Time for traditional rulers

There seems to be little public push-back to the denigration of the SA royals. Arguments range from union complaints that the money “splurged” on the inauguration (without any factual details) could be better used to bolster infrastructure and the poor, to Bernard Benson’s letter to Business Day stating that there is “… entrenching of power in unelected, patriarchal and corrupt chiefs, aimed at denying rural residents [the] rights …” (“ANC’s new apartheid,” November 3).

Again, in these broad blanket condemnations there is no evidence to back such scathing ad hominem attacks, or the plight of rural residents.

My understanding of the form of political administration in precolonial, indigenous nations in Africa, being vested in the structure of kings, chiefs, headmen and family heads, a far broader democratic dispensation embraced all sectors of society who were consulted at many levels and on many facets of life — social, economic, justice and national worth. A failing or unjust chief soon lost when people voted with their feet, moving to those who were more competent and just.

It suited colonial, and later apartheid, governance to dispense with these structures in favour of their own interests, laws and land acquisition. The original rulers were emasculated and if resistant, simply replaced. It has suited the current government to continue with this policy.

Rural people, many in serious states of poverty, have no-one to turn to. The central government simply cannot govern the rural backwaters. It is, for example, about to build an extraordinary multibillion rand bridge in the Eastern Cape, but argues against tarring regional or village roads, and other local but vital infrastructure.

It fails to provide any alternative to the desperate unemployed, miserably poor education, health facilities and staffing, and the widespread problem of access to identity documents to apply for social grants.

Perhaps it is time to resuscitate the traditional rural government structures — suitably controlled, of course, to prevent the patriarchal and corrupt behaviour that characterises mainstream government administrations at all levels. It could start at the top with full recognition of kings.

Rod Lloyd Newlands