Mahmood Mamdani, the anthropologist father of Zohran, the newly elected Democratic Mayor of New York, has written a weirdly revisionist history of the brutal dictator Idi Amin. The Mamdani family were Ugandan Asians, ejected by Amin in his purge in the 1970s, though Mahmood had been previously educated in the US and involved in the civil rights movement.
Amin was an admirer of Adolf Hitler and considered one of the most brutal despots in modern world history responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. He expropriated businesses and properties belonging to the Asians and the Europeans and handed them over to his supporters. At the time, Asians accounted for 90% of the country’s tax revenue; with their removal, the economy all but collapsed.
Mahmood, professor of government and anthropology at Columbia University, has long styled himself as the left’s answer to VS Naipaul. He writes that the expulsions were aimed at the British, not Indians. He urges the reader to discard “media-driven preconceptions” of the gothic tales of Amin’s killings and cannibalism – and presents Amin as an anti-colonial moderniser. He destroyed landlord power, made black rule “meaningful” which evidently earned him aa place in Mamdani’s pantheon of liberation heroes.
Amin, 30 May 1928, was a Sun Gemini opposition Saturn with an aggressive Mars in Aries conjunct Uranus, trine Saturn and in a brutal square to Pluto.
What intrigues me is Mahmood Mamdani’s chart, 23 April 1946, Mumbai, India, which has a Taurus Sun square Mars Pluto conjunct in Leo – so he has the same Mars Pluto resonance as Amin. Though that can cut two ways and could have made him more sensitive to Amin’s rampant savagery. But clearly not.
It may not be exactly helpful for his son’s political position having his father act as an apologist for such a verifiably vicious dictator as Amin.
Mahmood’s Taurus Sun falls on his Zohran’s Midheaven with his Mars Pluto on Z’s Ascendant – so father pushes son hard but there will be a strong streak of competitiveness in there. Zohran, 18 October 1991 1.15am Kampala, Uganda, does have a Libra Sun conjunct Mars in Scorpio square Saturn with a 4th house Pluto – so relations with his father will have been fraught.
None of this may add up to much but it is astrologically interesting – and one to watch out for ahead.
Quite a lot of the British that were kicked out were farmers, like in Zimbabwe. In Zimbabwe, they backed down and asked for many of them to come back: which some did. But that turned out to be a mistake, when these lands were seized again and the farmers were forced to leave again. And in comparison to Idi Amin, Mugabe was a sweetiepie. And we all know that Mugabe wasn’t a nice person at all!
I am intrigued now.
Could we have a look at Mira Nair’s chart too?
I saw that Mars/Pluto and immediately thought of dishing out punishment. Especially as his Sun ruler of Leo is square Mars . Quite authoritarian. Pluto is transiting his 7th house and is coming into to transiting orbit of Ceres and then opposes his own natal Pluto. Interesting that he must have conceived his book during his transiting Pluto opposite his Mars. With his Mercury in Aries rules by Mars and is in trine to his Mars. Transiting Pluto will also trine his Mercury this year. May be questions will be asked, why the Father of a newly elected New York Mayor, suddenly writes a homage to a horrific brutal dictator? Perhaps a catharsis time? Or remembrance? His Moon in Capricorn , with its ruling planet Saturn in Cancer in the 12th house of hidden secrets. Another powerful Saturnine view on a society. Was he a secret supporter of Amin’s or left or needed to leave? It is intriguing indeed for him to write a book supporting a brutal dictator, whilst escaping his reign and moving to a free democracy – all these years later! I remember reading the atrocities dished out by Amin. The mind does boggle! Ceres represents motherhood, or motherland? Pluto will bring up hidden aspects of one’s unconscious and confront them or expose them.
“It may not be exactly helpful for his son’s political position having his father act as an apologist for such a verifiably vicious dictator as Amin.”
Shades of that expression ‘The sins of the father’ coming through?
Pluto is transiting Zohran’s 7th house. He has Chiron in his 1st house in Leo – which transiting Pluto will oppose and activate next year and beyond. Maybe an open wound that festers?