I am pleased to share my podcast with you.
Expulsion@50 is an oral history project, created to raise awareness of the expulsion over 80,000 Asians from Uganda in 1972 by President Idi Amin. We were given just 90 days to pack up our lives and leave the country. The Expulsion was a historical event on many levels, including shaping subsequent immigration policies of the UK and other western governments.
Launched in January 2021, over 50 episodes have been released, covering participants from 11 countries, ranging from 14 to 92 years. The strength of the podcast is in the diversity of experiences it has described, and the richness of content. Women featured in 28 episodes. The stories feature people who were directly expelled, those who stayed, or they left and returned. Others are of fiction or non-fiction writers of and academics who have deeply researched specific aspects of that history. It also captured the experiences of Ugandans on how their lives changed as a result of the expulsion.
The stories have unfolded the ‘concentric circles of silence’ – the personal, impact of racism, gratitude, gender, and patriarchy, challenging the term refugee, and Empire and its far-reaching consequences. Collectively, the stories provide a holistic view and impact.
The podcast is a key milestone in the commemoration of 50 year anniversary, in the UK and elsewhere. The 50 episodes have contributed to this bigger picture. The anniversary was an opportunity to pause and reflect on our collective past, inviting us to take a fresh look, and ask new questions.
The podcasts can be found on all platforms through:
‘I am the unlucky one’ I said to the Consultant. I was sobbing away on my own with nobody to hold my hand or support me. Where did I go wrong? What had I done? I always helped everyone – young old, needy and desperate. So why did it have to be ME? I didn’t understand.
Research studies have validated that trauma experienced by our Ancestors can live on in our DNA thanks to epigenetic inheritance. Read my account of carrying intergenerational trauma from the partition of India and Pakistan here.
I am pleased to share my podcast with you. Expulsion@50 is an oral history project, created to raise awareness of the expulsion over 80,000 Asians
The first of the Trust’s projects is the South Asian Heritage Month (SAHM), which first took place in 2020 and runs from the 18th of July to the 17th of August each year.
SAHM seeks to commemorate, mark and celebrate South Asian cultures, histories, and communities.
It seeks to understand the diverse heritage and cultures that continue to link the UK with South Asia.
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