Abdulrahman Mohamed Babu

Abdulrahman Mohamed Babu (22 September 1924 – 5 August 1996) was a Zanzibar-born Marxist and pan-Africanist nationalist who played an important role in the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution and served as a minister under Julius Nyerere after the island was merged with mainland Tanganyika to form Tanzania. He was jailed by Nyerere from 1972 and, after his release following an international campaign, remained a vocal critic of imperialism, authoritarian states and excessively statist (as well as private capitalist) development models.

Early years Abdulrahman Mohamed Babu was born in September 1924 in Zanzibar, East Africa – then a British protectorate, under the nominal control of the hereditary Sultan. The island's economy was centred on exporting cloves and coconuts, and its population included Arabs, Africans and Indians. After serving in the British forces during World War II, and a stint as a clerk on a clove plantation, he studied in Britain from 1951, where he was drawn first to anarchist-communism and then to Marxism-Leninism.

Anti-colonialism Influenced by the rise of anti-colonial movements and impressed by the rising power of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Babu threw himself into the independence movement. He was the leader of the first mass nationalist party on the island, the Zanzibar Nationalist Party (ZNP), and in 1958 attended the All-African Peoples' Conference in Accra, Ghana, where he met Kwame Nkrumah, Frantz Fanon and Patrice Lumumba, following which Babu visited Mao Zedong's China in 1959. Babu had built close relations with the Chinese leadership and was viewed by the British as "the best known Sinophile" in the area.

Babu was jailed for two years by the British. At independence in 1962, government was transferred to a coalition, drawn from the right wing of the ZNP and a splinter off the moderate Afro-Shirazi Party of Abeid Karume, which retained the Sultan as constitutional monarch. The ZNP left-wing, including Babu, quit to form the revolutionary Umma Party, which built a popular base across race lines.

The Zanzibar Revolution, 1964 In early 1964, massive riots broke out, and the Umma Party played a key role, notable for having "prevented the revolution from taking a racial character i.e. African against Arab". – and became friends with, as well as arguably influencing, Malcolm X.

After Union This also enabled Babu to a key role to play in the establishment of the TAZARA Railway with the help of Chinese aid. Julius Nyerere wanted to build on Zanzibar's close ties with China and create benefits for the whole country. Babu was named head of the trade delegation that preceded Nyerere’s presidential delegation to China in 1964. Due to his personal experience with the Chinese and his ideological affinity for their Marxist-Leninist model of development, Babu seized the initiative and mentioned the difficulties his government faced in trying to secure financing for the TAZARA Railway. On 1 July 1965 the Chinese Government made a firm offer of tied aid to the governments of Tanzania and Zambia, worth £75 million and £150 million to enable them to build the railway line. Since the key task was to develop the forces of production in such a way as to end neo-colonial patterns, dislocating production, failing to provide funding to villagers, and aiming at a "fairer" integration into world capitalism, as Nyerere did, would not be successful.

In 1972, Karume was assassinated, and Babu along with 40 other Umma Party members were jailed for alleged involvement, despite a lack of evidence, leading to death sentences three years later, but were finally released after an international campaign. Babu and 12 other prisoners held on the mainland were freed by Nyerere in an amnesty.

Development model and the "Letter to Mugabe" In his well-known book Socialist Africa or African Socialism, which was written in prison, He argued that the state should promote cooperative as opposed to peasant farms alongside the large white-owned commercial farms, obliging the latter to support the former, and split the more progressive white farmers from the "reactionaries". Rising rural incomes would boost the home market which would boost industrialization.

He also spoke out repeatedly against authoritarian postcolonial states, and argued in favour of genuine democracy, which he saw as antithetical to capitalism and imperialism. He wished for a 'socialist and united Africa'. Legal manipulations preventing him running as a candidate, and the elections were not free or fair; the incumbent party was re-elected. The old charges against and consequent conviction of Babu allowed the Electoral Commission to rejecting his bid to run for the vice-presidency. Picked as the presidential running-mate for the NCCR-Mageuzi ticket in the 1995 elections.

Publications Babu, A. M., 1981, African Socialism or Socialist Africa?, London: Zed Press. Babu, Salma, and Amrit Wilson (eds), 2002, The Future That Works: Selected Writings of A.M.Babu. New Jersey: Africa World Press.