Chapter 1: This is Zanzibar

anzibar. The Persians called it the Coast of the Blacks. The Arabs called it FairLand. Some call it SpiceIsland, some Stone Town. About four thousand years ago, the Africans arrived on the island. During the seventh century, Arabs and Persians arrived here. Then camethe Portuguese, the British, the Indians, and many others. It was a place notorious for the slave trade. The island also boasts of slave traders like Tipu Tip, who had one official wife and two children and over thirty mistresses and their children.

The Omanese ruled it for a century and left their legacy behind. About 97% of Zanzibar’s population follows Islam. Like Ireland in Britain, the Kurds in Iraq, the Chechens in Russia, the Pakhtoons in Pakistan, and Kashmir in India, Zanzibar is a boil on the forehead. The local Arabs want independence or the Omanese rule the way it was before the British took over. As a result, the mainland pampers Zanzibar a lot, granting subsidized power, a loose localised legal framework, and poor customs controls and so on.

It was 6.30 in the morning. Zuly had boarded a boat to Zanzibar. He had many missions there. One was that his UK client had arranged for a payment of $100,000 for buying beetle nuts and seashells from him. This would have to be collected from a local Zanzibari Arab trader. The Arab used to import bathroom tiles and other hardware from Zuly’s client and had not paid him for a long time. So this exchange was most convenient for

 

Genre Literary Fiction