Date
: 10/08/2005
Source: National House of Traditional Leaders
Title: Mzimela: Annual Conference of Pan African Anthropological
Association
Keynote address by Inkosi Mpiyezintombi Mzimela, Chairperson of the
National House of Traditional Leaders at the 15th Annual Conference
of the Pan African Anthropological Association (PAAA), Younde,
Cameroon
TRADITIONAL LEADERS ARE FOR LIFE; DEMOCRACY THE AFRICAN WAY
“A traditional leader is a tree on which all birds sit and a
traditional leader was born for a purpose that the world cannot do
without”.
Your Royal Highnesses,
Your Excellencies,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is a great honour and a privilege for me to have been asked to
address you at this auspicious gathering. It is a pleasure to talk
to you about a matter that rest at the bottom of my heart.
I am Mpiyezintombi Mzimela, Inkosi of the Mzimela community, which
is based in northern side of my province, KwaZulu-Natal (South
Africa). I am also the Chairperson of a national statutory body of
traditional leaders of my country, the National House of
Traditional Leaders (NHTL). Our organisation is established in
terms of constitutional provisions and has institutional ties with
similar organisations, which are established in terms of provincial
laws in six of the nine provinces of which South Africa
comprises.
The NHTL co-ordinates the activities of traditional leaders
nationwide and expresses the views of the provincial Houses within
the national field of debate. Further, the NHTL draws its mandate
from policy pronouncements by National Government and from
legislation, inter alia:
* The National House of Traditional Leaders Act No. 10 of 1997(as
amended);
* The Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Act No. 41 of
2003.
Background
Traditional leaders are the heads of a complex system of societal
organisation, which consists of its own laws, traditions, social
dynamics and interaction, and a comprehensive way of life. In South
Africa we refer to all this as traditional communities, but
internationally people also refer to them as tribes or clans.
Because of the regressive connotation usually associated with it,
we tend to dismiss the words “tribe” and
“chief”, preferring the expression traditional
community and traditional leader.
I have inherited the task of guarding the interests of the people
of my community. It is a task that I intend carrying out in the
manner that my ancestors would expect of me. I must not fail my
people or my ancestors. My people would suffer and my ancestors
would turn in their graves. It is a responsibility that I did not
choose but which I accepted because my ancestors have imposed it on
me. I preside over Izimbizo, which are community gatherings of my
people where I act as a facilitator but where I have no
decision-making power – the power lies with the people, who
make all the decisions. My people have made decisions by consensus
since time immemorial – so it has been, and so it must
remain. I tell you this to give you an insight into the functioning
of traditional system throughout South Africa and Africa.
This system was left in muddle by the legacies of colonisation and
apartheid. There is no doubt in my mind that these led to
Africa’s downfall.
We can never know whether in the longer term the coming of
Europeans to Africa represented a curse or a blessing because we
don’t know what conditions would now be if Africa had
remained isolated for these past several hundred years. Although
this question makes for interesting speculation it is not useful
for purposes of current discussion. Colonialism is past history and
the only part of it that is now worth focussing on is its
conflict-provoking legacies, most of which relate to the fact that
Africans have forgotten that they are African.
The colonial powers left behind their system of democracy, a system
they developed over many centuries in their own countries, based on
an idea formulated by the Greeks more than two thousand years ago.
The word democracy comes from the Greek words demos, meaning
“people” and kratos, meaning, “power” so,
power to the people.
However, there are two very distinct strains of democracy. The one
brought to Africa by the colonial powers, and with which we are
therefore most familiar, is representative democracy, which allows
the people to vote for representatives every time an election is
held but otherwise gives them no real say in the day to day affairs
of the area, region, province, state or country in which they live
because all the decisions are taken by their elected
representatives. This method of governance, imported into Africa,
has been conflict- provoking.
Direct democracy is the other major form of democracy. In this
system the people either gather together in a public meeting (our
South African version is called an imbizo) or they vote in a
referendum to make decisions on an issue-by-issue basis. The people
do not give their representatives the power to make decisions on
their behalf without the right to intervene in a decision with
which they do not agree. Switzerland is the only real example of
direct democracy operating in an advanced country, or anywhere in
the world other than in those exceptional places where
Africa’s communal system of direct democracy decision-making
has been allowed to continue to function. Direct democracy brought
peace and prosperity to Switzerland, whose people were earlier
involved in strife over languages, customs and religions. It was
also responsible for maintaining a relatively high level of peace
within traditional communities in Africa before the Europeans
arrived.
The colonial powers usurped and patched together territories
belonging to the peoples of Africa, often territories containing
people who had been rivals and even bitter enemies for centuries.
They called these territories countries. The colonialists
maintained control over these countries of their creation with
their soldiers and guns and by playing the various peoples within
the countries off against each other.
The real problems came when they left. They did not, as they should
have done, attempt to repair the damage they had done to the
traditional African communities. They did not say, as they should
have done – “let us attempt to return the systems of
governance to the way they were before we arrived and destabilised
the way of life of the people”. They merely handed over their
mechanisms of power to “the new elected
representatives” of people’s who had previously hated
the way the colonialists had used those mechanisms for purposes of
dominating and controlling the indigenous population.
One of the primary objectives of the colonial powers had been to
undermine the traditional African leaders and the age-old
decision-making processes of the traditional African communities.
They knew that a traditional leader in most parts of Africa was not
allowed to be autocratic. The people did not allow it. The role of
the traditional leader consisted of facilitating meetings of the
people of the village, clan, or tribe, in order to ensure that
everyone was given the opportunity to be heard before the taking of
important decisions, and to attempt to allow the people to reach a
unanimous or consensus decision.
The traditional leader was also expected to have expert knowledge
of customary law for purposes of giving rulings on disputes between
people under their jurisdiction after hearing the views of trusted
advisers. Most African traditional leaders therefore retained their
positions because of their wisdom and fairness as well as the
loyalty of their subjects to them and the memory of their
forefathers – not because they were backed, in the manner of
European-style governments, by soldiers and policemen with
guns.
The contrast of the two systems was too great for the colonialists
to feel comfortable about attempting to govern people with such
ties of loyalty to their own leaders. They did their best to
undermine the system of traditional leadership. However, despite
all their efforts, the traditions have survived and so have the
hereditary leaders.
The next part of the African saga has been most tragic. As
mentioned earlier, the colonial powers transferred the alien
European system to elected majorities, along with its mechanisms of
power such as armies and police. In most cases power was
centralised in the hands of a few. Where the colonialists attempted
to build in checks and balances, such as entrenched constitutions,
separation of the executive and judiciary, and other mechanisms
that function relatively well in Europe, where they took centuries
to develop, they did not last long in the hands of governments that
had little patience with constraints on their power. What elected
African leaders wanted, knowingly or unknowingly, was for their
positions to become the same as that of hereditary leaders –
positions for life.
Among a people accustomed to hereditary rule it was relatively easy
to obtain acceptance for such a wish and the result has been the
“President for Life” phenomenon that has, with few
exceptions, plagued Africa since the departure of the colonialists.
In many cases bloody battles for power have ensued, very often
fuelled by the presence of mineral and oil riches.
Many elected African governments have followed the example of the
colonialists in their attitudes towards traditional leadership. In
order not to alienate the people, who continue to value their
allegiance to traditional leaders, the elected governments give
some form of recognition to such leaders but ensure that African
direct democracy is not re-instated.
Traditional communities are prevented from utilising their ancient,
effective, and peaceful decision-making processes, in which the
people decide what should and should not happen within their own
communities. In many cases the resulting frustrations boil over
into conflict. In some cases a frustrated or even unwise
traditional leader may precipitate such a problem.
It is probably too much to expect to see direct democracy
re-instated throughout Africa, with decision-making power devolved
down to the community level, with every community making its own
decisions on all matters and with no dominant central power
imposing its will on the community.
We now have cities and towns where people are congregated, many of
whom recognise no traditional leader. In such places, and in
respect of regional and central government affairs, it may be
necessary to accept the existing representative democracy system
but there is much to be gained by giving back to rural traditional
communities their right to make their own decisions in their
traditional manner within their own communities. This would allow
communities to protect and foster their customs, culture, languages
and histories.
However, if this should happen it will be necessary for us as
traditional leaders to carefully study the ways of our ancestors,
so that we do not also become hungry for a kind of power that our
ancestors did not have – that we should recognise that while
our people may give us their allegiance we have inherited a duty to
serve and not to dominate them.
Recommendations and Conclusion
We must devise a system that utilises and blends the original
African direct democracy at the local traditional community level
with the representative democracy we have inherited from the
colonialists at the state, provincial and regional government
level. Traditional leaders of South Africa believe that African
traditional leaders have a potential to revive “Democracy the
African Way”. We are certain that African Renaissance, New
Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the African
Union, without including all traditional leaders of this continent
might be a futile exercise.
The realisation of this dream will further boost the potential of
our traditional leaders and their ability to bring the continent
closer to each other. It is the dream of all traditional leaders in
Africa to see the Continental House of Traditional Leaders of
Africa (COHTLA) being born. We are convinced that since South
Africa, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Nigeria, Togo and
Botswana, have bought to this idea, all other countries will do
like wise. We are preparing a summit for all African Traditional
Leaders for early 2006 with the aim of preparing guidelines to the
formation of the COHTLA.
Your Excellencies, Your Royal Highnesses, distinguished guests
ladies and gentlemen we can’t do much about our ancestors but
we can influence our descendants enormously. Time has come to say
YES! to Democracy the African Way. I thank you!
For further information please contact:
Sibusiso Nkosi
Cell: 082 855 4436
Issued by: National House of Traditional Leaders
10 August 2005
Edited by: Colleen Smith
0 Comments
Map
