An African at the Super Bowl
AFRICA will have a representative on Sunday in that most American of sports events, the Super Bowl.
Picture taken from www.bostonherald.comAmerican football star Mathias Kiwanuka might be a born and bred Yank, but the New York Giants linebacker has strong ties to Africa through his grandfather Benedicto Kiwanuka, who was Uganda's first post-colonial prime minister. The elder Kiwanuka was murdered by the Idi Amin regime in 1972.
Eleven years after his death Mathias was born in Indianapolis, the city where the Super Bowl will be played on Sunday between Kiwanuka's Giants and the New England Patriots.
Kiwanuka went to Cathedral High School, which is less than 20km from Lucas Oil stadium, the venue for the Super Bowl. So Indianapolis may be his home town, Kiwanuka told the New York Times this week, but Uganda will always be his homeland.
"How much does Uganda mean to me?" he asked rhetorically. "It means everything."
He can't recall when he first heard about his murdered grandfather, but he remembers his family talking about Benedicto as "a great man who fought hard". He fought hard for freedom of his country and then fought hard against the despot who took over Uganda.
His father Emmanuel was a political activist and his mother Deodata a nurse. They fled Uganda to escape Amin's tyranny. Any member of Benedicto Kiwanuka's family was in danger at the time.
The two Ugandan refugees married once they reached the US and had three children: Ben, Mary and Mathias. His parents separated when he was still young.
He started to read up on his grandfather and found a picture of him "in dress uniform". His grandfather had fought with the Allies in World War 2 then studied law in Britain and became a lawyer in Uganda in the 1950s. When Uganda won independence in 1962, he was elected prime minister. But he was soon voted out of office and years later imprisoned by Milton Obote, the man who defeated him.
But after Amin's coup in 1971, Benedicto was released and chosen by Amin to become Uganda's chief justice. However, Kiwanuka clashed with Amin over the rule of law and was assassinated by the dictator's agents.
It will be Kiwanuka's second Super Bowl.
He also featured in the famous game of 2008 when the Giants beat the Patriots 17-14 against the odds.