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Derek R. Peterson
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Podcast Host
Welcome to the History Extra Podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine.
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Idi Amin is 20th century Africa's most notorious ruler, a cartoonish tyrant who has been bracketed with the likes of Hitler and Stalin. And it's true that as Uganda's dictator for most of the 1970s, he he oversaw murderous repression as well as the forced expulsion of the country's Asian community. But why did so many ordinary Ugandans throughout the nation willingly serve the regime and help to maintain Amin's power? That's a question at the heart of a new book by the historian Derek R. Peterson, and in this episode he shares his conclusions with Rob Attar.
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Interviewer
Could we begin by setting the scene? How do we get to 1971 and Idi Amin's seizure of power?
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Derek R. Peterson
Uganda had come to independence in October 1962. The first chief executive was Prime Minister Milton Obote. He was probably the weakest prime minister in independent Africa. The 1960s were a time when lots of charismatic African presidents were leading African colonies to independence. Milton Obote was not one of them. He had come to power through kind of shady backroom deals struck in London. Between his very loosely organized party on the one hand. And the several different kingdoms. That British authorities. Had installed. At the center of Uganda's politics on the other. The kingdoms were hereditary institutions. That British authorities in colonial times. Had honored. By incorporating them into the architecture of colonial government. After independence, the king's authority was preserved. And actually expanded. So Milton Obote, the new prime minister. Was by no means the most consequential person within his own country. The kings of Uganda commanded part popular allegiance and support. In 1966, Milton Obote, who was rather irritated at all this. Sent the army to crush the palace of Uganda's leading kingdom. It was called Buganda. At the center of the new country of Uganda. About a thousand people were killed. As Obote and his people. Tried to consolidate power around the presidency. And to abolish the kingdoms. Thereby rendering illegal the whole kind of architecture of royalism. That had earlier organized public life. So after 1966, loyalty to one or the other of the kings was forbidden. Effectively, public displays of support for one of the kingdoms. Was made to seem to be anti government, anti state. And Obote's government came to rely evermore. On the military services. To maintain its hold on power. The key person in all of that was a man named Idi Amin. Who. Who had become, by 1966. The key figure within the Uganda army. Amin had been a soldier in the colonial army. It was called the King's African Rifles. At the time of independence, he was made one of two black commissioned officers. And in 1966, he was at the head of the military unit. That assaulted the palace of the King of Buganda. By the late 60s, he was an essential figure in Obote's government. He commanded the army and. And when in 1971. Milton Obote went off to Singapore for a conference. Idi Amin led his men to the airport, Closed it down. Attacked army units that were loyal to Milton Obote. And overthrew Obote's government. Thus bringing in on the 25th of January. The Second Republic of Uganda.
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Interviewer
And how would you describe Idi Amin at this point? Did he see himself as a revolutionary figure?
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Derek R. Peterson
I wouldn't say so. No. Actually, he, in 1971. Was not so much driven by ideology. As he was by a kind of pragmatic sense. That the opportunity was there before him. He was advised by the Israelis. Who looked upon him As a more reliable pair of hands than Obote had been. He had enthusiastic support from the government of the United Kingdom. Who were convinced that IDI Amin was their man. He had been a loyal servant of the colonial army. And when he came to power in 1971, he presented himself as a kind of bluff, confident Anglophile who was not going to follow Milton Obote in his flirtations with the global left and was not sympathetic to Russia or China, but rather solidly in the camp of the kind of post colonial British Empire. Slowly in those years, of course, dissolving. But nonetheless, when Amin came to power in 1971, he was by no means an ideologue. He didn't see himself as a revolutionary. He was close with Israel, close with the United Kingdom. All that was to change. But the coup of January 1971 was not a coup from the left by any means.
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Interviewer
So when and why did this begin to change?
- [06:21]
Derek R. Peterson
Well, in the first year of his time in power, IDI Amin relied on the Israelis. He was very close with the Israeli government. He went off to Israel as one of his first state visits. He promised to move the Ugandan embassy to Jerusalem. The Israelis responded in kind by making their Uganda mission the largest of any that they had in Africa. Israel in those years was looking for foreign allies. But in January 1972, Amin went off to Mecca on pilgrimage, where he got an earful from other pilgrims who complained about his willful embrace of the Israeli government and asked him why a son of Islam, why he would be so enthusiastically allied with the Israeli government? So, having received his scolding, Amin seems to have turned his politics in a different direction. He went off to Tripoli shortly after being in Mecca to spend time with Muammar Gaddafi, the revolutionary leader of Libya. And while there, he signed a manifesto promising to join Uganda's energies with that of Libya's for the liberation of the colonized people of the Middle east, including the Palestinians. And in March 1972, he expelled the Israeli diplomats and military trainers who had been training the Uganda army. And by the middle months of 1972, Amin was avidly searching about for a new kind of political posture that would ally him with the kind of anti colonial energies of the later 20th century, culminating in August 1972 when he expelled the British Asians who had long lived in Uganda and who in 1972 became the target of his revolutionary fervour.
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Interviewer
Now, for our listeners here in the uk, that's probably the aspect of IDI Amin's time in power that's most familiar. The expulsion of the Ugandan Asians, many of whom eventually did settle here in Britain. I wonder if you could tell us a bit more about the episode. Why did IDI Amin take such A drastic step.
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Derek R. Peterson
So it's an interesting question why Amin chose to expel the British Asians. As I was saying, by the middle months of 1972, he had adopted a political posture that allied Uganda with the global struggle for black liberation. And in August 1972, he found a ready target in the British Asian community. That had lived in Uganda, in some cases for generations. South Asians had come to Uganda in the late 19th century to build the railroad. By the mid 20th century they were Uganda's most important commercial minority. Controlling a great amount of the commerce in the city of Kampala. And the kind of nascent industrial sector as well. So in August 1972, Amin, needing in some sense a war to fight. In order to establish himself as a revolutionary leader. Found in the expulsion of the Asians a way to make the argument that Uganda was in fact at the front lines of a global war against imperial supremacy in the economy and in culture. So 50,000 South Asians were given three months to pack up their belongings and leave the country. There were generally, although not always, South Asians who held British Commonwealth passports. Which had been offered to them by the government of the UK As a kind of second class citizenship after the independence of India and Pakistan and Bangladesh. So in August 1972, British Asians, as they were, got three months to pack up their belongings. It was called first the war of economic liberation. Later it came to be called the economic war. And it rested effectively on the idea that by expelling this small minority. Amin was liberating black Ugandans from outsiders control. It was one of a whole number of campaigns of liberation that Amin launched in those years. Which targeted minorities within their country of Uganda. And assigned to them the kind of historic role as oppressors of the black majority. In other words, Amin found his liberation wars in the plural. By demonizing effectively outsider minorities. In the name of the upliftment of the black majority.
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Interviewer
And what impact did this expulsion have?
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Derek R. Peterson
Back in Uganda, it was widely popular. The expulsion of the Asian community was not uncontroversial in Uganda. There were voices opposed to it. Very important voices. But there had long been a virulent strain of anti Asian sentiment Within Uganda's public life. Stretching back to the earlier 20th century. There had been boycotts of the Asian community. Organized around the time of Ugandan independence. So when Amin expelled the Asians, you know, a great many Ugandans saw it as a salutary corrective to the long legacy of British colonial control over Uganda's economic life. The effect in practice was to hand over businesses and commercial concerns to uncredentialed and unknowledgeable people who had very little expertise in the management of large operations. So I interviewed, for example, a man who had been a clerk in Uganda's biggest sugar factory, A place called luzira, who was, in the latter months of 1972, given control over the factory and made to run it on the basis of very little personal knowledge or experience. You know, the 1970s were a tough time globally, economically, but the expulsion of the asians certainly didn't help. By the later 70s, Uganda's industrial output had largely ground to a halt as factories languished, Both because of lack of spare parts, but also because of lack of expertise. It's not to say it was a complete disaster. By the later 70s, Uganda's economy did pick up again, and by 1978, outsiders were reporting on the widespread prosperity of the country. But in the middle years of the 1970s, it was a tough time in practice for Uganda's economy.
- [12:21]
Interviewer
Then, of course, for the ugandan asians themselves, it must have been a hugely traumatic experience, being expelled from the country they lived in. With only a few months notice.
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Derek R. Peterson
Departing asians had to fill in a whole number of forms declaring their assets, Describing how much land and property they possessed, Describing whatever arrangements they'd had to transfer their belongings to black proprietorship. Those forms have survived in a great number of district archives, which we've recently brought to light. And there are also letters of, you know, kind of entreaty which I've spent time going through in the ministry of internal affairs archives and in other collections that reveal the kind of personal trauma that departing south asians felt. It's important to say very few people were actually physically harmed. The expulsion of the asians was carried off generally without physical violence. There may have been one person who suffered death in the course of the expulsion. But generally, departing South Asians found their way to the airport Through a whole number of police roadblocks. They were deprived of a great many of their possessions, of course, they were deprived of their way of life, but they weren't deprived of their physical welfare. And they found their way, as you mentioned, to a number of eager or not so eager hosts, including Canada. Pierre trudeau's Canada was a very welcoming place for south Asians, as was the United Kingdom. The United States, my home country, was not particularly welcoming. It took a few hundred departing south asians, but no more.
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Interviewer
And as you say, there, for the majority of the south asian people who had to leave, they weren't physically harmed. But that wasn't true for many of Uganda's black population under IDI Amin. Many of whom were killed.
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Derek R. Peterson
Yeah. The economic war after the expulsion of the Asians. Carried on by targeting ever more specific categories of people. Who were seen to be working against the interests of the black majority. So in 1975, Amin published what was called the Economic Crimes Decree. That made a whole range of commonplace economic strategies that people had pursued. Made them illegal and punishable by death. So smuggling, hoarding, overcharging. For even the most modest commercial transaction. All these things became, after 1975. Military matters that resulted in trials before a military tribunal. And it seems a whole number of people were executed under the military tribunals of the later 70s. As a means sought to impose a kind of military authority. Over the management of Uganda's economy. This is the most tragic part of the economic war. The expulsion of the Asians was terrible, there's no doubt about it. But it was black Ugandans who suffered most seriously. The harms that were occasioned. By Amin's war of economic liberation. Whole categories of people that had earlier worked by arbitrating across borders. By conducting commerce, that is, through subterfuge. By trying to find profits. In modest, small scale transactions. That took place out of government oversight. All this kind of commonplace economic strategizing. Was made punishable by death. And there are these gripping photographs in the archives of Uganda's photographic unit. Showing people in a desperate state on trial before the military tribunals. Pleading for their lives with military judges. Over the most trivial infractions. These photographs made at time of extremity for me. The most revealing and most humanizing evidence. Of the kind of commonplace violence. That black Ugandans suffered in the later 70s under Amin's dictatorship.
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Interviewer
Is it possible to put a figure on the number of people that were killed under Amin's regime?
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Derek R. Peterson
Amin's government was not a genocidal machine. This is an argument that I make in the book. One of the chapters of the book. Outsiders have estimated 300,000, 500,000. The International Committee of Jurists put the number at 300,000 in 1978. I disbelieve those numbers. I wouldn't want to put a number on the total number killed. But there were lots of people killed. There weren't, however, the kinds of mass exterminations. Of whole categories of people. That characterized European history in the mid 20th century. Instead, the violence of the 1970s was largely carried off by men who spoke what for many Ugandans was a foreign language. That is Swahili who had been enlisted into the Uganda army. Who were empowered by IDI Amin's regime to arbitrate civilian affairs. And who exercised their power greatly to the disadvantage of educated people and people from the south. Who regarded these Swahili speaking Northerners as barbarians. So in the chapter of the book that deals with violence. I make the argument that it was a kind of social terror. As opposed to a genocidal machine. That shaped Ugandans appraisal of the dangers of the 1970s. There were no extermination factories. What there were were these guys with guns from the far north who. Southerners who people with education regarded as barbarians. And that feeling of being unjustly made subject to these people's authority because they had guns. Was at the bottom of the outrage and the kind of fear that crippled a great many Ugandans in those years. So again, the estimates are high. I think it's more probably productive to think about the 1970s. As for many people. As a time of a kind of social death, a kind of indignity. An inversion of the usual hierarchy of things. In which the educated elite. Found themselves unable to command the political stage. And it was men with guns from the north that were given positions of power over civic affairs.
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Interviewer
But despite this violence and this trauma, Is it fair to say there were also many Ugandans. Who willingly embraced certainly some aspects of IDI Amin's political program?
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Derek R. Peterson
The book that I've written is organized around the stories of people who worked, for example, in the museum sector. To build civic institutions. That could memorialize the accomplishments of the 1970s. To make the memory of the economic war permanent. There is a chapter about religious life. That describes a theologian's efforts. To define the essence of African traditional religion. So better to build up a kind of architecture. That could defend African culture against outsiders. Control. There's a chapter likewise about Pan Africanism As a kind of animating force in Uganda's civic affairs. Focusing on a modest character named Peter Waankulu. Who was, among other things, the maker of a legend about himself. He was a collage artist. And he created a whole series of collages. That placed himself at the center of the global history of Pan Africanism. These characters, the theologians, the collage artists, the museum curators and others. Were inspired by IDI Amin's government. Not because they were naive or not because they were easily duped or not because they were dumb. But because Amin's government pursued objectives that many of us today would find laudable. The idea that black people should command the heights of the economy was widely attractive in the 1970s. Black Americans found reasons to support Idi Amin's government for a time. And as I describe in the book. Civil rights leaders in the United States Formed a kind of close relationship With IDI Amin's government for a time. And there were delegations of black Americans who came to Uganda. Seeking to invest themselves both personally and financially. In the welfare of the Ugandan state. Seeing it as a liberating force globally for black people. So, again, one can look on this as propaganda. As people who are too easily seduced. By the power of IDI Amin's rhetoric. But I myself am more inclined to take these people at their word. And to look at how I mean successfully, it seemed, built up within this landlocked, remote country. A sense of shared political purpose. Among many folks. Who saw themselves as standing on the front lines. Of a global war of racial liberation.
- [20:42]
Interviewer
So, as you say in your book. You talk about quite a lot of what you might call ordinary Ugandans and their actions during this time. How easy was it to research their stories?
- [20:52]
Derek R. Peterson
The research that underlays this book. Rests largely, although not entirely. On recently rehabilitated Uganda government archives. That students from my university. Which is the University of Michigan. And Makethede University in Kampala. Have been working to rehabilitate over the past now 15 years of work. I've been working particularly closely. With a provincial university in western Uganda. Called Mountains of the Moon University. To digitize local government records. We've created a very large repository of government records in western Uganda. That is, in fact, the largest digitized repository of government documents in Africa, as far as we know. I've also been working with colleagues in Kampala. To inventory and acquire archives. That have now been placed in the newly opened National Archives Building. At the center of Kampala City. The book that I've written rests on this kind of work. Of archival retrieval and organization. What I've been able to uncover are the voices of people from the provinces. Because much of the work has been focused on provincial archives. People who weren't really central to the operations of Amin's government per se. There's not actually that much in the book about IDI Amin himself. Or the people who were close to him. Instead, this is a book about people in the provinces. I call them commoners. Who found reasons to invest themselves in supporting IDI Amin's government. And who saw in Amin's regime. A means of realizing their own aspirations for racial and cultural liberation. So the research was taxing. It's, you know, organizing archives is a Dirty Business. In the book, I describe a whole number of archival retrieval projects that we've been involved in. One of them involved me standing in the attic of a disused government building outside Fort Portal in the west, spraying cans of insecticide at hordes of wasps that had camped in the local government papers. It took weeks and weeks of spraying these wasps until they finally submitted to my investigatory interests, and thus a whole aspect of my book was born out of the corpses of dead wasps which lay upon the floor as myself and others began to organize and rehabilitate this local government archive. That was one of several archival retrieval projects that myself and students from Western Uganda and from makethe Day have been engaged with. And that's the work on which this book rests.
- [23:21]
Interviewer
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- [23:54]
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- [23:58]
Derek R. Peterson
No surprises there.
- [23:59]
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- [24:51]
Interviewer
So as you said, your book focuses a lot on people who weren't close to the center of power in Uganda's regime but nevertheless carried out work on its behalf. How important was radio in connecting these different parts of the country and connecting these people to IDI Amin?
- [25:06]
Derek R. Peterson
One of the core arguments of the book is to say that technology makes certain forms of government possible. If you've been paying attention to American politics, you'll recognize this. Twitter was for President Trump, an indispensable tool of government in his first time in office. For IDI Amin, it was Radio Uganda that was the key instrument of government communication, for reasons to do with the dynamics that I talked about at the start of this interview. His predecessor, Milton Obote, had invested in radio broadcasting in the 1960s because Obote had seen radio as a kind of crutch to prop up his otherwise unpopular government. As I mentioned, he'd come to power as one of the weakest chief executives in Africa. If he couldn't exercise power effectively, he could at least make sure that his voice was inescapable. So Obote built up a new radio infrastructure that broadcasted on the medium wave frequencies. And that allowed him to propagate his voice and his politics across the whole of Uganda and indeed into far distant places through the radio service. It happened that in January 1971, when Idi Amin overthrew Obote, Amin inherited this large radio apparatus. It was the most powerful radio broadcasting system in Africa in its day, and he set about expanding its capabilities. In 1975, there was a new external broadcasting service that was opened up, allowing Amin to broadcast to far distant places around the world. There are these lovely letters in the archives of Radio Uganda, written by listeners in far distant places from Germany, from the United States, describing how they picked up the Radio Uganda signal and were listening to the music and the broadcasts that were being from Kampala. This was mission accomplished for IDI Amin. He saw himself as a frontline warrior for racial liberation, for political liberation for Africa's colonized people. And the radio service allowed him to beam his voice and his politics to far distant places. Ugandans regarded Radio Uganda as the critical platform on which to work out what it was that President Amin wished for them to do. So, as I describe in the book, listening to Radio Uganda in those days became effectively mandatory for lower level civil servants out in the provinces who could find in the radio broadcast specific guidance given to them from the mouth of the president himself about how to pursue their very particular jobs out in far distant corners of the country. That is, Amin the president used the radio service as a kind of stand in for bureaucracy. At a time in which paper, petroleum and other instruments of bureaucratic government were hard to come by. The radio service offered a means of overstepping, of escaping from the bind that the bureaucratic machinery presented on Amin's government. And instead to project the voice of the president to far distant places and to command people's attention and loyalty and to demand they act all at once. It's as though Amin saw the radio service as something like a loud hailer. And he regarded Ugandans as kind of soldiers on the march. Who could be given orders in all their specific locations. About how they ought to act. That's what Amin used radio for, as an instrument of dictatorship, as I say in the book.
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Interviewer
Now, for those of our listeners who may not know the full story of Amin's regime. How was he eventually brought down?
- [28:46]
Derek R. Peterson
In the book, I describe how Amin's regime was brought to an end. I do honor the memory of dissidents. In a small, distant corner of the country. A place called Rudu. Who fought for years to achieve their independence from Uganda's government. But in the end, it was not the dissidents. Who brought back down IDI Amin's government. It was instead, the neighboring state, Tanzania. Which sent its regular army across the border. And by April 1979, had overthrown Amin's regime. Sending President Amin into an unhappy exile. Tanzania's government had been provoked in November 1978. When a battalion of the regular Uganda army. Had strayed across the border. Seemingly without direct orders from the president in Kampala. They'd strayed across the Tanzania border. And over the course of days. Had occupied the Kagera Salient. Which is part of Tanzania that borders Uganda. This outraged the authorities in Dar es Salaam. Julius Nerere, the president of Tanzania. Had already regarded IDI Amin As a kind of threat to African politics, to the world. There was a personal enmity between Nyerere and IDI Amin. Nyerere had eagerly hosted dissidents and exiles from Uganda. Who lived in Tanzania. And were supported by the Tanzanian government. So after the mistaken invasion of November 1978. Nyerere mobilized the Tanzanian army, which took a long time. There wasn't really an effective Tanzanian military force. They had to be marshaled from across the different corners of Tanzania. Which is a huge place, brought to the northwest. And by 1979, they had recaptured the Kagera salient. And it crossed over into southern Uganda and kept going. Effectively, the Uganda army put up a very ineffective resistance. They weren't very good at fighting, as it turned out. They were much better at brutalizing civilians. Than they were at fighting other soldiers. And so by February, March 1979. It was clear that Amin's regime was in its last days. The Tanzanian army halted in a place called Masaka, outside Kampala. And waited for the Uganda civilian authorities. To kind of catch up with the fast pace of Events. There was a hastily called conference in Tanzania. In which Ugandan exiles came together to agree on what the shape of a new government should be. And so, finally, in April 1979, the Tanzania army enters Kampala. And a few days later installs a new government. Headed by a very admirable but apolitical professor named Yusuf Alule. Who took power on behalf of what was called the Uganda National Liberation Front. Having Tanzanian soldiers right there beside him. As he took the oath of office.
- [31:42]
Interviewer
Presumably the regimes that followed on from IDI Amin. Didn't carry on his political program.
- [31:48]
Derek R. Peterson
Yeah. I have colleagues who have just published a new book. About the 1979, 1980 moment after Amin's fall from power. There was a brief moment of about 12 to 15 months. During which Ugandans conducted a kind of earnest debate. About what they wanted their political society to look like. I talk about this in the book. It's a moment of opportunity. In which a whole different set of visions. About what Uganda could be came to light. But by the end of 1980, all that had been closed down. Milton Obote came back to power. Having won a rigged election in December 1980. And Obote's return to power, in turn resulted in the return of a kind of politics of violence. There followed a long civil war. And a whole series of unstable governments. That whole period ignominious, full of violence, full of death. A terrible and dark moment in Uganda's path. That still lives in the minds of older people. That finally came to an end in 1986. When the current president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni. Marched into Kampala. Overthrew the remnants of the old regime. And brought to power a new movement. It's called the National Liberation Army. Later the nrm. The National Resistance Movement that now stands in power in Kampala.
- [33:07]
Interviewer
And then what happened to the political energies. Of the people you write about in your book. After the end of the Amin regime? Where did that all go?
- [33:15]
Derek R. Peterson
It's an interesting question. In the book, I talk about how the Amin government. And actually the Obote government. Had worked in part by transferring energetic people's patriotism. Out of the domain of substantive politics. And into other forms of political organizing. That were focused on art, music and culture. The Amin government regarded people who were attached to the old kingdoms of Uganda as elders. That is, as people who stood for an old archaic order of things. After Amin fell from power. The kind of energies that had guided politics in those years. The enthusiastic pursuit of anti imperial racial liberation for a time. Continued to shape Milton Obote's. Government. And they manifested themselves most obviously, perhaps in 1986, when Iwari Museveni came to power. For a few years in the late 80s, the new National Resistance Movement government successfully built local democracy by allowing people to vote in local elections. By renovating the way that Uganda's politics worked, President Museveni has never had the same kind of racial liberatory agenda that President Amid had pursued. But some of the kind of idealism of the 1960s and 70s did percolate through in the later 80s in the NRM government and continues to kind of shape the rhetoric of government today. It's difficult to find idealistic people in Uganda these days, but the idealism to some extent has been transferred into other arenas. Uganda, even though it is now governed by a political party that's been in power since 1986, it's one of the youngest countries in the world. There's huge numbers of people. Something over 80% of Ugandans have been born since 1990. So the contrast between its gerontocratic elderly governing class connected with the president on the one hand, and on the other hand, the youth and energy of the vast majority of people means that folks invest today in a whole range of ideologically driven projects to lift up Ugandan art, to liberate Ugandan music. It's not a mistake that the most serious contender in the opposition party in Uganda's public life today is a musician. His name is Bobby Wine. There's been a kind of transferral, in other words, out of substantive politics into other domains of public life that command the energy and attention of Uganda's young folks today.
- [35:45]
Interviewer
And then just coming back to IDI Amin in the West, I think it's probably fair to say that we have an image of him of being this notorious, almost cartoonish tyrant, the worst African leader potentially. Do you think the reality is more complicated than that?
- [36:00]
Derek R. Peterson
That's an interesting question. I contributed to one of several projects that link Idi Amin with the legacy of tyranny of the 20th century. This was a Netflix documentary called how to Be a Tyrant. IDI Amin was there with Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin and others of the great murderer's row of tyrants of the 20th century. I myself am not particularly keen on putting Idi Amin in their company, although his notoriety in large part derives from his membership on that list. He's undoubtedly the most well known African political leader of the 20th century, with the possible exception of Nelson Mandela. And that notoriety springs from this conviction that's been shaped by the media's portrayal of Amin as a kind of bloodthirsty devourer of human flesh, all of that. So first of all, about the notoriety itself. I've gotten to know a great number of people. Who served in Amin's household in those years. I know some of his children. I know a few of his former wives. And they've been generous in spending time with me. Amin was not a, you know, a diner on human flesh. I talked to his butler, who looked after the refrigerator in the state house. And he enjoyed his dinner. But he wasn't by any means a cannibal. That's just an inflation of critical rumors about Amin's regime. He loved his children. His children today regard him with great affection. And he, I think, was earnestly invested. In the politics of racial liberation. That commanded the loyalty of so many people. Today, Africa's politics are largely off the front pages. African political leaders of the 2020s, you know, are bit players in global political affairs. In the 70s, Amin was convinced that Africa was the center of the world. And he acted as though that were the case. Which is partly why he earned a reputation as a buffoon. But he refused to accept the premise. That Uganda, or Africa. Was a kind of afterthought in global affairs. He wanted the United nations to be located in Kampala. He offered to take over the leadership of the British Commonwealth. Because Britain was economically impoverished. He organized rescue campaigns to send food to starving British people. And a great many Ugandans donated food, it seems. To help supply the British public. With dietary supplements. That they needed from the tropics. The whole premise of Amin's diplomacy was partly driven by a desire to kind of command people's attention. Like others in public life today. He knew how to keep himself in the news. But it was also driven by a kind of earnest sense. That the racial order of things was unjust. That international politics, dominated formally and informally by the global North. Worked to the disadvantage of people in Africa and other recently decolonized places. So he sought to make alliances across the whole postcolonial world. He appealed to Scottish nationalists. He appealed to Irish nationalists. He made a common cause with Ethiopian separatists in Eritrea. He welcomed a whole host of odd revolutionary figures. Who came through Kampala in those years. To have their picture taken with IDI Amin. He trained anti apartheid activists. Who came through Kampala and through Uganda for military training. Including activists of the Pan African Congress, the pac. Who formed a kind of alliance of mutual convenience with IDI Amin in those years. And who received formal military training from the Uganda army. You know, One could look on all this as kind of a performance. I prefer to look on it as a kind of sincere and laudatory posture of resistance against a kind of racialized international order that worked to the disadvantage of black folks worldwide and of, you know, Africans in particular.
- [39:53]
Podcast Host
That was Derek R. Peterson speaking to Rob Attar. Derek is professor of history and African Studies at the University of Michigan. And his new book, A Popular History of IDI Amin's Uganda, is out now, published by Yale. If you'd like to know more about the experience of Uganda's Asian community, head over to historyextra.com where you can read a piece on the subject by Becky Taylor.
- [40:24]
Derek R. Peterson
And Doug Here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.
- [40:40]
Interviewer
Uh, Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us.
- [40:43]
Commercial Narrator
Cut the camera.
- [40:43]
Derek R. Peterson
They see us.
- [40:44]
Commercial Narrator
Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings vary underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts.
- [40:52]
Derek R. Peterson
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- [41:13]
Commercial Narrator
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