60 Years of Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar

Abstract

The article is devoted to the allied relations between Tanganyika and Zanzibar and the creation of a union state – Tanzania. 2024 is the 60th anniversary of the union between the two formerly sovereign states. The author dwells on the key events in the history of Tanganyika, Zanzibar, and Tanzania in the 60s of the 20th century: the Zanzibar Revolution of January 1964 – an anti-imperialist, anti-feudal, anti-Sultan, anti-Arab armed uprising; the fall of the Zanzibar Sultanate, ruled by Britain; elections in Zanzibar, in which the Afro-Shirazi Party and the Nationalist Zanzibar Party competed; independence of Tanganyika and Zanzibar. The TANU (Tanganyika African National Union) became the leading and only party in Tanganyika; the ASP (AfroShirazi Party) became the leading and only party in Zanzibar. In 1977, the parties united into the Revolutionary Party, or CCM (Chama Cha Mpinduzi), which has dominated the political arena in Tanzania even after the introduction of multiparty system in the 1990s The article examines the model of African socialism – the Tanzanian ujamaa and its fate in subsequent years in already liberal, multiparty, capitalist Tanzania, under all presidents: Nyerere, Mwinyi, Mkapa, Kikwete, Magufuli, Suluhu. Reminders of Tanzanian socialism and ujamaa in the text of the Union Constitution remain unchanged for the time being