The remarkable success of the East African Asians

When Idi Amin’s voice crackled through the radio on 4 August 1972 with his fateful ultimatum, my family paid little notice, save for wondering briefly why a government announcement had interrupted the blaring Bollywood tunes. My father’s two sisters were getting married the next day (both tying the knot at the same time meant half the wedding cost) and preparations were in full flow. In any case my family – like many of Uganda’s 76,000-odd Asians who were subject to Amin’s expulsion, giving them 90 days to leave the country – thought the President could hardly be serious. Despite being a small minority of the country’s population, the Asians were responsible for 90 per cent of Uganda’s tax revenues. To expel them would be madness.

But madness came easily to Amin. This, after all, was the man who claimed to be the uncrowned king of Scotland (hence the 2006 film in which the dictator is played by Forest Whitaker).