Union, most precious product since independence

 Union Parliament where legislators from both sides of the United Republic of Tanzania meet to make laws.
CELEBRATING one’s 51st birth anniversary is telling one’s history on one page and that is not saying much, because there is a lot more to the celebration than just having been existence for over half a century.

The Union – the merger of the mainland formerly called Tanganyika and the insular previously known as Zanzibar - is just as old. Since their coming together a lot of water has passed under the bridge and triumph is not so much in order as self-examination is.

The people of the two parts of the country can walk with their chests thrust forward, proud that they have weathered tests of time and lasted so long and even improved on a couple of things.

Such co-existence despite occasional disagreements merely prompts the question of: “Why in the first place, had the two parts of the country been separated as different nations when their people are essentially the same with the same language and cultural background?

“Why didn’t Rwanda and Burundi with almost similar ethnic communities on the same mass of land as Tanganyika form a similar union while Zanzibar separated from Tanganyika by a massive oceanic body of about 22 miles found it so easy to form such a union?”

We revisit our history and see a suggested answer there. We both belong to what once was called the Zenj Empire. It will be in order to talk about this political entity albeit for a while.

ZENJ is the Arabic word for “BLACK.” the first outsiders to visit the East African Coast were the Arabs. They called it the ‘Land of Zenj’ – land of the black people.

The interaction of peoples of the Middle, Near and Far East in culture, economics and politics created the first inter-continental Eastern Africa economic and quasi-political region known as the ‘ZENJ EMPIRE’ spanning from the port of Ras Hafun in the North of what is today Somalia to the Mozambican port of Sofala in the south with Malindi in Kenya as it’s centre.

The Europeans disseminated the natural organic growth of this region and fragmented it. The past was frozen, while the present is constantly in flux and shifting in form.

“But to this day within the countries of what are Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Burundi, Malawi and Mozambique, these peoples’ land is laden with cultural influences that speak volumes of their formative union which was spurred by their external contacts with the orient, be it in language i.e.

Kiswahili, music, dress patterns and ornamentation,” a source in the Internet says. And there we go again. Rwanda and Burundi are mentioned as our fellow members of the Zenj Empire with similar cultural and lingual possessions.

Yet, even though we today aspire to forge a union of some sort with other continental neighbours it was easier for the two territorial parts of our nation fifty five plus one years ago to amalgamate because they had uncles on either side or brothers and sisters on the other side.

We have about three generations since Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged to form a union on 26 April 1964, who know nothing more than the Union.

They talk Union, sing Union, read Union and live in the Union. Telling them have something differently is hitting them in their under soft belly.

For years Northern Ireland fought along denominational lines and simply bled themselves to the death. The fight common as the Troubles. Primarily a political one, the conflict had also and ethnic or sectarian dimension, although it was not a religious conflict.

A key issue was the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. “Quebec independence debates have played a large role in the politics of the province.

Parti Quebecois governments held referendums on sovereign in 1980 and 1995: both were voted down by voters, the latter defeated by a very narrow margin.

Analysis of the regional results show that both referendums, a majority of francophones voted ‘Yes’, says a report. In 2006, the House of Commons of Canada passed a symbolic motion recognising the Quebecois as a nation within a united Canada.

The nation is so much a product of the Union that the president whose nearly five sixths part of life is existence in the Union found it ideal for the people today to have a Constitution based on their wishes and opinions. The strength of a union more often than not has prevailed over personal dissent.

Independence referendum question of the Scottish Independence Referendum Bill on the November 2013 wanted voters to answer with ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. The question was “Should Scotland be an independent country?” The ‘No’ side won with 2,001, 926 (55.3 per cent) voting against independence and 1, 617,989 (44.7 per cent).

The two cases illustrate that after two peoples have been together for so long as the Quebec province and the rest of Canada it is never easy for them to separate.

The reasons are valid since in killing their oneness there is likelihood to arise fierce disagreements than the differences bothering them within the Union or the federation for that matter.

Most of all, it is proper at this time to have a glance at our nation’s past back until the Union Day when the two gallant leaders of the two parts of Tanzania sat down and drew the Union Charter.

There can be no gainsaying that there is much to admire. Tanzania has surmounted several economic mountains and on top there stand triumphant.

There is no doubt we have rode some rough parts of the Union’s sea with so scary political and economic waves, but we survived. Lessons abound for us to learn of benefits of unity contrary to an existence of erecting a territorial boundary between two peoples who essentially are the same ethnically.

Moreover, pooling resources together and joining manpower from several territorial divisions has developed the nation’s ability to solve problems.

It has also created a vast natural resource base for the people and made possible abundant potential that that can adequately be exploited by the new nation that is Tanzania.