General Amin and the Coup: Great Man or Historical Inevitability?

Abstract

I have come to the conclusion that General Haji Idi Amin Dada is not a bizarre or maverick intrusion upon the Uganda political scene,1 but deeply and significantly entwined in it. I wish to present what appear to me to be the most important interrelated factors in the conventional functional sense, but to do so diachronically, so that they become continuous themes or forces,2 in which successive events have causative effect on one another.3 This raises all kinds of interesting theoretical and epistemological questions which I shall not be able to dispose of at the same time. I shall also be forced to be selective, without being able to justify each choice and step of the argument as it deserves. Central to my interpretation is the fact that General Amin is a Nubi, and that the history of the Nubi is important for the understanding of contemporary events. The present régime is more and more dominantly a Nubi régime, and its core strength is a Nubi strength.