September 18, 2007
A Meta-diaspora: When Desis Fled UgandaHistory
Thirty-five years ago, today, the first wave of South Asians who were expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin landed in the UK.
At the time Amin gained power, Uganda’s Indian community, numbering approximately 80,000 in total, was comprised of Hindis, Muslims, and Ismalis(sic). [link]
Here’s why they left:
President Amin has denounced the Ugandan Asians as “bloodsuckers”, and warned that any remaining in the country after 8 November risk being imprisoned in military camps. [BBC]
Bloodsuckers, eh? Takes one to know them, or imagine them, I guess. Consider this horrific story:
A 75-year old retired chartered accountant Natubhai Shah, who is living in Ahmedabad, recalled Amin’s reign of terror in an interview with ‘The Times of India’, “Here I was, on an official tour with Idi Amin’s entourage, trying to cross the Nile River when a military van stopped me from going ahead.
One of the army men discreetly handed me a pair of binoculars. It was a chilling sight. Amin was standing beside the river, cutting flesh off an Asian man and feeding it to crocodiles in the river.” [HT]
Also, what exactly were Uganda’s desis threatened with? The BBC article states “imprisonment”, but a case study I found, which focuses on one woman’s personal account of this nightmare, suggests something far more heinous.
Dr. Sunita Sundaram, an ethnically Asian Ismali(sic), was a medical student in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, when Amin announced that all Asians must leave the country within three months time or be killed. [Harvard]
Even as Ugandans followed Amin’s outrageous directions and fled, they were terrorized:
Kassem Osman - who arrived with his wife, two brothers and their families - said they had been robbed by the soldiers.
“On the way to the airport the coach was stopped by troops seven time and we were all held at gun point,” he said. [BBC]
But why did this even happen? Back to Dr. Sundaram, who, in the study I linked to, discussed two significant causes for why Uganda turned on its South Asian community:
Uganda was broken up into three distinct and segregated racial groups in the early seventies. There were the white English colonizers who remained in the country after Uganda gained independence in the 60s, the Asian community who had immigrated to Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya about one hundred years earlier, and finally you had a host of tribes who were native to Uganda.
The second major factor contributing to the hostility towards Asians cited by Dr. Sundaram was economic. In large part the Asian community in both Uganda and Tanzania controlled commerce within those countries. The vast majority of businesses were owned and run by Asians, creating a scenario where a few thousand people controlled a vast portion of the country’s wealth. This economic stratification between the various ethnic groups was a relic of Uganda’s days as an English colony, and native Ugandans were anxious to redistribute economic resources in a more equitable manner. In fact, following independence, several pieces of legislation were passed in an effort to encourage the redistribution of wealth. For example, in both Uganda and Tanzania all new business owners were required to find an ethnically Tanzanian or Ugandan business partner. [Harvard]
Though Amin is dead, desis in Uganda are once again a target for resentment and rage; 35 years after they were cast out of their homes for being too successful, they are once again cast as Uganda’s villains. Earlier this year, in April, a Hindu temple was attacked. Various news reports I read mentioned a lynching and Indian people being stoned to death. We covered it, here.
A lot of mutineers have roots in Uganda/Africa. Today, which must be especially painful, you are in my thoughts.
::
The photograph I used is a recent one; it is Devang Rawal’s mother, mourning her murdered son. Rawal was one of the desis killed in the April riots of this year.
Thank you for posting this important story on the news tab, Mutterpaneer.
anna on September 18, 2007 12:42 PM in History · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
Interestingly, the set-up for such atrocities is often:
1) poor local enforcement of private law (e.g., contract) --> 2) outsized performance of diasporic communities (e.g., desis in Uganda, ethnic Chinese in Indonesia, Lebanese in West Africa), who can contract (backed up by non-legal sanctions like reputation) with, e.g., their relatives in other countries, unlike most of the indigenous elements --> 3) resentment --> 4) opportunistic politicians whip up a frenzy and try to confiscate the diasporic wealth --> 5) country continues to be hopelessly underdeveloped
and for a twist, the local leader might try to eat a few people from the diasporic community.
sunita sundaram as an ismaili name? very interesting. was there any systemic naming or conversion behavior in uganda that caused this, or is this just an isolated case?
I hope and pray that all this atrocity will end for the families that remain or returned. As a family that emigrated from East Africa, many of the decisions we have made are informed by this period and place in history. Secutity, physically, financially and politically, remain of paramount importance. I wonder, is this true for others who emigrated from that region?
The question that lingers in my mind is what can we as a community do now to never be made to suffer such injustice in other parts of the world where we settle? I believe one of the greatest problems in Uganda was the lack of desi political voices in East Africa. Can we remedy that? I would like to suggest today that it is especially important to encourage political dialogue and leadership in our community. To that end I hope that we can cultivate an environment where we encourage those voices.
Thank you for bringing it up today.
Yeah, that's one sick twist.
In Indonesia, they're into raping the Chinese women.
sunita sundaram as an ismaili name? very interesting. was there any systemic naming or conversion behavior in uganda that caused this, or is this just an isolated case?
see note 1:
In an effort to protect the identity of the interviewee a pseudonym has been used and identifying details have been changed. Moreover, Dr. Sundaram's comments are presented with her written permission.
...with some fava beans, and a nice chiante
I believe one of the greatest problems in Uganda was the lack of desi political voices in East Africa.
hm. i think that probably wouldn't have mattered sans something like the NEP in malaysia where the minority buys off the majority with lots of economic subsidies. easier to do in malaysia because the minority:majority ratio is on the order of 1:2. i hear that in kenya the asians do OK because of their close connections with the heads of state (e.g., moi). amin was a force of nature who really had a totally irrational streak (asians weren't his only victims); so that probably wasn't an option.
ah, thanks razib. i guess ismaili names are hard to come by, so they had to go with a tam one instead.
bloodsucker is a classic anti-semitic term. a lot of hatred directed against indians, and not just in uganda, parallels anti-semitism. in one word: resentment.
#1 rob
Interestingly, the set-up for such atrocities is often:
1) poor local enforcement of private law (e.g., contract)
--> I dont think it applies to Uganda. What Idi Amin said was the law and deviation from it usually meant death.
Idi Amin(Check out a documentary, General Idi Amin Dada, made on him in 1974(http://www.slate.com/id/2087239/)) was as blood thirsty as they come. The documentary devotes only a minute to tell us that asians were asked to leave uganda.
Well, even if Amin's word "was law," it didn't mean you could get your commercial contracts enforced reliably!
resentment again. Malaysia too. they've got quotas to keep the Chinese out of universities, not unlike jews in the US.
heres aerosmiths thoughts on the subject...
Puli...enough, my friend. :) Those comments are in poor taste (NO pun intended).
okey dokey.
I heard that they let you take nothing but jewlery with you, so women left wearing a lot of jewlery to preserve what part of their wealth they could.
I heard that, too. I also heard that women were relieved of such a burden, by Amin's soldiers, even as they rushed out of Uganda. Apparently, some people buried their jewelry near their homes, too. Can't remember which article had that tidbit-- will dig up soon.
Why oh why do we keep going back there???
Chilling black and white photo...looks like it could have been from Amin's era rather than now.
To think of this happening to anyone is horrible, but happening to a desi person it's almost unbearable.
dont drug dealers have all sorts of tricked out ways of sneaking stuff on planes? one would think some enterprising uncle-ji would have used such a technique.
its worse if its desi?
Puli, meet Amitabh.
Amitabh, meet Puli.
Oh, wait. You two know each other. :)
Yes, Amitabh might have phrased that better, but I think (I hope?) we know what he meant. Let's nip this shit in the bud, please. People whose families suffered through this deserve respect and sympathy, not our nitpicking, yes?
too much mountian dew. im logging off.
The Ugandan desis who fled are thriving in the UK/US/Canada, what's bringing them back to Uganda? Are the desis who are settling in Uganda today former exiles, or people with no prior history in Africa?
I hear that Chinese businessmen are now investing in and settling in Africa in significant numbers....
Runa understood what I meant. It's like you care more if something happens to your brother than to your 2nd cousin...but like ANNA said, that's enough of that...it was just a gut reaction, sorry for the distraction.
I always wondered because this happened in Uganda that there is less outrage then there should be over this event. I can't recall anything this bad happening in any so called western country to desi's.
Will someone better informed care to answer some questions?
- Anyone care to draw any parallels between what's happening to the chinese in indonesia vs indians in uganda and fiji? Is it similar or are there synergies in their local cultures. How about marriage between the ethnic groups?
- Is the response of "mother" countries China and India the same or with China being the juggernaut that it is now, are the atrocities against chinese in Indonesia easing up? Why is Malaysia different from Indonesia? Is it just numbers? Will a stronger India make it easier for the diaspora in Fiji and Uganda? And Malaysia and Singappore?
- Why isn't the same (discrimination against indian diaspora) true in the Caribbean or perhaps not to the same extent? What are the unique sets of circumstances in the case here?
- Do ppl in Pakistan/Bangladesh feel for the "Indian" diaspora in these countries since most of the people that left went before partition or feel that they have no connection?
[a quick aside -- Idi Amin's order did not kick out "Asians" (i.e. desis) per se, it kicked out British passport holders. You were allowed to stay if you renounced your citizenship in the British Empire, but many desis justifiably feared that if they gave up their passports they would have no recourse and that he would come for them, anyway].
Idi Amin was, in my opinion, a psychotic despot. There is nothing desis could have done to avoid his lunacy, but what makes it sadder, in my opinion, is how the U.K. compounded the damage by refusing to deal honestly with desi-Ugandan refugees. I think its also important to ask why desis became merchants and commercial brokers in the context of the pre-independence (colonial) government; it wasn't because that was what they all wanted to do -- it was a manifestation of a racialized economic order that was kept in place by the British... an order we see replicated in many other British colonies of the time as well.
At any rate, the eviction was awful, horrible, and absolutely overlooked in history.
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I'm not sure if I'm any better-informed, but I do think there are several striking parallels between Indians in Uganda, the Chinese in Indonesia, and Jews in Eastern Europe for that matter:
1 economic success
2.a distinct religious identity--most Chinese Indonesians are Confucian, Buddhist or Christian, for example
3. a relatively homogenous, insular community, that tends not to marry outside the community
4. distinct language
All seem to recipes for fomenting racial/ethnic animosity.
Will someone better informed care to answer some questions?
Only someone of Sir VS Naipaul's stature can really answer your questions.
I am being serious, he has traveled all the countries you talk about, and written travelogues.
He connects all this to India, when it comes to Indian subcontinent diaspora. Indian diaspora, and his own Indianess haunts him.
PS: He has a new book out (not yet for public consumpution), and yesterday I read exclusive excerpts in India Today. It touched a lot of topics you raised. Very interesting take on Gandhi too.
Not exactly, Camille. Idi Amin first kicked out Asians with British passports, but this was expanded to include all Asians. See this BBC headline from Aug 7, 1972: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/7/newsid_2492000/2492333.stm
Anna, very apropos and thought-provoking post, and excellent links. Camille, good points, and Delirium, good questions.
I don't have time to add much right now, but would encourage people who have time to read through the article by Sonya Sanchez that Anna linked. I skimmed it and found it quite insightful. Might post some salient points from it later.
Maybe I'm wrong but somewhere I once read that the desi from Uganda in the early 70's left for mostly the US, UK and Canada. The once who were most educated were accepted in the US and the rest of them ended up in Canada and England. I can recall reading that once.
Amitabh, no worries. :)
::
From what little research I did for this post, it seems like the three segments (white, desi, native Ugandan) did NOT mix...one reason cited on the desi side, was religion. This is a riveting part of the diaspora's history, I want to emphasize that I in no way even scratched the surface, all I had time to do was skim. I thought that was better than nothing, though, b/c this was too important to be relegated to a blurb on the news tab.
I've met so many desis in the US, whose families went through this, who were forever changed by it...it almost reminds me of partition, in the sense that children I know, who were born and raised here, were given just enough information to be scarred by this despite not living through it, but the people telling them stories were too scarred themselves to go in to detail.
Camille is right about the desi community identifying as Ugandan-- I think Kenyandesi has spoken about similarly identifying as, obviously, Kenyan more than anything else. Also, Camille, thank you for clarifying that it was people who held a British passport who were ordered out and not specifically desis. I didn't read that anywhere (prob b/c I was in a rush), it's important to know.
I was telling my granddad about this post, he was in Burundi at the time, family was in Kenya, just scary and tragic. Well-remembered Anna.
Amy Chua at Yale law school has discussed this general issue in her book World on Fire.
I can't recall anything this bad happening in any so called western country to desi's.
No, the western country colonized India, and did shit to them in their own country.
Camille, your last question was the most intriguing one:
Here's a fascinating article discussing the issue:
http://www.guyana.org/features/conflicts_indiansandblacks.html
Kush, I have read an earlier travelogue of Naipaul about Islam in Iran, India and Indonesia in the 70s. I will look fwd to his new book. I find him hard to read even though he makes some good observations because of his condescension and as you rightly pointed out, the ghost of india that haunts him.
EBCD, the circumstances you mentioned also applies to Arabs in Mexico and Central America, Indians/Chinese/Japanese in the US and Europe, Japanese in Brazil etc. And parsis in India (in the earlier days). But none of them face this. Uganda was truly a special case because of Idi Amin, but that is like discounting the culpability of the German nation for one man's insanity.
Will read the links posted by all. thx.
My Mum's Mama is one of those who smuggled out his wealth in jewellery. He knew well in advance what was about to happen thanks to the labourers he was working with at the time. So he flew his kids out the UK, bought them a new home and then would send parcels of clothing (with jewellery wrapped up in the middle) to them from Uganda. The rest they wore out when they left the country for the UK (and eventually the US).
They were the lucky ones of course, my friend's father's family fled with as much as they could carry or wear and little else.
The situation in Fiji where many Fijian Indians fled to nations like NZ in the late '80s had some parallels in that the South Asian population are perceived (regardless of truth) to be holding all of the wealth (a more appropriate parallel would be how the Chinese population are perceived in the Solomon Islands last year).
Of course the current situation there with Bainimara is completely different.
I thought the exact same thing and that's why I chose it. :(
Why is Malaysia different from Indonesia? Is it just numbers?
malaysia instituted the New Economic Plan in the early 70s explicitly to reduce income inequality between the malays and chinese after waves of communal riots. it's pretty much done the trick, though it is a drag on chinese businesses it has prevented the tensions from boiling over. indonesia hasn't done that, 1) the chinese are a much smaller proportion of the population (1-10%, closer to 1, as opposed to 30-40%) 2) the chinese business elite developed a symbiotic relationship with the javanese elite similar to what you saw in poland between jews and the polish nobility.
EBCD, the circumstances you mentioned also applies to Arabs in Mexico and Central America, Indians/Chinese/Japanese in the US and Europe, Japanese in Brazil etc. And parsis in India (in the earlier days).
arabs in most latin american countries are christian, often maronite catholic. that allows a lot of intermarriage and assimilation. the japanese in brazil have generally become catholic and intermarry a far amount as wel.
2.a distinct religious identity--most Chinese Indonesians are Confucian, Buddhist or Christian, for example
3. a relatively homogenous, insular community, that tends not to marry outside the community
4. distinct language
actually, there are two broad chinese communities. from wiki:
Chinese Indonesians whose ancestors immigrated in the first and second waves, and have thus become creolised or huan-na (in Hokkien) by marriage and assimilation, are called Peranakan Chinese. The more recent Chinese immigrants and those who are still culturally Chinese are called Cina Totok.
the totok are "much more chinese." many of the peranakan don't know chinese anymore, and the indonesian gov. has been very strict about curbing expressions of chinese culture over the past 50 years resulting in a fair amount of illiteracy in the chinese language in the recent generations.
one reason cited on the desi side, was religion.
to some extent, i think this is a cop out on the part of indians. i believe a disproportionate number of ugandan asians were muslim (when i had access to the 'world christian database' i noted that the asians in uganda and zimbabwe were more muslim, those in kenya and tanzania more hindu). irshad manji (whose family is ugandan) talks about the religious difference and how the asians were muslim and the blacks non-muslim in one of her books, but this only speaks to ethno-centrism, a small black muslim minority existed in uganda which likely outnumbered the asian muslims. but i doubt the intermarriage rate was higher between asian muslims and black muslims than between asian hindus and blacks of all religions. manji referred to the blacks as non-muslims in a carte blanche manner, but that speaks to a lot of insularity when idi amin was himself a muslim.
What is unfortunate is nothing has changed even today. Having visited Kenya/Ghana/Tanzania on business trips, it was sad to see desis cocooned in their own world and making no effort to mingle with locals at all. This may be non-PC, but the way desis treat local "kalas" is disgusting. It is as if good ol caste system has been imported in toto from motherland. It is not that communication is an issue - English is widely spoken in these countries - just that there is no effort or need to interact with locals. Just make money out of them (situation)
Forget inter-marriage etc, some desis(women, children) may never interact with locals for years - they live in their own gated communities, attend Indian school, temple/mosque. Their only encounter with local perhaps is with customs/immigration folks while entering or exiting the country. Even maids are imported from desh!
If I were a local, I sure would be upset with the desis cocoon mentality in these countries - not upset enough to eat them or feed them to crocodile though!
Things are changing slowly though - new breed of desi workers in Africa are usually white collar ones - professors, doctors, bank, hotel executives, IT folks - who deal extensively with local governments and local people. Indian government is doing its bit too by providing scholarship to students from these countries, giving medical aid, IT center etc. But I am afraid most of the locals have negative view in general of desis in these countries.
But I am afraid most of the locals have negative view in general of desis in these countries.
i recall noting that during riots in durban in the early 20th century the blacks attacked the indian, as opposed to white, quarter of the city. the reason offered is the same as that for while polish peasants attacked jews as opposed to the nobles who the taxes were going to i the end: you see the instrument of oppression and not the oppressors. as middle-men minorities the black experience with indians would be as capitalists who extract profit off the margins. anyway, as alluded to above, this is a general problem with "market dominant minorities," not a particular one between indians and blacks (though the racism and contempt on both sides is a pretty clear and specific epiphenomenal aspect).
EBCD, your link reaffirms what I said -- that all Asians who were not "Ugandan citizens" (i.e. British passport holders) were given 90 days to leave. The reason I limited it to British passports was because very few, if any, Ugandan desis had any other nationality/affiliation. I'm not sure my description is different from that.
ANNA, no problem, and you shouldn't fret -- it's a subtle distinction, but I only bring it up because it explains why some desis stayed behind (and how this was sold as an "anti-imperial/anti-foreigners" aspect of Amin's "Africa for the Africans" campaign). The only reason I knew about the difference was because I was up to my arms in migration data from the UK a few years ago, and the "refugee crisis" is mentioned throughout the UK Home Office's reports from 1972-1973.
Clueless, many Ugandan (desi) refugees fled to the UK and were diverted to India, despite the fact that a large number did not speak any desi languages and did not identify as desi (and were British passport holders). There are still Ugandan desi refugees waiting in India for asylum in the UK. This is the irresponsibility and callousness I was referring to regarding the complicity of the Brits during the expulsion. There's more on their official "evacuation plan" if you look at their HoC white papers from 1973.
camille, did more of these people end up in india/us/uk/europe/other african countries/other places?
iFOB, while I'm not disagreeing with you AT ALL, I think this also depends a bit on what subsector of desis you're interacting with. Kenyandesi could probably offer a more accurate description, but when I was in Kenya it seemed like Nairobi had an element of "white flight" with respect to desis in black communities. That said, among lower-class desis (who are a much smaller % of the desi population) I've seen way more neighborhood-level mixing. There was also a bit less housing segregation in Kisumu (although the segregation was that all rich people -- mostly whites and desis -- live in the same area of town). I'm not really surprised about gated communities though -- it's pretty common for households and neighborhoods all over East Africa to have gates and askaris (guards) if you can afford it.
Also most of these desis (upper and lower class) spoke kiSwahili sanifu, as well as English, a desi language, and usually whatever the prevalent mother tongue was in the area. Maybe this was observer-bias on my part?
Puli, I'm not sure. I think the UK and Canada took the lions' share of refugees, although a LARGE minority were diverted to India. I'm not sure how many fled to East Africa or other European countries.
I'm hoping Msichana and our other commenters who are from/have roots there chime in, too.
Camille said:
I'm not aware of this Camille, would you mind expanding?Years ago, I read a review of a travelog by Paul Theroux (do I hear boos?)and he was pretty snooty about Africa, but one thing that sticks in my crawl was a conversation with an Ugandan about the departed Indians. The Ugandan said that Indians "would sit in their shops and go like this [he made a counting motion with his fingers]; they would sit and do that all day long. It was very annoying. Our people are not like that." So, out with the annoying counters. However,the shops were never re-opened. Theroux surmised that what the man was describing was the simple activity of taking inventory, boring and time-consuming, but necessary to any well-run business. If the Ugandans don't want to do it, if it is beneath them or something, then somebody is going to have to do it. I mean, it's not like the ugandans took the shops over. So I don't get it.
DTK in #36 mentions Amy Chua's book "World on Fire"--it's come up on SM many times and is well worth your time. The book outlines what Chua calls "market dominant minorities," insular ethnic or immigrant groups that dominate a trade or sector, make lots of money, and are resented by the poorer indigenous population. The Ugandan Asians are one of her examples (along with the Chinese in SE Asia, Jews in Russia, Lebanese in various places, Hutus/Tutsis, etc.). The book begins with the story of the murder of Chua's aunt in the Philippines. Her family is Chinese--the woman was killed by Filipino servant (link).
One interesting thing from the fallout after the Idi Amin purge: the Aga Khan promised to safeguard the Ismaili community against similar actions in the future anywhere in the world. After Uganda, he lobbied other countries like Canada to receive and resettle refugees. He also promised financial and logistical support (much like the Israeli airlifts out of the Russia). The result is that the considerably wealthy Ismaili communities in Africa have plowed their resources into his community development philanthropies. There are Aga Khan schools, orphanages, trade projects, hotels, hospitals (many of them world class) all over Africa, and the interesting thing is that the target for these services isn't usually people of Indian descent (they don't need them) but black Africans. Helping the poor and less fortunate is central to Ismaili life, and it's the right thing to do, of course, and in Africa, it's had the added effect of making the Ismaili community (and Indians generally) more secure.
Despite the more recent events in Uganda, which Anna mentions (and the story there is more complex than it seems), it's really hard to imagine a government-sponsored ethnic backlash against Indians in east or South Africa (yes, there will always be communal flareups of one sort or another, but that's an entirely different thing from a repeat of the Amin event).
was doing some googling--is there anything to the story that Amin wanted to marry a woman from the Madvani family and of course, this was not possible as far the Indians were concerned? And this caused his tsunami against the desis? After all, he was a psycho.
Shalu, please see my response in #47 to Clueless for a little background information on the UK Home Office's "diversion" policy.
Umm as far as I know....there are no longer Jewish quotas(at least since WWII) at any university in the US, nor would they be legal. The only groups capable of benefiting from such help are underrepresented minorities.....some say to the detriment of Asians and Indians...but thats another story.
I'm from Kenya and my folks and siblings still live there. I also have friends who live in Uganda. They went back after Yoweri Museveni took over in the mid eighties. One of the things that drove people back was the promise of business opportunities and the transfer of property to their names despite Idi Amin seizing them. A lot of them are loaded now because they struck where the iron was hot. I know that the same is happening with Somalia where a lot of Indians are venturing out for business ventures. Heck, I know folks who are in Congo right this minute, dipping their fingers in the diamond trade.
Having grown in Kenya, the one thing I can say is that the general animosity and distrust between the Asian Indian community and the native blacks is something that is definitely two sided. Inter-marriage between the two groups is very uncommon and the general idea is that the Indians are foreigners who are mooching off the motherland and the blacks are the kind of people that need to be controlled the way the colonialists did. Of course, there are exceptions to this but that's the general idea.
Seveleven, I have heard that rumour too. Mayur Madhwani was one of the first Asians to make it big there. I believe he left Uganda during the exodus, went to UK and then returned.
Preston, you are very right about this. From time to time, a politician like Kenneth Matiba will start to rile up disgruntled and jobless young people and get them to riot against the asian invasion etc, but it doesn't always bear fruit. With the exception of some Asians who get famous because of their criminal business deals like Ketan Somaia and Kamlesh Pattni, majority of the Indians in E.Africa tend to stay under the radar. The people in power understand the economic clout that the community wields.
My grandparents, my mom, and my uncle went through this. They have told me that the UK was trying to divert skilled desis to America, and that's how they ended up in Houston. So I'm pretty sure a lot of refugees came to America. Kenya and neighboring countries all closed their borders, so families couldn't join each other there, either. From their stories, the worst part was the concentration camps they had to stay in for a while. I can't imagine being subject to that.
@Camille--they do speak Swahili--most kids have to take it in school. My dad, uncle, aunt and grandparents still speak in Swahili when they don't want us to understand what they're talking about.
Camille, that is still the case. I have family in Tanzania that speaks the kind of Kiswahili poetry is written in while my mom, who grew up in india, has a more desified version. I speak the business tongue better because that is what I learnt in school. However, I know of desis who actually speak dialects such as Kikuyu pretty well too.
Sad to see they might been hit with more racism once they hit the UK. There's a movie called 'This is England' showing skinheads in 80's UK. The skinhead were blaming there unemployement on the south asians.
Here's a scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc4XX3QcRJY
Interesting coming from someone who was rumored to be somewhat of a cannibal himself!
I have met people that were displaced by this, but I never understood this situation. This rarely gets any media attention in the US. Can someone please mention a good book concerning this topic?
Someone I know told me the story of how when she was talking to high-powered black politicians in Trinidad, they started talking about the Indian population "like the white colonialists did about the blacks" (her words, and she's a black Trinidadian).
The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith (it's about a female private investigator in Botswana, sometime in the
'70s I believe) has an amusing bit about how the P.I. is hired to follow the daughter of a local Indian businessman and make sure she doesn't have a boyfriend. The girl ends up fooling the Mma Ramotswe into thinking that she's just going on 'dates' with herself (to stick it to her dad), and after Mma has told her father this, she finds the girl at the mall hand-in-hand with some white d00d. heh.
Uh, the point of that little anecdote was to show that I'm continuously awestruck by how widespread and vibrant the desi diaspora is. Part of my family lives in Kenya, and I know relations there still aren't that great. Thanks for this post anna.
Could anything (peaceful) have been done to prevent a dictator like Amin take over? Did he appear like a Hitler in the early stages of his rise to power? Of course, he acted like Hitler after taking over Uganda.
Uganda was a really sad situation. And even though there are horrible atrocities raging right now, like Sudan and Iraq, it's still hard to believe something like this could have happened not so long ago. Even sadder that this continues today.
Knowing so many people around the world have had experiences of such extreme violence and hardship, it is curious to see that it continues. This tells me that their stories are not being told enough, so I am grateful to forums like SM doing their part. It would be great if such survivors were able to do more to speak out against/fight such human rights violations today. However, I understand and am very sensitive to the fact that they have the right to mourn and cope with the trauma they have faced both in their own way and on their own terms.
Also relating to this, I just rented The Last King of Scotland from netflix and have yet to watch it. But for those who don't know, it is heavily based on a British doctor's experience in Amin's Uganda. It received tons of critical acclaim. Does someone who has watched the film know whether it portrays this particular tragedy?
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/last_king_of_scotland/
naz- I saw it, and my memory is fuzzy, but I think it did show Asian families packing up and leaving, in the streets, etc. This was near the climax of the movie I think. *SPOILER* *SPOILER*
*SPOILER*
If I remember correctly, the main character gets away on a plane to england that is full of mostly Asian families.
>>
IFOB hit the nail on the head. That is is the sole reason Africans still hate Indians (Asians). We never bothered nor cared to integrate or respect the black African. All we (Indian businessman) cared about was making money off them. We never contributed to charities, helped the poor, etc....
thanks for the warning, but i don't mind the spoiler. i'm sure it's still worth a view.
also, just wanted to say the first time i heard about the expulsion of indians from uganda was in mira nair's film Mississippi Masala, which did a decent portrayal of the terror that erupted.
i wonder which other films have portrayed this event, does anyone know of any other american, indian, or british films that have?
ANECDOTE FROM BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/18/newsid_3113000/3113720.stm
Nikesh Patel was seven-years-old when his family was expelled from Uganda.
"We could only take the equivalent of £5 with us. Of course Uganda became a buyers' paradise as Asians began to offload all their life-long possessions.
"I clearly remember a Ugandan gentleman coming home to see and then buy our sofas.
"The journey to the UK was bewildering to say the least. We chose to depart on a Monday night BOAC flight - we did not have UK visas (though we held UK passports and were UK citizens).
'Awfully cold'
"But on Mondays the immigration staff were worse for wear after a weekend of indulgence - so we got through with no hassle.
"Upon arriving in the UK I remember it was awfully cold, and we were met by a whole phalanx of cameramen and journalists - my head was spinning.
"Duly we were despatched to a detention centre in Feltham as we did not have visas.
"So there was I, a seven-year-old, forced to leave my country of birth to go to another country I had barely heard of, and had the pleasure of staying in a detention centre the first week of arrival.
Asians suffered very minimally compared to the indigenous Ugandans we left behind
Nikesh Patel
"Saying that, the detention centre was great. The staff were kind, and allowed us to do what we pleased except escape.
"I have been in the UK ever since. I feel grateful to the UK for taking us in - though this is tinged with the latter knowledge that it was UK government policy that brought Amin to power - so a part of me truly feels that the UK deserved to be dumped upon by thousands of Asians.
"Anyway we are well settled now, many of us are highly successful due to hard work and the opportunities that living in a developed nation brings with it.
"Ultimately I suppose we have to be grateful to Mr Amin. But he was an absolute monster - Asians suffered very minimally compared to the indigenous Ugandans we left behind."
Quoting from it:
The racial politics of the Caribbean are very complex and not entirely analogous the situation of Indians and blacks in Africa. In some Caribbean countries, like Guyana and Trinidad, the black and Indian populations are roughly equal--each is just under half the population. At various times, the governments are controlled by black parties or Indian parties. The racial dynamic is entrenched but only as a feature of the mid-20th century, when these places became independent of Britain. You can't really say that Guyana or Trinidad, for example, has native population (the pre-colonial tribal people were annihilated). Those countries have two racially distinct groups vying for control. Each demonizes the other.
But Indians in the Caribbean tend to be better off economically as a community, in part because remittances from the diaspora in North America and Britain are very strong.
So Sanjay and IFOB,
Then I guess Jewish racism is the reason why Jews were gassed in Europe, and Chinese racism is the reason why Chinese are treated like $hit in Indonesia and Malaysia, and I guess Indian racism towards whites is the reason why sometimes there is isolated violence against Indians and Indian-Americans in the US, Black Racism towards white Americans is the reason why Blacks were and are still treated badly in the US ,Right? According to you there can NEVER be Black African racism directed towards Indian-origin Africans, right?
Uh-oh--you sound like a victim of post-Camille "sensitivity training"--stiff upper lip, old egg!
(I kid.)
Camille--you're right, I didn't read your original post closely enough
Naz/Nala--re The Last King of Scotland. The movie moved some events around and changed some facts (e.g., it shows one of Amin's wives being killed and dismembered for having an affair with the white Scottish doctor who is the central character in the novel; it is true that she was killed in the manner shown in the movie, but allegedly for having an affair with Mbalu-Mukasa, a Ugandan doctor) to suit the narrative, but I think it got a lot of things right. It does depict Amin's expulsion of the Asian community and the chaos that ensues. The white guy gets away by sneaking onto a plane of hostages being released during the Entebbe rescue.
I saw the movie on DVD a few weeks ago, and I thought the movie was great. The DVD extras--in particular, the short documentary on Amin and interviews with Ugandan cast members--were terrific.
sanjay:All we (Indian businessman) cared about was making money off them.
Economics/trade/WealthCreation is not a zero-sum game. It is easy for most politicians to gain support with zero-sum rhetoric, than work hard educating people that their daily transactions are not zero-sum.
Bloodsucker is a leftist term for anyone who succeeds in business. Indians, especially gujaratis, were very business oriented in East Africa. Thus, they were labeled bloodsucker because in the leftist zero-sum worldview, anyone who gets ahead must mean someone got screwed. The word has been applied at various times to Jews pretty much anywhere outside the US, Chinese in Indonesia and other places in southeast Asia, and Lebanese in Africa. It excuses and allows the expression of hate and dehumanizes the ones on the receiving end.
As a brown person, the greatest thing about America is how little people here hate the rich. Most middle class Americans dont hate Sergey Brin or Bill Gates. Rather, they want to be as successful as them. Its only the extreme left of academia that breeds resentment of success these days. As long as business people are not hated in America, I will feel safe as a brown guy.
Before you go to those beautiful resorts in the Maldives, check out what they are doing to workers from Bangladesh right now:
Bangladeshi Castrated In Haa Daal Horror Death
And many of those resorts in the Maldives are owned and operated by Indian luxury groups--Taj, Oberoi, etc.
Indians are celebrated in the west for their 'entrepreneurial spirit', but Indians in Africa, Carib., and my homeland Fiji, had an altogether different experience. There the 'desire for a better life' was (and IS) used to dehumanize Indians:
http://www.culturecult.com/spiked1a.htm#dereliction
At a dinner given in his honor Theroux meets the vice-chancellor of the University of Malawi and a sometime Malawian ambassador to Germany. The subject of the expulsion of Indian traders and shop-keepers comes up. “The Indians were chased away,” says the ex-ambassador. “We wanted Africans to be given a chance to run the shops. So that Africans could go into business. The shops were handed over. I bought one myself!”
With what result? asks Theroux.
Ha-ha! Not much. It didn’t work. They all got finished!
The result of this deliberate destruction of Indian commercial activity was that throughout Malawi’s rural areas there were soon no shops at all—“and, twenty-seven years later, still no shops.” When Theroux points this out the ex-ambassador turns to ridiculing Indian business acumen as a contemptible numerical obsession. “They sit there, you see, and they have these little pieces of paper, and have these columns of numbers. And one Indian is running the calculator, and another is counting the sacks of flour and the tins of condensed milk. One-two-three. One-two-three.”
Theroux comments:
What this educated African in his plummy British voice intended as mockery—the apparent absurdity of all this counting—was the description of people doing a simple inventory of goods in a shop.
“We Africans are not raised in this way,” the ex-ambassador goes on, nodding to the others for approval. “What do we care about shops and counting? We have a much freer existence. We have no interest in this. Shops are not our strong point.” Then as the evening draws to a close he finally acknowledges another problem—the inability, in societies dominated by family, clan, and tribe, to protect one’s property from communal exploitation by parasitic relatives:
I’ll tell you why these shops didn’t work out, said the former ambassador, addressing the table at large. When Africans run businesses their families come and stay with them and eat all their food—just live off them. As soon as an African succeeds in something he has his family cadging from him. Not so?
That is true, brother, the other man said.
And we are not cut out for this shop-keeping and book-keeping and (he winked at me) this number crunching.
This infuriates Theroux:
I had never heard such bullsh*t… The man was saying: This is all too much for us. We cannot learn how to do business. We must be given money, we must be given sinecures, because we don’t know how to make a profit.
I said, If you’re no good at book-keeping and keeping track of expenses, why do you expect donor countries to go on giving you money?
Well Said Krish,It is non-PC,but a damned fact. Indians are resented because we did well in their countries when they couldnt. And after they ran the Indians out, screwed up their economies with their policies, the bowl was out again and the bowl continues to come out everytime the $hit hits the fan in these hellholes. Pointing this out is not racism but merely asking folks to take responsibility for their actions. It is time aid stopped to these countries and let them sink or swim. And let them have their "carefree" existence that they so desire.
Bro, I really can't get over the irony. Brownies of the Silicon Valley mold are celebrated worldwide for their business acumen. But, Indians in the former British colonies are labelled selfish, greedy, and just about everything else... for showing that SAME entrepreneurial spirit.
The person who pointed out the lack of a political voice as the cause for the problems in India hit it directly on the head.
This is not so much true in the other places. But in those places, there is a great deal of xenophobia that is riled up by politicans to make people fear 'Indian domination' (a message that has the same effect on voters everywhere from Guyana to Fiji).
But, underlying it all is the kind of sentiment reflected in my previous post.
Im not supporting Amins' actions whatsoever, but it is a little known that part of the reason for the resentment against the Asians living in Africa was not just becase of their economic progress, but that the money they did make in Africa was sent to foreign banks, ususally British ones, which upset the people living in Africa because it was the same as what the colonials had done to them earlier.
Krish***, I think one of the major gaps (around why you couldn't transition shops/banking) was what the foreign minister implied -- that once you succeed your whole family/community comes and expects you to share your wealth or give them free products --, and the other is that when desis occupied the mercantile class there wasn't much opportunity for locals to get the training they needed to take it over (qualifier: in rural areas).
I don't think that the characterization provided by the Malawian is entirely accurate, but I do think there was a bit of a skills vacuum after the initial expulsion. As Akash mentions, there was also resentment that people don't invest locally and that they don't promote/train black Africans or treat them fairly. I heard both complaints fairly regularly when I was in Jinja (Uganda) -- that 1) Indians always send their money "back home" [to India], and 2) that they don't treat us as human. Exceptions were of course viewed that way -- as exceptions, that those people were "good Indians, more Ugandan than Indian" versus "bad Indians" who send their money oversees and treat you like a thief.
The places where Indians are resented for their economic success (where they are market-dominant minorities) are the places where general economic opportunity is unavailable. Indians are not resented in Silicon Valley because lots of non-Indians (and other ethnic groups) have made plenty of money. Indians are less resented in Kenya now than they were a generation ago because today there is a strong entrepreneurial black middle class.
Every diaspora country is different, and every Indian diaspora group has a different, often complicated, relationship with the country. Racial politics and economic politics are not the same thing, even if the economic conflict takes on racial tones.
What has made Indians so successful in places where economic opportunity is limited is that Indian diaspora groups are really good about leveraging collective resources, exploiting family and community ties, sharing profits, and taking care of each other. It's like the law of compound interest. For many years, there is little to show, but after a decade, Indians can become quite wealthy, even in places with little wealth. And it's not just one fat cat, but the whole community. So the locals resent without understanding.
This is not all necessarily to the long-term good. Indians in East Africa were active early on in the political systems of the various countries, but over time (and for many reasons) have abandoned politics (there are few Indian MPs, mayors, etc.). South African Indians have been, and still are, very politically active--and they are not a market-dominant minority and are not as wealthy collectively as their counterparts elsewhere in Africa.
If I were to list the 'crimes' that locals felt were comitted against them by Indians, the list could go on forever.
I'm sorry, but I have very little sympathy for that kind of sentiment. For one thing, the lists of 'crimes' are filled with half-truths and 'perceived' wrongs and some of the worst racial ideologies ever.
The recent unrest in Uganda was because an Indian conglomerate wanted to utilize protected forests for sugar cane farming. The rally which was called to protest the government concession started out masked as concern for the environment. But as the crowd grew larger, the xenophobic sentiment reared its ugly head and they rounded up and lynched an Indian man.
These Indian businessman are ruthless people. They use their power and position to foster uncompetitive and unsustainable practices--don't forget corruption. They show very little concern for the environment or people, for that matter. Like monied people everywhere, they don't care for anyone who doesn't have it... regardless of race.
Unfortunately, when there is a backlash, they are the one's who already have houses in other countries. The Indians left behind to deal with the mob violence are the unfortunate ones.
Regardless, the EMPTY ideologies which pop up to scapegoat Indians in these countries have to be pointed out.
Until they come up with evidence that Indians are getting bank officers to deny them loans to start businesses, I will have very little sympathy for them.