The Wahindi Weltansschauung

How the Africans saw us: The Wahindi Weltanschauung

There were at least three predominant scenarios in the world of the wahindi or the perception of East the African Asians’ weltanschauung[1]at the time of the prime and decline of the wahindi fortunes in East Africa. The scenarios were:

• ·       How the Asian saw the African
• ·       How the African saw the Asian or the wahindi
• ·       How the wahindi saw the wahindi
• ·       How the world saw the East African Asian. This was never a consideration.

All of the above worldviews have interesting and inspirational properties. I intend to develop them in the next few posts.

How did the Asian weltanschauung manifest itself? An assessment of Asian worldview is itself beset with many difficulties. These scenarios are interesting, ranging from heart warming to stupid according some Asian perceptions. The Asians were such a diversified group that what was ‘good’ for one community was probably ‘dire’ for another section of the community. There was no single common denominator which could be used to assess the wahindis’ accommodation for other people in an alien African environment. We were all wahindis but each community was different.

For the majority of Asians, ‘wellness’ could well have been equated to sound working opportunities and beneficial conditions in an economically and politically safe environment. The majority of Asians had little or no stake in the political process. Where the ogre of intra-African tribalism reared its ugly head in the towns and cities, the Asian was not too perturbed; it was ‘their’ problem, meaning, that it was the Africans’ millstone around their necks. Life in Kampala or Kitgum was fine as long as the wahindi did not feel threatened by outbursts of ‘the African problem’; a term sometimes used, even sympathetically, to refer to African tribalism. Ironically, it was easy to condemn African tribalism when the majority of Asian populations could not come to terms with their own differences. Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims worked in competition to build their own separatist infrastructure such as schools, sports clubs and community centres until the onset of independence. Then, by one universal decree, the owners of community institutions had to open their doors to ‘the Africans’. The arrival of African children in Asian controlled schools was reasonably well managed. It is not known whether any of the management boards in Asian controlled schools actually developed proactive diversity policies to welcome African students…..an aspect that Asian parents declared to be their human right when they migrated to the UK…. That is another story for another day. There were tensions in some Asian households. How were they going to allow their daughters to go to school where African ‘boys’ (then suddenly perceived as men) were also going to study in the same schools? It is not possible to provide the evidence but it is safe to claim that a few Asian families found that this was a sufficient reason to move to safer schools in India or Pakistan. A number of families withdrew their older teenage girls from secondary school and the search for husbands was prioritised.

Another factor came into play. What was the point of educating Asian girls when they were only going to be married off? For the heads of many families, which had suddenly provided eligible young men to rescue the teenage Asian girls from mixed race co-education, it was unthinkable for them to send their young daughter-in-laws to ‘work for money’. Forcing newly married girls to enter the job market was below their ‘status’ in life. ‘We do not do such things in our family’ my best friend’s father told me. ‘It is a reflection on us, you understand? The society would think that we are unable to sustain them in a household where we, the men, do not earn enough money that we have to send our daughters and daughter-in-laws to work? Noh! That is not for us’.  Consequently a few emissaries were also sent to Nairobi to find eligible young men in the Asian community in Kenya. Some young girls were despatched to India and Pakistan to find suitable husbands to protect family honours in East Africa.

Thirty years later I met a middle aged Asian parent in Southall, West London. We had a long chat at ‘Sagoo and Takhar’ and I decided to agree with most of what he had to say in order to lead him on with his thesis. ‘The day when you send your daughters to university you lose them’ he concluded. ‘They will not be able to marry anyone you choose for them’. There is a variant to this view. What was the point of educating young girls when they were only going to marry’?

 

 

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[1] A comprehensive world view (or worldview) is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing natural philosophy; fundamental, existential, and normative postulates; or themes, values, emotions, and ethics. It is a concept fundamental to German philosophy and epistemology and refers to a wide world perception. Additionally, it refers to the framework of ideas and beliefs through which an individual interprets the world and interacts with it. See the details in wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_view for further illumination.

 

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