happy days are here again?

i am no fan of thrillers, but i recently purchased the dvd of the last king of scotland as it inspired in me what the brazilians call sodade (nostalgia tinged with sadness). on one level, the movie is a loosely factual biopic on the reign of idi amin. but temporally, it documents the end of the positive growth period, post-independence, that ended with the oil shocks of 1973 and that saw the dawn of 3 dark decades in africa. the producers of the movie were at pains to depict the uganda (africa) of the early 1970’s as a beautiful, glamorous, happy place. the streets were clean, the women dressed in africa-inspired fashions and wore either afros or plaited their hair in fancy designs. it was the time of congolese rumba and ghanaian high-life. there was plenty of optimism, joy and national pride. it is a time i have vague but fond memories of a kid.

as uganda slipped into bloody chaos, investigative news reports of amin’s brutality started to filter out of the country. to this day for me the signature image of the time is the black and white post-execution image of an amin opponent. the images comprised partially/mostly naked bodies, dark hoods tied over heads/torsos. the bodies would be bound to execution posts, slumped on one side, dark streaks of blood flowing down from execution squad inflicted bullet wounds. as a boy living in then idyllic, peaceful nairobi, the violence left a deep impression on me as these things were not happening in far off vietnam, but next door.

at that time i don’t think even the worst pessimists among us would have imagined that this was just the beginning of a dark time and that this decline into chaos and atrophy would be repeated all over africa as idealistic post-independence leaders were pushed aside and “big men” presided over corruption, the crushing of political and intellectual dissent, economic collapse, war, AIDS, famine, and other miscellaneous ills that have been the hallmark of the last 30 years in africa.

so the recent news that this long night may be coming to an end, economically speaking, brings hope that africa and africans can enjoy another period of optimism, joy and pride. while i am sure we will not return to the days of rumba and afros, i am most interested to what kind of cultural expression this time will inspire.

relatedly: a scene from the crappy exploitation movie “idi amin: rise and fall” was filmed in lenana school when i was in 5th form (IIRC). the film crew commandeered part of “tuition block” to film an assassination attempt where they blew up a citroen in the parade area. that was the coolest movie s**t i had seen with my own eyes in my life until that point.