Saturday, March 30, 2013

THE CASE OF KIGHOMA ALI MALIMA


Posted here on 30/3/2013

Muslims and the Negative Press: Bakwata Once Kibaraka Always Kibaraka
The Case of the Late Prof. Kigoma Ali Malima
By Mohamed Said

...after his resignation from the CCM many Muslims went to see Prof. Malima to congratulate him. The political committee went to congratulate him for his resignation from the government as Minister of Trade and Industries. Then two days later Prof. Malima through Sheikh Khalifa Hamis suddenly summoned the committee to his constituency in Kisarawe where a meeting was held. After salat isha Prof. Malima told the committee that he has accepted their proposal and NRA should start preparations for meeting of the National Conference to be held in Tabora from where in a public rally he would announce his resignation from the CCM. At that time NRA had managed to establish branches in Kigoma, Mpwapwa, Igunga and Tabora.

Sheikh Khalifa Hamis went to Tabora to prepare the terrain for Prof. Malima’s trip to the town. NRA had a branch in Tabora but it had scanty membership. The chairman of NRA Tabora branch was a retired army captain Mustapha Kivuruga, son of Abdallah Kivuruga founder member of the TAA in Tabora in 1945 and founder member of TANU in 1955. Mustapha Kivuruga joined the army and was trained in Israel. Abdallah Kivuruga and his brother Maulidi Kivuruga had been important personalities in the local politics of Tabora. Sheikh Khalifa held a meeting with the cream of the Muslim activists in Tabora at the Nujum Muslim Centre.  Among those in attendance was Bilal Rehani Waikela [1] a veteran of the Muslim struggle against injustices and Christian hegemony.

The activists were informed that Prof. Malima was coming to Tabora and would announce his resignation from CCM at a public rally. It was now upon them to lay down strategy for the success of Prof. Malima’s trip and revitalisation of NRA. Following this meeting elections were called at the Adult Education Centre and Waikela was elected NRA Tabora Regional Chairman replacing Kivuruga. Kivuruga became district chairman. It was from this meeting that membership drive for the NRA began. Tabora has always carried with it a grudge against the government. The place was completely forgotten. Like many Muslim areas, no meaningful development had taken place since independence. The people in Tabora saw this as there opportunity to have their own back against the government and the CCM.

Prof. Malima and his entourage were booked to fly to Tabora on Friday morning aboard Air Tanzania. Their bookings were confirmed but when they presented their tickets, they were told that the flight was fully booked. Their protests to the fact that there bookings were confirmed fell into deaf ears. Prof. Malima decided to travel to Tabora by road.[2] Meanwhile the Christian Lobby had been busy. It had constantly working on plots to discredit Prof. Malima in the eyes of the right thinking people. The press both private and that owned by the government and party, including the state-owned radio; and the office of the president, has been Muslim’s worst enemy in its struggle against injustice. The media fabricates and publishes negative stories about Muslims with impunity.

The propaganda is given an angle of Muslim radicals harbouring the desiring to overthrow a legally constituted government. Muslims have suffered in this campaign with Prof. Malima. The Friday papers Majira, Nipashe, including CCM daily Uhuru and the Tanzania News Agency (SHIHATA)  carried stories in banner headlines that Prof. Malima was on that day Friday the 15 July, 1995 going to announce his resignation from CCM at Tabora in the Friday Mosque after Friday Prayers. What this negative publicity wanted to achieve was to portray Prof. Malima as dangerous man who wanted to pit Muslims against Christians to acquire power for his own selfish ends. The end result for such an eventuality was obvious civil upheavals.

On that Friday morning Muslim notables and leaders and members of the NRA in Tabora went to the Air Port to meet Prof. Malima. The plane flew in without him. In Tabora town rumor was spreading that Pro. Malima was to address Muslims and announce his resignation from CCM from the pulpit of the Tabora Friday Mosque. Even before the time for the Friday prayers was due, the Friday Mosque was filled to capacity and some of the worshippers were sitting sprawled outside the mosque grounds. But few knew that Prof. Malima was not in Tabora that day anyway. The previous day Regional Police Commander called on the BAKWATA leadership in Tabora and informed them that Prof. Malima was to address Muslims at the Friday Mosque. The police commander insisted upon BAKWATA leadership that that was mixing religion and politics; and that was not acceptable. The government would not allow house of worship to be used as political arena.  It was therefore up to BAKWATA to ensure that Prof. Malima does is not allowed to announce his resignation from the CCM from the pulpit. Security personnel were deployed to the mosque early morning on Friday. There were uniformed and plainclothes policemen on beat around the Friday Mosque since day break.  In the afternoon police cars arrived at took strategic positions around the mosque. State Intelligence personnel were very much in evident mingling with Muslims outside the mosque. This created tension inside and outside the mosque.

Few minutes before prayers were to begin; Sheikh Mavumbi from BAKWATA arrived at the mosque in a police car escorted by the Regional Police Commander. Sheikh Mavumbi went infront of the mosque and through the public addressing system he warned of the dangers of mixing religion and politics. People were dead silence listening to Sheikh Mavumbi. He said he has been informed that Prof. Malima was to address Muslims from the mosque that day and he has come to announce that he is forbidden to do that in that mosque. As soon as he uttered Prof. Malima’s name there was pandemonium in the mosque, Muslims shouting asking Sheikh Mavumbi his source of that information. Sheikh Mavumbi seemed confused as there were shouts from every angle of the mosque. Muslims looked threatening and the mood inside the mosque was fiery.  Tabora Friday Mosque is under Imam Issa Mzee, a young man in his mid-thirties. He rose up to calm Muslims but people were not listening to him. 

As things seemed to get out of control and other Muslims were rising standing up from where they had been sitting and the crowd outside the mosque was fighting to get inside the mosque, there was indication that the sanctity of that holy place was going to be violated. It was then that Waikela moved to the front of the mosque and took up the microphone and called for peace. Seeing Waikela at the kibla calm prevailed and Waikela told Muslims not to blame Sheikh Mavumbi for his announcement. It was probable he had been told to come to the mosque to make the announcement. The best way for Muslims to do was not to condemn Sheikh Mavumbi but to ask him who told him that Prof. Malima would come to the mosque to deliver a political address. Appealing to Muslims Sheikh Waikela asked them if anyone had seen Prof. Malima in the mosque. The crowd answered in the negative.

Islamic law demands that when there is a controversy between two parties, both parties should be heard before passing judgement. Sheikh Mavumbi had judged Muslims without giving them chance to be heard. Amidst boos from Muslims, Sheikh Mavumbi ashamed was led out of the mosque through the back door of the mosque and on into the waiting police car. Was he to walk out from the main door Muslims would have beaten him. It was then when the police were whisking him away from his fellow Muslims that Sheikh Mavumbi realised that he had been a fool and the government had used his religious position among Muslims for its own political ends. People have simple minds. Any announcement through the radio or the printed word is bound to be taken as the truth. For how could the government allow its media to be used for propaganda and spread lies against Muslims?  If an announcement is on the radio and newspapers then it is the truth. Sheikh Mavumbi like many people in Tabora believed in what they read and heard on the radio that Prof. Malima was going to make a major political statement from the pulpit. On that Friday Prof. Malima spent the night in Nzega and arrived in Tabora Saturday afternoon and stayed at the house of Suleiman Marjebi one of the notables of  the township.

On Sunday 17 July, 1995 thirty-seven years since TANU held its 1958 annual meeting in Tabora the meeting which paved the way to independence, Prof. Malima addressed a big rally at Uyui grounds. The Tabora meeting would be remembered for its achievement. It managed to put into Legislative Assembly Julius Nyerere, Chief Abdallah Said Fundikira, John Ketto, Nesmo Eliufoo, John Mwakangale, Lawi Sijaona and Paul Bomani. It was in Tabora that Nyerere shed tears because of oppression of which Tanganyikans were being subjected to by the British. Nyerere said if the British did not want to set Tanganyikans free he would direct his anguish to God. Before Prof. Malima spoke Bilal Waikela mounted the platform dressed in his prison uniform which he wore thirty years ago when he was detained by Nyerere for resisting Christian hegemony. He reminded the people of Tabora that he was detained by Nyerere for reminding him of the cherished ideals of TANU the party they had formed and built together in order for Africans of Tanganyika to be free from all forms of oppression. Waikela told his audience that and he was now returning to politics to seek for that equality and justice denied.

Prof. Malima announced his resignation from the CCM at the Uyui meeting. Prof. Malima told his audience that that oppression which made Nyerere shed tears while giving a speech to members of TANU and the people cried with him at the Tabora Central Market was still prevalent 37 year after the tears had long dried. Prof. Malima told his audience that he was resigning from the CCM because, he said, the party has deviated from its cherished ideals of justice and equality and had established classes. He was resigning and joining the opposition in order to fight for equality among all the people in Tanzania.

That Sunday night NRA National Conference was held and Prof. Malima was elected Chairman and Abubakar Olotu secretary of NRA. What had taken place in Dar es Salaam Airport repeated itself in Tabora Railway Station. NRA had booked a wagon for its delegates travelling back to Dar es Salaam and had paid for it in advance. But when they arrived at the railway station, they were told that no wagon has been allocated to them. The press had the chance to correct their earlier story that Prof. Malima had planned to announce his resignation from the mosque but it did not do so. The propaganda machinery wanted people to believe that Prof. Malima was unable to do so because Muslims did not allow him to mix “religion and politics.”

***
To date the government still buries its head in the sand like the proverbial ostrich scared to admit that we have a real problem. Year after year the country is gradually slipping, polarising itself into two contending forces...Muslims bracing up for second liberation and Christians standing up against Muslims not willing to let go the privileges they enjoy...only time will tell. The clock has gone full round. During the struggle for independence in 1950s the banner was in the hands of the like of Mufti Sheikh Hassan bin Amir, Sheikh Mohamed Ramia, Mshume Kiyate, Mwinjuma Mwinyikambi and the sophisticated young men of the times, Abdulwahid and Ally Sykes, Zuberi Mtemvu, Hamza Mwapachu, Dossa Aziz and others, it were the British against Muslims majority in TANU...now the banner is in the hands of very young Muslims with no party affiliation, not in turbans and kanzu but in jeans, sneakers and t shirts...what is this? Have we failed to see the writing on the wall? Are we this blind?


[1] For more information on Bilal Rehani Waikela see Mohamed Said, "Islam and Politics in Tanzania," Al Haq International, Karachi, Vol. 1/No.3, August- December, 1993.
[2] Majira, 15 July, 1995.

MILLION=DOLLAR BIONIC MAN GOES ON SHOW !!!


Posted here on 30/3/2013.

6 February, 2013.  Source: @YahooNewsUK on Twitter
Press Association video  0:46
MILLION-DOLLAR BIONIC MAN GOES ON SHOW


A million-dollar bionic man complete with artificial organs, synthetic blood and robot limbs goes on … 

 A million-dollar bionic man will go on display at London's Science Museum
A million-dollar bionic man complete with artificial organs, synthetic blood and robot limbs will go on display at London's Science Museum on Thursday 7th February, 2013.
Costing almost £640,000, it is cheaper than the Six Million Dollar Man from the cult 1970s TV series, but the 6ft 6in (2m) humanoid shares quite a bit in common with Steve Austin, the original "bionic man".
The artificial man was assembled by a team of leading roboticists for a new Channel 4 documentary, How To Build A Bionic Man.
It incorporates some of the latest advances in prosthetic technology, as well as an artificial pancreas, kidney, spleen and trachea, and a functional blood circulatory system.
The Science Museum exhibit opening on Thursday will explore changing perceptions of human identity against the background of rapid progress in bionics.
In the documentary, to be screened at 9pm on Thursday, experts at the forefront of the research talk to Swiss social psychologist Bertolt Meyer. Meyer was born without a left hand and has a £30,000 bionic replacement with the ability to grip and twist.
But although his hand is the most advanced on the market, it could soon be obsolete. In the programme Meyer tries out the much more advanced modular prosthetic limb (MPL), which teaches itself how to recognise tiny control signals from the upper arm.
He also meets teams of British scientists who are restoring sight to the blind by implanting microchips in their retinas, and building artificial organs to replace failing lungs, kidneys, pancreases and spleens.
"I've looked around for new bionic technologies, out of personal interest, for a very long time and I think that until five or six years ago nothing much was happening," said Meyer. "Then suddenly we are now at a point where we can build a body that is great and beautiful in its own special way."
The project is supported by a Wellcome Trust People Award which aims to help the public explore biomedical science.

ASTAGHFIRULLAH,  ASTAGHRIFULLAH, ASTAGHFIRRULLAH.