violent social revolutions result in racial discrimination-Zanzibar revolution stands as
an empiric example
Burgess 09 (Thomas Burgess, Assistant professor of East African History; Contemporary Africa at US
Naval acdamey, Race, Revolution, and the Struggle for Human Rights in Zanzibar: the Memoirs of Ali
Sultan Issa and Seif Sharif Hamad, pg9-10)
Issa’s story, then, provides intellectual context to the revolution. Issa’s stated intent is, in fact, to suggest
that he and his comrades were a vanguard responsible for nearly all that was enlightened about the
revolution and that had they been able to influence leaders like Karume to genuinely follow socialism, the
revolution would have succeeded. In this respect, Issa echoes his life-long associate, A. M. Babu, who
claimed the comrades intervened to broaden “the objectives of the uprising from a narrow, lumpen,
anti-Arab, anti-privilege, anti-this and anti-that perspective into a serious social revolution with farreaching political, social and economic objectives.”23 Given time and influence, the comrades could have
fully developed the nation’s productive forces. They were thwarted, however, by “novices” who ruled the
islands “with the caution of a bull in a china shop” and who relegated Zanzibar to “permanent stagnation.”24
Zanzibar, once “a brilliant revolutionary star of Africa, was henceforth to be reduced to one of the worst
bungling and tyrannical petty-bourgeois despotisms in Africa.”25 Issa endorses selected aspects of the
revolution and exonerates himself from others. His narrative is at times a confession, a polemic, and a
dispassionate account of revolutionary events. He distances himself from the racial politics espoused by the
regime he served, yet he helped introduce socialist purge categories like “capitalists” that served as
popular labels for Arabs and Asians. As a cabinet minister for eight years, Issa enforced a quota system
that ended Asian and Arab domination of secondary education. He nationalized Arab and Asian
properties in Zanzibar Town and established youth-labor camps in the countryside. Though one of the
most controversial personalities the revolution ever produced, Issa makes no apologies. He sees himself as
the wise and incorruptible civil servant, trying to build the nation, yet continually undermined by the
public’s “unscientific” habits and worldviews.
Poverty inextricably linked to discrimination and racism
Ruteere 13 (Mr. Mutuma Ruteere (Kenya) was appointed by the Human Rights Council as Special
Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance,
“ Poverty is inextricably linked to discrimination and racism”,
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=13941&LangID=E)
UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism Mutuma Ruteere on Monday emphasized that
racial or ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected by poverty, with the lack of education,
adequate housing and health care transmitting poverty from generation to generation. In his report to the
General Assembly, the Special Rapporteur focused on the inextricable link between racism and poverty,
stressing that the continued socio-economic vulnerability of minorities is frequently the result of
historical legacies, such as the impact of slavery and colonization, and state-sponsored discrimination.
These historical imbalances continue to profoundly affect discriminated groups, causing successive generations to inherit the
disadvantages of their predecessors. “Discrimination based on racial, religious, ethnic, linguistic and also
socio-economic factors exacerbates the vulnerability of these persons and groups,” Mr. Ruteere said. “The lack
of participation of such groups in decision-making processes is also often the result of historical legacies.” Discriminated groups, such as Afrodescendants, indigenous peoples, Roma, Dalits and migrants are especially affected by the different manifestations of
poverty in
the areas of economic and social rights such as education, adequate housing, and health care, as well as
other rights including the right to work in just conditions, social security, food and water. “Governments
have the obligation to prevent marginalization, to ensure protection and to guarantee the enjoyment of
human rights for all, including the right to education, the right to adequate housing, the right to health
and the right to food and safe water,” the Special Rapporteur told the General Assembly. He recommended that States review and
redesign policies and programmes which may have a disproportionately negative effect on racial or ethnic minorities in view of their socioeconomic vulnerability. States could then implement effective measures to improve the access of such groups to civil, cultural, economic,
political and social rights.