Idi Amin was the dictator of Uganda from 1971 until 1979. Born a Kakwa, an ethnicity slighted by other Ugandans, he found purpose as a boxing champion and soldier in the colonial army. After independence he rose to be army commander, then seized power in a coup in 1971 to crowds celebrating in the streets.
In 1972 Amin announced that the roughly 50,000 people of south Asian origin in Uganda would have to leave within 90 days. Many had been in Uganda for generations, but they had sat above black Africans in colonialism's racial hierarchy and their economic success was resented. Amin declared their departure a "day of salvation" and the start of an "economic war" to purge all vestiges of colonialism. He confiscated Asian-owned businesses and gave them to supporters, who ran them into the ground. It turned out the Asians had valuable skills, from book-keeping to running factories to dentistry. The largest contingent of those expelled went to Britain, where they prospered. Among them was Mahmood Mamdani, now a professor of government at Columbia University and the father of Zohran Mamdani.
Amin styled himself as a straight-talking man of the people, thumbing his nose at imperial overlords and thwarting foreign saboteurs. He vowed to "make Uganda move once again" by acting at "supersonic speed", micromanaging commerce by diktat and accusing African small traders of smuggling and price-gouging. Many were shot. He offered to broker peace in Northern Ireland and set up a "Save Britain Fund" to send aid during a recession. To Richard Nixon he wrote of America's "endless racial conflicts" and "the unfortunate Watergate affair".
Uganda's chief justice was dragged from his chambers and murdered; an archbishop was given a show trial and shot. On one occasion Amin ordered a group of herders massacred simply because they refused to wear clothes. Estimates of the death toll under his rule range from 12,000 to 500,000. In 1976 Madame Tussauds asked visitors to name the most hated figure in its collection; Amin came second, after Adolf Hitler.
Amin was toppled by the Tanzanian army in 1979, having foolishly invaded Tanzania. After eight years as president he left Uganda poorer, nastier and more lawless. Taxi drivers in Kampala still stick pictures of Amin in their windows, nostalgic for a golden age that never was.
When I sell liquor, it's called bootlegging; when my patrons serve it on silver trays on Lake Shore Drive, it's called hospitality.