FOREWORD
If you ever cared about these history essays, by now you almost certainly don’t. But for the sake of completeness here’s my essay for African History this year. It’s about dictators in Africa.
INTRODUCTION
Contemporary Western popular media presents Africa as a continent ruled by violence, despotism, and greed. The picture of Africa we are fed as laypeople suggests that authentic liberal democracy is anomalous, and anarchy – or, perhaps more so, dictatorship – is the standard in national governance. If Robert Mugabe can be considered the current cover-boy of this trend of dictatorship, then he is preceded by such notables as Idi Amin (Uganda), Francisco Nguema (Equitorial Guinea) and Jean-Bedel Bokassa (Central African Republic).
This raises an interesting, if perhaps coarse, question: Is Africa prone to dictatorship? In this essay I attempt to answer this nebulous question in a way that is both broad and focused. My answer is broad in the sense that it considers a variety of distinctive explanations for African dictatorships. These fall into two categories. First, there are theories which stress the effect of foreign agency on African dictatorships: both through the legacy of colonialism and through contemporary trade and intervention in Africa. Last, there are accounts which attempt to tie dictatorship to inherently African characteristics. These include ‘big man’ theories, which treat the personal characteristics of the dictatorships as the true cause of their rise to power, and ‘savagery’ theories, which claim that Africans are by nature unable to equitably self-govern.
Is Africa prone to dictatorship? My answer is, ‘it depends’. It depends on the country in question: its colonial inheritance, and the extent to which international authorities are willing to intervene in its interests. It depends much less, in my argument, on those causes which are by nature constant or arbitrary: the supposedly consistent ‘savagery’ of Africans or the arbitrary charisma of certain ‘big men’. Thus the thrust of my essay is that the phenomenon of dictatorship in Africa is driven less by factors that are internal and much more by the role of foreign powers whether in the past as colonists or as neo-colonists in the present.
If the essay is broad, it is also narrow in the sense that it focuses on the rise and rule of a particular dictator: Idi Amin Dada. From 1971 to 1979 Amin ruled Uganda with a strong and brutal arm. This ‘buffoon tyrant’ – a scatterbrained yet politically adroit dictator – was responsible for the death of up to 300,000 Ugandans. Amin achieved and sustained control through a number of crucial actions, which will be outlined and constantly examined and re-examined through the course of the essay.
PRELIMINARIES
Dictatorship in Africa
First, let us be clear that in statistical terms Africa is definitely prone to dictatorship. Between 1960 and 1989, 81 out of 117 leadership transitions in Africa came about through ‘coup, war or invasion, including assassinations’.[1] If we define ‘dictatorships’ as any form of violent rule, it seems fair to extrapolate from this data that the first thirty years of the African post-colony[2] were marked by dictatorship. Fortunately the rate of violent regime change radically dropped in the 1990s, with less than half of the leadership changes in that period occurring violently.[3] This may reflect the declining influence of the colonial legacy as it is filtered through political evolutionary processes and foreign aid.
Overview of Amin’s reign
Amin took control of Uganda in a coup d’état in January 1971, deposing Milton Obote, the first prime minister of the independent state.[4] Amin’s coup was a success and for a short time the new ruler enjoyed popular approval. But over the course of his reign Amin’s popularity declined significantly. [5] In fact for much of the eight years there was a powerful feeling of antipathy towards Amin and his regime.[6] Thus in examining Amin’s reign we begin not only with the question of how he achieved power in 1971, but also how he retained control for such a long time in the face of popular resentment.
In order to begin to answer these questions it is important to observe three things. First, although the Ugandan public resented Amin there was a lack of any organised resistance.[7] In fact, it was ultimately the Tanzanian army and a small band of 2,000 Ugandan resistance fighters based in Tanzania who defeated Amin in 1979.[8] Second, Amin used violence to establish and secure his authority. Upon seizing power in 1971 one of his first moves was to eliminate opposition in the army, executing Loangi and Acholi soldiers.[9] This act of violence was emblematic of the overall tenor of Amin’s regime. The third and last point is that Amin relied heavily on foreign ‘aid’ for the success of his coup and for continued support throughout the decade. For example, it is generally recognised that Britain and Israel had a significant part to play in orchestrating the 1971 coup.[10] These three aspects of Amin’s reign – violence, popular disunity and foreign abuse of Uganda through assistance given to Amin – all reflect the role of foreign nations in Ugandan dictatorship, whether through the legacy of colonialism or by direct intervention. I turn now to analyse each phenomenon in detail.
FOREIGN INFLUENCE
Violence
As with most colonies, the colonial experience in Uganda was typified by violence. The first Europeans in the Ugandan province of Acholiland were traders who arrived around 1861 and allied with certain rival chiefs in order to capture their opponents, taking them away to market as slaves.[11] In the colonial period, the British protectorate recruited northerners to quash a peasant revolt in the south.[12] Last, the colonial system of paying native administrators a salary based on the amount of tax raised encouraged indigenous Ugandans to violently extort tribute from their kinsmen.[13] These examples illustrate two faces of colonial violence: first, violence by the state against indigenous subjects, and second, violence among subjects enforced or encouraged by colonial policies and structures.
What is the relationship between violence in the colony and in the post-colony? Fanon has claimed that:
The colonised… have been prepared for violence from time immemorial. As soon as they are born it is obvious to them that their cramped world, riddled with taboos, can only be challenged by out and out violence.[14]
This view is obviously exaggerated to the degree that colonial states did provide opportunities for Africans to engage in the political process, in however token a fashion. In Uganda a system of tiered local government allowed Bagandans (from the southern province of Buganda) to act as administrators in other districts.[15] Thus violence was not the only route to power. However Fanon’s claim is more deeply flawed because it assumes that violence should continue into the post-colony merely because it is customary.
A more subtle interpretation suggests that post-colonial violence is a ‘power stage’ in a struggle to re-establish lost self-esteem.[16] ‘Decolonisation… implies the urgent need to thoroughly challenge the colonial situation,’[17] which involves the oppressed asserting their superiority. The superiority complex thus developed compels those who were once victims to find their own targets for violence and exploitation.[18] In this way the violence native to dictatorial regimes can be seen as the first stage in an attempt by colonised people to re-establish their sense of personal potency, authority and control. The colony casts its shadow long onto the face of the post-colony, and only the passage of time and the pains of growth allow the shadow to recede, the light to shine, and colonised peoples to develop healthy notions of self-worth and autonomy.
Disunity
‘To many, the ‘solution’ in Uganda seemed remarkably straightforward: … pump a few bullets into Amin’s great hulk and the country would be free from oppression.’[19] But such a simple solution was made impossible by the profound disunity of the Ugandan populace.[20] Divisions produced a culture of blame whereby rival factions shifted responsibility for atrocities to each other rather than making a collective effort to combat Amin’s dictatorship.[21] Moreover, Amin himself capitalised so comprehensively on economic, cultural and religious divisions and their corresponding prejudices that the concept of disunity must be seen as fundamental to his power.
In one sense, it is unremarkable that Uganda should have lacked any cohesive national identity. Like so many African countries, the state of Uganda arbitrarily grouped culturally, ethnically, linguistically and politically distinct communities under one administrative authority.[22] Thus by the very act of grouping apples with oranges, the colonial state created tensions that need not have otherwise existed. At independence Uganda inherited a governmental system that pushed these tensions to the limit. British-style majoritarian democracies, which create strong leadership disproportionate to the amount of votes won, may be appropriate in homogenous societies, but in the divided world of the colony, they plunge ethnic minorities into a mortal struggle that can only end in representation or subjugation.[23]
The most significant divide in Ugandan indigenous society was between members of the southern kingdom of Buganda and non-Bagandans. Due to the rich fertility of its land along the banks of Lake Victoria, Buganda was already dominant over surrounding regions prior to the colonial era.[24] The province then had the added benefits of being the first region of Uganda to be settled, and the first to have missionary schooling and commercial agriculture.[25] In addition, Buganda was allowed to govern itself through a system of ‘indirect’ rule, whereas other districts were subject to direct British control.[26] One of the most important consequences of this situation was the emergence of an élite class of wealthy Bagandan farmers and businessmen.[27] Whereas Obote’s socialist reform programme had attempted to remove the privileges belonging to this and other economically advantaged groups, Amin secured support for his regime by returning these élites to their former status.[28]
Cultural divisions were just as integral to Amin’s rule as economic disparities. When Obote came to power in 1962 he inherited an army that was drawn from his own home region. The colonial government had recruited from among the Acholi and Loangi people, ostensibly because they were the most ‘warlike’ of the Ugandans.[29] But Amin’s mistrust of these ethnicities and his dependence on his own people for support can be seen in his radical military reforms, which involved a complete ethnic re-constitution of the army. Amin’s army comprised 75% foreigners from Zaire and Sudan, and roughly 25% soldiers from his homeland in the West Nile region.[30] The significance of cultural allegiances clearly ran deep in Amin’s mind, and the brutal loyalty of his army vindicates this conviction.
Ugandans’ clear sense of belonging to a culture distinct from all others allowed Amin to persecute one group while producing a false sense of security among others.[31] Kiwanuka records how one of his colleagues ‘did not realize it was all that bad’ until in March 1973 Amin’s government began to abduct many of his colleagues.[32]
Amin also realised the utility of prejudices held by Ugandans against foreign cultures. From the time of the coup in 1971 Amin began a campaign of Asian expulsion.[33] Colonial authority had first allowed Asians into Uganda as labourers and commerçants, and by the mid twentieth-century they formed a wealthy and successful class in Ugandan society, second only to the whites.[34] The policy of Asian expulsion must admittedly be seen primarily as an economic strategy. Amin appropriated the property of exiled Asians, using the new wealth to finance his government as to lubricate his relations with wealthy businessmen.[35] But the strategy can also be seen as pandering to an anti-Asian sentiment in Uganda,[36] which may have been quite strong considering the elevated position of Asians in Ugandan society.
Amin was able to use cultural and economic divisions to his political advantage. In other African countries the dynamics of postcolonial life did not support such tactics. In South Africa, for example, indigenous peoples may have developed a nationalist sentiment in response to large-scale colonial conquest.[37] By contrast, colonisation in Uganda was slow and thus there was little opportunity for separate groups to unite against their common enemy before colonial structures could aggravate pre-existing cultural and socio-economic divides.[38] It is difficult to see just how important the tendency of disunity is in precipitating dictatorship. Kiwanuka puts the case very strongly: in his view, ‘The elimination of tribal and religious divisions and hatreds is the only guarantee against the rise of another Amin.’[39] However true this may be, it is difficult to see how such a comprehensive re-shaping of Ugandan society is possible. Nevertheless, it is clearly essential that educators and politicians work and increasing tolerance and unity in divided African states, especially among élite groups. According to Linder, democracy only ever flourishes where privileged groups decide to pull together and adopt democratic modes of behaviour.[40] While disunity breeds dictatorship, democracy must come from co-operation.
Abuse
Foreign nation states were arguably just as guilty as Amin in abusing the Ugandan situation, often for their own benefit. The culprits fall into two classes: Britain and Israel supported Amin in the initial coup, while a host of other nations including France, USSR, Libya, Pakistan and USA supported Amin’s regime through arms deals and other trade relations.[41] Britain was motivated to intervene by its concern over the growing violence and political radicalism of Milton Obote. Meanwhile, Israel recognised Amin’s control over the military, which in past years had backed anti-Arab rebels in Sudan. Eager to maintain this support for this cause, Israel made a vote for the Ugandan army by helping its new leader into power.[42] The other states, it appears, were compelled to assist Amin for purely economic reasons. Companies in the US, for example, supplied torture devices and other instruments of war in exchange for valuable Ugandan coffee.[43]
Another abuse allegedly visited on African states by foreign powers is that of aid. Some have suggested that, despite the best intentions underlying foreign aid, financial support of Africa only serves to entrench corruption and increase the likelihood of oppressive governments.[44] Fortunately, a study by Arthur Goldsmith has shown that ‘aid dependency has not systematically set back Africa’s political evolution,’ but rather there is a positive (if weak) correlation between foreign aid and democratisation in African countries.[45]
The case of harmful foreign intervention in Africa highlights the continuities in the colonial experience. Even after decolonisation, it is possible for ‘neo-colonists’ to exact the same economic and political benefits from post-colonies as were enjoyed by colonial governments before independence. It is truly the responsibility of the international community, and individual nations, to administer policies which aim at minimising the risk of harm possible through intervention and investment in African post-colonies.
AFRICAN PREDISPOSITION
It may suffice here to give a very brief explanation of the inadequacy of competing accounts of African dictatorship; theories which posit a pre-disposition to despotic rule. Something along the lines of this philosophy was a rudimentary notion in European colonial administration. In 1892, Sir Theophilus Shepstone wrote of colonists as the ‘great teachers’, bringing civilisation to the ‘barbarous’ practices of the natives of the Orange Free State.[46] The concept of an inherent African despotism may have been magnified by the distorting passage of time. Writing in 2008, Wendy Hamblet describes the myth of African savagery as a prejudice ‘still deeply embedded in the minds of some powerful and highly educated persons… in the West.’[47] She cites the example of an academic colleague who told her, in response to an anecdote of some incident of violence in Africa, that ‘[t]hese people have always been killing each other.’[48]
It is not worth trying to establish the preponderance of despotic rule in pre-colonial Africa since the evidence is clearly lacking. What should be noted, however, is the way in which the savagery of colonising forces turned otherwise peaceable African people into violent combat forces. It has already been noted how British colonists in Uganda cultivated a division between north and south, putting northerners in military uniform in order to destroy the southern peasant resistance.[49] This must be seen as proof that supposedly civilised European colonists have as much capacity for savagery as any African, and to a large extent the violence endemic in contemporary Africa is merely a continuation of practices enforced by colonial rule.
A corollary of the myth of African savagery is the tendency to see dictatorships as brought about solely by the charismatic and brutal personalities of ‘big men’. In this paradigm, dictatorial regimes are created not because of circumstantial factors so much as through the inner genius (and perhaps savagery) of individual leaders. Thus some regard Amin’s unique political style – characterised by frequent policy changes fostering fear and paralysis among some and a false sense of security among others – as the decisive factor in his success as a dictator.[50] It is valid to recognise these remarkable aspects of Amin’s character as important in his rise to power. But to draw the substantive attention away from the context of his actions and the deeper forces of colonialism and international intervention is to ignore the political scaffolding which gave his behaviour its special significance and effectiveness.
CONCLUSION
This essay has sought to demonstrate that African dictatorship is best characterised as the product of colonial legacies and neo-colonial abuses, rather than as a phenomenon inherently endemic to Africa. Presuming this is true, where does it leave us?
First, the world must not give in to the temptation of a blaming psychology. In ‘Africa: How we killed our dreams of freedom’, William Gumede observes how Robert Mugabe and other despotic rulers have blamed the corruption of their regime on the colonial legacy.[51] When blame becomes a justification for violence, we know it has become unhelpful. If we are to learn the lessons of Uganda we must see that positive change can only be effected through unity, and that unity comes not from blaming but from a sense of collective responsibility.
To avoid blame is not to forget the past or overlook the effects of colonialism, however. Mamdani is conscious of his responsibility as a historian. In Imperialism and Fascism in Uganda he writes that his purpose is
To dissect every nerve and muscle of fascism so as to identify the conditions and forces that made it possible so that we may be in a position to build a movement to identify, isolate and defeat these forces.[52]
This is the true duty of historians: to analyse the past in order that we may shape our present action in an effort to build a better future: for Uganda, for Africa, for ourselves, and for the world.
[1] Arthur A Goldsmith, ‘Donors, dictators and democrats in Africa’, The Journal of Modern African Studies, vol. 39, no. 3, 2001, p. 422. This statistic relates only to national leaders: e.g. presidents and prime ministers.
[2] I am referring here to the broad concept of the post-colony rather than to any particular country.
[3] Goldsmith, p. 422.
[4] Sean Moroney, ed., Handbooks to the Modern World: Africa, vol. 2, Facts on File, New York, 1989, pp. 565, 567.
[5] Ibid, pp. 567-8.
[6] Tony Avirgnan and Martha Honey, War in Uganda: The Legacy of Idi Amin, Zed Press, London, 1982, p. 3.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Moroney, p. 568.
[9] Ibid, p. 567.
[10] Avirgan, pp. 8, 10.
[11] Kenneth Ingham, The Making of Modern Uganda, Greenwood Press, Conneticut, 1958, p. 24.
[12] Mahmood Mamdani, Imperialism and Fascism in Uganda, Heinemann, London, 1983, p. 10.
[13] Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism, Princeton, 1996, p. 56.
[14] Frantz Fanon, trans. Richard Philcox, The Wretched of the Earth, Présence Africaine, 1963, p. 3.
[15] David Apter, The Political Kingdom in Uganda, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1961, p. 159.
[16] Wendy Hamblet, Savage Constructions: The Myth of African Savagery, Lexington Books, Maryland, 2008, p. xii.
[17] Fanon, p. 2.
[18] Hamblet, p. 7.
[19] Avirgan, p. 3.
[20] Semakula Kiwanuka, Amin and the Tragedy of Uganda, Weltforum Verlag, Munich, 1979, p. 3.
[21] Ibid, p. 22.
[22] Mamdani, 1983, p. 6.
[23] Wolf Linder and André Bächtiger, ‘What drives democratisation in Asia and Africa?’, European Journal of Political Research, vol. 44, 2005, p. 864.
[24] Moroney, 564.
[25] John Kiyaga-Nsubuga, ‘Managing Political Change: Uganda under Museveni’, in Taisier M. Ali and Robert O.
Matthews, ed.s, Civil Wars in Africa: Roots and Resolution, McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal, 1999, p. 15.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Avirgan, p. 5.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Ibid, p. 6.
[30] Ibid, pp. 6-8.
[31] Kiwanuka, p. 93.
[32] Ibid, p.94.
[33] Ibid, p. 103.
[34] Ibid, p. 102.
[35] Moroney, p. 567.
[36] Kiwanuka, p. 22.
[37] As per Jeremy Marten’s lecture for UWA Introduction to African History HIST 2247, ‘African dictatorship: Uganda under Idi Amin’, 14 September 2009.
[38] Moroney, p. 565.
[39] Kiwanuka, p. 4.
[40] Linder, p. 863.
[41] Avirgan, pp. 8-9.
[42] Morney, p. 567.
[43] Avirgan, p. 9.
[44] Goldsmith, p. 412.
[45] Ibid.
[46] Sir Theophilus Shepstone, ‘Sir Theophilus Shepstone Disagrees with the Orange Free State President, 1892’, in J.A. Williams, ed., From the South African Past, Narratives, Documents, and Debates, Boston, 1997, p. 159.
[47] Hamblet, p. ix.
[48] Ibid, p. x.
[49] Mamdani, 1983, p. 10.
[50] Samuel Decalo, Psychoses of Power: African Personal Dictatorships, Westview Press, London, 1989, p. 191.
[51] Gumede, William, ‘Africa: How we killed our dreams of freedom’, New Statesman, vol. 136, no. 4838, Apr. 2, 2007, p. 12.
[52] Mamdani, 1983, p. 2.






