"Brothers, I swear this before The Most High, you come for this woman because she's Indian, know that she is my wife, if you want to touch her, you'll have to go through me," Mamadou Kidega said angrily, holding the machete firmly in his right hand as he stepped in front of his pregnant wife Priyanka Chuttani-Kidega, protectively shielding her from Idi Amin's militiamen. Five Ugandan Army soldiers surrounded the couple on that bright Monday morning in August of 1972.
Across the country, Ugandan Army soldiers were rounding up "the foreign element," as their leader, Idi Amin, called them. The Indians, the Chinese, the Malays and others who called Uganda home for generations were being picked up and captured, to be expelled from the country by force. Uganda was experiencing a bout of xenophobia, and no one considered a foreigner was safe. In the eyes of Idi Amin and his fanatical followers, anyone who wasn't an ethnic Ugandan was fair game.
"Brother Kidega, know that I am just doing my duty, you see, the apprehend and deport orders came from our President Idi Amin himself," said the soldiers leader, Corporal Alexander Mushemeza, a tall, burly black man in his early forties. The soldiers looked on as their leader locked eyes with Mamadou Kidega, who stayed twenty meters from them, and fearlessly held his blade before him.
Being surrounded by uniformed men armed with high-caliber rifles didn't appear the faze the towering, dark-skinned Mamadou Kidega, who faced them fearlessly like a lion surrounded by hyenas. At six-foot-five, Mamadou towered over all of them. Kidega's wife Priyanka, a tall, thirtysomething Indian woman stood by her husband's side, her sleek hands pulled into tight fists. In spite of himself, Corporal Mushemeza felt a grudging admiration for the fearless couple...
In his forty six years upon this earth, Corporal Mushemeza had seen much horror, and witnessed firsthand the contempt that the Indian minority held for the majority of Uganda's black population. It was eerie, the Indians were brought over by the European colonists ages ago as a source of labor, and after the end of colonial rule, they flourished in the business sector and adjusted to the changing society of Uganda...yet they continued to see themselves as superior to blacks due to their Indian blood...
The Indians didn't realize that the old days were over. Idi Amin hadn't bowed to the European colonials, and he wasn't going to bow down to the wealthy and powerful Indian minority who held a stranglehold over the Ugandan economy. Idi Amin sought to remake the Republic of Uganda in his own image. The Ugandan people had suffered for ages under white minority rule, and Indian economic domination. Well, Idi Amin was going to change all of that...for good. Besides, the Indians were hardly the most popular denizens of Ugandan society anyway...
For this and other reasons, military dictator Idi Amin didn't face much opposition from most Ugandans when he decided to deport all Asians from the Republic of Uganda. Corporal Mushemeza's mother Annie Mushemeza once worked as a cleaning lady for a wealthy Indian family, the Singhs, in the City of Kampala, Capital of Uganda. The Mushemeza family was quite poor, and did whatever they had to in order to survive.
As a young man, Alexander Mushemeza witnessed firsthand the verbal abuse the Singh family patriarch, Dhaliwal Singh, doled out to his mother. A week ago, at the height of the anti-Indian wave of xenophobia sweeping the Republic of Uganda, the Corporal paid the Singh a visit...a fatal one. Other Indians he would deport, but the man who mistreated his mother, well, Corporal Alexander Mushemeza gave him a bullet to the death. The rest of the Singh family faced the same fate...
Like many young Ugandan men, Alexander Mushemeza noticed the singular beauty of the Indian ladies living in the City of Kampala, but the racist hatred between Indians and Ugandans prevented interracial liaisons in most cases. Mushemeza had seen a few wealthy Indian men with beautiful Ugandan wives but he'd never seen an Indian woman with a Ugandan husband...until now. Seeing a black Ugandan farmer with an Indian wife stunned Mushemeza...
"Brother Mamadou Kidega, the Indians hate our people, and the entire African race, you would risk your life for this Indian woman?" Corporal Mushemeza asked tersely, and Mamadou looked at him and nodded. Looking into the big farmer's obsidian eyes, the corporal saw anger, and grim resolve, but not a hint of hesitation or fear. This one was prepared to fight to the death for his woman. This definitely wasn't going to be easy.
"Unless you're going to shoot me, corporal, I order you and your men off my property!" Mamadou Kidega said sharply, and the soldiers looked at their commander, who sighed and shook his hand. Corporal Mushemeza bit his lip. Abruptly the corporal walked away and shouldered his rifle. Taking their cues from him, the soldiers followed suit and one by one they walked off the Kidega family farm.
"Oh my love, I thought we were going to die for sure," Priyanka said, sighing deeply, and Mamadou smiled and gently cupped her chin in his fist. Priyanka drew closer to Mamadou, and then gently kissed her husband. Mamadou kissed her back, and after making sure that Corporal Mushemeza and his men left, husband and wife returned to their home.
A few weeks ago, Idi Amin began to centralize his power after seizing control of Uganda in a military coup. The dictator began getting rid of detractors in his own government, and then gave the various ethnic groups of Uganda someone to hate, the prosperous Asian minority. Idi Amin gave the eighty thousand Asians who called Uganda home ninety days to vacate the country, or their lives would be forfeit. This was the beginning of the end for them...
"My dear Priyanka, know that I would never let any harm come to you," Mamadou said, and Priyanka smiled and nodded. The young woman remembered the first time she laid eyes on Mamadou, while starting her first year at Makerere University, formerly the University of East Africa, in the City of Kampala. Priyanka was quite hopelessly lost on the large urban campus, and the only person who would help her was a six-foot-five, burly and dark-skinned young Ugandan in traditional attire. A giant with a friendly smile and kind eyes...
"Excuse me please, sir, do you know where the administration building is?" Priyanka asked in Swahili, perhaps the most popular language in all of Uganda, after English, of course. The tall, burly young black man smiled and answered in the same language. From the curious look in his eyes, Priyanka knew he was surprised to hear an Indian woman speak the language of the people, and she smiled.
"Of course, you're new around here, yes? I'll show you where it is," the young man replied, and he nodded politely at Priyanka, beckoning her to follow. They walked about for a few minutes, and then came to a large brownstone building, with the word campus administration written in bold crimson letters. Priyanka smiled and nodded thankfully at her impromptu 'guide', who stroked his goateed chin.
"Thanks for your help, sir, I wouldn't have found the place without you, I'm Priyanka," she said, and then held out her sleek hand, which Mamadou shook. Thus the two of them met. Priyanka and Mamadou, two young people from drastically different backgrounds, forged a friendship at a time of heightened racial tension in one of East Africa's most prominent nations.
"One day we're going to have more women than men at universities around the world, women are taking over," Mamadou said to Priyanka as they sat inside the university library. Mamadou browsed through a copy of Newsweek magazine, which talked about changing demographics at colleges and universities across America, Canada and the European world.
"Perhaps it's time for women to rule the world, my dear Mamadou, you men have run it for far too long, you know," Priyanka said, laughing, and Mamadou groaned when she unexpectedly poked him in the ribs. Mamadou grinned nervously. Every so often, he was surprised by how bold and fearless this brown-skinned, dark-haired beauty was. Priyanka was unlike anyone he'd ever known, that's for damn sure.
"Bossy woman," Mamadou replied, smiling and shaking his head, and Priyanka smiled and shrugged, and then, next thing Mamadou knew, her face was much closer to his. Priyanka locked eyes with Mamadou, and he saw a gleam of mischief in those lovely brown eyes of hers. Mamadou held his breath, and Priyanka drew closer. Mamadou hesitated, she was so close and so beautiful, smelling so sweet. Oh, well. Tossing caution to the wind, Mamadou kissed Priyanka.
Fast forward four years and Priyanka Chuttani and Mamadou Kidega graduated from university and, over the objections of both of their families, got married. Mamadou's strict Muslim parents didn't approve of his "foreign lady," and Priyanka's family hated Mamadou on sight because of his African origin. They considered him unworthy of their daughter merely based on his skin color...
