Bernard Lugan

Bernard Lugan (born 10 May 1946 in Meknes, Morocco) is a contemporary French historian and Associate Professor of African history at Jean Moulin University Lyon 3, in France. He's also teaching at the French Institute of Defense Studies. He has an academic rank as "Maître de conférences". A specialist of Africa since 1971, he authored many books on the African continent. He is the editor of "L'Afrique réelle".

Contents

• Osons dire la vrit lAfrique Bernard Lugan
• Works
• References

He studied at the Paris X University Nanterre and edited a thesis (third cycle doctorate) naming "L'Économie d'échange au Rwanda de 1850 à 1914". He also has lived for an extended time in Africa, especially in Rwanda where he has conducted significant research, and has taught African History at the National University of Rwanda. In 1982, he authored a thesis for a state doctorate naming "Entre les servitudes de la houe et les sortilèges de la vache : le monde rural dans l'ancien Rwanda".

Lugan's notable work includes several books on Southern Africa, Morocco and Rwanda including "History of South Africa", When Africa was German and African Legacy, Solutions for a Community in Crisis where he describes how individualism hasn't replaced preexisting loyalties to clans, groups, and tribes. In this book, he rejects what he calls "the victimization paradigm," which says colonial exploitation and the slave trade brought Africa to its knees, rejects solutions based on Western guilt and claim that a correct interpretation of history is necessary for Africans to "build a future on a more solid foundation" and save an African continent ravaged by famine, economic disaster and civil war. He notably proposes a redrawing of national African frontiers in accordance with ethnic groupings and promotes a new type of democracy, more rooted in those native groupings rather than on Western "one man one vote" system.

Bernard Lugan is also an expert witness for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.