Kenyan Humza Yousaf elected First Minister of Scotland

 Humza Yousaf, the newly-elected First Minister of Scotland, is yet another Western politician with some Kenyan heritage. He represents a growing ‘80s generation that attests to the vibrancy of an expanding Kenyan diaspora – created by fate and chance, and by post-independent political intolerance and migration.

The history of this emerging generation is also the story of Kenya’s race relations – and how it has become a bridge to the world platform for some families.

The new Scottish First Minister’s mother, Shaaista Bhutta, was born and grew up in Kenya – the place she once called home. But she and her parents became victims of post-independent discrimination against the Asian community, who were forced to quit their jobs within the civil service and seek solace in the UK. They also lost their retail trading licenses and employment as the Jomo Kenyatta government began its Africanisation policy of business and the 78,000-strong public service.

Yousaf’s father, Muzaffar, was born in the Pakistani city of Mian Channu before moving to Scotland in 1964 to join his father. This was during a period that a new Indian-British identity was being constructed as more arrivals from the British Commonwealth established homes in the UK. Muzaffar arrived when the conflict between India and Pakistan was reaching new status.

European settlers

As East African nations started to get Independence in the 1960s – and as the exodus of European settlers began – the fate of thousands of Asian families settled, or born, in the region turned into a nagging political problem.

While they had prospered as a business community and owned property in Kenya, they were asked to choose citizenship: either become Kenya citizens within a given time-frame or sell their property and leave. Those who left early managed to take their wealth, with them but many families were impoverished as they were forced out.

Yousaf – and many other Asian families with Kenyan ties – are part of a generation entangled within a history that almost rendered their grandparents and parents stateless as Britain started a quota system for new migrants. Yet, ironically, the migrants have managed to rebuild their lives in the separate places they found solace – and are now emerging as new faces of a diaspora with Kenyan connections.

 Yousaf has always recounted his family’s predicament in Kenya, which was unlike that of his father, who had smoothly arrived in the UK from Pakistan. “My mum’s journey was slightly different,” he once told a Scottish publication. “She grew up in Kenya but … for them it was difficult because with Idi Amin, Jomo Kenyatta and a few others coming through, life as an Asian in East Africa became very difficult because they were essentially seen as taking all the good jobs.”

Yousaf’s grandfather was working with East African Railways (EAR) as a train conductor, which was among the jobs earmarked for Kenyanisation after Independence. According to Yousaf, “he was seen as taking that job away from a black African, a black Kenyan, so life became very difficult.” After Independence, the Asian community turned into East Africa’s face of hate. Unable to deliver on their promises of Uhuru, politicians blamed their economic shortcomings on Indians, who became the scapegoats for Kenya’s woes. Some of the Asians were prosperous business and property owners, while others were eking out a living as junior civil servants or as duka wallahs. Soon, they became targets of physical attacks.

Dark memories

“My family was attacked a few times and there was one incident in particular when my maternal grandmother was attacked with an axe in the back. She survived ... but that was the last straw for my grandfather. It was time to get away and again, it made sense because there was a British call for people from the Commonwealth to come (to the UK) and take on industrial jobs.”

It appears that Yousaf’s parents were from the first wave of Indians who arrived in Britain before the migration quota was announced in 1968. Before that, the UK had in 1962 enacted the Commonwealth Immigration Act, which subjected Commonwealth citizens to immigration controls for the first time. As the Kenyatta government made it impossible for Asians to operate in Kenya, an unprecedented exodus started from East Africa, forcing Britain to require that all East African Asians show a close connection with the UK before they were allowed in.

After Idi Amin came to power in Uganda in 1971, he threw 50,000 Asians out of Uganda, creating yet another wave of migrants to the UK. London reacted in 1972 by demanding that the immigrants obtain work permits unless their parents or grandparents were born in the country.

In this group is Rishi Sunak, the 56th British Prime Minister, whose father also left Kenya in the 1960s. Sunak’s father, Yashvir Sunak, was born and raised in colonial Kenya, while his mother, Usha Sunak, was born in mainland Tanzania, then Tanganyika.

He has also made history as the first British-Asian to become British Prime Minister. While Sunak was born on May 12, 1980, in Southampton, Yousaf was born on April 7, 1985, in Glasgow, Scotland – a millennial generation that is tech-savvy and is often described as the first global generation. They have swiftly followed the footsteps of Barrack Obama, the former US President with a Kenyan father. But unlike Sunak and Yousaf, Obama’s father was part of the first wave of Kenyans that went abroad seeking advanced education in western universities. This group broke race barriers and was multi-cultural.

Another fast-rising US politician with Kenyan ties is Ilhan Omar, the US representative for Minnesota, a former refugee at the Daadab Camp in Garissa. Though born in Mogadishu on October 4, 1982, she spent four years of her childhood in Kenya before her family settled in the US when she was 13. By being elected the first Somali-American legislator in the United States, Omar set the same record as Obama, Sunak and Yousaf .

British and Scottish newspapers have hailed Yousaf’s election as “historic”. Press pictures captured his emotional parents shedding tears of joy as their son was announced the contest winner in Edinburg. Yousaf becomes the first migrant, Muslim, and person of colour to be the First Minister of Scotland – an indicator of how migrants reshape UK politics.

Divided party

The leading newspaper, Scotsman, said Yousaf faces “an uphill battle to unite a divided party”. However, he has been accused by Douglass Ross, the leader of the Scottish Conservative Party, of running a “toxic campaign”. Unperturbed, Yousaf described himself as “the luckiest man in the world” for becoming the youngest First Minister at 37.

While most migrants who left Kenya for Britain are known to have lived in poor-quality housing and obtained low-paid work, they have managed to bring up a generation that is Kenya’s export to the world.

[email protected]; @johnkamau1