Talk:Zanzibar

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The article seems to suggest that the island was empty before persians came there. I also found no evidence to back this up. There was alot on arabs though

Contents 1 Culture 2 Name Zanzibar 3 Plantation System 4 population? size? 5 very colourful article 6 Portuguese empire section 7 Republic? 8 History 9 Spam? 10 2 islands? 11 Slave and Ivory??? 12 Africa Addio 13 Miscellaneous 14 Pictures 15 History

[edit] Culture

There is barely anything in the section marked "Culture." Perhaps someone could fix this problem? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.21.136.112 (talk • contribs) 06:19, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

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— Matt Crypto 22:36, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Name Zanzibar

Acording to prof. Mehrdad R. Izady the name Zanzibar is actualy derived from the name of the kurdish tribe Barzanji, he writes:

Colonies of Kurds, Persians and other Iranic peoples from southern Iran "founded everywhere on the [East African] coast and islands commercial settlements in pre-Islamic times, centuries before Muhammed?" (Richard Reusch, History of East Africa. New York: Ungar, 1961, 33, 49). Because of the dominance of the Barzangi of East Africa, soon it came to be known as Barzangibar ("Barzangi coast"), eventually shortened to Zangibar (whence Zanzibar). The black slaves they marketed in Asia, were thus known as the zangi/zinji, meaning a native of Zangibar - a name that continues to the present as a pejorative for an African black in the Middle Eastern languages.

- This is indeed true. In many semitic and turkic languages the word zanji/zenci/zangi means "negro" or "African American". 72.76.93.136 03:16, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Plantation System

Something should be mentioned about the fact that Zanzibar had huge clove and other spice plantations. It didn't just export slaves it used them. I'm not an expert on the subject but I know that much. Jztinfinity 01:19, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] population? size?

Can anyoen dig up stats? There should be some info about population and square Km-s -Ravedave 02:17, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Found them at www.tanzania.go.tz and Encyclopædia Britannica. –Mysid^(t) 17:48, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] very colourful article

My father tells a story of a history lecturer (1950s) who began a lecture on the British Empire in India with the words "When the British brought civilisation to India ... ". Pompous, racist, ignorant and untrue; but there is an element of what used to be called "colour" in those words. This article reminds of that style of writing, a sort of history by H. Rider Haggard or Edgar Rice Burroughs. Colourful or not, it has to be said that this kind of writing, however entertaining, is inappropriate for a reference work: even an amateur one like wikipedia. References to the 'Arabs' with their "resplendent turbans" while entertaining in a victorian novelette now appear shallow and mildly racist. More importantly the reference is misleading. The leader of a slaver caravan may have been ethnically 'Arab' but stating that the caravans were led by Omani's would be more accurate. Imagine a history of C18th europe in which there was no reference to English, Irish or Poles but rather Anglo-Saxons, Celts and Slavs. Similary, references to Europeans as a homogenous group as in "he lost the European's respect" is comically inaccurate. The article also describes the efforts of Stanley to get the "Arabs" to cede the Congo to Leopold of Belgium and to cease slave trading. Yet The Belgian Congo under Leopold was one enormous slave camp in which every method up to and including genocide was used to extract profits for Leopled the "European".

Colourful as this article is, rather than adding to the readers knowledge of history it subtracts.

Pmurnion 00:06, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Portuguese empire section

I'm sure it isn't appropriate to have a very large section at the the bottom dedicated to the Portuguese Empire. I doubt that the USA entry has a big 'British Empire' section at the bottom.

[edit] Republic?

When I first saw this page, I was shocked by the impression that Zanzibar was an independent republic. I was amazed that a whole country had somehow evaded me, until I took the considerable effort to find the small mention, several sections in, that Zanzibar is today a part of Tanzania. Someone should probably fix this; I would, but as should be painfully obvious, I don't know anything about Zanzibar (except that Babar, the cartoon elephant, was its king in my childhood...) --Xyzzyva 09:08, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

You're absolutely right: Zanzibar is not a republic. It enjoys a high degree of autonomy, but it is not sovereign. -- WGee 01:56, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History

The history section states "The first permanent residents of Zanzibar seem to have been the ancestors of the Hadimu and Tumbatu, who began arriving from the East African mainland around AD 1000." and then goes on to say "Ancient pottery demonstrates existing trade routes with Zanzibar as far back as the ancient Assyrians."

These two statements seem to be inconsistent, and that date seems very late, as Arab traders were . If the first inhabitants only arrived in AD 1000, who did the Assyrians trade with? Should that date be 1000 BCE? Rojomoke 16:07, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Spam?

I checked all the external links at the bottom of the page and found them all to be legitimate. Is it safe to remove the spam template? --Vironex 13:39, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 2 islands?

The Zanzibar archipelago is far more than two islands, even if you only count the populated ones. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.96.189.232 (talk) 19:18, 22 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Slave and Ivory???

This should be discussed since to many peoples knowledge there is no actual proof that there were slave and slave plantations on Zanzibar. Zanzibar is however known for its souk of slaves (marketplace to buy slaves) lets discuss before putting up false information. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jormelo23 (talk • contribs) 16:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC).Jormelo23 16:51, 28 December 2006 (UTC) Jormelo

[edit] Africa Addio

I mentioned the massacres shown in this documentary but I'm not 100% sure if this is true since there's no information on what the film calls a "genocide" of the Arab population on Wikipedia.

It appears in this film around the 59:54 mark. The person who posted it on google video is extremely racist and appears to think it's racist propaganda. The fact that it can be used in this way makes me suspicious of it so if anyone can clarify if this is true or not I think it would be important. [1]

The reason I went ahead and mentioned it on here is because I don't see how they could've staged all of that but I know very little about the film. They also looked pretty calm when they were being shot at. I guess I'll remove it until all of this is clarified. Richard Cane 10:33, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Miscellaneous

Up until England played Andorra on the 28th March 2007 in international football, Zanzibar had exactly the same football results as England for five games previously, even though the island is not officially recognised by Fifa and would be ranked 170 places below.

I have no idea (a) what this means and (b) why it belongs in an article about the region of Zanzibar. Certainly, Zanzibar's football team has not played the same nations England played in a five game period. More importantly, why would this matter? I move that this be stricken from the article. --Drewvkamp 20:00, 26 April 2007 (UTC)—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Drewvkamp (talk • contribs) 19:59, 26 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Pictures

I think it looked better with the pictures as part of the article and not in the gallery. Also the Urban blight picture imho is unnecessary. Any thoughts? Bakersville (talk) 18:18, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

But there is not enough space to add all the pictures as part of the article: trying to add the pictures on the right of each section of the article seems to cause problem in the visualization of the page. (Rcastino (talk) 19:29, 7 January 2008 (UTC)).

Should we get rid of the urban blight picture? I think that pictures should shown things that are particular to the article. A picture of dilapidated housing projects is nothing special. Then we can show some picture on the left and some on the right to make it more visually balanced. Bakersville (talk) 19:51, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] History

The history section refers to a main article, and so it should provide only a summary. Instead, it drags on, overloaded with facts without context, or over-lengthy explanations. I think it should be pruned and the excess moved to History of Zanzibar. BrainyBabe (talk) 00:03, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I've done a substantial reworking, moved all the cut material to History of Zanzibar, written a lede for that article, and taken that largely as the intro for this section. Constructive comments welcome. BrainyBabe (talk) 19:19, 6 March 2008 (UTC)