African royalty must lead as change agents, says Zolile Burns-Ncamashe

PRINCE Zolile BURNS-NCAMASHE

As our nation – and traditional leadership – continues to grapple with the challenges of building a national democratic society where all citizens are equal and human dignity is restored, it is worth pondering on the words

of Kartar Singh.

An agricultural and rural development specialist, Singh said, “Human dignity cannot be given to a human being by the kindness of others. Indeed, it can be destroyed by kindness which emanates from an act of charity, for human dignity involves equality, freedom and relations of mutual respect among humans; it depends on responsibility and on a conscious participation in the life of the society in which a human being works and lives.”

Some of the incapacitating challenges we face are of our own creation. For instance, there seems to be an established trend projected by less enthusiasm on education, excessive abuse of alcohol as well as catastrophic ignorance of religious foundations.

We no longer epitomise the essence and ethos of productive and developmental leadership sought to be emulated by all and sundry.

The social distance between ourselves and the communities over whom we exercise jurisdiction renders us vulnerable to antagonistic forces at a time when the institution is expected to be the vanguard of the people’s public power.

surely not all is gloom and doom. The institution is not only a statutory body but also a constitutionally recognised organ of state and recognised as a judicial body, while traditional leaders are recognised as public office bearers, all in terms of constitutional provisions.

This means that as traditional leaders we can amplify our role and interventions.

Traditional leadership is here to stay in the same way as our democratically elected leadership.

What is critical is to invest in the consciousness that promotes cooperation, coexistence and collaboration. Giving full expression to traditional leadership must not be painfully construed as an act of charity, undeserved benevolent generosity or undue privilege.

It must be understood as a logical response to a constitutional injunction which by the way, must not be second guessed.

The beauty of our constitutional democracy and state is its participatory character where all citizens, individually and collectively, are able to express their views, opinions and attitudes without fear of reprieve.

On the question of land ownership, I would argue that land is communally owned by households and communities with traditional leadership exercising custodianship on behalf of the nation.

Land is not an exclusive Pty Ltd asset on the basis of a feudal-vassalage structural arrangement but an asset of the nation, communally owned by the nation.

This is an important constitutional imperative, also corroborated by the first African woman to win a Nobel Prize, Wangari Maathai, who asserts that “traditionally, land was owned, not by an individual but by the family or the community”.

Thus any notion that the land belongs to traditional leaders is historically flawed, politically distorted and academically unsustainable. The land belongs to the communities. The role of traditional leadership is communally embedded, not feudally oriented as is sometimes mischievously projected.

What are the opportunities available to the institution of traditional leadership?

In the Eastern Cape we have lots of fallow land in our communal areas which could be commercialised at a scale that can eliminate poverty, reduce unemployment and promote nation building and social cohesion.

Land and access to it presents a lifetime opportunity to all of us young and old, rural and urban. We have no choice but to use these opportunities effectively and efficiently.

The Eastern Cape alone has an allocation of 300000 hectares of communal land that needs to be utilised by various commodities and enterprises with clearly defined value chain opportunities which can strategically feed into the various Agri-parks. This is in the context of the one million hectare programme spearheaded nationally. But much of this land is infested with alien species like the wattle trees.

Finally, it is encumbent on traditional leadership to be the catalyst of the hopes, aspirations and wishes of our people, especially in ensuring accountability and security of our people’s freedom.

The French philosopher Montesquieu unequivocally held that, “liberty was most secure where there was a potent aristocracy to limit the despotic tendency of both the monarch and the common people”. He believed the way to preserve freedom was to set “power against power”.

His theory was anchored on the doctrine that, “the freedom of the individual could best be guaranteed by the division of the powers of the state between three distinct organs which could balance and check one another – a separation of powers”.

Surely traditional leadership then, has a role to continue ensuring that accountability in the service of our people is an inevitable non-negotiable!

Indeed, we need to be the proponents of accountable governance by strengthening institutional relations with the constitutional institutions charged with exercising checks and balances and also by optimising participation in intergovernmental programmes.

This will keep the institution relevant and attractive in terms of its value proposition.

Lest history judges us harshly, we have a duty to intergratively construct a historical milestone in the reconstruction of a new social order where contradictions are reconciled in a non-racial, culturally plural and prosperous democratic republic. A failure by traditional leaders to execute this mission will betray the future and eventually render us as traitors.

As Karl Marx argued, “history progresses by struggle and opposition and that change occurs in revolutionary leaps rather than in gradual quantitative stages”. His assertion was further endorsed by Engels who gave clarity by arguing that, “change takes place because the world does not consist of isolated, self-sufficient, independent particulars, but of opposing forces overcoming or being overcome.”

This is what he calls the “inter-penetration of opposites”.

The challenge therefore, is for all to be agents of change and to allow our social contradictions to ignite and propel us as a nation so that, both as individuals and collectively, we can construct a prosperous society as one classless human race.

We must eject all forms of superiority and racism. Let us not make utterances that even suggest undermining anyone’s human dignity. We are one nation, the African nation. We must be proud of our identity in the global family.

• PRINCE Zolile BURNS-NCAMASHE is AmaRharhabe kingdom royal spokesman. This is an edited extract from his speech to a sitting of the provincial general council of Contralesa in Mthatha from April 28-30