How did the Africans see the Asian émigrés?
My thoughts are turning to the forthcoming 40th anniversary of the Asian expulsion from Uganda. September 2012 will see the completion of four decades of life after Amin, an initial period of adjustment, but then onwards as hard work, reward and reflection for many Asians like me who arrived in the UK, and others in US and Canada as young graduates.
My title reflects on how the East African Africans saw the predicament of the departing Asians. The popular view was that the Africans were delighted beyond their wildest beliefs. It was a windfall, a lottery and a goldmine for people who always envied the Asian for their prosperity and accumulated wealth which came from ‘two centuries’ of hard work. There was also a great deal of sadness in the minds of the departing Asians. The vast majority of working class Asians had never planned to leave and had always seen their future in Uganda even though their plans did not reflect a real stakeholder status as citizens and nationals with a long-term commitment. Many took the world for granted in which the bus would wait for them at the bus stop until they were ready to climb in. However, the vast majority had no choices to make; they were working class Asians disguised as shopkeepers and artisans. What the African saw in the well stocked Asian shops was the affluent shopkeeper who often practiced unfair trade practices such as price discrimination. Did they know that the people who fronted the rich shops were actually poor people like themselves who were also being exploited by their richer relations?
There is a view that a vast majority of retailers used family members to subsidise labour costs; a practice which also earned the Asian shopkeeper extensive competitive advantage in the corner stores of United Kingdom, the US and Canada! Rich Asian ‘magnates’ have been accused of using labour from the extended family as a ‘competitive weapon’ but also sometimes as a device for dodging taxes. Most importantly, they used family labour as a protection against industrial action and loss of stock through pilferage. These views actually distract the debate even if there was some truth behind these assertions. The vast majority of under qualified shop assistants would not have been able to compete in the real market place. It is arguable whether they had any more to offer than the ordinary African customers that they served in the shops. The practice of employing the family clan and the extended family to support the Asian entrepreneurs has also been responsible for their success in the countries to which they migrated. There is nothing wrong with this practice; only that it created an artificial labour market that subsidised potentially unprofitable Asian businesses which could not survive in a free market. The same has been attributed to Asian success in retailing in the UK’s high streets. Why does a shopkeeper have to employ staff if his wife, her mother and her sister as well his mother and his sister were able to offer help at a rate below the market rate? Besides, many hundreds of young women have been able to start families and look after their children in the ‘back room’ while the husband and father was working in the shop front?
After the Asians left and large retailing outlets were taken over by enterprising Ugandans, they also recruited family and clan connections to run their businesses and to subsidise costs. This is the nature of successful retailing all over the world; only that the Asians in East Africa were singled out for their success and for not offering jobs in retailing to African labour.
Then there was also the African houseboy, the cleaner, driver, and the gardener and in some families also the cook where religious beliefs about ‘purity of touch’ were disregarded and African chefs were allowed to cook. The concern about purity of touch worked something like this. Such was the concern of old Asian women in the Asian household that the African cook was either unclean or unsafe because he was a meat eater and a drunkard, or both rolled into one. Worse still the African cook could cough or spit into the clean food and render the entire cuisine unsuitable for human consumption.
Such worries about the unsuitability of the African labour in the vicinity of the Asian kitchen or even where they could touch their utensils also worked their way into how the Africans were sometimes offered food or drink. In many households in the compounds or ‘sakati’ where I grew up, the African ‘houseboy’ had been allocated an old tomato tin can to be used as a ‘cup’ for their water or tea. It was a multiuse cup; regardless of the contents and the temperature of the contents. The African staff were offered old plates to eat leftovers of food. The African labourer had to wash their utensils away from the main Asian kitchen sink by using the tap which normally used for attaching the garden hose. Both sides, that is, the Asian family and their workers were pleased that the African was not hungry when they went to bed in a shack at the back of the affluent Asian household. Of course these practices were stemmed as the Africans asserted themselves through the power of their governments.
In other Asian households the long term African employee had won their respect and trust and they were even allowed to eat and drink from the same crockery as that used by the Asian family. I have to tell you this! Aloizio[1], our long-term African house worker became an ‘enemy’ of our mum when dad promoted him beyond her levels of tolerance and they often decided to have a beer or two to celebrate Uganda’s Independence Day on 9th October each year. Worse still, mum had to cook pakoras and bhaji which dad knew that both he and Aloizio really loved. Aloizio had come to our house as a young teenager and stayed for 60 years. However, he worked with our father on building sites for over 50 years and then was promoted to easier jobs in the house.
By the time we left Uganda, he had the freedom to ‘raid’ the kitchen (as his critics claimed) and to help himself with sugar, milk and tea leaves which he took to his purpose built home that our father had built for him at the back of our house. When we were expelled from Uganda, Aloizio was heartbroken and went back to his village. He knew that no one was going to offer him a job at his age. We never heard from Aloizio again. I do hope that he did not suffer too much.
[1] My spellchecker suggests Aloysius
