Popular among Zanzibar revolutionaries are what they refer as the Arab slavery and this is taken as the source of the Zanzibar revolution of January 1964. This is the official history which is taught in schools for half a century and this history has its own ‘’official heroes,’’ which are the Afro Shirazi Party (ASP) of Abeid Amani Karume and Umma Party of Mohamed Abdulrahman Babu and the faction of ‘’comrades’’ who claim to have planned, organised and rose up in arms to overthrow the Arab oligarchy.
Picha kubwa ya Mapinduzi ya Zanzibar ya 1964 haiwezi kufahamika bila ya kuyafahamu ijapokuwa kwa mukhtasari mfupi mapinduzi ya kabla yake yaliofanyika Tanganyika, na baadaye Kenya. Mapinduzi ya Tanganyika, ya Zanzibar, na ya Mwambao wa Kenya ni mifano ya mapinduzi ya kalamu na ya umwagaji damu.