Idi and I

This email exchange was prompted by the discussion about the film, The Last King of Scotland.

I will be seeing it tonight.

I too have a soft spot for Idi for the reasons I alluded to on the phone. To explain I have pasted below an extract from a message to a friend from a while back.

Kindest regards to you both.

Hi ,

No I didn't make love to him - or vice versa. But in the dream which was set in Uganda I was aware that he was my friend. In fact I don't remember him actually appearing in person but the awareness of his friendship was very reassuring in a chaotic and potentially dangerous environment.

The daytime remnants - I think that's the term used by Freud to describe those happenings in the real world that we experience and which impacts on our dream -- were two. One of them, the most visual, was in a movie made about the incident at Entebbe airport when Israeli troops stormed a plane in which some of their countrymen where held captive in a hijack. Idi appeared in that movie, not the real one but an actor playing the role, and could be most accurately described, although offensively, as a big buck nigger, exuding massive charisma, affability and at the same time great power and strength. The second source of what impacted on my unconscious was a rather trashy sensational paperback purportedly written by a young Swedish woman who went to Uganda and became one of his many mistresses. her account was an opportunity to give a salacious description of his rampant sexually and his bull-like potency and his unrestrained animal appetites. Because it was such a lowbrow book I threw it away. Wished I kept it after I had the dream and its meaning became clear to me.

The meaning of the dream you will already have intuited and the clue of course is Idi = Id. It was a great comfort for me to know that such a powerful source of energy in my psyche was essentially friendly to me and protective of me. It fitted with my rather sentimental Lawrencian belief that if your instincts are pure you can trust them.

I saw a picture of him in a magazine (Idi, not D H Lawrence) and I tore it out and placed it in a frame and placed it by my bedside as others might have a picture of the Virgin Mary or a little statue of Budda. Those who saw it were no doubt curious, but who cares what others think when one has such a powerful protector.



----- Original Message -----
From:
To: Samson
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2006 10:02 AM
Subject: Re: Bush taken over by the archetype
Dear Samson,

You have good insight about the unconscious personal motivations of politicos. A lot of it is about power, I suspect. I think the issue of power raises its head whenever people get together in a group to achieve something. It needs to be dealt with compassionately and with eyes wide open. But then many of those people are also willing to take risks and lay themselves on the line for what they believe in passionately so they are to be admired for that, I think. But it takes its toll because it exposes them to personal attack for which they might not be prepared. (Latham)

A woman I know once dreamed she made love to Idi Amin!!! What did you dream?

----- Original Message -----
From: Samson
To:
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 4:35 PM
Subject: Re: Bush taken over by the archetype
Hi ,
I don't know much about Jung. I do know though that people are motivated by drives that they are unaware of. Most of my aquaintances are politicos who think in societal terms and are ignorant (or disdainful of) subjective motivation and as a consequence are more vunerable.

Let me tell you one day about a dream I had of Idi Amin.

Regards,
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