I'm aware that this topic has nothing to do with Africans or other black people but it doesn't hurt sometimes to know about the people around you. Especially if it is similar to our history.

http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/histor.../indiasa3.html

Aryek and Chubby:

Not only were slaves from Indian brought to South Africa, but they were brought to the Caribbean and South America as well.

They are refered to as "coolies" down there.

In places like Guyana and Surinam, people of black and Indian descendant fight eachother like catsand dogs over wealth and power.

The British also transported Malaysian and Indonesian slaves around to Africa and the Caribbean.


Problem is, the Indians think they are better than blacks because they look closer to white and have a much stronger culture that binds them...especially in the Caribbean. So when the whites left their former colonies...the Indians made connections back home and decided to fortify themselves in the former position of the whites as the new masters.

That's why Idi Ameen had to pick up a stick and run most of them out of SouthEast Africa.

Ahmaad wrote:
hmm i think thats a bit of a simplistic view of things actually.

The Ugandans shot themselves in the foot expelling the Asians, the fact is in business acumen they couldnt compete , now they are running around trying to beg them to come back and reinvest.

The fact is black people are in no position to start moaning about immigrants then start complaing abut racism against those in the diaspora.

Thats the worst kind of hypocrisy.

The fact is immigration and foreign investment is a necessary evil for all countries in the world im not sure why people think africa or the caribbean should be excluded from that.

the trick is to be sophisticated enough to mange it so as to gain maximum benefit with minimum harm to the native population.

@Ahmaad

Actually Ahmaad, the Indians that came to the caribbean were not slaves. They were indentured servant and there is a big different. These indentured servants actually chose to come to the caribbean and were not treated in the way black african slaves were.There were also white indentured servants in many countries but the lives of these indentured servants can not be compared to the nightmare of life under slavery.

Indians arrived in the caribbean after slavery were abolished in the caribbean in 1838. The indians in countries like trinidad (where over 50% of the population is now indian)first arrived in 1845.

Alot of non black people of color do think they are better becayse they look more white and racist ideas like that are very prevelant in Indian socities. I know that the british did bring indians to africa to be slaves and knowing how white people do, they probably treated the indians better then the africans. After the british left the indians probably keep the same superior attitude and thats probably why Idi Ameen didn't like them. He was focusing on the wrong enemy though and should hate the british alot more then indians.

Not saying the movie is an accurate portral of Indians in africa, but even in the movie they showed the racist attitudes of Indians calling blacks or even darkskin indians, blacky and darky. An indian lady from uganda was marrying off her very handsome son Harry. One of his possible wives was from a poor "darkie indian family'. Shes talking on the phone and says " you can be Dark and have money or you can be fair and have no money, but you can't be dark and have no many and think you can get Harry"!! Now this definitly shows this Indian womens racist attitude.

The best thing Idi Amin EVER did for Uganda was to expell those Indians!

They would have been nothing but pests who would have created more problems than what Ugandans have now!

Oh and Native Tongue.........i don't know where you got your informations from about Ugandans beging the Indians to return.......if its true, then it must be that mental Musevini's another loony decison of his to suck up to the west.......but the reality is, the average Ugandan would kill to keep those Indians away from their country!

Once Outcasts, Asians Again Drive Uganda's Economy


By MARC LACEY


AMPALA, Uganda — Thirty-one years ago, Idi Amin embarked on a campaign
to remove Asians from this country. He expropriated their homes and
businesses. He called them bloodsuckers. As they trooped to the
airport and crowded the highways, his soldiers robbed them along the
way.

Now, with Mr. Amin's reign of terror long over, there are strong signs
of an Asian revival here. Many, although not most, of the Asians that
Mr. Amin expelled have picked up their lives in Uganda again. Their
role in the country's economy rivals the influence they had in the
1970's that so infuriated the dictator.

Although they represent less than 1 percent of the country's
population, Asians own Ugandan banks, hotels and foreign exchange
bureaus. They manufacture soap, bicycles, jewelry and tissue paper.
They run pharmacies, sell insurance and dominate the sugar industry.

There are an estimated 15,000 Asians living in Uganda today, far fewer
than the 80,000 or so, mostly Indians and Pakistanis, during Mr.
Amin's time. But estimates put the amount of investment that they have
made in Uganda over the past decade at somewhere close to $1 billion.

These days, Uganda's richest men have names like Madhvani, Hirji and
Ruparelia. Some of them contribute more in tax money than the combined
populations of entire districts.

One of the tycoons is Sudhir Ruparelia, who was a child when Mr. Amin
ordered Asians out. He stayed and today he owns a country club,
various hotels and office buildings, an international school, a bank,
an insurance company and a flower farm. His main office is a busy
place full of many employees not only of Indian descent but with many
black ones as well.

"You wouldn't be wrong to say 30 to 40 percent of the economy is in
their hands," said Manuel Pinto, a former member of Uganda's
Parliament whose father was an immigrant from Goa State in India and
whose mother was a Ugandan. Such unions were, and continue to be,
relatively rare, with Uganda's Indian community keeping largely to
itself.

Syed A. H. Abidi still remembers hearing Idi Amin's booming voice on
the radio as he ordered the Asians to get out within 90 days.

"We didn't believe it at first, but we soon realized that he meant
what he said," said Mr. Abidi, who came to Uganda from India in 1971
to teach library science at Makerere University. "It was August 1972.
I'll never forget it."

Mr. Abidi stayed beyond the Ugandan dictator's 90-day deadline, but
eventually the climate of fear and terror of the Amin years proved too
much for him. He resigned his position at the university in November
1973 and returned to New Dehli.

Now, three decades later, Mr. Abidi is back at Makerere, where he is
at work on a book about the thousands of fellow Indians who have also
returned.

Indians have a history in East Africa that goes back to the beginning
of the 20th century, when Indian laborers were brought to the region
by the British to build the railway line from Mombasa on the Kenyan
coast to Kampala, the Ugandan capital. Back then, their biggest threat
came from the lions that devoured workers and the diseases that killed
them in large numbers as well.

Mr. Amin's ouster of the Asians backfired as his country's economy
soon collapsed. Store shelves were empty. Inflation soared.

Still, the resentment that many black Ugandans felt toward Asians in
the years after independence has not gone away. At the same time,
Ugandan Asians say they feel welcome despite continued complaints
about their economic clout.

"Generally, we're accepted here," said Murtuxa Dalal, an accountant
who is chairman of the Indian Association of Uganda. "There are
certain pockets where there's discontent, but that's a small
percentage."

The current government has been pro-business, urging investment from
people of any ancestry. Giving confiscated property back to the ousted
Asians was the government's first step in soothing relations.

Many of the Asians forced out of Uganda have not taken up President
Yoweri Museveni's call to return, disgusted by the country that
uprooted them. But thousands have opted to give Uganda a second
chance.

Of the 8,170 properties that were taken from Asians and doled out to
black Ugandans by Mr. Amin, 3,493 properties were later returned to
their owners. The government is accepting no more repossession claims,
and officials said the panel that was set up to handle such claims,
the Departed Asians Property Custodian Board, is scheduled to go out
of existence next year.

But getting back the property took great effort even once the
government issued a repossession certificate. Black Ugandans had been
given the properties by Mr. Amin's regime and many of those to whom it
had been given refused to leave.

Some disputes over property continue to this day, especially at the
community schools that Asians had created by pooling their money.
Those properties have been taken over by local governments, who are
not inclined to hand them over to returning Asians.

Uganda's Asians say they do not spend much time dwelling on Mr. Amin,
even after his name again began appearing in the news because of his
failing health.

"The methods he used in throwing Asians out were not right, but you
can't fault his intentions," said Mr. Dalal, the Indian association
chairman, who moved to Uganda in 1993. "He wanted the indigenous
Ugandans to get involved in business too, and that's happened. There's
room enough for everyone here."

Dimoke im sorrybut the fact of the matter is any developing country needs external investment.



It doesnt matter whether its European / Chinese / Indian whatever.



Any community not savvy enough to maintain ultimate control on its country while allowing otheres to come in and help rebuild their country isnt worth keeping that country anyway. End of.

And your point is???

And their success is something that i as an African should be celebrating????

And if YOU knew where that so called boom of an economy is coming from, then you wouldn't be talking!

But i digress to even waste my time by explaining why, since you have your western sources of informations to believe, i think i'll leave you in your litle world of i know so because i read it from a Mr Jones so and so........

Like BP said, this thread is a waster.......it concerns me not in the slightest! I would gladly DO what Idi Amin did TODAY all over again! Desagree, but i have my own way of looking at the boom of an African economy that does not involve living next door to them....i'd rather do commerce with them when they are thousands of miles away in India!

Oh and now you are Mr Einstein of BN and the officialto be telling us Africans about how we should conduct OUR businesses??? Don't make me laugh......

Jeeez......desagree with me, but don't do the show off of your imaginary intelligence by trying to conclude that i know shit about economy blahhh blahhh....

Some people have nerves....*Kiss teeth*