In late August 1972, my parents, older brother and I landed in Stansted, wearing clothes that were suitable for a hot tropical climate, rather than for the changeable weather of the United Kingdom. In August it will have been 50 years since the arrival of the Ugandan Asians who had been expelled from our East African country, where we had been settled for generations.

We were kicked out of Uganda by the erratic and brutal dictator, Idi Amin Dada, who had been supported as a soldier by the colonial British administration in Uganda. To them, Amin was a tough, brutal soldier on whom they could rely on to crush any dissent to colonial rule.
History has shown that overlooking the brutality of a military leader to achieve an objective leads to that very individual eventually turning on the hand that feeds him. And the British soon realised that their "military asset" had fast become a strategic liability. However by then Amin had become a mass murderer.

We, as Ugandan Asians, eventually paid a price for Britain’s support of Amin. It was therefore only right that Britain took us in, albeit as Commonwealth "second class" British passport holders. This hierarchy of citizenship was a part of the colonialist legacy of stratifying citizenship according to empire and where you were born.

Amin’s legacy of hate has shaped my life far more than I realised. For years I never felt settled, have craved a feeling of "home" and have felt that the cold and grey climate of our country has been alien. All of these feelings, I now realise, are the impacts of early childhood trauma that have left a legacy on my emotional and mental health.
Whilst Amin died peacefully in Saudi Arabia in 2003, his brutality left a mark on millions of people and he was never brought to justice. Instead, the Saudis allowed him to escape justice for the mass murders, evictions of tens of thousands of Ugandans and the widespread embezzlement of the state’s resources. And by granting Amin asylum and residence in Saudi Arabia, the Saudis allowed him to escape justice for the Entebbe hostage crisis in June 1976, where Amin was central to the kidnapping of over 100 Jews in co-ordination with the murderous Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). We should never forget that Amin and the PFLP deliberately targeted Jews on the assumption that Israel would capitulate. Israel would not, and in Operation Thunderbolt, soldiers from the Golani force and commandos from the Sayeret Matkal force decimated Ugandan forces at the Entebbe airport and released 102 hostages.

Nearly two decades later, I remember clearly how, during the Bosnian war, British Jews were central to highlighting the mass killings of Muslims by paramilitary forces associated with Serbian troops who were assaulting the newly independent nation of Bosnia. People like the "Angel of Mostar", Sally Becker, left a huge mark on me and left a legacy of deep affection and love for Britain’s Jewish communities which became imprinted in me. Their work also made the term "Tikkun Olam" central to what I try to do in my life.

This has led me to consider what part Britain’s Jewish communities played at the time in welcoming Ugandan Asians into the country. Little is known about this - it is an area that needs to be highlighted so that younger generations can be inspired to help others, rather than to live separate lives based on rigid lines of identitarianism. We have seen the "them and us" thinking creep into parts of communities, generated by people who fear change and an evolving world. Yet the lives of my parents and those of my siblings have been one shaped by enormous changes.

Life is never static, but one thing has remained a constant: how Jewish communities have always stood up for minorities when they have been targeted by hate.

As I grow older, I feel that another part of the jigsaw of my life as a refugee to Britain needs to be put into place. That jigsaw piece concerns the kindness and love that Britain’s Jews showed to Ugandan Asians. The 50th anniversary is a time to reflect on that.