My parents never painted a scary picture of Uganda to my sister and me growing up. They spoke fondly of the country where they were both born. Even in our Canadian cuisine, samosas and biryani would be as common as matoke, a traditional Ugandan plantain dish. I knew our family had immigrated to Canada from East Africa, but I didn’t know why. The details were intentionally vague. Every parent wants to protect their children. But in the years leading up to high school, I kept pushing for more details to fill in the gaps. In August 1972, my mother and father and their families were among the 80,000 Asians expelled from Uganda by dictator Idi Amin. His brutal regime killed thousands. He pledged to reclaim Uganda’s economy for black Ugandans. He gave my mother and every other Ugandan Asian 90 days to leave. This summer, 50 years later, I was able to return to Uganda with my mother, Salma, and my sister Nafilia. I wanted to understand where my mom came from, to see my father’s birthplace, but also to understand my family roots, one that spans four continents, from Asia to Africa, from Europe to North America. In the early 1900s, as Europeans were coming to North America in search of a better future, another migration was taking place between India and Africa — a wave that brought my great-grandparents across the Indian Ocean and encouraged them to settle, set up shop and embrace new opportunities in Uganda. Even more Indians came to Africa when the British started building a railway that would connect Kenya with Uganda. In the following decades, Asians would become economically successful in Uganda, even though they were only 1 percent of the population. A tribal and colonial hierarchy was established. A recipe for a turnaround. Idi Amin’s eight-year rule was defined by the deaths of up to 300,000 people. He was a notorious plumber, targeting certain ethnic groups as well as journalists, lawyers and others he saw as potential opposition. (AP Photo, File) “I want to see that the whole street of Kampala is not full of Indians,” is what Idi Amin told reporters on August 4, 1972 when he announced that every Asian in Uganda must leave. He said, “it must be properly black and the administration in these shots is run by Ugandans.” He added: “Just wait after three months.” My mom saw that time as scary. Before our trip, he told me about the atmosphere and said: “We weren’t allowed to go outside, and at night you could hear the machine guns and the noise was so loud.” Click to view a full-screen version of the map Michael Molloy was a young Canadian visa officer in Beirut when the decree happened. It was sent to Uganda in 1972 because Canada, under the leadership of Pierre Trudeau, wanted to help. Trudeau, ready to launch an election campaign to secure a second term, said: “For our part, we are ready to offer an honorable place in Canadian life to those Ugandan Asians who come to Canada.” Molloy said that reflected the attitude Trudeau expected, saying, “They will be treated with kindness and courtesy, consideration and compassion.” Fifty years later Molloy recalls what it was like to set up a makeshift visa office to process the thousands desperately seeking a new home. “For us, the question was for these large numbers of people, who should we get?” Canada would take those who had no country to go to. Many of the 80,000 would also go to countries such as Britain and Australia. The feat of processing visas and arranging flights to Kampala at a time of fear and instability, along with establishing a Canadian Forces Base in Quebec to welcome and find a new wave of refugees a home and a place to work, was mammoth and impressive. .
Processing 6,175 visas in 60 days 31 charter flights 4,420 people arrived safely in Canada by November 18, 1972 Nearly 2,000 more will continue to arrive in the coming weeks and months
“IT WAS DEFINITELY A CULTURE SHOCK”
Canada in 1972 was very different from today. Less than a quarter of 1 percent of the Canadian population was Indian — just 50,000. In contrast, today, more than 1.6 million Indians live here and it is the fastest growing community in the country.
My mom remembers arriving in Vancouver in the 1970s. “It was definitely a culture shock. People looked at you with a different face and it took me a while to adjust to that.”
While both my father and mother settled in Vancouver, Asian immigrants from Uganda went to many corners of this country.
For this documentary, I met the Popat family of seven who moved to Bridgewater, NS, bringing their culinary traditions from their homeland of Kamuli, Uganda, to Canada and turning them into economic opportunities: first a small Indian grocery store, then a restaurant. and a samosa manufacturing business, which supplies large grocery stores.
I met Amin Bhatia, a Canadian composer whose family came down to Calgary after his father, a high-ranking Ugandan government engineer, felt they needed to escape the Amin regime.
What happened in 1972 would lead to what would be a watershed moment in Canadian immigration. More than 18,000 migrants and refugees would follow Uganda’s Asian wave. Canada helped South Americans and Indo-Chinese from Vietnam between 1975 and 1978. Immigrants from East Africa would continue to arrive in Canada after 1972, many fearing that what happened in Uganda would happen to them. Canada would welcome more than 20,000 East African immigrants in the 1970s alone.
“I FEEL THE WEIGHT OF WHAT THIS JOURNEY MEANED”
Omar Sahedina with his sister and mother (center), who returned to her village for the first time.
The day we planned to look for my mom’s house in Nabusanke and my father’s house in Masaka, I felt the weight of what the journey meant. This trip was not just to rediscover good memories, but to come to terms with what happened 50 years ago, an abrupt upheaval at a formative time in their lives.
For my sister, Nafilia, and I to see where our mom grew up, where our dad grew up, it would give us both a better understanding of their values and their humble beginnings.
As we approached Nabusanke, we relied on critical reference points. The gas station where my mom remembered turning right to get home was still there. But the mango and jambula (black plum) trees near where he lived had been cut down.
We continued driving. He got out of the car. He kept looking. Drive some more. He even called my grandmother in London, England, as it used to be her home.
He asked if the fruit trees were still there. But they were gone.
My sister and I searched desperately in hopes of giving my mom and us a sense of peace to find something connected to her past.
Soon, it was clear that the way my mom’s mind had conceived this city, a two-minute drive from the equator that separated the northern and southern hemispheres, was very different from reality.
Fifty years is a long time. Enough for the momentum of life to dominate and the familiar to fade into the foreign.
Until we stopped a man who happened to be walking in the village that afternoon.
“I remember jamathkhana [prayer hall] it was once there.”
A man who helped unlock the memories of the past.
With reporting by producer Shelley Ayres
WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU
Did Omar’s family story resonate with you? CTVNews.ca wants to hear from you. Share your family’s stories about immigrating to Canada with us.
You can share your story by emailing us at [email protected] with your name and location. Your comments may be used in a CTVNews.ca story.
WATCH “Expelled: My Roots in Uganda” special airing on Friday, November 4 at 9 p.m. on CTV
