Asmarom legesse biography books

This book reveals the many creative solutions an African society found for problems that people encounter when they try to establish a democratic system of governing their affairs.

In much of what has been written about Africa, the common image is that of people governed by primitive customs and practices, in which only feudal roles of elders, kings, chiefs, sultans, and emirs have been acknowledged by Western observers.

Little is ever shown of indigenous African democratic systems, under which there is distribution of authority and responsibility across various strata of society, and where warriors are subordinated to deliberative assemblies, customary laws are revised periodically by a national convention, and elected leaders are limited to a single eight-year terms of office and subjected to public review in the middle of their term.

All these ideals and more are enshrined in the five-century old constit