Mahmood Mamdani: Slow Poison, Kartoniert / Broschiert

Klappentext

A leading public intellectual gives his authoritative and personal account of the tragic postcolonial fate of Uganda, his homeland.

In 1972, when Mahmood Mamdani came home to Uganda, he found a country transformed by "an orgy of violence." Idi Amin had expelled Indians like Mamdani in hopes of fostering a Black nation. But the bloodshed didn't end with Amin's ouster. Whereas Amin was ruthless in pursuing a decolonial dream, his successor Yoweri Museveni has ruled for four decades by resurrecting the colonial strategy of fragmenting a Black majority into warring ethnic minorities.

Slow Poison is Mamdani's firsthand report on the tragic unraveling of his country's struggle for decolonialization. An expert witness to East Africa's intricate power plays, Mamdani casts a wary eye on Amin, Museveni, and the imperial powers that championed and exploited them.

Each leader made violence central to his project, but Mamdani sees revealing differences. The Indian expulsion made Amin a monster in the West; in contrast, Western powers protected Museveni from accountability for genocidal crimes and lauded him for adopting neoliberal reforms and prosecuting the "war on terror" in Africa. And while Amin aimed to create a nation of Black millionaires, never becoming one himself, Uganda's surrender to privatization has brought Museveni's family immense wealth.