Skip to main content

Tanzania

The SEABUS
My first glimpse of Dar es Salaam, the capital city of Tanzania, revealed little. It appeared another overcrowded city with pollution, and many other, problems. However, this obscures the, remarkable history of a country and region that is home to the oldest proofs of human beginnings: East Africa. Science lists the fossilized remains of ‘Lucy’ as 3.6 million years from Ethiopia and ‘Paranthropus Boisei’ about 2 million years old from Tanzania. The divisions of Afrika came much later. However, my trip concerned more recent history: Panafricanism and, more specifically, Walter Rodney in Tanzania. This formed a major part of my documentary on Rodney's life. But one cannot study Rodney without studying the 'trade' between Europe and Africa.

My visit to the dungeons that housed captured Afrikans at Bagamoyo on the mainland and also Mangapwani and Stone Town in Zanzibar spoke to the horrors of slavery. But it never reached the pain and longing felt on my previous visit to Afrika. Perhaps, I had been desensitized. That is until my return boat trip from Zanzibar to the mainland on the Sea Bus.
Dhows of the coast of Bagamoyo
Thirty minutes into the 2 hour trip, it seemed more than half the passengers were seasick and more succumbed each minute. The trip to Zanzibar aboard a similar boat went smoothly: a real pleasure cruise. I did not mind standing for the entire two hours. I am told Bill Gates owns an island in the area. I kept looking for a glimpse of this modern day trader. I saw nothing but miles and miles of postcard-aqua seas punctuated by a few lonely islands and dhows: local sail boats. The return trip however proved a different matter.

The rocking and rolling of the boat, a modern and well appointed catamaran-type ferry with huge engines and lots of power, sent many to the bathroom. Some never made it. Their breakfasts made its return trip before they did. Others were close to the point of delirium, disoriented and helpless. The crew seemed prepared, if a little bored. Black plastic bags were distributed but to little avail. “Double-up the bags”, the crew suggested in Swahili, as the waves flipped the boats bow in the air and slammed it back into the now grey Indian Ocean. A child, who earlier squealed with delight at the trash of waves against the porthole, now lay in his mother's lap crying. She too held a bag to her face partially covered by her hijab.
Traded and Traders
This was not a storm. It was just some drizzly rain with some highish winds and waves.

It struck me then, that two hours of this hell, was little compared to 3 to 6 months, chained to each other without bathroom or bags, on the way to the 'new' world in the hold off a boat moving at the mercy of the wind. To add to the ignominy as Rodney observed.. stolen from Afrika and now an outlaw..

Comments

sweetchile said…
more reasons to make your difference while you're here

Popular posts from this blog

Saving the Essequibo from Becoming Another Gaza

Indigenous citizens of Guyana and Venezuela must lead a challenge together against the idea of a border dispute. As the first ‘American’ victims of European expansion, Indigenous ‘Americans’ have an opportunity, and obligation, to lead the resistance against war, European expansion and resource seizure in the Americas as part of  a global, intentional, reconnection of all indigenous peoples hemmed-in by borders drawn by European settlers. No one should feel left-out. We are all indigenous somewhere. And some of us, like myself and most of you, have multiple indigeneities and therefore multiple levels of responsibility. The Warrao nation that straddles the Guyana/Venezuela border, the other 8 nations in Guyana, the Maori in New Zealand, the Lenape in the USA, Inuit of Canada, Papuans, Africa's Ogoni, Hausa, Tutsi, the Adivasi of India and the so-called Aborigines of Australia, all need to add their voices. This is not about Guyana's and Venezuela’s legal claims to the land. Euro

Guyana’s Junta and the New Cold War

by clairmont chung Many thought the Cold War over: dead and buried in the rubble of the Berlin Wall. The winners claimed their medals and the superiority of their ideas. These formed an alliance centered on notions of individual freedoms and a free market. Seemingly, slowly, the rest of the world fell into smug step. But, now, as the whole planet grapples with the same old but growing income inequalities and all kinds of fundamentalism, environmental degradation, mass health emergencies, racism and xenophobia, huge cracks have opened in once sacred alliances. Smaller countries like Guyana and others in the region struggle to fill their cracks while being knocked around by huge waves that originate elsewhere, in a struggle to stay afloat and a lifeline with room for only a few. For Guyana, more than most, it seems a lot like that old Cold War.   The offered lifeline is the exploitation of resources but that has brought little benefit to its caretakers; only its takers

Across A Bridge in Linden: To El Dorado or a Symbol of our Historical Dilemma.

Wismar-Mackenzie Bridge, Linden The Guyana Police Force. Improperly Dressed for Peace (C) Norvell Fredericks Demerara Bauxite Company was Canadian owned before nationalization in 1970.Things have changed ((C) N. Fredericks) The People United ((c) N. Fredericks) By: Clairmont Chung On July 18, 2012 residents in Linden, Guyana, blocked a bridge in protest against a plan to increase electricity rates. The State responded by firing on the unarmed crowd. Three people died and several more were wounded. Residents responded by seizing and occupying that, and a second, bridge. A state of siege, undeclared martial law, descended on the community and continues as I write. Here I attempt to show the history of our dependence on fuels, energy, and violence and why the bridge at Linden is such an important symbol. Linden is not alone, it’s happening to people everywhere. It is not a romantic lament about the good old days. They were not. It’s the same strategy of old