Zanzibar Cathedral

Today is the third day of our free travel week. We have all been given 300 US dollars to travel on for eight days, including providing our own transportation to our next stop at Tanga on the Tanzanian mainland. The majority of students have broken up into smaller groups and are staying at various beach and party locations through out the island of Zanzibar. I wouldn't have minded spending a few days at a beach, but a whole week is more than I can handle (especially since the next week will be snorkeling and studying coral reef ecology every day). So I'm staying here in Stone Town, the main city on Zanzibar, at St. Monica's hostel. It's right next to the Anglican cathedral, which was built on the site of the former slave market. It's a nice place- I actually like it better than the more expensive place we stayed as a group. I just try not to think too much about the thousands of people who were bought, sold and died in grimy stone holding chambers directly underneath where my room is now.

The cathedral seems very odd to me. I'm not sure if it is even technically a Cathedral- I know that the seat of the Tanga Diocese (the mainland) is on the mainland, and also that there are very few Christians in Zanzibar. The overall population of the island is 90-98% Muslim, and the English service I attended had only 5 other worshippers - two of whom were readers and ushers. So if Zanzibar is a separate diocese, it must be a very small one.

The cathedral is also a tourist attraction. All day long, steady streams of Europeans and Americans arrive to pay 3 dollars to visit the church and the one underground cell that has been preserved. Before I moved to the hostel, I asked if I could go in the Cathedral- not as a tourist, but just to pray. The answer was a flat no- something that really disturbed me. I understand the need to regulate and maintain a historic site with heavy traffic- but my gut rebels at the thought of ever requiring people to pay for access to religion.

The inside of the church is very reflective of it’s origins- the stained glass windows, the wood carvings and inscriptions are all dedicated to recounting the history of the British crusade to end slavery. (British economic and naval pressure forced the Sultan of Zanzibar to close the slave markets around the 1870’s, at great financial loss both personally and to the Island economy) The altar was built on the exact site of the former whipping post, and near the pulpit there is a crucifix made from ‘wood from the tree under which David Livingstone died’. For an Anglican church, the de facto beautification of early missionaries and anti-slavery crusaders was unexpected.

My overall impression of the cathedral is that it was built not as a center of worship, but as a monument to moral achievement. I often hear talk about the effects of economic and occupational colonialism on the attitudes of locals peoples, but my impressions of the cathedral have led me to wonder if there is not also a major aspect of moral imperialism in world history.




This will be the last week that I have anything resembling regular email access, so if anyone wants to contact me, now is the time.