 Now, in a few minutes for people to join in us from the other panel, I can see participants are coming in as we speak. Our panelists are here, unfortunately, we are missing a panelist today. Felicita Baker has emailed us this morning to let us know that, unfortunately, she's not able to join us. She's hoping to secure one of her colleagues to come and join us today, but we'll see how it goes. Anyhow, therefore, we are going to start. As I said, as we keep saying, we're doing really well with the timing. So I don't want to take too much time away. And then we can have more time for Q&A. OK, so we can start now with the first speaker. Of the panel, too, we are very, very pleased. I'm personally very pleased to welcome Inessa Agiviannis, who is a colleague at SOAS, a friend. And now she's also embarked on a PhD studies at SOAS, which is fantastic for us. And today, I think she'll present a paper sort of based a bit on their current research and the title of a presentation is the polygamy amongst the Swedish speaking Zanzibaris in England. So welcome, Inessa, and I pass over to you now to give us your presentation. Thank you. Hello, everyone. Yes, I'm Inessa Agiviannis. I'm a PhD candidate at SOAS and also at the same time, a legal advisor at SOAS. So very pleased. It's my first presentation here. So hopefully I'll know what I'm doing. But yes, I'm trying to share my screen. Can you see it or not really? And yes, well done. Once I will just make a new course now. OK, yes, we'll make a course and then you can share your screen. All right, and it's good to see everybody. And, you know, here, the first panel presentations are really great. Let me try now. Yes, can everybody see my presentation? Yeah. Yes. All right, so I'm going to speak about polygamy amongst the Swahili speaking Zanzibaris in England. And just trying to clarify, no polygamy means, you know, a male being married to numerous wives or a woman married to numerous husbands. But I'm going to use it instead of polygyny. So a male marrying more than one wife, yeah. And that's the way they've used it as well here in England, even in some government documents and everything. So I will use it that way. So that's the first one. Now, just to locate the Zanzibaris in England, they migrated. They've been the they've been to me. I think there have been two major waves of migration. The first one was in 1964 during the revolution and some years after. And initially it was just the the Sultan and his entourage and later other people from Zanzibar migrated to all over the world because of policies such as forced marriages, nationalization, Africanization, political imprisonment that were taking place then. And then the second larger wave was in the 1995 after the 1995 elections. And those bloodshed was the first multi-party election. There have been also other other times that people migrate, of course, but I'm not going to call them ways, you know, for employment, education and things like that. But I'm not going to call them waves. Yeah. Now, I'll talk about the law of marriage in Zanzibar. Now, Zanzibar uses, as you know, Tanzania has two separate legal systems. Yeah. And Zanzibar follows just for family issues. They follow sharia law, so marriage, divorce, inheritance and such things. Yeah. I'm going to use the word Islamic only marriages to mean marriages that only use the Islamic ceremony and no civil ceremony. So you've got the Islamic only marriages that are monogamous, yeah, which are completely legal in Zanzibar, you know, valid and everything. And you've got the polygamous ones as well, which are completely by it as well, because in Zanzibar, I mean, in Islam, polygamous marriages are allowed. Yeah. So that was just some sort of a background. And also it's not codified in Zanzibar. They just use the Islamic sharia laws and hadith and the cavities just use those to interpret when they're making decisions about, you know, divorces, inheritance and such things. Yeah. I'm going to talk just briefly about the marriage law in England. So you've got the marriage act, 1949. And in order for marriage in England to be valid, it has to to comply with the requirements. Yeah. There are many requirements, for example, on the venue. You have to apply in advance to marry. You have to have a certificate. You know, you all have to be present and those kind of things. Yeah. So the focus is really on the ceremony, yeah. And then you've got the matrimonial causes act, yeah, which I'm going to divide it into two, yeah. So you've got marriages that take place in England, yeah. And that's section 11B. And if a marriage takes place in England, it cannot be polygamous. Yeah. If it's polygamous, it's going to be a crime of bigamia. So that's straightforward and very clear. But when when the marriage takes place in a country outside England, and if in that country, polygamous marriages are valid legal marriages such as in Zanzibar, for example, actually the whole of the United sorry, United Republic of Tanzania, in that case, it's a bit different. And it's section 11D of the Matrimonial Causes Act. And it all depends on the capacity of the parties, yeah. By capacity, I mean, the country where they're domiciled is legal for them to enter into polygamous marriage. So if someone who is domiciled in England and goes to Zanzibar to get married and enters into polygamous marriage, then they don't have capacity and that marriage is illegally in England. But let's say somebody in Zanzibar enters into polygamous marriage, even if they lived there before, but at the time they got married, they were domiciled in Zanzibar. And then they come back here and they entered into the polygamous marriage when they were when they were domiciled in Zanzibar, then that polygamous marriage will be very much valid in England as well, yeah. So that capacity is to do with the person getting married and the form is the type of marriage. And also the law sort of differentiates between the actual polygamous marriage where people are actually in a polygamous marriage and potential polygamous marriage where the place where they got married polygamous marriages are valid. Now, Islamic only marriages in England, so marriages that only use the Islamic ceremony and not the civil ceremony, yeah. They have been defined through court cases and as non marriages and more recently in the ruling, I think it was last year, they were defined as non qualifying ceremony. This is because the focus is more on the ceremony than, you know, the marriage life of the people. So unlike, for example, void or voidable marriages, which have been clearly stipulated in regulations. And if a marriage is void or, you know, voidable, then, you know, there are people can get, for example, financial orders when they divorce and things like that. But with Islamic marriages, because they are considered non marriages, then the court cannot issue any financial orders or anything to the people getting divorced, yeah. And this is the case, whether it's a monogamous or polygamous marriages. Now, with polygamous Islamic only marriages, these are not criminal in the UK. They're not bigamy, yeah. They because the marriage itself is not recognized as a marriage. So if somebody gets marriage only using Islamic ceremony, even up to even if they have four wives, they're not committing any crime because as far as the law in England is concerned, they're not married at all. So I'll quickly just go into the reasons that I found out in my research and why people enter into polygamous marriages here in England. And then I'll get back to the issue of of polygamy and with Islamic marriages only here. Anyways, the reasons I found out one was religion, yeah. There are people who, you know, were very religious and who feel like they cannot enter into any sexual activity or have children. If they're not married, yeah. And it turns out that at the time that maybe they want to settle down, have children, the person who is available to get married to is already in a polygamous marriage, yeah. So a number of the women I spoke to that entered into such a marriage is here because of that. Another reason that many women actually gave me was the flexibility. A lot of them living in the Western world, they've got their own homes. They've got a certain lifestyle, their friends, they want to go out. You know, they want to have time to read their books in bed sometimes. Some days where they don't need to cook for anybody. So having a husband who's there maybe two or three times a week provides them this flexibility with the life that they want to live, especially I've noticed a lot of educated women gave me that reason. People have got their professionals and yeah, they gave me that reason. Another reason I found a number of women entered into this polygamous marriages here, the Zanzibari women, was vulnerability, yeah. Many of them who especially have been divorced or widowed, they feel like they need protection and sort of guidance from a husband. And, you know, once they're not married, they feel like they develop vulnerable and people will take advantage of them. And so they need a husband to look after them. Now, into my findings, I found that, like I said earlier, the polygamous marriages that are entered into through Islamic only ceremonies are not criminal in the UK because they're not marriages. They're not recognized as legal marriages in the first place. But when I interviewed the women, I realized that they let that knowledge and they think they're actually committing a crime and doing something wrong by entering into polygamous Islamic only marriages. And so they live this life where, you know, the child, the father will not be entered into the child's birth certificate. They will so they will not have any they cannot enforce any rights from the father on their children, for example, on maintenance or anything. Yeah, because they feel like, you know, they're doing something wrong. They've got to it can't be known that, you know, they've married someone who's already married, you know, that it's a crime they feel. And it causes a lot of stigma I felt on on the children as well, because, you know, they've got a birth certificate that says pretty much that, yeah, you know, your father is unknown. And then another thing I found out is that when I threw my reading, a lot of Muslim communities here in England, they use Sharia councils when they want to get divorced. Yeah, but it was interesting that the Zanzibari women are not using the Sharia councils. They're actually using, you know, the imam or in Tanzania, we call them as we call them share here. They just got to them. And so this is the case where the husband refuses to issue to pronounce the Islamic divorce. Yeah, so they don't go to the Sharia council and they go to the imam and well, we'll speak about the reasons maybe why they do that. Yeah, another thing I found out that was a bit different from the other communities here is that a lot of from my reading, a lot of the other Islamic communities here in the in England and in the whole of the UK, they tend to marry, for example, the Bangladeshi Pakistanis. They tend to marry women who are the men tend to marry women who are in their countries, in their home country. And so they have to sponsor them to move to the UK. And it becomes it becomes very difficult because in the law, in the UK, you can only sponsor one spouse at a time. So if you've got a spouse that you're still married to, who is still living, who you sponsor, you cannot sponsor another spouse until, you know, they're diseased or, you know, you're divorced. So a lot of polygamous, it's difficult for polygamous marriages, even if it's a legally valid polygamous marriage in England, like I was saying, if the person had capacity to enter into that marriage, it's the law is still that they cannot sponsor more than one wife. So that makes it difficult. But with Zanzibaris, the ones I've interviewed, they tend to marry women who already Zanzibaris as well, but they're already in the UK, so they don't need to sponsor them. And I think only one had issues with migration. The rest didn't really have that issue, which I thought was quite different from the other Muslim communities here in England. Now, before I go into, it's my concluding remarks, but so one thing is that Islamic only polygamous marriages are reality in England, and they will continue to be so in terms of, you know, the Islamic women. And them not them not knowing that this is, for example, not criminal, they can't enforce rights for their children. It actually affects the agency a lot. Yeah. Like I said, they aren't able to register their children, they, you know, all these things, yeah, they aren't able to ask for support from them. They aren't able to ask them to look after the children as well on some days, because there's nothing that says that they're the father. So it really affects the agency as well as their citizenship in terms of enforcing their rights as citizens. So it's a question, really. But I wonder if non recognising or not giving them some sort of protection, them understanding one, they're not committing a crime, and, you know, giving them that education and protection, that would, I think, help a lot more than just not talking about in, you know, thinking, oh, let them think that, you know, this is only legal, don't get into this, because they will get into this. So it feels like it's a lot worse in terms of the society. I didn't check how long I've taken, so I run really quickly. Yes, you've got a few more minutes left. You've got five minutes. Okay, to be honest, that's all I wanted to talk. I wanted to just add one more thing. I found out when I interviewed these women, there's a lot of confusion, for example, or nine, so here we call it Eda, I think it's pronounced either here, yeah. So when a woman is divorced, for example, or if her husband is diseased, they have to stay for a certain period, yeah, before the divorce is final, or if it's a, if it's a widow, you know, for them to reflect on what has happened and everything. If it's a widow, it's four months and 10 days. And if it's a divorcee, it's three periods, yeah. So three menstrual periods, and then they're officially divorced, yeah. But there's a lot of confusion with Zanzibaris. So this is how, you know, Islam says in how many women from what I've read who are not Zanzibaris, for example, Bangladeshi Pakistanis, that's what they know and that's what's in the Quran. But I noticed that with the Zanzibaris, there was a lot of confusion. Some women who got divorced stayed in Eda for like four months and 10 days, which is a lot more than what they're required to. And they're explaining to me that that's how they saw their parents do it in Zanzibar. So I'm realizing that there are some cultures that, well, it's Islamic laws that they're carrying from Zanzibar and bringing into here. But, you know, over here it's not seen by the other Muslim communities as the way it should be. I just also wanted to explain on why I just used England, because Black Tanzania, you know, they're separate legal systems, we've got England and Wales. And now it's becoming more England because there's devolved parliament and everything. So I wanted to explain that. But I think that's it for me. Okay, thank you so much, Inessa, for a very interesting presentation. Very fascinating research you are currently doing. And we're looking forward to hearing more as you progress with your with your research. Now, as for the previous panel, we will take the question and answer at the end of the session. But please do write your question in the Q&A chat, so that you don't forget them. As I said, because of the City Baker is not able to join us. We are now moving on to the third speaker. They actually follow on quite well from Inessa's presentation. In essence, I just asked you to meet perhaps stop sharing. Yes, so that Shabbani we can welcome Shabbani on the platform. And Shabbani Moachilanga is going to present a paper entitled He Sharia in Ashidah Sana, the Law of Marriage Act of 1971, Muslims and the Demand for Cadi Courts in Tanzania in the 1970s to the 2010. So as I said, it follows really nicely on Inessa's presentation in terms of topic. And so welcome Shabbani. You have 20 minutes to present your paper. So yes, thank you. Are you going to are you going to present? Yes, I'm going to share my screen. So wait one second that will make you co-host. Just give us a second. There you go. Your course now so you can share your presentation. Thank you. Okay. Can you all see that? Yes. Yeah, we can see it. Thank you Angelica and thank you Inessa for a very good presentation, which in a way of course speaks a lot to my project also that I've been doing in Tanzania. It's part of a large project in my PhD. So my presentation is about the really the complaints about the Muslims Muslim agitations about the law of melody of 1971 in the way how it affects Islamic religion in general in Tanzania. So my study is as I said is covering most of the Tanzanian part, but my most of the area that I visited are in the coast area of Tanzania in Tanga, Dar es Salaam, Monogoro, Rindipura, and in Songuea. And I've been traveling also in Dodoma and in Bayer and some places where I met some people and conducted a number of interview to you know in as a part of my PhD project. So that's why what I'll be speaking will be the idea obtained from the data collected from the the whole party of the country. Now I used archival sources, all our interviews, I've interviewed a lot of people, Christian and Muslim scholars, normal Muslim, for those who know Tanzania or Dar es Salaam, people from Buguruni, those people are coming from a very normal background who sometimes are just Muslim by name. And also I paid much attention to online sites and social media. Now I particularly choose this forum, forums because in Tanzania now there is a much wider speed of the use of social media. So some people are very explicit in this social media and you can get a lot of ideas of what it is going on. Now the problem of this technique is that sometimes it's difficult to know who is who in the social media. And since also we have this existence of fake accounts you find that sometimes people who are using fake accounts, the same person can have like four different accounts using different names. So it's really difficult to discern who exactly is speaking about this. Sometimes those people are scholars using normal use names which are very normal and sometimes you kind of mistake them to be like a normal kind of Muslims who is just a flight of Muslim but at the same time we'll find that it's not. So as we say I tried to deal with this and in a way that's why I came up with this idea. So in the background that before the passing of the law of marriage in 1971 Tanzania had in several laws which were dealing with the aspect of marriage and divorce and each community had light. Also I would say had a large percent of freedom on how to deal with marriage and divorce in pertaining their members. So Hindus had their own laws, state laws for example the Hindu was the marriage the marriage divorce and succession non-ashartic ordinance of 1923 it had been changed here and there but until independence it was still applicable. Christians were using the law of marriage at ordinance of 1929. It was still in effect even after independence until 1971 it was in pain. Also Muslim, now Muslim and non-Christian Africans they used what we call the customary law and this one was not codified until 1971. So each tribe each school with each each group of Muslims that Shia, Sunni and Abadiya they all tailored their only way of dealing with marriage and divorce in a way. Now this has a lot of problems which later only read to the government to decide to sit down and think and introduce the law of marriage but that not only was a problem which I tried to show that but also there was a that we call international influence which led to the enactment of the Tanzanian law of marriage and this come from two parts. The first influence came from Kenya. This came in 1967 when Kenya decided to create a uniform law of marriage and divorce in Kenya. So it seemed that what was happening in Kenya in relation to the creation of this law of marriage was much followed in a country like Tanzania and Uganda in a way because you find later on both three East African countries embarked on the creation of the uniform law of marriage but it was only Tanzania which succeeded to pass the law in 1971 ahead of Kenya and Uganda and the second reason international influence was the United Nation Organization. The United Nation Organization passed a resolution in 1965 in the general is called the general assembly solution 20 to 2018 in black at sea 20 which which was titled recommendation on the concept to marriage minimum age for marriage and the registration of divorce and this recommendation the United Nation recommended to its members that that the minimum age for marriage should be 15 years. So it seems Tanzania as a member was due to bound to make sure that they try to implement this into their legal system and that it should that it should be accepted in the judicial system so that it can be used as it was recommended. The second reason was the terms policy as for those who are familiar with the history of Tanzania's after independence is 1961 town has been tried so much to unify the Tanzanians or I should say from 1954 when it was was formed. For example we have slogans and sayings normal we could say Misemo or Mithari for example Huruna-Umoja unit freedom and unit then we have the same which goes like unit is strengths and division is weakness. So this kind of slogans and saying we're embedded in town policies before independence and after independence so after the attainment of independence town was keen to make sure that they work the top. So from 1961 town tried to do a lot of things to pass a lot of laws which showed that town intended to bring unit. For example in 1962 town abolished gender discrimination in education and integrated education in Tanzania. So you see this was to make sure that all the people were one it doesn't care the leisure religious affiliation or ethnic affiliation that people they had. In 1963 town passed a law which you call the Magsat law of 19th century which unified the judicial system in Tanzania. Before that there was a two system of judicial the one which were dealing with native which was a local laws local courts and the one which were dealing with christians so we call the indians asian and whites and europeans so they had the high court where they were under the high court. So in 19th century they unified the judicial system to have a free tire system from primary court, district court, magsat court, to the high court so that it should people all people should be treated equally in the unified legal system. In 1965 town also abolished a multi-party democracy and opted for a single a single party democracy. All this showed that town police was to make to remove things that they deemed to bring this unit among Tanzania and to unify the people. And the last problem the last thing was the problem now existed in the previous laws. First there are too many like four different laws defining the people of the same country and treating them unequally. For example muslim and native african so so muslim and non-christian africans who married in a customary law and islamic law. Their cases were decided in the primary court but if you go to non-christian asians christians their cases were decided by the high court. So this created something like a discrimination among the people and in a way people started to feel that they are not equal and the town police was to make sure that all people were equal by the time in 1967 they adapted to yama so the aim really was to make sure that those feelings which tended to divide the people were eliminated. That's why town decided to pass the law. In order to pass the law town in 1969 published the so-called the proposal for the formation of the uniform law of marriage in tanzania and the white paper the government paper number one of 1969. This law has one being to integrate and reform law related to marriage and divorcing tanzania so all the number of laws that i've tried to mention they wanted to integrate them and they reformed them in a way they should fit first with the town police as say with international recommendation and also to to to to to remove those problems. And this then the white paper suggestion can be grouped into three subgroups. The one was suggestion which intended to protect women and the children and in this you find that town suggests that a minimum age should be 15. Now this though it was going together with the recommendation of the united nation but also town wanted to protect the heath of young girls who were married very young sometime at the age of 809 because of a time for a girl to get married the first what he was needed was the consent of the parent if the father agree then nothing would could stop that kind of marriage but also the girl was married at the puberty so sometime eight years nine years then it was it was not defined so many girls who were married at that particular young age tended to die because of vagraness complication birth complication i think that a certain fact that it was high time now to try to protect girls but also to protect the women and for example those women who were living with men for a longer time like say for two years for three years without a former marriage by the time a man get tired with that woman they just leave them without anything without saying anything so the town would have felt that no we should protect these women by introduce the so-called perception of marriage or no air to Korea so in this it was said that if a woman if a man and a woman live together for more than two years and acquire a status to be recognized as husband and wife that marriage will be legally recognized if it is built at the court so what a woman need was just to go to the court to say i've been living with this man for three years and we've been doing a lot of things and people know that is husband and wife and that was recognized as married whether it was formally celebrated or it was not formally contacted but also though this presumption of death that if a man is absent for five years without any communication the law allowed people to presume that he's dead and to give the woman the light to continue with her life whether to get married or to to do anything the other one was unification now on the unification the law the proposal suggested to unify two important things first registration of marriage because previously each group had its own books for to register marriage, the register book but now they decided to say okay we should have only one register marriage registration system so that it's to be easy to trust those insurances to marry and the last one to promote gender equality to women and this was to uplift the women and that's where we say one of the most important comment about this that this was a very progressive in a sense that it allowed a lot of freedom to women which were not there before for example now women were allowed to sue for a data also if a data occurs so women also were able to sue the woman who committed a data with their husband but also we see the women also were free to start matters related to divorce without without any problem because before they were not allowed and it was really really discouraged like that for example in Islam if a woman seek divorce then she has to buy it but it's a law made it legal for women to start to seek divorce if she feel that she's not free and the manager has has problem now after this proposal and you know the government asking people to give their comments and suggestions and many people gave Christian had mixed feelings first they accepted most of the proposal but the opposite of the conversion of marriage because the law wanted men to be free to convert monogamous marriage into polygamous marriage Christian felt that this was not those interferences with Christian religion which teach their people that one wife one husband one wife so Christian was not happy with this one but also people Christian opposed the presumption the concept of presumption of marriage Noia Kuchukuria that if the government will allow presumption of marriage then it will allow many Christian men to get into extramarital affairs so that later on that kind of affair should be recognized as men so they were they were not happy with those two areas Muslims there's a big debate going on now and it was there before that but quite a which is was a recognized Muslim body for all of in Tanzania and especially for Sunni Muslim didn't participate in the general process of giving comments and opinions when the law was passed and this that's the stage today that led that that's why the law has a lot of problem which affect you Muslim than other groups of of community in Tanzania but in this comment the Shia is not sharing oppose this law and they load their proposal to to to protect to to oppose this law and they wrote a number of things first they said they wanted the government to maintain the system that existed before they were not really happy because they felt that the government was interfering with that and the fact that the government could have worked on the previous system then change it and create a uniform of uniform law of marriage and in one saying they said that the government should let hand thousand brooms a thousand flower broom then creating a single cara for all the flowers so the aim was to make sure that they go back and they felt that the government was not happy now there is this suggestion that why Shia was so active than the bakwata first bakwata was just formed like two years ago two years before after the abolition of the East African Muslim welfare society so in terms of bakwata was trying to build itself in the country and it was not ready to try to antagonize the government which came with the proposal but for the Shia it was it was important for them to struggle first they were the well organized most of them were Indians so well organized well educated have a lot of lawyers people would understand the implication of the new law and it had to object to that now that in response to these comments when the government passes a law it allowed the Christian objection of not allowing Christian marriage to convert converts their marriage from monogram to polygamy but also allowed Muslim not to seek permission from their wife when they want to take more wives in the money because the Muslim Muslim marriage are polygamous in nature so the the government first said they should ask permission to their wife when the wife consents they should do that but now the government said okay don't do that it's okay but the last one was that it recognized Islamic system of liveable the predation to form a taraka but still created a system that there must be some procedure to be followed for that for example to go to the marriage reconciliation board to go there to be reconciliated where after the reconciliation it failed then the husband was allowed to give taraka then to go and legislate to the court now after the passing of the law now when the law started to operate a number of problems was seen for example the law didn't recognize Muslim divorce and this was in a matter of interpretation in the court and so the law now starts to dictate the way Muslim should do divorce because now Muslim was used to that if you want to divorce your wife you just say Kwanzaa Leoni Mekuwacha for example from today you are not my wife that was stand as a complete divorce by itself now in the court those verbal repudiation started not to hold any water and it became very big problem Muslim some women took their husband to the court to complain that they are not maintaining us and when you go to court they have to say I divorce that and there's no evidence because it was just a simple repudiation so it caused a lot of problem also the court now became the only organ that has a final say when it came to divorce I don't know I'm learning out of time and just to say that you have one minute left okay so I can give you we can give you two minutes thank you for that so another problem with that Muslim fit that the law went against the way of Muslim to contact their marriage for example the law forced Muslim required Muslim to give a 21 day not before contacting marriage so that marriage will be public and everyone should be here so that if there is objection people can go there but the second problem is that marriage now are supposed to be contacted to the also nice to only license the sheikhs and this is limiting option amongst the Muslim who fit that in Islamic religion they are free to contact marriage to anybody as long given that they are Muslim and they are land Muslim sheikhs so it's very it limit them their capacity to contact the marriage anywhere unless they find those licensed sheikhs is also allow marriage is unlawful by allowing the presumption of marriage and also its proper tomorrow decay because by limiting the age for girls to get married at 15 they say that some girls that you know being involved in some in sexual activities before that age and since they are not forbidding the law forbidding them to get married so it caused a bg of a problem now for 10 minutes my conclusion in all this you to we see two important things first is the struggle between religion and secularism to control personal matters of the people in Tanzania while religion feel that marriage and divorce is a matter which should is a very matter with a delicate matter which should be ended by religion secular state also feel that it's time also it have a hand so that to control the freedom that religion has which is sometimes undermine the light of some individuals who of course should have right to choose what they want if they want to have many wife or they don't want to have wife or to have to have a polygamist marriage or a monogamous marriage but also it showed gender differences because many women supported this this law and still are supporting and many men are opposing in a way because they feel that it took some of their freedom some of their right which they had before and they have women power thank you very much thank you very much Shabani for your presentation excellent and then you would you also stay within the time very good for the chair very important and now we are very pleased to say that Felicity Baker is not as I said but her colleague is with us Salvatore Nianto Nianto sorry apologies Salvatore Nianto are you here with us I saw you just now sorry there is with us a few moments while we try to see if it's still with us okay so perhaps because Salvatore is probably having some issues at the moment so let's move to Melvin and then we go back oh no here we go here we go apologies Melvin apologies everyone okay so Salvatore Nianto is here with us I can see yeah you have your hand raised so if you want to start and then we keep the order so then Melvin you will come in after Salvatore that's okay sorry for all this confusion okay Salvatore I think you can start hello are you getting me yes you need to take your lower your hand okay lower there you go and then yes we can hear you oh thank you so much I will first of all good is it is it in the morning here we are midday 12 30 midday okay okay good afternoon so sorry to say we can't see you we can only see an image of you but it's up to you if you want to keep the image or maybe you can try to make a video unfortunately here the internet connection isn't good okay so if you don't mind I may just present it as it is with with the video in fact muted absolutely that's absolutely fine okay so I would like to oh first of all thank you so much for your understanding and I would like to to share my screen how would I go about sharing my yes that's fine my colleague Akki will make you a host okay just one minute and then once you are a co-host you will be able to share okay thank you hello Angelica yes we are trying an apology okay oh it's okay for some reason there is an issue because you have been added to the panel from a different way and it looks like we are not able to do the co-host would you mind talking through is there a problem oh well it's okay no problem okay thank you okay um but yeah it's been some technical issue because of you joining okay thank you yeah so thank you so much for for all the presenters and and also thank you so much for such an invitation it's uh it's an honor to be part of this of this discussion of course unfortunately Professor Baker would be with us and our paper is a co-authored paper about shame history and slave antecedents what does it mean that the slave past is Jambo Laibu and because my colleague isn't here so I will only present one part of the paper and I should and we should also admit that our paper is still in is still in progress so our study centers on Tabora in western Tanzania and Lindy in southern Tanzania and for the sake of this presentation I present the first part of this of this paper about western Tanzania so Tabora town was strategically located at the junction of the trade routes from the interior to the East African coast and as a as a junction of the major trade routes the town developed as an as an important center of trade and slavery in 19th and the 28th century slaves in Unyamesi originated from Unyamesi central Tanzania Uganda Rwanda and Burundi and parts of this African and parts of the East African interior including the Manema region which was known as as the richest in slaves in 19th century in many ways societies regard slavery and its resultant implications as shameful because slavery is associated with humiliation and torture talking to peoples of slave descent and elders about their slave past becomes a challenging task because stories of this soul tend to arose vexing feelings in the society some elders choose to remain silent when asked about the slave past for the fear that they would damage their social positions to maintain their social reputation some elders of slave descent remain skeptical of revering to researchers about their slave past the manner in which shame unfolds itself in the society its shape is shaped by the context perceptions memories of slavery and individual and collective experiences of the formerly enslaved people in post-slavery society the varied experiences of slavery disguise stories and consequently shape the way they are told to researchers descendants of the of the enslaved and the society at large so our paper relies on mission registers and interviews as for mission registers we rely on the mission registers of adult and young baptism collected from the private archives and libraries of western Tanzania in order to show the various manifestations of shame in a slave society in particular we seek to show how names of the formerly enslaved adults who converted to Christianity could be used as analytic category to probe into shame history and slave antecedents or post-slavery societies the recollections about slavery show how Aibu or shame in English has shaped the way stories of slavery is told and appropriated in their day-to-day undertakings shame in western Tanzania unfolded itself in different forms in 19th and the 20th century it was understood the society understood understood Aibu or shame depending on context interaction and the gravity of the issue at hand slavery by all accounts was shameful was a shameful attribute that residents descendants of slaves and former slave owners distanced to themselves from talking about it what accounts for the wide neglect of talking about stories of slavery stems from sufferings intimidations and torture whose effects lingered in the society in 20th century union ways their effects dictated societal perceptions of the enslaved as weak strangers and second-class citizens who were deprived of access to land ritual performance and social recognition because of the sufferings embedded in slavery societies drew negative perceptions on slaves and often treated them as generally properties of owners the less relevant of slavery reflected the names assigned to slaves whose meaning are worth looking at as we probe into the post-slavery era in western Tanzania and Lindy the names for instance of Abraham Mgaywa which means one who is hated and Daniel Kugariwa which means to be hated appearing on the parish registers of the Moravian missions suggest that although the two slaves converted to Christianity their birth names impeded their quest for incorporation and socializing as members of Christian community in western Tanzania dislikes anxieties and hatred remain important in the society despite conversion to Christianity now the second part of this paper talks about the struggle for social recognition now slaves devised various mechanisms to bring to an end shame dislikes and content ingrained in the society some slaves resorted to travel into distant villages where they were completely unknown in order to hide their shame in Kiswahili Kufichai'ibu others took names of influential leaders and individuals in the society for instance names such as Mukombe translated in English as messenger or carriers of message were dominant among the formerly enslaved people to challenge the negative connotations scorn and intimidations ingrained in the society regarding slavery in Unyamwe society Vakombe or Bakombe were carriers of messages of chiefs about war, drought, inversions, chiefly meetings or any other event that needed immediate intervention in the society therefore becoming Mukombe was a way of challenging the idioms of uneasiness of slavery others however struggled for recognition by adopting the name Saffisha in response to the dominant discourses of slavery and post-slavery experiences the name Saffisha was derived from the Kinyamwezi Kutema to mean initiators of new settlements in Unyamwe as new chiefs or as new inhabitants the formerly enslaved people cleared bushes initiated settlements and bound communities together by maintained robust networks of friendship support and social cohesion for some slaves associating with the chiefly line and influential people in the society was a way of disguising shame because chiefs commanded respect from the people slaves aspired to be part of their families the birth name appearing on the registers as Mnwasele is indicative of the ways in which slaves could hide their shame through adopting names of chiefs in Unyamwezi the name Mnwasele adopted by Johanna Massessa shows that he was not part of the chiefly family but he took the name of Unyamwezi chief Mnwasele in order to hide his slave past and in order to be assimilated into the chiefly line by becoming Mnwasele Massessa became part of the chiefdom and could command respect to the to the society he had become part of the family of Mnwasele some slaves however took names of influential traders in Unyamwezi as they risked as they struggled against the binaries entrenched in the societies for instance names like Mlungwana or Kalungwana translated in English as and Leona de Manua show that slaves struggled for recognition hello hello are you getting me hello Angelika yes are you should I go on uh yes you have you have another 10 minutes oh thank you yes yes and slaves however took names of influential traders in Unyamwezi for instance names like Mlungwana or Kalungwana translated as civilized assigned to the two slaves Rod and Leona de Manua show that slaves struggled for recognition that distinguished them from slavery to a recognizable status in the society the names seem to suggest that the two slaves resulted to using the two names to distinguish themselves from Vasenzi in Kiswahiri Washenzi translated in English as uncivilized in Unyamwezi the reputation of Mlungwana was initially used to mean accumulating wealth to establish oneself as an independent trader to gain the ability to marry to acquire livestock and to purchase slaves to work in one's household as portraits took hold in Unyamwezi an occupational group that is the Vanneva imaged as the civilized of free gentlemen whose wealth provided them a new source of power by contrast those who are not gone to the cost who could not communicate more in Kinyamwezi than in who could communicate more in Kinyamwezi than in Kiswahiri were often called savages and barbarians over Senzi in some instances some slaves resulted to adopting names of their former owners to be assimilated to the post-slavery community because slave owners enjoyed socioeconomic positions in the society slaves had a conviction that by taking their names they would also ascend to the social hierarchy for instance the name Muarabu appearing on the entries of Dorotea Kalunde and in early cesia suggest two issues one it suggests that their parents Salomo Muarabu and Malco Muarabu were former slaves of an Arab slave owner but second it suggests that they adopted the nickname of their owners in order to end social recognition in the society for slaves who converted to christianity to christianity and Islam adoption of new names was also a means of embracing new culture and civilization in Kiswahiri Ustarabu they had encountered vexed by the binaries and content slaves suspended the use of the use of their birth names especially names like Imlekwa or Kalekwa which means an orphan or an abandoned person in favor in favor of christian names such as Elizabeth Elia Cecilia Eva Eva and Emma to mention just a few examples while a number of slaves struggled for social recognition by adopting names of influential leaders and individuals in Unyamwe society others instead adopted names that signified acceptance of the trauma intimidations and the contempt ingrained in slavery for instance the name Umzumia which translated as one who accepts assigned to Elizabeth Kalekwa Umzumia and Helena Simba Umzumia and Luca Simfalila Umzumia suggests that while a significant number of slaves in Unyamwe struggled for social recognition often using overt and covered strategies others instead accepted their slave past and openly demonstrated this through naming the dominance of female slaves with the names Umzumia in the baptism register father suggests to reiterate what John George Doche had argued that they were more they were more docile than women than men father the name Tuli Kuvangi translated in Swahili or in English as we are in the foreign land appearing appearing on the register of Salome the baptism register of Salome implies that she maintained her slave past through naming as a slave from the East African interior who was formerly enslaved in Unyamwe while she converted to Christianity and subsequently became Salome she did not feel uneasy to get rid of her slave antecedent in post slavery Unyamwezi as I said earlier our work is still in progress so we are still working on the subject matter and we do hope therefore this discussion will enrich our understanding of slavery and shame in post-abolition Tasanea and I have also stressed that for the sake of this discussion and because my colleague is it available I will therefore present the first section of of our paper living aside the second part of this paper that talks about Lindy in Southern Tasanea and having said all this thank you so much thank you very much for your presentation we are sorry that we were not able to share it I have our wonder if you could email it to us and then we can share it with the audience would that be okay okay yeah you can email it to Ida myself or Ida okay and then we can share it with the audience that would be really nice and okay so we're moving on now to the final presentation of this panel and then we will start to take the question from the audience in the meantime as we are moving towards the end please do put your questions in the Q&A box and I would pick them from there as well as raising your hand if you want to speak but you can also simply put it in the Q&A chat as well as well sorry in the Q&A box not in the chat so there's been a little bit of a box not in the chat so okay so okay so Melvin Uma yes Melvin Uma yes yes okay sorry I can hear myself speaking okay so the flaws is all yours do you have a presentation to share yes yes okay okay so we'll make you a call host right now and so yes Aki if you could please make there you go I think your call is now and you can share your presentation you have yes 20-25 minutes thank you okay sorry I'm trying to find it yeah just a minute just a minute oh this is taking forever Isim do you think is the connection I'm just wondering whether it's the connection I had I had tried it before during the practice session and it was working just fine I don't know I seem not to be able to find the document and I I wouldn't want to take much of your time I saw I'm trying to rotate the camera to capture the the power point I don't know whether it's visible I don't know whether it can be seen yes a little bit a little bit yeah okay I don't know whether this will be helpful instead of taking much of the time suddenly to look for it yes that's fine you can read it I was meant to read the title you could read I was meant to read the title yeah the title so the data collection has just kicked off and so this platform will be an opportunity for me to grow this work even as I continue in I'm I'm I'm I'm ah ah ah ah ah 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