Burundi: Państwo i społeczeństwo (od kolonializmu do współczesności)

Abstract

BURUNDI: THE STATE AND SOCIETY (FROM THE COLONIAL PERIOD UNTIL THE PRESENT DAY) Burundi, a small country located in east-central Africa, is one of the most unstable countries on the continent. Similarly to the neighbouring Rwanda, over the last 50 years, the country has suffered tragic consequences of a civil war resulting from the conflict between politicians from the Tutsi and Hutu ethnic groups. The presented monograph covers a period of 130 years in a chronological manner, starting from the establishment of the foundations of the European colonial administration in the 1890s; however, the main emphasis is placed on the problems connected with the development of an independent country and strengthening (or even establishing) the national identity of its citizens. Burundi gained independence in 1962; the existing time gap allows for drawing certain conclusions and conducting an evaluation of the first 50 years of the independent existence of the country, which has little prospect of really changing the unfavorable development trends of, at least, the last three decades. At the moment, there are still no positive indications of a possible stable development of the country in the future, and the relatively stable years of the first half of the 20th century have been overshadowed by the subsequent decades of coups, genocides, and the governments’ lack of will to effectively establish peace and the rule of law.