Sitting On Fire

On August 4, 1972, the President of Uganda, General Idi Amin, declared that there was no place for the “over eighty thousand Asians holding British passports who were sabotaging Uganda’s economy and encouraging corruption.” He gave all Ugandans of South-Asian descent only ninety days to leave the country, creating an international humanitarian crisis.

South Asians have a long history in East Africa, with some accounts dating as far back as the second century. Indian merchants participated in a vibrant trading network in the Indian Ocean and on the Arabian Peninsula, offering items such as cotton cloth, beads, and sundry manufactured goods in exchange for ivory, gold, incense, and slaves. The African slave trade was so rampant that by the fifteenth century the King of Bengal, in northeast India, possessed eight thousand African slaves.

Migration from the Indian subcontinent to East Africa increased significantly after the 1840s, coinciding with the expansion of British colonialism. In 1894, the area that is now Uganda became a protectorate of the British Empire. With British protection extended to all Indians, individuals made the choice to move to other colonies within the Empire because of deteriorating access to arable land, food, and employment opportunities in the Indian subcontinent. There were three major categories of South-Asian migrants: merchants and traders; civil servants; and indentured labourers who arrived between 1896 and 1901 to build the Uganda Railway.

The majority of South Asians came from the northern regions of India, including Gujarat and Punjab, and from the former Portuguese colony of Goa in the southwest of India. Initially, South-Asian merchants who migrated to Uganda set up small shops, or dukhas, in which they sold modest quantities of exotic consumer goods to farmers and, in return, purchased food items. The success of the dukhawallahs, as these shopkeepers were known in Uganda, created resentment among Ugandan Africans, who criticized them as self-interested, corrupt, obsessed with turning a profit, and unpatriotic. Over time, the dominance of South Asians in the retail trade diminished in the face of competition from Ugandan Africans. Starting in the 1900s, many Ugandan Asians moved into the rising wholesale and manufacturing sectors.

Besides the dukhawallahs, government officials from Goa were brought to Uganda to replicate bureaucratic systems of colonial rule established in India. Finally, thirty-two thousand Indian workers were recruited to build railways in Uganda and Kenya. Of those workers, 6,742 decided to stay in East Africa after the completion of the railway system. The labourers who chose to remain in East Africa, as well as their descendants, were later branded by Amin as those “who forgot to go home.”

As the community grew, Ugandan Asians sent word back home of the numerous opportunities available in East Africa, thereby encouraging further migration. The number of Ugandan Asians rose from 5,604 in 1921 to 77,400 in 1961. Following the First World War, many Ugandan Asians embraced life in East Africa by developing increased levels of fluency in Swahili. They viewed East Africa as their permanent home and began to live in smaller towns. Many members of the Ugandan-Asian community engaged in small-scale philanthropic and humanitarian efforts with their African labourers. Historian Phillip Gregory found that many Ugandan Asians developed close relationships with Ugandan Africans and often subsidized their school fees.

Amin’s expulsion decree became official on August 9, 1972. With it, the president declared that all Ugandans of South-Asian descent had ninety days to leave the country, or else they would be “sitting on fire.” Ugandan Asians were confused when they first heard the announcement. Errol Francis recalled how “everybody laughed because, you know, they thought: This is a joke. How can you expel your own citizens? … So anyways, we thought, this is nonsense.” Mobina Jaffer remembered how, at her sister’s wedding in August 1972, “we all laughed, we didn’t take it seriously…. ‘Ha, ha, ha, he wants us out. What next? Ha, ha.’” Over the next thirty days, Amin’s government created further confusion by releasing numerous conflicting amendments and exemptions outlining a select few who could remain after the deadline. Amin Visram described how a Ugandan immigration officer turned down his family: “[He] said, ‘Give me your passports,’ and while we were watching him, he threw them in the garbage.” Nearly eight thousand Ugandan Asians were rendered stateless during the verification process, even if they were Ugandan citizens. To add to the general confusion, Amin's cited figure of eighty thousand Ugandan Asians in the country was incorrect. Scholars place the real number closer to fifty thousand.

The challenge for Ugandan Asians pertained to their citizenship. Those who had retained British, Indian, or Pakistani citizenship following Ugandan independence were eligible to be resettled in their countries of citizenship. However, all those who had opted for Ugandan citizenship now had their citizenship revoked and were rendered stateless by Amin’s regime.

When Amin announced the expulsion decree, Britain immediately called for aid from the Commonwealth community to take in refugees. At the time, the United Kingdom was facing increasing challenges with race relations. Prime Minister Edward Heath had been elected in 1970 based on an anti-immigration platform, as thousands of people had recently immigrated from former British colonies including Kenya, Tanzania, and Zanzibar following decolonization and successful independence movements. Another request for help came directly to Prime Minister Trudeau from Prince Shah Karim al-Husayni, Aga Khan IV, the spiritual leader of the Shia Nizari Ismaili Muslim community. Many Ismailis in Uganda were directly affected by the order, and the Aga Khan asked Trudeau, his close personal friend, to provide a safe haven for his community.

At the Canadian immigration office in Kampala, officials followed standard procedures when assessing applicants, including completing applications, interviewing individuals, and conducting medical examinations. Manpower and Immigration officials considered the overall operation to be a success, leading to more than six thousand visas being issued. The process of leaving Uganda was harrowing: Expellees were allowed to leave the country with only one suitcase of personal belongings each and the equivalent of $143 per household. They often had their personal items confiscated at the numerous checkpoints that had been installed on the main roads to Kampala, and they were routinely strip-searched at the Entebbe International Airport. Still, by November 8, the expulsion deadline, 4,420 Ugandan Asian expellees had arrived on Canadian soil via chartered aircraft, 204 had travelled independently, and another 1,735 who wished to make their own travel arrangements had been granted visas.

The first charter flight from Entebbe International Airport, outside Kampala, to Montreal’s Dorval International Airport landed on September 28, 1972. Refugees were taken to the nearby Canadian Forces Base Longue- Pointe for a meal, some rest, and further processing on the following day. Many refugees remembered the reception at the military base as a warm welcome, and they particularly commented on the food. The head military chef had received training from a local Indian restaurant. “You know, I cried when I saw the Indian curry, chicken curry, and pilau being cooked for us,” Ishad Razack recalled. “I said, ‘There are people, and then there are people.’” Refugees went through the agricultural and immigration clearance interviews with Manpower counsellors, received allowances of pocket money, and were offered winter clothing.

Interviews were integral to placing refugees in areas that matched their occupational skills and in attempting to reconnect them with family members who had arrived earlier. Azim Sarangi recalled how his family was able to reunite with his sister in St. Albert, Alberta, just west of Edmonton: “They were asking where we should go, where we wanted to go…. If you had family, or if you had the means, then the government would say, okay, we will get you there, and then you are on your own.”

Canada had answered the call for aid amid numerous developments at home: the Cold War contest between capitalism and communism; a reformulation of Canadian identity after the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism; high rates of unemployment; and the official deracialization of Canadian immigration policy, which had previously favoured white immigrants. All of this formed the backdrop for the arrival of nearly eight thousand Ugandan Asian refugees by the end of 1974.

To support the resettlement process, twelve Ugandan- Asian committees were formed in Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, Windsor, Sarnia, Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver. They were composed of members of local volunteer organizations and religious and ethnic communities as well as civil servants from all levels of government. They served as prominent social hubs for refugees to meet with government officials and with Canadians who wished to lend a helping hand. They also helped the newcomers to connect with other refugees and discuss their early experiences of life in Canada. The committees also aimed to combat criticism from the Canadian public pertaining to high unemployment rates and concerns over integration. Committees were designed to support refugees with access to the job market, to assist in locating suitable housing, and to organize orientation activities. The committees and Canada Manpower Centres were incredibly successful in finding employment opportunities for Ugandan-Asian refugees. By March 9, 1973, they had helped 2,041 refugees who had arrived on charter flights secure employment, while 308 refugees were participating in a Canada Manpower training program.

Settling in Canada was not a linear process. At times Canadians offered the refugees a warm welcome. Shiraz Lalani recalled how the Friends of Uganda Refugees (FOUR), established by faculty members at the University of Waterloo, hosted him when he arrived. Lalani remembered the Manpower counsellor telling him, “‘You are going to stay with one of the professors. He has invited you to his house, and he is going to take care of you and get you on your feet.’ … That was amazing that they would do this.” Terrence Francis was offered accommodations for his entire family of four in Thornhill, Ontario: “They took us to the basement, and it was all done up. He said, ‘Listen, you are here as our guests. This house is your house, this is where you can sleep, you can go anywhere in the house you want, and what we have is yours.’ … They were just unbelievably wonderful people.”

However, other refugees endured racial discrimination and prejudice upon resettlement. While government documents paint a rosy picture of employment outcomes for Ugandan-Asian refugees, many were underemployed and were expected to demonstrate Canadian experience. Jalal Jaffer epitomized the reality for many refugees, as his foreign credentials as a lawyer were not recognized and he lacked Canadian work experience: “Coming here was not a pleasant experience at first, as you know, to come here to get any kind of job you need Canadian experience…. What is Canadian experience? I mean, if you’re a lawyer, a secretary, or whatever, you have experience. So it was tough to get a job. But the more devastating thing for me was they wouldn’t accept my qualifications.” Others had applied to positions that were on par with their skills and expertise but, upon arrival at an interview, were offered only an entry-level position. Vinnay Datani recalled applying for an engineering position at Canadian Pacific Railway and being offered a position of labourer. When he questioned the interviewer, he said he was told, “you can apply for the CEO position, but I have a job that is a labourer job.… If you want, take it. If you don’t want it, I’ve got somebody else on the list.”

Beyond employment discrimination, refugees encountered mixed reactions from the public. In St. Catharines, Ontario, Karim Nanji was made fun of at school. “I was the only brown person in my class,” he said. “My name was Karim, so people thought that ‘cream in my coffee’ would be a better name to call me. So they would constantly tease me about that. They would call me chocolate milk.” For Amin Visram, bullying escalated into a fist fight when a classmate confronted him and his friend, punching his friend while yelling a racist obscenity at both of them. “I grabbed this guy, and I just went nuts. I started punching him,” Visram recalled.

My mother, Shamim Muhammedi, remembered how a new manager at her job explicitly told her that he would have dated her if she had been white: “He would say, you know, ‘You are so pretty. It’s too bad you’re brown, you are not white. I wish you were white, because I would love to take you out.’” While many refugees who participated in oral-history interviews noted how prejudice and racism dissipated over time, it was still a significant element in their first years of settlement in Canada.

Over the years, refugees began to put down roots and to create new homes in Canada. While identity formation is constantly in flux and continuously evolving, all the Ugandan-Asian refugees I interviewed identified themselves as Canadians. While some had hyphenated identities — such as Ugandan-Asian-Canadians, Ismaili-Canadians, or Goan-Canadians — and others simply considered themselves Canadian, they all defined themselves as having an attachment to the country. Aminmohamed Jamal, for example, stated: “I am Canadian … one hundred per cent. I believe in the values of Canada.” Similarly, the late John Halani noted that his identity was simple: “We are citizens of this country, so our loyalty is to Canada, and we play our role in the day-to-day affairs of this country.”

Zaina Sovani described how her identity is in constant flux between Canadian and Ugandan, “a mixture of all, it’s a mélange of the two.” John Nazareth saw himself as embodying numerous affiliations that accentuate his historical roots: “I am a Canadian, a Ugandan, an African, an Indian, and a Goan … and I embrace all of them. They are all part of [my] psyche, and when I am with Ugandan Africans something almost goes click in my brain, and I joke like a Ugandan.”

Regardless of their expressions of identity, possession of Canadian citizenship, and nearly fifty years of living in Canada, Ugandan Asians still face numerous questions about their ethnic and racial backgrounds. Errol Francis remarked, “If you answer ‘Where are you from?’ with ‘I’m Canadian,’ people … don’t accept that as an answer, right? That unfortunately will last for the next umpteen generations … because people associate if you are Canadian you have to be Caucasian, right? I mean, that’s how it will always be, because they want to know your ancestry, and they want to know where you actually come from.” Errol’s remarks were echoed by many Ugandan-Asian refugees and embody how integration is an endless process for many immigrant communities, particularly for people of colour.