By Charles Onyango-Obbo<\/p>\n
A few days ago, Daily Monitor reported State Minister for Gender, Ms Peace Mutuuzo, saying Indians [Asians] in Uganda cannot be made a national group (tribe) because their \u201corigin cannot be traced anywhere in Uganda other than in India.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir culture also is different from the diverse cultures of the indigenous Ugandan communities,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Her comment followed President Museveni\u2019s suggestion earlier that Asians could indeed become a Ugandan tribe. It is something Museveni has said before, and Kenyans have resolved by doing exactly that.<\/p>\n
On this, I am on Museveni\u2019s side, my criticism being that he has not gone far enough, as there are other peoples \u2013 Filipinos, Congolese and so on \u2013 whose families have lived in Uganda for over a generation, and are still treated as \u201caliens\u201d.<\/p>\n
Still, we need to understand where Mutuuzo is coming from. A people will feel threatened when foreigners come into their midst, take root, multiply, and overcome them in numbers. No, they don\u2019t just feel threatened, they react very badly. In the West, it is driving anti-immigrant feeling, and led to fears of the \u201cgreat replacement\u201d.<\/p>\n