Word: amins
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Schroeder makes an attempt to provide a contextual narrative discussing the major events of Amin's reign. Surely it would be too much to expect a sophisticated political analysis of the Amin regime as background narration to an hour and a half film, but Schroeder's effort is nonetheless startlingly superficial. Amin's "economic war"--the wholesale destruction of the Asian community in Uganda--is accorded a scant few sentences and dismissed as a failure. That is however, considerably better than the discussion of Amin's shift from a relatively close relationship with Israel to a virtual alliance with Lybia...
...single redeming feature of Schroeder's film is its success in conveying a sense of Amin's personality and the origins of his political and personal philosophy, such as it is. For language barrier or not, Amin clearly emerges as something of a psychopath, evidenced by his manaical giggle when questioned about his affection and admiration for Hitler, by his professed knowledge of the time and circumstance of his own eventual death, and by numerous other incidents and remarks. It is apparent that he is a complete dupe of the most militant anti-Israel forces in the Arab world, believing...
...film also succeeds in capturing Amin's egomania, depicting his obsession with uniforms, parades, and demonstrations of fealty be his subjects. But beyond these all too few salient features, there is just not very much there. And what is particularly serious about the failure of this film is the unbelievable horror of life in Uganda since Amin's ascendancy. In an article on "Amin's Butchery", in last week's New York Review of Books, David Martin cites the report of Edward Rugumayo, Amin's first minister of education, who fled the country two years after the coup d'etat...
...head with a hammer. The process was repeated down the line until the last man was shot. Another method was to cut flesh from a victim and force him to eat it until he died. Rugumayo said it was estimated that 80,000 to 90,000 people died in Amin's first two years in power: but he admitted that this might be a conservative figure...
...made a mockery of Hitler based on exactly what Hitler was, at a time when National Socialism was a much admired idealogy, and the emergence of a New Germany a much admired phenomenon, by all too many in the western world. Schroeder barely scratches the surface of what Amin really is and what Amin's rule in Uganda is all about. Sacrificing serious analysis for attempts at farce, and cheap attempts at that, completely undermines the potential of Idi Amin Dada. Schroeder should not have settled for the easy...