68 Books & arts The EconomistFebruary 29th 2020
21tors give special prominence to images of
the regime’s victims, seen in life rather
than death. One poignant series captures a
military tribunal established to prosecute
“economic crimes” such as smuggling and
overcharging. The suspects are by turns be-
wildered or resigned. A teenage girl scowls
defiantly at the camera (see previous page).
Many of those prosecuted were shot.
But what are viewers to make of the des-
pot playing an accordion or dipping his
toes in a lake? At a recent showing in West
Nile, Amin’s home region, his son insisted
that he had stamped out corruption and
“gave Ugandans self-esteem”. Young peo-
ple sometimes praise him as a leader who
stood up to British colonisers and Asian ty-
coons. Ms Bananuka worries that his “dark
side” is missing. “People are seeing Amin
dancing,” she says, as though he were
merely “a jolly man”.Snapshots from the bush
The pictures in “Rebel Lives” (such as the
one above) are equally unsettling. They
were taken bylrafighters during its 20-
year insurgency in northern Uganda
(where peace returned in 2006, though
remnants battle on elsewhere). Accounts
of the rebellion tend to focus on its leader,
Joseph Kony, and the many atrocities he
oversaw, depicting the group as a bizarre
cult. But the conflict was complex in its ori-
gins and intimate in its effects. Many re-
bels were abducted as children, making
them both victims and perpetrators of vio-
lence. The photographs, collected by Kris-
tof Titeca of the University of Antwerp, give
a glimpse of the war from their perspective.
Many were taken by Okello Moses Ru-
bangangeyo, who was kidnapped from
school by the lra and rose through its
ranks before escaping. In the dry season, he
says, the rebels would pitch camp and learn
tactics by watching action movies—Rambo, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck
Norris. Some of the pictures are knowing
pastiches of their heroes: camouflaged
warriors with grenade-launchers and
schoolboy eyes. The fighters would smug-
gle the film out to be developed, then drop
the photos on the trail to scare pursuers.
But Mr Rubangangeyo also took pic-
tures as mementoes, or “just to feel happy”,
mimicking ordinary life in extreme cir-
cumstances. On special days, such as
Christmas, the rebels would sling a sheet
between two trees and pose in their bush
studio, just as their families did at home. In
the exhibition and an accompanying book,
these visual souvenirs are presented along-
side interviews with their subjects, who are
now rebuilding their lives. Some have sat
for new photos, taken by the Congolese
photographer Georges Senga, which echo
the pose and composition of the originals.
Faces age and soften; old comrades give
way to wives, husbands and children.
Mr Rubangangeyo smiles as he looks
through these images; they are a chronicle
of the only youth he ever had. Still, notes of
coercion and loss run through the collec-
tion. In one picture, a woman stands stiffly
next to a uniformed commander, his hand
draped over her shoulder. Today she is seen
in a banana garden, alone. “With the name
they gave me, I won’t get another man,” she
explains in a caption. “That name is: ‘She’s
a rebel, she’s from the bush’.” As these exhi-
bitions show, there are silences in history.
But there is rarely an escape. 7The other face of warA
rotating panel of historians occa-
sionally ranks America’s presidents.
The leading contenders tend to be George
Washington and Abraham Lincoln; Lincoln
usually wins. The accolade is in part the re-
sult of his oratorical brilliance, notably the
addresses at Gettysburg and at his second
inauguration on March 4th 1865 (a month
before Robert E. Lee’s surrender). Together,
the two speeches constitute a grand aspira-
tional statement about the meaning of the
country’s bloodiest war.
Rhetoricians still marvel at Lincoln’s
simplicity, authenticity and eloquence.
Containing only 700 words (about as many
as this review) and lasting under six min-
utes, the second inaugural was rooted not
in utopian expectations of a seamless re-
union with the Confederacy, but in theshadow of frightful slaughter on a thou-
sand battlefields. Lincoln (pictured above:
look closely) had aged decades in four
years. But his faith in democracy and what
was right, as he saw them, was firm. Sober
and resolute as his nature inclined him, he
also embodied what the times required.
By 1865 Lincoln had substituted ratio-
nalism and fatalism for the predestination
theology of his Kentucky forebears at Little
Pigeon Creek Baptist Church. But he still
venerated the King James Bible and often
quoted it at length. Sceptical about the God
it depicted, he nonetheless believed that
some power beyond human understand-
ing controlled the destiny of nations. As
Edward Achorn writes in “Every Drop of
Blood”, though Lincoln was hardly an or-
thodox Christian, his second inaugural
was “the most overtly religious” of any
presidential speech to that date. He said
America’s “original sin” of slavery required
a righteous God to purge both those who
wielded the whip and the politicians who
permitted it. He noted that northerners
and southerners read from the same Bible
and prayed to the same God, and both in-
voked God’s judgment on their adversaries.
The awful presence he described came
from Ezekiel and Jeremiah, not from sto-
ries of baby Jesus, meek and mild. But af-
terwards came divine healing:With malice toward none, with charity to all;
with firmness in the right as God gives us to
see the right, let us strive on to finish the
work we are in; to bind up the nation’s
wounds...to do all which may achieve...a just
and lasting peace...As they listened, the African-Americans
close enough to hear began murmuring,
“Bless the Lord,” the chant growing louder
until it erupted into shouts and weeping.
America’s partisan newspapers re-
viewed the address according to theirLincoln’s second inauguralImmortal words
Every Drop of Blood.By Edward Achorn.
Atlantic Monthly Press; 336 pages; $28Postcard from 1865