England Faces the Great Migration

The trouble with Uganda’s Asians is success. As a group they are more astute, frugal and hardworking than Uganda’s Africans, so they have become rich. They are in fact a very rich community; they own most of the stores, garages, import-export businesses and so on, they also own the big sugar estates; they are at the top of most professional ladders. So Africans are jealous, just as in Europe people were jealous of the Jews and either slaughtered them in pogroms, or threw them out on their ears. For the same reason the bulky, ex-heavyweight army boxing champion Idi Amin, President of Uganda since his military coup in January 1971, is throwing out the Asians to seize most of their property, wealth and chattels, and thus win the lasting gratitude of his African followers. It is rather like Henry VIII despoiling the monasteries, except that President Amin, being a Moslem, has four official wives and no problems relating to divorce.

This mass expulsion is as brutal, abrupt and total as any in history, and certain to be popular with rank-and-file Africans. They don’t like Asians, and never have, for the reason given. To justify this dislike they advance the usual reasons: Asians won’t mix with Africans, they are arrogant and clannish, they send their money home to India and Pakistan instead of investing it in Uganda. This last argument is patently false; if it were true, they would not own nearly all the major businesses, clearly a result of investing money in the country concerned. Moreover the government of Uganda, like a great many others, operates stringent controls against the export of money. No doubt some of the Asians manage to find loopholes, just as some of the African ministers do who stash money in banks in Switzerland.

EH

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Elspeth Huxley

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The trouble with Uganda’s Asians is success. As a group they are more astute, frugal and hardworking than Uganda’s Africans, so they have become rich. They are in fact a very rich community; they own most of the stores, garages, import-export businesses and so on, they also own the big sugar estates; they are at the top of most professional ladders. So Africans are jealous, just as in Europe people were jealous of the Jews and either slaughtered them in pogroms, or threw them out on their ears. For the same reason the bulky, ex-heavyweight army boxing champion Idi Amin, President of Uganda since his military coup in January 1971, is throwing out the Asians to seize most of their property, wealth and chattels, and thus win the lasting gratitude of his African followers. It is rather like Henry VIII despoiling the monasteries, except that President Amin, being a Moslem, has four official wives and no problems relating to divorce.

This mass expulsion is as brutal, abrupt and total as any in history, and certain to be popular with rank-and-file Africans. They don’t like Asians, and never have, for the reason given. To justify this dislike they advance the usual reasons: Asians won’t mix with Africans, they are arrogant and clannish, they send their money home to India and Pakistan instead of investing it in Uganda. This last argument is patently false; if it were true, they would not own nearly all the major businesses, clearly a result of investing money in the country concerned. Moreover the government of Uganda, like a great many others, operates stringent controls against the export of money. No doubt some of the Asians manage to find loopholes, just as some of the African ministers do who stash money in banks in Switzerland.