Interesting Times: Life in Uganda Under Idi Amin

Rating:
Summary: Interesting Times by Sir Peter Allen: Captivating book.
Review: I found this book captivating. I particularly enjoyed the (almost) daily accounting of events - short and to the point There were several funny moments - such as when Sir Peter fell into a sack of flour and the episode where a witness at a trial was unsure of his age! His parents had told him many years ago that he was twenty and so he insisted that he was still twenty (15 or so years later).

I could feel the many bumpy rides over almost non existant roads and could almost taste the dust and feel the heat as he travelled to the many districts for which he was responsible. Yet these hardships seemed to be joyful for him as he made so many friends and encountered many wild experiences (like being shot at)!

The rise to power of Idi Amin is well captured and the brutality of the times is frightening.

Sir Peter's home was broken into many times and on occasions by his own servants and his life was threatened on numerous ocassions.

I enjoyed reading about his leaves to Britain and his conference trip to Montreal as I have also lived in both places and it made the book come alive.

I think the flavour of Uganda and perhaps most of Africa is well documented. It is not for the faint of heart. It certainly made me realize how well off we are in Canada where we take so much for granted. Health and Education for instance. What a struggle the Africans have - still - to enjoy what we assume is our right.

It was interesting to travel through Sir Peter's career and it was sad that he had to leave the country and the many good friends he had made. He obviosly loved them and their country.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting Times by Sir Peter Allen: Captivating book.
Review: I found this book captivating. I particularly enjoyed the (almost) daily accounting of events - short and to the point There were several funny moments - such as when Sir Peter fell into a sack of flour and the episode where a witness at a trial was unsure of his age! His parents had told him many years ago that he was twenty and so he insisted that he was still twenty (15 or so years later).

I could feel the many bumpy rides over almost non existant roads and could almost taste the dust and feel the heat as he travelled to the many districts for which he was responsible. Yet these hardships seemed to be joyful for him as he made so many friends and encountered many wild experiences (like being shot at)!

The rise to power of Idi Amin is well captured and the brutality of the times is frightening.

Sir Peter's home was broken into many times and on occasion by his own servants and his life was threatened on numerous ocassions.

I enjoyed reading about his leaves to Britain and his conference trip to Montreal as I have also lived in both places and it made the book come alive.

I think the flavour of Uganda and perhaps most of Africa is well documented. It is not for the faint of heart. It certainly made me realize how well off we are in Canada where we take so much for granted. Health and Education for instance. What a struggle the Africans have - still - to enjoy what we assume is our right.

It was interesting to travel through Sir Peter's career and it was sad that he had to leave the country and the many good friends he had made. He obviosly loved them and their country.

Rating:
Summary: Surprise Surprise
Review: I remember Sir Peter Allen, he was always driven in a Black Fiat Car, he was a smart man, he always used to sit at the back of his car he used to live at Lower Kololo Terrace, a few blocks from where I lived when I was 7 years old.
I once asked my mother "Why does that gentleman sit at the back of his car?" in my mind at that age I thought, owners of cars have to sit at the front (driver's seat)of the car and that if you sat at the back your were merely being given a ride (or a lift in British English) in a freind's car.
My mom (RIP) told me because he is a VIP he is a Judge his name is Peter Allen, I was always fascinated by him and respectful of him. Those were the days of Amin, I have a lot to say about Amin, but I have already said it elsewhere. I was only doing a word search on Iain Graham who as I watched on the Idi Amin's Biography on Biography channel that aired a few days ago(10th-Dec-2004) in Ottawa-Canada, was Amin's Commanding Officer in Jinja my home town.

I was impressed to find that Sir Peter Allen a gentleman I was always fascinated about in 1977 wrote a book too of those horrific times, it is a good book.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting Times: Life in Uganda Under Idi Amin
Review: Like his earlier book about his experiences in Uganda (Days of Judgement), Sir Peter Allen's latest offering is a very well written account of Uganda's most critical era.

The diary format takes one to the scene and moment, as his life (and Uganda's story) progress from the blissful days of a British Protectorate, through the horrors of Amin's rule to the anarchy of the post-Amin period.

For anyone interested in Uganda, this is an essential document. It is the record of the experiences and observations of a man who was intimately involved with the story, yet one who was relatively detached from the political and military fighting that held the country in its grip throughout the entire period that he lived there.

I must say, however, that there is something rather unsettling about the authenticity of the good judge's entries. One gets a nagging feeling that some parts of the diaries have been edited in hindsight, so that many of his "predictions" might have been penciled in many years after they had in fact come to pass.

Of course he might have been an excellent forecaster, but he gets so many predictions correct that one just wonders. But then again, who knows.

Also there are some entries that are definitely on the wrong dates. For example he claims that President Milton Obote visited Kings College, Budo in 1968, and asked the Headmaster to stay on for another year. In fact the year was 1969, a fact I know because I was there.

Notwithstanding these minor quibbles, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, especially his entries during the colonial and early post-colnial years. His sense of humour comes through.

MKM

Rating:
Summary: Judicial Decision?
Review: Peter Allen certainly loved Uganda. He spent over 30 years there, first as a policeman when the country was still a British Protectorate, then as a law lecturer, magistrate and judge after Uganda had gained independence.

His diaries of his days as a policeman are interesting - his experiences ranged from his ADC role to the Governor in the pillared residence at Entebbe to his days working in remote Karamoja, policing warring tribesmen and cattle thieves.

The more intiguing part of the book, however, relates to his years working in the judiciary under the Idi Amin government. As Uganda degenerates into a melee of government-sanctioned murder and lawlessness, Allen's diaries record his own efforts to extract at least individual instances of judicial order and discipline from the chaos enveloping him.

Clearly, the Ugandans thought of him as a bit of an oddball - ironic bearing in mind the insanity of the behaviour of many of those in Amin's regime - and his reputation as "the only white man left" no doubt excluded him from the vicious tribal politics of the time and helped in his unlikely ascent through the Judiciary.

But should the reader feel a little uneasy at Allen's readiness to carry on regardless - however corrupt and tyrannical the behaviour of the authorities that paid and promoted him? Yes, he showed no sycophancy to Amin or his governmental colleagues - his lambasting of the government in his diary and his frequent references to the civil but cold way in which he would converse with Amin and his henchmen make that clear. But he still attended their jamborees and drove their Mercedes. Yes, as he often points out, he believed strongly in the role of the judiciary in serving as a brake on the authority of executive government. But in Uganda in the 1970s and 1980s, these rules were not applying. And yes, he clearly felt that to leave the country in its time of need would be to desert the Ugandans he loved. But did he not love just a little the power, prestige and sheer idiosyncracy that rested in being an oddball English judge in a banana republic? After all, as the title of his book records, these were "Interesting Times".

Perhaps this view is too harsh. Atfer all, the easiest thing would have been to wash his hands of it all and walk away. Interestingly, he never really discusses this dilemma in his diaries. In the end he was given little choice. He left Uganda in 1986, devastated at having to depart the country he so clearly loved.