I have read Mervyn Lobo's response to my recent submission with interest. My view is that "I rest my case" regarding his assertion that Zanzibar's Sultan was a "puppet" of the British, as it singularly fails to respond adequately to my challenge to "anyone with sufficient knowledge of Zanzibar in colonial times to convince me that the British administration there was capable to taking any action or institute any measure that the Sultan objected to!"
Mervyn's quixotic reference now to "Divine Right to rule" (a historical concept that has long since expired in what are now 'constitutional monarchies', and most certainly does not apply in the case of the British Monarch, who reigns by the consent of the people rather than some quaint notion of "Divine Right" and whose role is clearly understood in the UK's unwritten constitution) also suggests that he did not quite understand the central point of my argument. I sought to explain that, specifically in the case of the Sultan's role (and this applies more generally in terms of the way that governments operate), relationships e.g. between the British administrators and the Sultan were a lot more subtle, balanced and nuanced than might appear to be the case. Accordingly, and regardless of what an agreement after the 'shortest war in history' might state, the description of the Sultan (any of the Sultans following that War) as a "puppet" is entirely simplistic and inaccurate! Mervyn has also offered no argument, let alone a cogent one, to justify his description of the Sultan as a "puppet" - the point that I took issue with in his initial post. He loosely offers a throwaway reference (which has absolutely no relevance to the "puppet" issue), to: " just a few weeks after Britain left Zanzibar, it refused all the begging from the Zanzibari Sultan for Britain to intervene again." For goodness sake, where does he get this stuff from!?! That particular sentence says it all. It was "*after Britain left*" i.e. after Zanzibar regained its independence when Britain relinquished any responsibility for Zanzibar's internal security or defence. Indeed, it would have been invidious (to put it mildly) for any country, particularly so a recently former colonial power, to have intervened to put down what was undoubtedly - and immediately evident as - a popular uprising. From my research some while ago, I learnt that, whilst the overthrown Government, in its last throes and in desperation, may have issued an appeal to Britain to intervene (and, incidentally, there is no basis for believing (and absolutely no documentary or other evidence) that there was any "begging from the Zanzibari Sultan" - a constitutional monarch, remember - in this respect), to all intents and purposes the former Government crumbled in a matter of hours and, therefore, there was no credible request for the British Government to even consider, let alone refuse. * * * * I rest my case!
