Black Resentment For the Asians

"We are not racialist," protested Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere last week. "We are only getting rid of those people who are here illegally." The same menacing tone was in the voice of Kenya's President Jomo Kenyatta, who warned that "non-Kenyans, however rich, who ridicule the laws of the country, practice cat-and-mouse friendship and insult Africans will be ordered to pack up and go home." Who were these social undesirables about to be tossed out of paradise?

The comments reflected not the old-style resentment against European whites but a growing animosity through out East Africa toward the 400,000 Asians whose ancestral roots trace back to the Indian subcontinent. Hindus, Sikhs or Moslems, the Asians are almost always aggressive businessmen. In Tanzania alone, 100,000 of them control more than 75% of the country's retail trade. Some own factories, department stores and small shops; others are just about the only carpenters, plumbers or tradesmen around; still others have become millionaires with large plantations. From the incense-reeking shops of Nairobi's bazaar street to the tiny crossroads general stores of the East African bush, the dark, sharp-featured Asians are a ubiquitous feature of the East African landscape.

Deep-Seated Feeling. Their presence is increasingly resented by the generally less skilled and often unemployed blacks, who see the fruits of uhuru (freedom from colonial rule) falling into the Asians' laps instead of into theirs. The blacks feel that Asians do not open their businesses to capable young Africans, and that they invest their money abroad or send it to relatives. In Kenya, the KANU party of President Kenyatta has scolded the Asians for living out their lives in "a communal cocoon, having only the most superficial contact with their fellow inhabitants." A barefooted Tanzanian farmer, cheering anti-Asian demonstrations earlier this month, expressed the deep-seated African feeling that the Asians are taking what should belong to the Africans. Said he: "There are too many ticks on the lion's belly."

Most of the Asians' ancestors came to Africa as indentured laborers to build railroads for the British. Even though most of them were born and raised in Africa, many have not sought citizenship in their adopted countries--a fact that confirms black suspicions that they contribute only to their own welfare. When little Malawi became independent in 1964, almost every one of the 11,000 Asians sought the protection of a British passport. With unemployment high in most areas, several of the East African countries have taken steps, both official and unofficial, to ease the Asians out of their dominant commercial role or to expel them altogether.

Intermarriage Urged. Over the past year, the governments of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have quietly replaced many Asians with blacks in governmental jobs. Asian railway employees have been ousted in "Africanization" drives, have gone on to work in Zambia, where white railroaders have been fired for racial reasons. In Kenya, the government has dropped strong hints that it expects young Indians (who rarely even cross caste boundaries when they marry) to find African mates. Because Kenya has no schoolrooms for 50,000 out of 70,000 qualified students, top private schools run by the Ismaili sects and the Indians have been forced to take up to 50% blacks. Kenya's chief economic planner, Tom Mboya, warns that a major racial crisis is coming unless Indian merchants transform their business into public companies and offer jobs with promotion possibilities to blacks.

Last week in Tanzania, the Asians were reeling from President Nyerere's rapid-fire nationalization of nearly 30 companies. Out of eight food-processing concerns taken over by the government, all but one were owned by Asians. Other Asians had millions on deposit in banks seized by Nyerere. Owners of lucrative sisal plantations were resigned to an expected takeover of their lands. Already more than 500 Asians have been ordered to leave Tanzania for failing to take out residence permits. Asians have been cursed, reviled and threatened during frenzied street demonstrations in Dar es Salaam by emerald-shirted black youths dubbed "the Green Guards" by Socialist Nyerere, who so admires Red China that he last week proclaimed the observance of the Chinese New Year in Tanzania.

A Question of Survival. For the Asians, the socialism of leaders such as Nyerere amounts to nothing more than an attack on their privileges. They protest that they should not be made scapegoats, that their small shops and other businesses were the only occupational outlet allowed them by the British in the colonial era. Without making some economic concessions, however, the Asians in East Africa cannot long survive. Some have started to sell their businesses at cost, and many are filing into steamship and airline offices to book passage for elsewhere.

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