Antecedents To Modern Rwanda: The Nyiginya Kingdom (Africa and the Diaspora: History, Politics, Culture)

Rating:
Summary: Pursuit of the public good
Review: Jan Vansina, retired Professor Emeritus of History and Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is widely considered one of the founders of the discipline of African history. Vansina proposes that only the visible and tangible pursuit of the public good, recognized as such by all, will achieve the mobilization of the populace and legitimize a political regime, which must provide a system of government that avoids both an excessive concentration of power and an alienation of the people. How to foreclose the possibility of democratic despotism remains the African Great Lakes Region's toughest challenge, and forming a wider union as part of the East African Community and the Economic Community of Great Lakes Countries might well be steps in the right direction for Rwanda and Burundi.