traditionally cited figure of 10,000. (Although during field research in Muscat I heard people quote figures as high as 30,000). It made me wonder if perhaps there are other accounts that reproduce these stories, as a kind of rumor, expressing something of the bloody terror that overran Zanzibar in the wake of the revolution.
Overall, this is a great book to pass time with. I do not know how much pedagogical value it has, and I remain skeptical of some of the Swahili reconstructions, but it is filled with hilarious and poignant stories.

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Uamsho, Zanzibar and the Mainland (by Thembi Mutch)

Thembi Mutch has a very good article on Uamsho and the increasingly restive political climate in Zanzibar. She helpfully avoids using the phrase "Islamist" to characterize Uamsho's reform efforts. Uamsho needs to be understood on its own terms and in terms of its own goals: autonomy for Zanzibar,  addressing corruption and drug use, and the failure of tourism to translate into quality of life improvement for ordinary Zanzibaris. The anti-mainlander rhetoric, however, is xenophobic and counter-productive to Uamsho's goals, but it has a long history in Zanzibar's political discourse. I also disagree with the idea that "forgetting" the past is somehow a solution to the problems plaguing the island. On the contrary, what is needed is a skillful and honest look at the past, so islanders can move forward productively out of that knowledge. There is a need not for more ignorance about the past but for more sagacity. Battles over a bloody history need not turn Zanzibari politics into a blame game; I would argue that ignorance about the past has contributed to, rather than alleviated, this blame game.

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Hali Halisi: Rap as Alternative Medium in Tanzania

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East African Hip Hop and Black Internationalism

Mwenda Ntarnagwi’s talk at Northwestern University on Monday Oct. 25, 2010 reminded me of another similarly engaged work of scholarship: Gerald Horne’s book “Mau Mau in Harlem”. Horne devotes a significant section of the book to Malcolm’s linkage of the revolutionary black struggle in America during the 1960s with the Land and Freedom Armies of Kenya (the so-called “Mau Mau”) who retreated into the highland forests and engaged in guerilla warfare against white settlers and their black collaborators. The ideological nodes connecting these diverse expressions of liberation have given birth to the term “black internationalism” in the extant historical literature.

Ntarangwi drew our attention to other points on this node in his talk on “Globalization, Hip Hop and Youth Agency in East Africa”. Drawing on stories of survival and livelihood amidst the fallout from World Bank and IMF programs of neo-liberal structural adjustment, Ntarangwi detailed how economic liberalization in East Africa created both severe socio-economic dislocation and the opportunity to access Western pop culture on newly unprecedented levels through circulated tapes and videos of hip hop films such as “Breaking 2” and the music of Michael Jackson and other eighties and nineties African American pop stars. Hip hop was part of a whole generation of youths’ attempts to craft an East African modernity in response to chronic underemployment, the movement of immigrants into new economic niches, and newly available communication technologies—a situation, Ntarangwi pointed out, not unlike the conditions which gave birth to hip hop in the South Bronx.

Ntarangwi played samples of the song “Uhiki” or “Wedding” by the Kenyan artist Hardstone, featuring rapping in Kikuyu over a sample of Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” and Swaleh Jay’s remix of “Ice Ice Baby” in Swahili, which itself infamously sampled Queen and “Under Pressure” by David Bowie and Queen. “Under Pressure” was released only a year before “Sexual Healing”, thus revealing some of the hybrid geneaologies of hip hop in East Africa and its emergence out of 80s and 90s American popular cultural forms.

Hip hop in East Africa, according to Ntarangwi, is a particular mode of youth political expression that emerged to allow African youth to become more active participants in culture making and astute critics of the political order by making sounds and messages from global black culture part of their local cultural repertoires. For example, in crafting a political approach to their music, groups like Kalamashaka in Kenya explicitly reappropriated the sights and sounds of African liberationists through the lens of black internationalism.
In their song “Ni Wakati” Kalamashaka sample Malcolm’s famous speech “Message to the Grassroots”, which speaks of Mau Mau as “black revolutionaries in Africa”. In Kenya, where the Mau Mau fighters were not even acknowledged as part of the force which helped to liberate Kenya after independence, and where their protests over land were met with silence and marginalization, Kalamashaka’s songs and messages were an important part of rehabilitating the image and message of Mau Mau fighters. In contrast to the neocolonial collaboration of Kenya’s ruling class, the Mau Mau symbolized to Kalamashaka the same values that politically conscious East African hip hop embodied—speaking from the margins, witnessing truth to power, and calling for a radical return to social justice and redistribution of wealth as well as access to education.

Another important node in East African hip hop’s links to black internationalism and the black diaspora goes through the Black Panthers. In 1969, Pete O’Neal, the chairman of the Kansas City Chapter of the Black Panther Party was arrested for allegedly transporting a gun across state lines. O’Neal resolved not to become another victim of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s covert and illegal war against the Panthers and fled to Algeria and then Tanzania with his wife Charlotte. In Arusha, Tanzania, they founded the United African Alliance Community Center in the spirit of Black Panther activism, offering food, education and services to the community free of charge. In 2008, while visiting with a group of students from Howard University, we recorded a song in UAACC’s homemade studio with a producer/emcee who Pete and Charlotte have helped to nurture. The Center, I learned, also has a close relationship with Kalamashaka (now known as Ukoo Flani), and has nurtured the talent of Tanzanian singer Nakaaya Sumari, who was at one point married to M1 (they have since separated). Nakaaya met M1 while working on “Mr. Politician”, her popular critique of vote-seeking vultures in East Africa.

Ntarangwi played several other hip hop critiques of corrupt politicians. In Tanzania, where President Jakaya Kikwete also appears poised to win re-election despite critiques that he made extravagant campaign promises, the relevance of Tanzanian rapper Profesa Jay’s critique of Tanzanian politics is especially germane. In “Ndio Mzee” (Yes Sir) and its follow up “Kikao Cha Dharura” (Emergency Meeting) Profesa Jay sketches a political speech made by an aspiring office-seeker in which he promises, among other things, to end poverty, establish schools on the moon, and give every member of the police force a helicopter. In the followup song, the politician finds himself confronted by his constituents post-election and is forced to back track on many of his promises. For instance, he has done research he says, and “its quite cold on the moon, and plus I hear Osama bin Laden has camps there.” He ends by promising to fix everything, if only his constituents will elect him again.

The conversation after the talk ranged far and wide. Professor D, a Ph.D. student in African American studies at Northwestern, and a member of the African hip hop working group, asked Ntarangwi to clarify his use of the term ‘youth’ and his use of the term ‘hip hop.’ From there, discussion ranged over East African b-boys and b-girls, how to model being a ‘hip hop scholar’ on the continent, and the various local genres of hip hop expression in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Fittingly, the night ended with a two hour knowledge cipher at Giordanos with two young Chicago emcee/poets, myself, Professor D and Ntarangwi. The conversation ranged from Kanye’s latest release to Illuminati and the New World Order. In convening these spaces at Northwestern throughout the year, under the auspices of the African hip hop project, our goal more than anything is to create the energy and impetus for these kinds of dialogues that give young people a chance to see themselves as nodes on this transnational network of the “global hip hop imaginary”. I appreciate Professor Ntarangwi for making it possible through his scholarship. If you’re interested in reading more, you can buy the book here.

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"A Panther in Africa"

Coming soon: some notes on the importance of the United African Alliance Community Center in the burgeoning hiphop music movement in East Africa...for now check this dope documentary out about Pete and Charlotte O'Neal, who run the UAAC near Arusha, Tanzania.

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Book Review: "East African Hip Hop"

I feel embarassed saying how much I enjoyed this new book from anthropologist Mwenda Ntarangwi. It is not only a delight to read, it is that rare academic book that encourages the hungry reader to search for more information on the topic. Its chronicle of emerging forms of creativity and resistance among youth in East Africa is both inspiring and accessible. Ntarangwi sees local forms of "hip hop" emerging among youth in East Africa as both reflective of global processses of American cultural influence, and at the same time critical of the forces of economic globalization eroding the social and economic outlook of the masses of East African youth. He writes in the Preface, "Rather than seeing hip hop as a completely new cultural phenomenon in East Africa, one is better off seeing it as a window into the culture of change in East Africa's political, economic and social realities created by local and global processes."

Ntarangwi divides his book into five chapters, each dealing with a different aspect of hip hop's social impact in East Africa. Chapters' one and two discuss globalization and hip hop music. Chapter three is a discussion of gender and hip hop. Chapter four explores economic privatization and its impact on the livelihoods of East Africans. Chapter 5 is about hip hop and HIV/AIDS, and in Chapter 6 Ntarangwi offers some concluding remarks. This is not a straightforward history, but an ethnography of hip hop's social influence in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.

Two things I especially loved about the book: 1) The way in which Ntarangwi centers each chapter around a song, song lyric, or artist that exemplifies his theme. 2) The stories which give a human face to his ethnography and show him wrestling with various dilemmas as an anthropologist in the field.

I've posted videos from East Africa's burgeoning hip hop scene before on this blog, and it seems to be enjoying a growing global spotlight. As I write this, the famous Tanzanian artist Profesa Jay is embarking on a US tour. Other big name Tanzanian and Kenyan hip hop artists have embarked on international tours. But instead of focusing on the "bongo flava" side of East African hip hop--the sugary sweet commercial R&B side to the scene--Ntarangwi focuses on lyricists like Profesa Jay and Ukoo Flani, whose social critique have earned them devoted fans but perhaps less in the way of commercial accolade. As a Prof. Jay fan, I particularly enjoyed Ntarangwi's analysis of Prof. Jay's "Ndio Mzee" (Yes, Elder), a brilliant send up of politicians and their empty promises, and its followup "Kikao cha Dharura" (Emergency Meeting), where the politician who had earlier made such extravagant vows is forced to retract them, stating that the people have unrealistic expectations of luxury. Ntarangwi takes the song apart to show how Profesa Jay critiques local corruption in the state machinery, while remaining aware how these local structures are caught up and in many cases dependent on a global structure of economic dependence.

I anticipate this book will become required reading in many an African Cultural Anthropology class, but it is also a valuable addition to the Hip Hop Studies canon. Furthermore, its clear and readable prose could be a great entryway for high school and college students to talk about issues of cultural and economic globalization through a discussion of hip hop lyrics. Hip hop provides a cultural vantage point that will enhance the local relevance of the discussion for many students, while at the same time making them aware that hip hop is no longer just an American phenomenon but part of a group of interlocking and overlapping global processes that affect their lives in important ways.

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Water World, Power Sharing Agreements, and Other News

Gentle readers, I appreciate your patience as The Azanian Sea has been a bit quiet due to my academic obligations. Studying Arabic is a full and a half time job, so I've been taking a break from blogging to categorize majzoom and munaasib verbs and other grammatical delights.

It's been a busy summer for world headlines in East Africa and the Indian Ocean. A tragic airline crash and a horrific bombing of a prominent Sufi shrine in Lahore meant Pakistan was again in the headlines for negative reasons. The US continued its controversial drone-initiated missile attacks against the Pakistani Taliban in Waziristan. Elsewhere in Sudan, the government released Hassan al-Turabi a month and half after his arrest.

In Zanzibar, the ruling party CCM (Chama Cha Mapinduzi) and its opposition CUF (the Civic United Front) head into a vote today expecting a change in Zanzibar's election laws to allow opposition parties to form coalition governments. It is hoped that the change will reduce the tension between the two parties, which had become acrimonious and at times violent following elections in 2001 and 2005.

The ongoing water wars between Egypt and the nine other countries that share the Nile River continued with the Egyptians being accused of hiding behind the 1929 colonial-era Nile Water Agreement, which states that Egypt gets 90 percent of the river's water. The disagreements promise to continue, as Egypt is loathe to budge from its claims over the Nile's water, as a large portion of its agricultural economy is dependent on that water. Past attempts to negotiate water rights have largely been conducted between Sudan and Egypt but Ethiopians have been increasingly vocal in voicing their opposition to the current water situation.

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T.I.D. "Nyota Yako"

"sura yaaaako...dawa kwaaangu" I feel you T.I.D.!

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Dully Sykes--Anapendeza

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Hussein Machozi "Kwa Ajili Yako"

Check out the album on Bab Kubwa (click the title)

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What Is Bongo Flava?

P Funk speaks on the origins of Swahili hip hop.

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Pambazuka - Africa: Google moves into Swahili

Pambazuka - Africa: Google moves into Swahili

Google has sponsored a contest to encourage students in Tanzania and Kenya to create articles for the Swahili version of Wikipedia, mainly by translating them from the English Wikipedia, according to an article appearing in the New York Times. Swahili, because it is a second language for as many as 100 million people in East Africa, is thought to be one of the only ways to reach a mass audience of readers and contributors in the region.

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Tanzania Mourns The Death of Former VP Rashidi Kawawa

Former Tanzanian Vice President - Rashidi Kawawa

During the Presidency of Julius Nyerere, Rashidi Mfaume Kawawa was Vice President of Tanzania. He was nicknamed “the Lion of War” during the country’s Independence struggle. He also served as Prime Minister and was once the Secretary General of the Chama cha Mapinduzi. In an official statement, Tanzania’s current President Jakaya Kikwete said that the late Vice President died at 9.20 am on December 31, 2009 at Muhimbili National Hospital, where he was admitted three days ago in a low blood sugar-induced coma.He was a diabetic patient and that led to liver complications that eventually led to a heart attack that killed him.

The Country’s national flag will fly at half mast as a sign of respect for the VP’s death. Kawawa, was the effective ruler of the country from January to December 1972 while Julius Nyerere toured the countryside. Kawawa was a strong advocate of economic statism. After his retirement, Kawawa remained a behind-the-scenes influence in Tanzanian politics. The son of an elephant hunter and the eldest of eight children, Rashidi Mfaume Kawawa was born in the Songea district of Tanganyika (now Tanzania) in eastern Africa. After primary schooling in Dar es Salaam, he finished his formal education at Tabora Government Secondary School (1951-1956), the alma mater of Julius Nyerere, leader in the fight for Tanganyika’s independence. Kawawa refused the opportunity to continue his education at Uganda’s Makerere College, thus enabling his father to use the family’s limited resources to educate his siblings.

Kawawa’s first job was as a Public Works Department accounts clerk. This was a most difficult period for the young man. With the death of his father, he assumed the responsibility of supporting his younger brothers and sisters. In 1951 Kawawa realized a long-standing dream of becoming a social worker. He had actually inaugurated this career by organizing a literacy campaign for adults while a student in Dar es Salaam. On his new job Kawawa joined a mobile film unit engaged in government literacy programs. When it was decided to use the unit for educational filming, he was chosen as the only Tanzanian leading actor. He also served as a scriptwriter and a producer. Perhaps the most important aspect of Kawawa’s social worker career occurred when he was sent to central Tanzania (1953) to work among Kikuyu detainees held because of the Kenyan Mau Mau movement. He later described his successful work there as the “greatest challenge of my life.”

Kawawa joined the Tanganyika African Government Services Association, becoming its assistant general secretary in 1951 and its president in 1955. His main task was securing rights for government employees due them under Tanganyika’s laws. Realizing the advantages of a nationwide organization, Kawawa helped found the Tanganyika Federation of Labor (TFL) and was elected its first general secretary in 1955

© 2010, Newstime Africa. All rights reserved.

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Rights, the law and religion: Islamic courts in East Africa

In Tanzania too there has been a raging debate over the introduction of the Kadhi’s courts in the legal and judicial system. Like in Kenya, the most vocal and visible opposition against Kadhi’s courts assumes a religious character, with the church being at the forefront of those most hostile to its introduction. But the motion to reinstate Kadhi’s Courts in Tanzania was first introduced by an opposition leader, the Honourable Lyatonga Mrema of the Tanzania Labour Party (TLP), undoubtedly as a political strategy to win Muslim support in the 2005 General Elections. The ruling party is said to have appropriated the motion, turning it into a campaign pledge to make the same a reality in exchange for the Muslim vote. Not surprisingly, as the 2010 elections loom, the issue is gaining renewed vigour.

Religious forces have kept the matter very much alive in various spaces, including pulpits, newspapers and blogs, intensifying the pressure on the government to concede on the issue. Using a variety of advocacy channels, some Islamic bodies institutions have embarked on a media advocacy strategy aimed at consolidating Muslim opinion over the introduction of the Kadhi’s court. Dismissive remarks by the Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda during the 2009 budget session on the issue of the Kadhi elicited a harsh reaction from Muslim quarters. To appease the situation, the chief mufti, Sheikh Shaaban Simba, formed a committee to advise and negotiate with the government over the matter. In response, the prime minister also formed a committee to engage with the Muslim Council.

Concrete proposals to introduce Kadhi’s courts failed to come up during the recently concluded parliamentary session in November. In the meantime, the government has directed the Law Reform Commission to collect views and make recommendations on the matter. Women’s voices are noticeably absent from the discussions. From available reports, there is no female representation on this crucial body, advising on the most intimate aspect of family and social relationships.

This absence of women’s interest in the ongoing discussion is not only a physical absence but also an absence of gender considerations in the overall content of the proposals in substance. Largely, the voices of women have been sidelined or muffled by political forces informing the debate. Yet, it is they who stand to loose the most from what is being proposed. Indeed, the overwhelming interest in Kadhi’s courts does not seem to be a preoccupation of Muslim women, but of sections of the Muslim community who seek political advantage both from political parties and in the larger community. Otherwise, it consumes most those sections of the community who stand to benefit the most from the existence of Kadhi’s courts.

Pambazuka - Rights, the law and religion: Islamic courts in East Africa

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Hussein Machozi - Kwa Ajili Yako (For Your Sake)

got kinda a Wayne Wonder feel to it....

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Mzungu Kichaa ft. Profesa Jay - "Jitolee" (translation)

A very special thanks to Ari B. and Sis. S. Yasin who did most of the work on translating this song.

"JITOLEE" – Volunteer

Uchumi unashangaza / The economy is amazing/astonishing/ strange.

Wengine wanao wengine hawana / Some have it, some don’t

Wewe tajiri sikiliza mara moja / You rich man listen immediately

Usingekuwepo bila mama yako/ You wouldn’t exist without your mama

Nani aliamua awe mama yako / Who decided she should be your mama?

Hu ndiyo uamuzi wa dunia / Yeah that’s a decision the world made

Kwahiyo lazima uyaheshimu / Because of that you must respect it

Pamoja na akina mama wote / Together with all mothers

Chorus

Mikono juu / Hands up!

Jitolee na usaidie / volunteer and help somebody

Ombi kwa binadamu / Ask humanity (so that they)

Upendo usipotee / Don't lose love

PROF JAY

Heshima kwa baba heshima kwa mama / Respect to father, respect to mother

Heshimu kitu cha bure kila mtu anastaili / Respect is free, every person deserves it

Ila dunia sasa imejaa kitendawili / Yet the world now is filled with riddles/puzzles.

Unyama na ufedhuli sasa umeshika hatamu / Brutality and insolence have now taken over

Viliyo vya kinamama imekuwa kama salaam / The cries of the mothers have become like greetings

Jiulize ungekuwa nani kama asingekuwepo mzazi / Ask yourself who you would have been without someone to a parent (to you)

Ubinadaamu kazi, dunia inapata radhi / being humane/citizenship is demanding, the world is getting cursed.

Kila ninapopita matajiri hawana utu / Everywhere I pass rich people have no humanity

Roho za umasikini zimetawaliwa na kutu / Their impoverished souls are ruled by rust

Wanataka maisha bora wavivu wakuthubutu / They want a better life, lazy to attempt it

Waliyokatatama sasa wanashika mtutu / Those who have given up now reach for the barrel of a gun

Bajana ananiambia twenzetu ado ado / Bajana tells me to go/ move slowly .

Rusha mikono juu kama uko kamalikado / Throw your arms up ???[ANYONE KNOW PORTUGUESE?]

Espen obrigado / Thanks, Espen! (this is Mzungu Kichaa's "government" name)

CHORUS

Kuna watu tofauti katika dunia yetu / There are different people in our world

Mmoja anajaribu kusaidia jamii / One person tries to help the community

Wakati mwengine hajali kitu kuliko dola na senti / while another doesn’t care about anything more than cents and dollars.

Maendeleo hayana muelekeo / Progress doesn’t have direction

Kama tama inadumu kwenye kichwa chako / if greed remains in your head

Hautakuwa na umoja na dunia / then you won’t be in unison (unity) with the world

Binadamu baado wanalia / Human beings are still crying!

Umaskini unawabania / Poverty is limiting them

MWASITI

Kwanini hautaki kuwasaidia? / Why don't you want to help them?

Kwenye kaburi hautatumia / In the grave you wont be spending it.

Sababu ya kuletwa kwenye hii dunia / The reason you been brought into this world

Bado haitafanyikiwa / Still wont be reached.

Wewe ndiyo maskini / You are indeed the poor

Na hakuna mwengine /And there is no other.

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Edd el-Hajj (Eid el-Adha celebration pics from East Africa)

The top picture shows the President of Zanzibar, Amani Abeid Karume
Pictures courtest of Faustina's Baraza. For more information, visit Faustina's Baraza

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Happy Nyerere Day

From Louder than Swahili

Hongera sana kwa Baba wa Taifa, Julius Nyerere. Kwenye siku kuu Watanzania wansherehekea maisha ya Rais ya Kwanza Tanzania. Amefariki tarehe October 14, 1999.

Inna Lillahi wa inna ilayhi Rajiun.

Here you can read Mwalimu Nyerere's "Arusha Declaration," a very inspiring statement of the principles Nyerere believed an independent Tanzania should move forward with in order to develop.

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