Do
Asians face a racial divide in Africa?
By
Simon Denyer in Nairobi
When a UN conference on racism begins in Durban, South Africa, on August 31 the continent’s colonial past and today’s relations between whites and blacks will be high on the agenda.
But thousands of miles away in East Africa, it is not white versus black but black versus Asian which stands out as perhaps the greater racial and social divide. More than 100 years after they first arrived in East Africa, Asian settlers still seem to have a precarious foothold.
Nearly 30 years after Ugandan dictator Idi Amin expelled tens of thousands of his Asian co-citizens, mutual distrust still haunts relations between Asians and Africans.
It was Amin who first tapped in to Ugandans’ growing resentment of the Asian community, and what was perceived as their exploitative control of the local economy.
At the same time in neighbouring Kenya, a wave of Africanisation saw thousands of Asians who had not taken Kenyan nationality lose their shops.
The Asian community weathered that storm, but only just. There are probably fewer than 70,000 Asians in Kenya today, perhaps a quarter of their pre-independence peak, and thousands are leaving every year, escaping crime and a troubled economy.
In Uganda, few have returned since Amin’s day, despite an invitation from President Yoweri Museveni and even though most of their confiscated properties have now been given back.
Politicians still take occasional pot shots at Asians. Tanzanian Trade Minister Iddi Simba recently complained that five rich Asian businessmen controlled half of trade in the country, and called for a new wave of “indigenisation”.
It is in the cities and the workplace that resentment runs highest - the caricature of a grumpy Asian boss shouting at his lazy African workers still strikes a chord among many people.
Amin Gwaderi, a Kenyan Asian who has worked for years to try to break down racial barriers, sums up the mutual suspicion:
“Asians’ view of Africans is that they cannot be left to work on their own, they are lazy, they are thieves. Africans view Asians as out to exploit them, and say they (Asians) have absolutely no respect for them or concern for their welfare.”
It is a different story further south, where many Indians fought alongside blacks in the struggle against apartheid.
When democracy arrived in 1994, many Indians were rewarded for their role in the struggle with senior government positions - four of the 27 cabinet ministers are of Asian origin, even though Asians make up only 2.5 per cent of the population.
Nevertheless, there are creeping signs of disaffection. “Relations are in transition,” said Lawrence Schlemmer, vice-president of the South African Institute of Race Relations.
In the Kenyan capital Nairobi, Asians have their own social and sports clubs, their own neighbourhoods, their own evenings at the local night-clubs.
Many live in compounds behind high walls and barbed wire fences, a powerful symbol of their separation from the rest of Kenyan life.
It is a separation born partly of insecurity, partly of the rules of religion and caste.
Prabhudas Pattni, chairman of the Hindu Council of Kenya like Gwaderi, is an optimist. Both see racial barriers breaking down as their children grow up in mixed schools and learn to become part of a wider Kenyan community.
In 1998, Kenyan society was deeply traumatised by a bomb attack on the U.S. embassy that left over 200 people dead. Many Asians rushed to help, donating blood, time and money to help the wounded. Pattni recalls a leading Kenyan journalist describing his reaction.
“He said that for the first time we feel like the Asians are a tribe of Kenyans,” Pattni recalled. “That really touched me. That is how we see ourselves, and that is how it should be.”
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