Content area
Full Text
The Ghost of Idi Amin in Ugandan Literature
On 25 January 1971, Major General Idi Amin, Commander of the Uganda Armed Forces, took power from Milton Obote in a military coup, and made an impressive broadcast to the nation.1 He was greeted with applause by many people in Uganda, and promptly recognized by a number of foreign governments, including those of Great Britain and Israel. The decisive ruthlessness with which he dealt with the opposition to the coup was discomforting even to those who accepted that changes like those must be attended by some bloodshed, but many were prepared to excuse his shortcomings in the hope that "things would work out for the better in the long run." Within a short time, however, the coup, which had been greeted with jubilation, began to deteriorate into a systematic breakdown of organized society, of which several writers have written at length. Henry Kyemba, among other writers, made authoritative revelations in A State of Blood (1977).2 Many other full-length and nonfictional works have been written about Amin the man and Amin the ruler.(3)
For the literary character of Uganda, the Amin experience was a significant turning point, because it inspired large volumes of literature. Many writers and would-be writers fled the country; and in their exile, they wrote a literature that gave the world a picture of the turmoil in Uganda. Some of this literature was not published until the fall of Idi Amin, out of fear that friends and relatives left behind in Uganda might pay the price with their lives.4 Other writers stayed and wrote while in Uganda, but they went to great pains to camouflage their writings about the Amin subject. Alumidi Osinya, for example, used a pseudonym to write his hard-hitting fable, The Amazing Saga of Field Marshal Abdulla Salim Fisi (Or How the Hyena Got His!), and to this day, very few know who he actually is. Robert Serumaga, author of Return to the Shadows, wrote many plays in which he cautiously tackled Idi Amin,5 but he eventually gave up creating fictitious "Amins" and took up the gun to fight the real one; and Byron Kawadwa, author of the satirical play The Song of Wankoko, did not survive. Writers from outside Uganda were...