WEBVTT - The British Super-Soldier Who Killed A Nation 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:09.000 Mmm, hello friends, and welcome back to Behind the Bastards. 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:10.960 I'm Robert Evans, and this is the show that tells 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:13.399 you everything you don't know about the very worst people 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:17.320 in all of history. Today. My guest who I will 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:19.400 be who's coming in cold with this tale, and who 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:23.240 I'll be reading a story too, is Brodie Reid, comedian. Hello, 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:28.400 Hey Steamed Steamed guest, Yes, yes, Esquire. Brodie read Esquire. 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:32.360 I think means you're the editor for Esquire magazine. Right, 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:34.960 I'm a lawyer and I'm also the head editor of 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:38.280 Esquire Magazine. Those are my credits and I won't change them. 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:40.960 That's what that means. Uh. Now, we're doing a little 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:43.600 bit different today. Normally we're pretty upfront about who the 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:45.920 subject of the podcast is, but there's a lot of 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:49.239 background to get to before we can really properly introduce 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:51.599 this guy. So I'm kind of curious as to when 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:54.080 you figure out who we're talking about. And I also 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:55.280 kind of wanted to be a little bit of a 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:57.720 surprise for the audience. So if you're good, I'm just 0:00:57.760 --> 0:00:59.680 going to get into it. Okay. I mean I'm kind 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:02.720 of like an amateur private investigator, so I might get 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:04.200 it real off the bat and I want to ruin 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:07.360 your flow or anything. But um, let's let's try. All right, 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:10.040 let's let's let's see how this goes. I'm on o'clock. 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:13.760 Maybe this will be you know, my, my, my, great disaster, 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:17.400 but I think it'll be fun. Yeah, alright, So today, 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:19.760 you know, right now two eighteen, Britain is a tiny, 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:22.959 adorable nation filled with wizards and a conspicuously broad definition 0:01:22.959 --> 0:01:28.800 of the word pudding. It's easy, I'm going to guess Baltimore. No, no, no, 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:30.480 I'm just I'm just getting it that. It's easy for 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:33.320 us to forget today considering how docile the British people 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:35.800 are that for a while they ruled the entire world. 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:38.720 The British Empire was the largest empire in human history. 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:41.319 The Mongol Empire, at that's height, held about twenty four 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:44.720 million kilometers in area, six percent of the world's population. 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:47.360 The British Empire was over thirty five million kilometers in 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:50.200 area and ruled nearly a quarter of the planets. Trust me, 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:55.080 I did not forget that they polonize everything. Yeah, yeah, um, 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:57.920 and they I think what's most shocking to me when 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:00.680 I read about this is that they controlled that huge 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:03.160 chunk of the planet with probably the smallest army than 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:05.760 any empire has ever had. You know, the Roman Empire 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:09.840 at height was about seven hundred and fifty thousand regular soldiers. Um. 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:13.280 The British Empire at its height before the World War 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:15.720 started was about a hundred and twenty thousand British soldiers. 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:17.320 They never spent more than about two and a half 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:20.520 percent of their GDP on defense, which is a regular 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:25.560 soldiers were like super serium, like Captain America. So you 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:27.799 have predicted a little bit where this is going. Now. 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:31.120 These soldiers are regular soldiers. They're volunteers, which is different 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:33.840 from most Most militaries in this period are not volunteer, 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:36.320 permanent standing military. So the British are a little bit 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:39.560 different there. But they're just normal, you know soldiers. They 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:43.240 have machine guns, which certainly helps with the whole colonizing thing. 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:45.720 Um or they have machine guns for a chunk of this, 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:47.880 but um, you know, it does beg the question. We've 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:49.919 only got a hundred and twenty thousand guys and from 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:52.440 most of the British Empire they don't have machine guns. 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:54.400 How do you hold a quarter of the planet in 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:56.680 bondage for two hundred years. But the whole army that's 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.120 a little larger than the modern Coast Guard in the 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:05.359 United States nukes? Is that the correct? No? No, I 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:10.640 mean you you get the locals to oppress themselves. Yeah, yeah, so. 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:13.320 Michael Codner, who was the head of Military Science for 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:16.880 the Royal United Services Institute, described the British Empire's military 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:20.120 is essentially quote the Royal Navy and a system of 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:25.040 indigenous constabularies overseen by a small but professional British Army. Now. 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:26.880 I found that quote in a BBC article from back 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:28.880 in two thousand and eleven. The article also quoted a 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:32.240 military historian named Dr Hugh Davies who noted that all 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:34.720 of British in Bia was controlled by just thirty thousand 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:38.720 British troops supervising hundreds of thousands of local Indian soldiers 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:41.840 or set boys. He was quoted as saying, the empire 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:44.080 had to pay for itself, and it had to be profitable, 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:46.160 and if you put too much into building up the army, 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:49.480 the empire is no longer a profitable enterprise. He sounds 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:58.160 like the rap mogul, so that sentence sounds in his defense, 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:00.640 I don't think he's justifying imperial realism. I think he's 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:03.360 just explained this was the attitude that the imperialists had 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:05.240 is we can't spend too much money on the army, 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:10.240 otherwise everything is for profit. Um. And British India was 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:12.720 conquered in the first place by a for profit corporation, 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:15.480 the East India Trading Company. The East India Company had 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:17.680 a private army of over a quarter of a million men. 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:21.520 Most of those were indigenous soldiers. So you know, local Indians, 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:25.760 people from Burma, whatever, local job. Yeah, no, yeah, exactly 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:32.839 by local very very ethical with our modern yeah. Um. 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:35.840 So the East India Company started taking over India in 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:38.279 the sixteen hundreds, and by eighteen o three they controlled 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:41.960 most of what's now India, Pakistan and Burma. In eighteen fourteen, 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:45.839 this giant multinational corporation declared war on Nepal, which was 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:48.400 at that point known as the Kingdom of Gorka. They 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:50.640 fought for two brutal years before the kingdom seated a 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:53.200 third of its territory to the company in exchange for peace. 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:55.719 The British one, but the Gorkas had put up a 0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:58.520 really vicious fight in the East India Company was impressed 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.039 by their warriors, so they started recruiting these men into 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:03.480 their army. At first, these Gurkhas were used to keep 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:05.960 the peace and ever rebellious India, but the gurk Has 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:08.960 quickly proved themselves to be very capable warriors. In eighteen 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:11.440 fifty eight, when the Queen formally took control of India 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:14.479 away from the Company, Gurkas were integrated into the Greater 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:17.360 British Army. They served as elite shock troops in World 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:19.680 War One and two. The British Army today still fields 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:22.960 battalions of Gurkhas recruited basically as mercenaries from Nepal and 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:27.000 paid far less than their British citizen counterparts. Sound that 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:31.159 sounds like some unsolid It's a little bit like that. 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:33.640 Now the British like the Gurkhas because they were loyal 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:37.000 and just incredibly deadly. They carry these big knives called 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:40.080 kukries in there. There's a lot of if you go online, 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:43.960 you can find threads today where British veterans talk about 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:46.320 the stories their n c o S told about Gurkhas 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:47.880 and like there's a common one where you have to 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:51.000 tie your shoes a certain way because the Gurkhas cut 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:53.240 your foot off, well, know that. They when they're doing 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:55.800 espionage missions in the night, they'll tell who they want 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:58.400 to kill by feeling their bootlaces. They could tell like 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:01.560 in World War Two, they knew what German bootlaces felt like, 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:03.800 and so if an Allied soldier took boots off of 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:05.760 a dead German, he might get cut by a Gurkha 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:09.400 like this. It's a possibly apocryphal story, but variants of 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:11.320 it are still told today. So they'll kill you if 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:13.760 you tied your shoes wrong, essentially, if you tied your 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:16.520 shoes like the enemy. Yeah I heard that. Yeah, So 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:19.239 the Gurkhas were like super soldiers of the British Empire 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:21.799 what you were getting in Yeah, they sound like sword 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:27.120 guys to me. Yeah, yeah, they're they're they're scary um. 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:30.560 And they weren't the only super soldiers in the British Empire. Um. 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:34.080 Over their period of time conquering huge chunks of the world, 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:36.960 the British encountered a number of warrior people's. Some of 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:39.320 these people's, like the Gurkhas, had their own well developed 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:41.960 warrior culture already when the British arrived, and the British 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:44.400 just exploited it. But in other parts of the world 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:47.440 the process occurred less naturally. Take the tribes of the 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:50.640 West Nile region of Africa. Their first contact with more 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:54.440 technologically advanced people's came in the early eighteen hundreds when 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:57.880 successive groups of Arab slavers started praying on them. Certain 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:00.560 tribes who were the best fighters were enslaved by these 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:03.560 Arab slavers and used the soldiers to capture other Africans 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:05.480 who were then sent off to markets in North Africa 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:08.960 in the Middle East. Yeah. Yeah, it's a bomber. This 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:10.720 whole story is going to be a kind of a bomber. 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:15.240 Oh great, Yeah, when you're talking colonialism, it's it's never 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:18.920 not a heartbreak. I mean, when aren't you talking colonialism? 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:21.560 If we if people want to get real, well, I mean, 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:24.280 and that's that's one of the points. Like when you 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:27.720 start talking about dictators, especially from the seventies, eighties, nineties, 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:29.840 you can trace nearly all of them back to colonialism. 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:32.360 Yeah for sure. Yeah, that's that's that's more or less 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:36.040 this story. Um So, by the eighteen seventies, the British 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:39.080 had become abolitionists in a big way, perhaps because they 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:41.880 felt kind of bad about, you know, the whole Atlantic 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:44.960 slave trade thing, but mostly because it was a way 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:48.080 to justify conquering colonies in Africa, saying, we're going to 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:50.080 stop the Arab slave traders, but we have to conquer 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:52.000 this whole chunk of Africa in order to stop the 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:53.960 slave trade. Right way to do it. They're a good 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:58.080 guy with a gun with a lot with all the yeah, 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:03.480 um so, the British took over a huge chunk of 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:06.520 North Africa, including the Sudan, and with public pressure behind them, 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:09.840 they sent armies down to stop the slave traders. These armies, 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:12.640 like all British armies, were made mostly of locals. Many 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:15.440 of those locals were recently freed slave soldiers that the 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:17.640 British were happy to induct into their army. So they 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:21.160 would free these slave soldiers from the Arab slave traders, 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:23.640 and then they would induct them into a colonial military 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:26.480 and use them to fight slave traders. Sounds like college, 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:29.640 sounds like the job market. I thought you were going 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:32.199 to compare this slight college football, but I was, well, 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:37.880 yeah's absolutely um so. One such army of former slaves 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:40.320 was headed by a German doctor and a Muslim convert 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:43.040 named Emin Pasha. In the eighteen eighties, Immin Pasha and 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:45.640 his army were besieged by an Islamic army during the 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:48.880 Modest Insurrection. They were eventually freed by a guy named 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:52.120 Henry Morton Stanley, who regular listeners of the podcast will 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:54.200 recognize as the guy who mapped the Congo for King 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:57.440 Leopold of Belgium. Stanley took Pasha with him when he left, 0:08:57.480 --> 0:08:59.920 and Pasha's men stayed behind in the West Nile region 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:02.200 garrison duty for a few years until they were picked 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:06.199 up by agents for the Imperial British East Africa Company. 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:09.080 Now the company representatives were always alert for new warrior 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:11.240 people to enlist, and they considered these men to be 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:15.760 quote the best material for soldiery in Africa. These tribes 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:18.400 came to be called Nubi or Nubians and became the 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:21.959 British empires shock troopers in Africa. The East Africa Company 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:24.240 used their Nubians to carve an empire out of the 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:29.040 continent's heart. They named their new colony Uganda. As the 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:31.920 British Empire grew, the Nubians were inducted into the regular 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:34.360 British army and became the elite fourth Battalion of the 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:37.920 King's African Rifles. They were Muslims, which differentiated them from 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:39.760 most of the peoples they were sent to suppress in 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:42.960 Central and West Africa. The British basically turned the Nubian 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:45.560 people into a living, breathing factory for the production of 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:48.839 the deadliest colonial soldiers in Africa, and yes, being bred 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:51.840 for war had a negative impact on the Nubians themselves. 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:54.640 Here's what one former commanding officer of the King's African 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:58.280 Rifles wrote about them. Quote, the Nubians became the most 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:01.440 feared and influential ethnic group, and you Ganda mercilessly suppressing 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:04.439 uprisings and tribal supproots at the behest of their British masters. 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:07.240 It was the success of these early operations that gave 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:10.199 them contempt for all pagan and Christian tribes in the country. 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:13.560 In nineteen seventy four, a journalist named David Martin echo 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:17.040 the sentiment quote. Among their fellow countrymen, they enjoyed an 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:20.600 unenviable reputation of having one of the world's highest homicide rates. 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:23.400 The Dubians were renowned for their statistic brutality, lack of 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:26.400 formal education, for poisoning enemies and for the refusal to 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:29.920 integrate even in the urban centers. Martin was in Uganda 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:32.040 to write about one Nubian in particular, one of the 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:34.760 deadliest warriors to ever serve in the King's African Rifles, 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:38.400 a man named Idy. I mean, okay, wow, okay, so 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:43.000 that's this guy. Sounds like Black Republicans to me are 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:45.800 on the wrong team. I mean they're like, did they 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:49.880 ever have a choice? Like, yeah, exactly, you're right, highlights. 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:55.199 If you recruited people as soldiers for a hundred years 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:57.160 and don't really give them any other options for anything 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:00.320 to do, it's it's it's not going to be pretty. Yeah, 0:11:00.360 --> 0:11:02.040 I hear that. I mean I grew up in a 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:06.280 bad neighborhood also, but I didn't become a tough warrior. 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:09.880 I just became a comedian with a smart mouth. I'm 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:12.160 sure there were a few Nubian comedians and that like 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:15.280 part of the difficulty here is like all these stories 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:17.880 about how brutal they are coming from like British and 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:21.480 American white guys. Yeah, totally, they're probably just like pretty cool. 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:24.880 They're probably just like I don't know, trying to invent 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:29.760 whatever sports game that they had trying to play some 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:31.520 football and they were like, well, these guys are brutal, 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:35.080 they're kicking our ass. Well, I mean it's like British football, 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:37.960 So yeah, for sure, can it be? I mean, I 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:40.680 feel like if colonizers came over to Africa and then 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:43.760 the Africans just like dunk to basketball, they'll be like, wow, 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:52.800 these brutal power. It's a shame of basketballers over there. Um. 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:56.640 So Idi Amine was born sometimes between n we don't 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:58.920 really know for sure. Um he was probably born in 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:02.000 the village of Cococa in northwest Uganda. He was for 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:04.640 sure a Kakwa, which were one of the Nubian tribes 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:07.880 that British considered to be a warrior people. Now. Eddie's 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:10.040 father served with the British Army and the King's African 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:12.360 Rifles and was generally out of the picture. His mother 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:16.720 is usually described as a witch or a self proclaimed sorceress. Um. 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.120 I watched the documentary when I was sort of prepping 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:22.360 for this thing that was called, i mean, The Rise 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:24.520 and Fall, and it was it was a terrible documentary. 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:27.480 It's one of those like nineties made for TV movies 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:32.800 where all the actings bad and it's very sensational, super biased, 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:36.240 and it leans into this stuff that I think most 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:39.839 people have heard about idi amine, which was like witchcraft, cannibalism, 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:42.200 that sort of thing, which will be we'll be talking 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:44.640 about a little bit later. But is uh, I mean 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:51.240 that just sounds like Los Angeles culture, witchcraft, astrology, and 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:57.600 the veganism not much, not so much cannibalism. Yeah, yeah, yeah, veganisms. Yeah, 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:01.760 a better ism than CA's. But we're we're going to 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:04.040 get into, uh sort of how a lot of these 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:07.600 facts are unreliable about Ittie. But the way that this 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:11.319 terrible documentary summed up Ittie's childhood I found humorous, which 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:13.120 is the child grew up by the river learning the 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:16.440 ways of manhood and the spells of witchcraft, which that 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:19.880 sort of sums up I think the general common popular 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:21.719 perception of who this guy was. It sounds like a 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:25.640 fished a lot boy. Yeah, And there's always there's gonna 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:27.640 be a lot of dark stories about rivers. Whenever you 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:31.720 read about the scary Yeah, how did the ocean get 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:35.000 to the land that way? Yeah, it's one of those 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:37.320 like anytime you read about a place with that's like 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:39.480 famous for its rivers, and they have some sort of 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:42.440 like horrible butchery happened. There's just always tons of stories 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:44.440 about kids finding heads in the rivers. We were just 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:46.640 in the Cambodia when it was the same thing, just like, 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:49.760 I mean, you find all kinds of weird stuff in there. Yeah, 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:54.600 so yeah, the witchcraft stuffed is almost certainly racist bullshit. 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:57.920 What witchcraft wasn't is still common in parts of Uganda. 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:00.680 I mean, was it practicing Muslim? You on? And Muslims 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:03.440 had their own kind of witchcrafty tradition where people would 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:06.560 use the Koran to foretell the future, and he certainly 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:09.679 used that, but he wasn't doing like pagan blood magic 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:11.760 or anything like that. Yeah, all of this sounds like 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:15.040 astrology so far. What was the sign doesn't say? Well, 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:19.000 it was like the Islamic version of astrology, but I 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:23.000 don't know, probably queries yea um Witchcraft was less of 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:25.760 a factor in his regime than the traditions and rituals 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:28.240 of his beloved British army. Um so it he was 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:30.400 eventually abandoned by his father and by some accounts his 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:32.280 mother too. It's kind of hard to tell what happened there. 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:34.080 He got as far as the fourth grade before he 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:36.560 dropped out of school. When he was at most seventeen, 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:39.920 a British colonial army officer noted his tremendous size and 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:42.800 recruited him into the King's African Rifles. He started his 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:45.920 service as a cook's assistant, literally peeling potatoes, which is 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:48.720 like the stereotypical bottom of the wrong army job. But 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:51.080 he seems like if you're big, that you shouldn't be 0:14:51.120 --> 0:15:00.640 a rifleman. We're gonna make you target. You're a pragmat man. Yeah, 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:03.320 I mean, I would only recruit the little guys, the 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:06.800 most weird army ever. Um, he didn't stay at the 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:09.320 bottom long it. He was gigantic. He was like six 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:11.760 ft four, well over two hundred pounds, and he was 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:13.800 in his younger days. He gets kind of heavier as 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:15.800 an older guy, but like you could get picture him 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:18.120 and he's young, he is solid muscle, like he is 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:20.920 just a mountain of a man. Yeah, me too. He's 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:24.440 got about three inches and that's about it. So he 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:27.280 was a perfect candidate to become a heavyweight boxer, which 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:30.600 is exactly what happened. According to Robert Keeley, Deputy chief 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:33.240 of the US Mission in Kempoala quote. His advancements came 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:36.080 essentially through boxing. He was very tall, with a tremendous 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:38.480 reach in big hands. He was big and strong and tough. 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:40.760 In general. You could picture him in any culture as 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:43.280 a heavyweight champion, and that's what he was. The Ugandans 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:45.160 are very fine boxers. They still prove it to this 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:47.320 day in the Olympics. They have a strong boxing tradition 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:50.240 which the British encouraged. The main avenue for advancement in 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:53.760 the army was boxing. Um So I mean eventually became 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:56.320 the heavyweight champion of the Army and in nineteen one 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:59.480 to fifty two the heavyweight champion of all Uganda. His 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:02.520 ability to punch people proved useful in maintaining discipline among 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:05.479 other soldiers in his unit. Here's another quote from Keiley. 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:09.040 Uh Idi Amine became prominent as the link between the two. 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:11.680 The officers sitting around sipping their tea or their brandy 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:14.880 or their port, upon hearing some noises and disruptions outside, 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:16.760 would call in Sergeant Amine and tell him to take 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:18.760 care of the problem. I Mean goes out. There are 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:21.000 some shouts and screams as he knocks him heads together 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:23.480 and kick some butt and then silence. The officers resumed 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:27.560 their sipping in a very appreciative of performance. They eventually 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:31.920 made him the top sergeant o um, because of course 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:35.360 sergeant was as high as an actual African could raise 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:37.480 in the King's African Rifles. And we're not allowed to 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:40.440 have any Africans be officers in any of the British 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:42.720 colonial armies out of the world, or I think in 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:45.640 India for that matter, which is, you know, if you're 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:50.040 a racist colonial power, you don't want anybody in your army. 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:53.520 You can't have like you've got to recruit soldiers from 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:56.000 the locals, but you don't want them learning about supply 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:59.440 lines and logistics and stuff. Yeah good, Yeah, then they'll 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:02.640 know how to, you know, overthrow the seven guys that 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:04.720 you have there. Yeah, that's why I'm I haven't been 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:08.640 promoted to any officer ranks. I mean, how's your boxing? 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:13.480 I mean very very, very bad. But if we're talking 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:18.280 about a wee game, then still very bad. So we 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:20.640 need an army where yeah, where we as the product 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:26.000 I mean with drones nowadays, that's that's the future. I 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:30.199 feel like that's the future. I hear you. Um. So 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:33.520 he was the perfect soldier for the British Empire. Everyone 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:35.520 who served with him in those days was impressed both 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:38.439 by his toughness and by his almost superhuman strength. His 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:42.200 commanding officer, Ian Graham, said that his body was quote 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:45.480 like that of a Grecian sculpture during one terrible march, 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:48.040 when all of the other men could barely continue quote, 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:51.000 one man was an example and an inspiration to us all. 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:54.000 As we finally passed the finishing post, Idioman was marching 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:55.880 beside me at the head of the column, head held 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:58.640 high and still singing for all he was worth. Across 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:01.439 one shoulder were two in guns, and a brin is 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:03.840 a like a machine gun. It's like a twenty two 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:06.919 pound like machine gun that you you know, put on 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:08.760 a tripod on the ground. So two of those in 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:11.359 one hand and over the other was a crippled a scari, 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:13.479 And the ascari was a British word for like a 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:15.960 local soldier. So he had one of his wounded comrades 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:18.359 on one arm and two machine guns on the other. 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:21.879 That's like the kind of soldier he made. He was 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:24.159 just he was. He was like he was. He was 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:28.160 a super soldier. Man He invented CrossFit, apparently some Joe 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:31.600 Rogan alpha brain kind of guy. Now. Ian Graham said 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:34.080 that seeing this reminded him of a translation of another 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:37.119 of a King's African Rifles marching song that I'm about 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:40.040 to read you the song, which is explained sort of 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:46.679 how the British viewed men sing Oh boy, that's I 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:48.800 think I can do a good British accent here, but 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:53.320 I don't know that I can sing it rhyme. It does. 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:58.239 It definitely rhymes, and it's a bit racist. Now for this, 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:00.159 you know, you need to understand the word suity is 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:03.280 another word for Nubian, like it's like a local term 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:06.280 for like people who are from his group of of Uganda's. 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:09.880 So here's the British fighting song that this guy thought 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:13.119 of when he saw Idio I mean marching. It's the Suiti, 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:15.920 My boy, it's the Suiti with his grim set, ugly face. 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:17.840 But he looks like a man and he fights like 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:20.720 a man, for he comes of a fighting race, which 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:25.320 that's exactly what these people were to the British. I 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:27.359 assume there was more, but this was the lion that 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:30.119 this guy recalled, which is like, it shows you exactly 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:31.639 what the British thought of these guys is that they 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:34.400 are soldiers. That's why, and that's what they were bred 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:36.520 for and encouraged for. And they didn't have to do 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:39.439 People of like the Coquit tribe, didn't have to do 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:41.720 anything other than send their sons to fight for the 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:43.800 British army and the British would take care of them. 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:47.399 And then they respond with their own distract or. Um, 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:53.040 this is a distract at that point, bad, Yeah it is, 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:56.040 and it gets yeah, it gets better. Um. So young 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:57.879 Aman was sent to war several times on behalf of 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:00.960 the British Empire. In he went to Malia to suppress 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:03.640 the Shift of Rebellion. In nine fifty two he went 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:06.760 sent to Kenya to suppress the Mau Mau uprising. We 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:09.320 don't talk about the Mau Mau uprising a lot these days, 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:11.359 but it basically started as a bunch of Kenyan rebels 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:13.800 who were angry, angry because the British were whipping people 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:16.040 half to death, which is that's how British kept discipline 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:20.720 and all their African colonies was just horrific amounts of whipping. Um. 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:23.280 So these guys rose up and they killed some British 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:26.200 people in the British sent an army and brutally suppressed it. 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:28.119 They put more than one and a half million Kenyans 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:32.160