Human rights activist and aid worker Tindyebwa ‘Tindy’ Agaba was in Glasgow recently to talk at Glasgow Caledonian University about his experiences and his life.
By Jack Tannock, media volunteer
‘Learning at the Sharp End’ raised the question of whether academia or practical experience is more important in the field of human rights, and Tindy captivated the audience at Glasgow Caledonian University with stories about his extraordinary life and the work he has done around the world.
Background
Tindyebwa ‘Tindy’ Agaba was born 27 years ago in Rwanda. At the age of nine Tindy’s father died of Aids and during the Rwandan genocide of the mid-nineties his mother and sisters were abducted and raped. He never saw them again. Shortly after the genocide ended he was taken away by the militia, who were waging a guerrilla war from the north of the country. Tindy was forced to become a child soldier.
After such a harrowing childhood Tindy could have been forgiven for simply giving up on life but he never did. In the time he had with her, his mother had fostered in him a pride, drive and passion for learning and Tindy never gave up on his quest for a better life. At great personal risk he ran away and escaped from the country through Care International.
Tindy found himself in the UK and after sleeping rough in Trafalgar Square for a time he met the actress Emma Thompson and her husband at an event for the Refugee Council. They invited him to spend Christmas with them and soon the family unofficially adopted him. He became as much a part of the family as anyone and still spends a great deal of time with them.
Life in the UK and citizenship
Tindy’s life in the UK as an asylum seeker was very different from that in Rwanda. He had only just got used to life in busy, multicultural London when he moved to Devon to attend the University of Exeter. While he found it beautiful there he encountered racism from some of the locals. Tindy’s attitude was simply to laugh in the face of his abusers and move on. But Tindy ran into further complications when the UK government decided it was safe for him to return to Rwanda and tried to remove him from the UK in 2007. However he had built a life for himself here and had a family and so naturally had no desire to leave. With help from his family and friends he fought the case and won and he has even kept in touch with the judge who heard the case.
Tindy then took theBritish citizenship test and recounted to the audience in Glasgow just how restrictive and frankly ridiculous the test is. With questions such as ‘What percentage of the UK lives in Wales?’ and ‘When did women gain the right to divorce their husbands?’ the test has little bearing on life in the UK and no connection to the ordinary, everyday lives of British people*.
Working overseas
Tindy went on to work for the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights. Working with refugees and asylum seekers who came to Cairo from across Africa, many of his clients were victims of rape and torture however they were not always welcomed by the Egyptians. He left the UN and set up his own charity providing pastoral care to refugees and asylum seekers but he often found that attitudes towards asylum seekers in Egypt were not dissimilar to what you might find in this country and many viewed them with suspicion and distrust.
Tindy went on to work in other countries including Burma, Liberia and Palestine and even studied at university in Iran. In Iran he again found that people were fed propaganda about an ‘other’, in this case The West, just as we are fed propaganda about Iran. Across the varied places he travelled to Tindy found people were always engaging and were concerned about politics. In contrast to this country where so many are jaded with politics and politicians no longer seem to care about or speak to the people. In Iran and Palestine he witnessed ordinary people directly holding their leaders to account where as in this country there is such a disconnect between voters and politicians. Tindy spoke about how desperately we need this to change and you couldn’t help but agree with him.
Changing perspectives
However living in the UK changed his perspective as well. For example when he first came here Tindy freely admits he was homophobic. Growing up in Rwanda he was taught that homosexuality was wrong and that it was sinful. For years the only knowledge he had of homosexuality came from those who denounced it; there were no other voices on the issue. Having lived in the UK and met many gay people his opinions changed and he realised that what he had been taught was wrong and that there is more than one perspective on things.
This experience had a profound effect on Tindy as it related to his own experience as a foreigner in this country. To him, growing up, gays were the ‘other’ and were to be feared and hated. Now, as refugee, he was the ‘other’ to many people in the UK. For many people in this country the only voices they will ever hear speaking about asylum seekers are negative ones in the media or politics. As with before, when you only ever hear one perspective on an issue your whole life you will assume it is the truth and never question it. Just as people in Rwanda believe the lies they are told about gay people, many here in the UK believe what they are told about asylum seekers.
Tindy, speaking from his own experiences – particularly in Egypt, talked passionately about how when times are hard, many people will look to blame an ‘other’ for their problems and the need to fight this. Many within politics and society will use the other as a scapegoat and play upon people’s fears and prejudices to their own advantage. Tindy spoke about how such things are fuelled by ignorance and that the best way to combat ignorance is through speaking to people, escecially young people, on their own level and in their own ‘language’ (so to speak),educating them and allowing them to see things from a different perspective.
*the answers are 5% and 1857 by the way.
