THE BUZURUGA MUSLIM - SUNGUSUNGU CONFLICT OF 1983

By Mohamed Said 

The Buzuruga Muslim - Sungusungu Conflict of 1983 [1]

In 1983 the government and BAKWATA found itself facing a crisis which vibrated even beyond its borders. A few miles from Mwanza, a town on the shore of Lake Victoria there is a small village, Buzuruga which had a small mosque of which its imam was one Sheikh Daud. The village had its fair share of Muslims, Christians and animists. Buzuruga was to participate in the installation of its traditional headman, the leader of a local tribal militia known as the sungusungu. The ceremony entailed congregation of all the people including men and women standing on an open ground with women leaving their top parts bare. People were to stand like this early morning before sunrise in order to watch the sun rising from the east and supplicate to it. This was a pagan initiation ceremony and no Muslim could participate. The CCM Chairman one Masabo Kabambo in a rally on 8 th August declared that no one was to be spared in the ceremony, Muslims must participate like all other citizens.

The sungusungu a Sukuma tradition long forgotten was revived as a peoples' militia when it was realised the police force could no longer be trusted to maintain peace and order due to several reasons, one of them being corruption in the police force. Under the authoritarian regime of Nyerere, sungusungu had a political stance and was given a force of law. This force of law conferred to an untrained force under arms, although primitive, created apathy. Muslims refused to participate in those celebrations held on 17 August for the simple reason that the festivity was un-Islamic. The Muslim stand enraged sungusungu and in its fury sungusungu conducted a house to house search and went Sheikh Daud's house and roughed[2] him up ridiculing Islam, and in the process intentionally defaced the Holy Qur'an. Sheikh Daud was punished with 115 lashes for his insolence. Muslims were rounded up as they were going for salat fajr and forcefully matched to the grounds to participate in the celebrations. Other Muslims including women were dragged from their homes and taken to the grounds. Men were forced to strip and women to take off their hijab. Muslims who resisted were manhandled and humiliated. The following day when Muslims in Mwanza alerted the Muslim umma in Tanzania of what had taken place in Buzuruga Muslims were appaled.

Muslim activists in Mwanza sent a detailed report to Warsha in Dar es Salaam. In return Warsha through its members in the executive of the Dar es Salaam University Muslim Student Association (MSAUD) dispatched an emissary to Mwanza one Mohamed Lulengelule to have on the spot assessment of the situation. The emissary interviewed Sheikh Daud. BAKWATA were hesitant to issue a statement to condemn the defilement of the Qur'an because sungusungu was taken as a state institution. BAKWATA was waiting for direction from the government on how to act and what to say. Meanwhile Muslims throughout the country were calling for Muslims to raise up in jihad against the government and BAKWATA.

When eventually BAKWATA sent the Grand Sheikh, Sheikh Hemed bin Juma to Mwanza it was too late. Muslims had taken full control of the problem. BAKWATA had come to close the stable door after the horse had bolted. And when BAKWATA through the Grand Sheikh using the state-radio gave their own version of the crisis Sheikh Hemed bin Juma said that it was not the Holy Qur'an which was defaced but Yasin and there was no reason for Muslims to raise up in arms. It was better if BAKWATA had remained silent. Muslims were by that gesture made to see BAKWATA for what it was- a hypocrite, puppet organisation on the government payroll. In the articles which Warsha and other Muslim organisations wrote and distributed to Muslims BAKWATA and the government were treated as one. While BAKWATA went down on the estimation of Muslims, Warsha's stature rose in the eyes of Muslims as a true organisation representing Muslim interests.

SOURCE: WANABIDII