Posted here on 23/9/2012
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?
