Tanzania: Creating the 'Cuba of Africa' - the Life and Work of Mohamed Babu
Ø (He was a truly friend of the Eritrean Revolution-EPLF)
By Benjamin Woods, 4 July 2014
Analysis
Babu's ideas and organising skills were behind the Zanzibar revolution of 50
years ago. A great pan-Africanist and socialist, his life is an inspiration
to all people who dare to resist oppression and imperialism.
In 2014 Pan Africanists will commemorate two seminal events in the history
of the African liberation movement: 1) the 50th anniversary of the
successful revolution in Zanzibar and 2) the 90th birthday of Mohamed Babu.
Although he passed away in 1996, his life is an excellent illustration of
the connections between the various movements and figures in the Black
World. Sadly, so much of Babu's immense contributions to Pan Africanist,
Leftist, and progressive movements has been forgotten. This is unfortunate
because of his enduring love and commitment to Zanzibar, the African
continent, and humanity at large.
Babu was born in 1924 in Zanzibar, a small but historic island on the east
coast of Africa. Since the 1830s, Zanzibar was dominated by Omani Sultans
who were middlemen during the era of British colonialism.
While studying abroad in London, Babu was attracted to radical Left wing
ideas. After returning to Zanzibar, he soon became a leader in the Zanzibar
Nationalist Party (ZNP), one of the preeminent Nationalist organization on
the island.
As Secretary General of the ZNP, he promoted a socialist ideology and built
international networks of Black and radical organizers. For example, in 1958
at the founding conference of the Pan African Movement for East and Central
Africa (PAFMECA), Babu was elected secretary.
Later that year while traveling to the historic All African People's
Conference in Accra, Ghana, his delegation would have a chance encounter
with future Congolese head of state and Pan African icon Patrice Lumumba in
Leopoldville.
At this point, Lumumba was isolated and virtually unknown outside of the
Congo but the invitation and travel support provided by PAFMECA allowed him
to network with liberation movements throughout Africa. Lumumba would later
be assassinated in a CIA-backed coup.
Once at the AAPC, Babu quickly connected with the most radical forces such
as Frantz Fanon and the FLN of Algeria. Fanon, Babu, and others convinced
those who had achieved independence using non-violent methods like Kwame
Nkrumah of Ghana that in some circumstances armed struggle is a necessity.
The official slogan adopted for the conference was 'Independence, by any
means necessary.' Malcolm X and other Black activists in the diaspora would
hear and popularize this slogan.
Furthermore, Babu was a close friend and comrade of Malcolm X. They first
met in July 1964 at the second summit of the Organization of African Unity
(OAU) in Cairo, Egypt. Later when Malcolm visited Tanzania it was Babu who
introduced him to other governments officials and when Babu came to Harlem,
Malcolm introduced him to the activist community.
It was radical African leaders such as Babu who helped push Malcolm to the
Left after his departure from the Nation of Islam. In his final months,
Malcolm would claim 'the system of capitalism needs some blood to suck' so
it wasn't a shock to him that "all of the countries that are emerging today
from under the shackles of colonialism are turning toward socialism."
Babu's international organizing was directly connected to his political work
in Zanzibar. The ZNPs rival was the Afro-Shiriza Party (ASP), a British
backed right wing formation that used the slogan 'Uhuru Zuia' (Kiswahili for
'stop the move to independence').
Although Babu and others promoted a progressive anti-imperialist platform in
the ZNP, by mid-1963 reactionary forces exacerbated long standing racial
tensions between Africans and Arabs on the island to gain the upper hand in
the organization. Therefore, months before Zanzibar gained independence in
December 1963, Babu co-founded the revolutionary socialist Ummah Party.
The party's creation was a correct analysis of the potentially revolutionary
conditions. On January 12, 1964, the unemployed and oppressed youth of
Zanzibar rose up in spontaneous rebellion.
The Ummah Party leadership used its organizing experience and training in
Cuba to teach the youth revolutionary tactics and gain leadership of the
insurrection. The Ummah party and disaffected youth removed the Sultan from
power. This was Africa's first successful revolution to overthrow
neocolonialism.
After these game changing events, Frank Carlucci, a US state department
official, openly stated that US policy was to prevent Zanzibar from becoming
the 'Cuba of Africa from which sedition would have spread to the continent.'
A few days later, officer mutinies in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika fed into
US fears about a communist conspiracy.
One US state department memo asserts 'our central purpose is to strengthen
Nyerere' (the new President of Tanganyika). Then as the US had hoped, if not
outright engineered, Nyerere asked the British for military assistance to
put down the officer mutinies. The US fundamentally thought he, Nyerere, was
a leader they could control.
After several private meetings in May 1964 , the US, Nyerere, and right wing
leaders in Zanzibar engineered an Tanganyika-Zanzibar Union. The union
transferred most major foreign and domestic policy decisions to mainland
Tangayika and away from the revolutionary forces who captured state power in
Zanzibar.
Although Nyerere is considered to be one of the African continents most
progressive independence leaders, history presents a different story. He
promoted a unique brand of 'African socialism' based on the notion of a
communal, classless traditional African society. His economic policies of
'self-reliance' led to Tanzania having a food surplus to importer of food.
Babu, on the other hand, saw no contradiction between Pan Africanism and
scientific socialism. For him, socialism was not based on a traditional
African past or even the Soviet Union but the social conditions in
contemporary Africa. In addition, unlike Nyerere who associated with the
moderate gradualist in the Monrovia group, Babu supported the immediate
unification of Africa.
After the Tanganyika-Zanzibar union he was appointed to what were in his
opinion powerless positions in government primarily in order to watch him.
He and his comrades functioned as the Left within the Tanzanian government
shaping several of the regimes perceived progressive policies.
But in 1972, following the murder of the President of Zanzibar, Babu was
arbitrarily incarcerated by the allegedly progressive Julius Nyerere. It was
because of an international campaign under the leadership of people like the
Guyanese and Pan African freedom fighter Walter Rodney that Babu was
released after six years.
Babu's life is a reflection of the dialectical method he adopted in his life
and work. His political work is an example of someone who found a
fundamental unity in what appears to be opposing tendencies.
He was a Zanzibari nationalist and a staunch internationalist. He claimed
that Socialism would come through African unity and vice versa. He was
militant and uncompromising but argued radicals had to address the bread and
butter issues of people.
In conclusion, one of the major lessons of his life we should take away is
encapsulated in the slogans of the 7th Pan African Congress he co-organized
in Kampala, Uganda in 1994: 'Resist Recolonisation' and 'Don't Aganise,
organize!'