Back To The Future With The Traditional Leaders Bill Analysis
Back to the Future with the Traditional Leaders Bill
The discussion at Codesa and later in the constitutional assembly was not about whether traditional leadership should continue to exist. That was implicit. My experience in the narrative of this book suggests that without Traditional Authority, our high-density areas would be ungovernable.
Opposition to the “Chief’s Bill” has been led by voices claiming to defend of the Constitution. But defense of constitutionalism implies support for its provisions including traditional leadership in Section 12. The real betrayal occurs in selecting some sections that you like and trashing other sections that you don’t like.
A Mail & Guardian article by Monde Nkasawe titled “Traditional leadership …show more content…
They did not exclude me because I had complied with all provisions, to show my esteem and my shared belief in the spirit of give and take.
At the top level you have Parliament, trying to set up the parameters. It has been struggling to pass a Control of Marketing of Alcoholic Beverages Bill for close to 3 years. The Traditional Leaders Bill goes back to Codesa, it is completing the constitutional project. And we are asking whether the two marriage legislations should not be harmonizes like they did in Kenya?
Then at operational level you have government departments. There you get the double-speak that I got at SAPS – police men championing Lobola (socialist humanism) and policewomen with a gender-rights bias (liberal humanism). It took ten months before I learned (from one of the police men I had called out around midnight the night of our wedding braai) that they actually took the two ladies home that night. They were never held at the police station - for either punishment or protection. This is like Candy Lightner who founded MADD. Her daughter was killed by a drunk driver who turned out to be a repeat offender. The court just reprimanded him and then he was released. You can’t solve the problem that way, that is nothing but a pay-later …show more content…
Gender activists can be even more severe. They use the language of equality and dignity but they are really in a turf-war because at the end of the day, civil rights are no more inalienable than traditions and customs.
The truth is that if your point of departure is customary practice, then the gender rhetoric can get tiresome. The more modern agenda of liberal humanism often wins because it is purportedly more “educated”. At the end of the day it is a question of choice, stemming from the values and convictions that you prefer. Tolerance is better in a multi-cultural setting like South Africa than unbending ideology.
Praise singers
One African tradition that I am fond of is the vanguard who goes out in front of the one whose praise s/he sings to those within ear-shot. Mfati wami is not fond of poetry, nevertheless I offer just two lines of it to thank her for inspiring these ruminations:
Poinsettias are red, sthandvwa, African violets are blue
Sugarcane is sweet, my love, but not as desirable as
The discussion at Codesa and later in the constitutional assembly was not about whether traditional leadership should continue to exist. That was implicit. My experience in the narrative of this book suggests that without Traditional Authority, our high-density areas would be ungovernable.
Opposition to the “Chief’s Bill” has been led by voices claiming to defend of the Constitution. But defense of constitutionalism implies support for its provisions including traditional leadership in Section 12. The real betrayal occurs in selecting some sections that you like and trashing other sections that you don’t like.
A Mail & Guardian article by Monde Nkasawe titled “Traditional leadership …show more content…
They did not exclude me because I had complied with all provisions, to show my esteem and my shared belief in the spirit of give and take.
At the top level you have Parliament, trying to set up the parameters. It has been struggling to pass a Control of Marketing of Alcoholic Beverages Bill for close to 3 years. The Traditional Leaders Bill goes back to Codesa, it is completing the constitutional project. And we are asking whether the two marriage legislations should not be harmonizes like they did in Kenya?
Then at operational level you have government departments. There you get the double-speak that I got at SAPS – police men championing Lobola (socialist humanism) and policewomen with a gender-rights bias (liberal humanism). It took ten months before I learned (from one of the police men I had called out around midnight the night of our wedding braai) that they actually took the two ladies home that night. They were never held at the police station - for either punishment or protection. This is like Candy Lightner who founded MADD. Her daughter was killed by a drunk driver who turned out to be a repeat offender. The court just reprimanded him and then he was released. You can’t solve the problem that way, that is nothing but a pay-later …show more content…
Gender activists can be even more severe. They use the language of equality and dignity but they are really in a turf-war because at the end of the day, civil rights are no more inalienable than traditions and customs.
The truth is that if your point of departure is customary practice, then the gender rhetoric can get tiresome. The more modern agenda of liberal humanism often wins because it is purportedly more “educated”. At the end of the day it is a question of choice, stemming from the values and convictions that you prefer. Tolerance is better in a multi-cultural setting like South Africa than unbending ideology.
Praise singers
One African tradition that I am fond of is the vanguard who goes out in front of the one whose praise s/he sings to those within ear-shot. Mfati wami is not fond of poetry, nevertheless I offer just two lines of it to thank her for inspiring these ruminations:
Poinsettias are red, sthandvwa, African violets are blue
Sugarcane is sweet, my love, but not as desirable as