A tear for Kampala

Kampala, the capital of Uganda in Africa was the target of a devastating bomb attack on Sunday, the World Cup football final night with 74 people dead. Al Shebab, an organisation with ties to al Qaeda took 'credit' for the bombing as retribution for Uganda.u00a0u00a0

What this terror tale brought back were horror stories from Asians (mainly Indians of Gujarati origin) who were forced to flee Uganda in 1972 after dictator Idi Amin ordered the Indians out.

While that ethnic cleansing of course cannot be compared to a suicide bombing, the victims of 1972 have turned around their lives in such a way that they have given rise to the common phrase: Uganda's loss is Britain's gain. Most of who fled within 90 days leaving everything behind went to Britain as refugees.

What this terror tale brought back were horror stories from Asians who were forced to flee Uganda in 1972
A gentleman, who is now in his 80s landed in Devonshire in the UK to start a new life in his 40s. His wife says that after nearly four decades of catching that terror plane from Uganda to the UK, she still hears the hob-nailed boots of Amin's soldiers click ominously outside their house door.

A young man told me, "I was too small to remember much about Kampala when we were forced to flee. But, my parents never talk about Uganda, they say it was paradise lost and they want to shut it out, they never want to revisit those memories."

Yet, I know of a London-based family, who went back to Kampala after all those years just to look at what they had lost. The children to look at their roots, the parents maybe, driven by nostalgia or just curiosity.

Indians may have failed to see the African tinderbox. Uganda was simmering because the Indians were so financially strong; many locals worked in Indian houses as servants. Yet, when that box exploded and spewed its contents into Europe, those thrown out made a stunning reversal. Today, some of the most sterling entrepreneurial success stories in the UK are from those Ugandans who were expelled by Amin. There was triumph in tragedy.u00a0

Here is to the Nanji Kalidas Mehtas, the Madhvanis and too many others to mention here. This is a salute to them. It is also a rather Utopian hope that somehow, those affected by the blasts which is a much more serious event, find the fire like those Ugandans did, to piece together their shattered lives once again.