A First Lady’s Rise, Fall, and Reemergence: Fatma Karume’s Political and Diplomatic Evolution in Zanzibar.

From 1964-1972, Fatma Karume served as first lady of semiautonomous Zanzibar and patron of the ruling Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP) women’s organization, Umoja wa Akina Mama wa ASP (read: “the Unity of ASP Mothers,”) or UWZ. After the Zanzibar Revolution of 1964, Karume toured Unguja and Pemba, encouraging women to participate in nation-building tasks traditionally considered for men. Karume’s rhetoric was influenced by various socialist and Pan-African discourses that were prevalent among mainland Tanzanian political actors. However, despite historical narratives that have conflated UWZ with its sister Tanzanian organization, Umoja wa Wanawake wa Tanzania (read: “the Unity of Tanzanian Women,”) or UWT, UWZ was largely autonomous until they merged in 1976. Karume and UWZ presented different visions of women’s nationalist roles from UWT that were influenced by Zanzibar’s distinct relationships with other socialist countries, which has shaped collective memory of women’s post-revolution status. Through her travels and speeches, Karume joined male leaders in navigating and negotiating the competing interests of multiple international players who vied for influence on the isles. Karume was controversially ousted from UWZ over a year after her husband’s 1972 assassination and was rehabilitated as a national mother when her son was elected president of Zanzibar in 2000. Fatma Karume’s multifaceted political roles challenge scholarly understandings of African first ladies as merely extensions of their husbands’ political power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]