Amin elevated buffoonery to new levels of farce and bloodshed

[Ediacara]

Reign of Terror
Monday, August 18, 2003

Amin elevated buffoonery to new levels of farce and bloodshed
By MUTUMA MATHIU


At over six feet tall and weighing more than 120kg, Amin was a man of excess. His behaviour in public was boorish and farcical. Here he cavorts semi-nude in public. He also rallied, played football and loved the accordion.
Photo/File

If Nelson Mandela is the man who restored dignity to a lost race, then "His Excellency President for Life Field Marshal Al Hajj Dr Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular", is the man who elevated bloodthirsty African buffoonery to new heady heights of imbecilic farce.

For Amin can not - and must not - be remembered as anything but a moron: and the fact that he wore a uniform, and was in charge of a country to boot, is a great demerit to Africa.

Historians have tried to find some method, some purpose, to his clowning, casual brutality, his staring lunacy. There is none. He was just a man with a gun, who had got ahead in the colonial military, the Kenya African Rifles, because of his athletic abilities, brutality and tribal connections.

More at the Daily Nation (Nairobi)

[premjan]

1. wasn't he a

cannibal?

[On the Road]

2. Oh, I Thought it Said "Admin Elevated Bufoonery..."

in reference to the current US administration. Didn't surprise me a bit.

But Idi Amin always held a sort of awful fascination for me.