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Zanzibar has a very interesting history. It was once a major trade center for the entire Indian Ocean region, and served as the major base of the Omani Empire in Africa. Even now, Zanzibar is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania. It came to be this way because the Zanzibar Revolution, which annexed Zanzibar to Tanganyika thus forming Tanzania.

So let's say the Zanzibar Revolution is crushed (it seems like it could have failed based on what happened OTL), but the fact it happened spurs the Zanzibar government into action toward correcting the situation that allowed such an event to occur. What happens next? Zanzibar borders a hostile neighbour in Julius Nyerere's Tanganyika (as a side note, it's unlikely Tanganyika renames itself as Tanzania). Does the United Kingdom/United States need to intervene?

Zanzibar has a great potential as a trading city like Hong Kong or Singapore, and could be a "gateway to Africa" or sorts. Does Zanzibar need a figure like Lee Kuan Yew to achieve this? Could one of the thousands of massacred Indians or Arabs have been that person to help Zanzibar become something more than a backwater part of Tanzania, presumably as Prime Minister for Jamshid bin Abdullah, the Sultan of Zanzibar? Is the fact Zanzibar already had a monarch a barrier to its potential success?

So, really, what might happen with an independent Zanzibar?
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