Idi Amin's Funeral
Surrounded by women
In shawls, almost dreaming,
In Saudi Arabia
Lies a corpse with a grin.
His eyes are closed tightly
And he's rotting lightly
He seems almost sprightly
He's Idi Amin.
"He helped the Ugandans"
Screeches a headline
"He drove out the Asians" -
And now they are gone -
They say he's a hero
This, the most dear
This noble figure
Pure Africa's son.
What do you think of
The country looted
The millions uprooted
The nation besooted
With grief of wives,
The five hundred thousand
Dead, the uncounted
Wounded, the millions
Ruined lives?"
He gave us the sports teams
That made us seem
A powerful nation
With a bright fate,
He was for a year
Elected to bear
The title of leader
Of African states."
That Nazis had built
The autobahn, is it
A reason to praise them
For their regime?
Do facts that unglue you
Mean anything to you
And do people's lives
Count for anything?
"Oh, you're a Western
Imperialist; well then,
Go back to your country
And leave us alone."
If US President
Killed thousands of residents
There would be no way
For him to atone.
The wholescale starvation
Of population,
Five percent of the nation
Fed to crocodiles -
You that so voted,
Had you not noted
The bodies that floated
Down the Nile?
"He was no pretender:
The conference center
He built is a source
Of national pride."
Oh, that's such an achievement -
It leads to concealment
Of eight years of bereavement
And genocide.
You murder your people
And then claim that it's simple
African way that the West can't pollute.
You want to be treated
As humans and greeted
Yet you treat your own
People as brutes.
"He paid for his sins
With his death;" so it's in,
Luxuriously living
After ruining lives.
Living in mansion
Gathering pension
And all of his tension
Released by young wives.
The message is clear.
Nothing is dear
And if it seems clear
Nothing is sin.
Thugs, gangsters, dictators, do not despair.
Brute force's all that's there.
Someday you too could be Idi Amin.