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Synopsis LOCAL GOVERNMENT - 'Technocratic creep' threatens local government reform Efforts to build participative government at the local level are being undermined by the government's increasingly technocratic vision of change, writes Patrick Heller THE burden on local governments could not be greater. As spelled out in the white paper on local government, `developmental' municipalities have been tasked not only with the Herculean job of equalising service delivery, but also that of building democracy from the ground up by promoting participation and empowering marginalised groups. The results have been disappointing. Local government reform has not led to significant increases in the level or scope of participation. NGOs have certainly been active, but more often than not as government contractors rather than catalysts of community initiative. A once powerful and vibrant civic movement has seen its influence and capacity for mobilisation decline dramatically. The primary mechanism for inviting local participation - the preparation of Integrated Development Plans - has proven to be a largely bureaucratic exercise, providing plenty of work for consultants but little room for a community voice. And, in a climate of fiscal restraint and stringent budget directives from the Department of Finance, local governments (bar a few wealthy municipalities) have enjoyed limited financial discretion. In the absence of community participation and effective local budget autonomy, local 'integrated development planning' has been a non-starter. Top-down transformation Of course, much of the problem lies with the apartheid legacy of racial engineering, including severe resource inequalities, high variances in local state capacity, and unequal and unevenly developed cities. However, in facing these challenges, rather than engaging civil society and actively promoting participation, the government has increasingly become mesmerised by and beholden to a technocratic vision of top-down transformation. Empowering local government is complicated. New laws and jurisdictions must be created, personnel redeployed, resources rechanneled, and local administrative capacities built. The service delivery backlog, social tensions, and the expectations of a newly empowered citizenry make the task especially urgent. In this climate, the temptation is to emphasise product over process, and this is precisely the allure of the technocratic vision. As a form of what James Scott(1) has called 'high modernism', this view is informed by unbounded faith in the ability of experts to understand and transform the world. In this framework, the challenge of decentralisation becomes simply one of getting the institutions and policies right. The answers are there for all to behold, with the good governance and 'best practices' of the west to be emulated. And western consultants and international aid agencies are only too happy to oblige. 'New realism' So local government reform in South Africa has increasingly become a highly technical exercise in implementing public administration doctrines of 'new realism' - making government responsive to the competitive and efficient forces of the market. Management systems have been rationalised and streamlined, the public services right-sized, and the latest accounting and financial practices adopted. Of course, there is nothing wrong with revamping administrative structures and developing technical expertise. The great sociologist Max Weber argued that expertise and bureaucratic procedures are a precondition for the functioning of mass democracy. However, writing in early 20th-century Germany, he also warned, with considerable prescience, that bureaucratic power - with its monopolies of knowledge and capacity for control - presented the greatest threat to democracy. There is no doubting the ANC's commitment to procedural democracy, but in a political context in which its electoral domination is unlikely to be challenged for the foreseeable future, 'technocratic creep' is a threat to participatory democracy on three counts. First, the centrality and weight given to 'expert knowledge' and technical criteria has made it increasingly difficult for citizens to engage with government. The argument that local actors lack capacity or expertise should lead to intensified efforts at mass-based training, partnerships with CBOs, popularising planning documents, simplifying procedures, mobilisation campaigns, and more emphasis on learning by doing. Instead, it has become a thinly veiled excuse to concentrate and centralise decisions. Second, because it is assumed that the experts have the answers and that the problem is simply one of implementing the correct blueprint, the result is to insulate decision-making from outside pressures. This reform-by-design approach leaves little room for consultation, much less democratic deliberation. It also dramatically weakens the feedback mechanisms and reflexive learning which a vibrant democracy provides. In the absence of the continuous give and take and consultation that defines responsive government, democratic rule is reduced to holding the government to account only periodically at election time. Third, while the competitive mechanisms of the market can play an important role in increasing government performance, the danger is that they begin to substitute for, rather than complement, democratic mechanisms. Current trends have seen the technical and economic language of financial viability, benchmarking, performance incentives, and cost recovery crowd out that of human rights, social justice, local knowledge, and community preferences. In other words, the locus of accountability and measure of performance has shifted from the people to the market. Drift explained How to explain this drift from community participation and empowerment to top-down technocratic managerialism? Part of the story has to do with what Robert Michels dubbed the iron law of oligarchy: in complex organisations, such as political parties, elites like to concentrate power. The decision by the ANC to appoint megacity mayors and provincial premiers has been rationalised on the grounds that leaders should be chosen for their administrative ability and not their popularity. But there is a bigger story here. What makes the technocratic vision so appealing to a government with a transformative agenda is that it promises frictionless and orderly change. If the experts have the design for building competitive markets or good governance, why get bogged down in endless debate, consultations and bargaining? Why subject sound and proven solutions to the messy world of politics? This approach reaches its paradoxical high point in the technocratic belief that more democratic local government and increased participation can only be engineered from above through appropriate policy design. But good institutions are the product of conflict and compromise. When states disengage themselves from society in the name of a transformative project - the Soviet Union and apartheid come to mind - they inevitably fail dismally. Technocratic visions have failed because they suffer from the fiction that transformation can be planned, and because their apolitical and frictionless visions of the world are invariably frustrated by politics and friction. Western blueprints When it comes to building local democratic government, blueprints developed in the west are hardly appropriate to a developing world context of uneven economic development, pervasive social inequalities, large-scale social exclusion, the resilience of pre-democratic forms of authority, and weak state capacity. Even more distressing is the fact that this uncritical embrace of the technocratic road to modernity passes over and even undermines South Africa's most obvious comparative advantage: the capacity for collective action, self-organisation, and reasoned negotiation born of the liberation struggle. Because of its aversion to politics and its fear of 'populism', the managerial vision of change is, in the final analysis, autocratic. In the name of getting the job done, decision-making becomes increasingly insulated and rarefied. Believing in blueprints leaves little room for the negotiation, feedback and social learning that makes for good institutions. A robust democracy is one in which goals and means are constantly negotiated. The danger of the technocratic world view, where decisions are decreed rather than deliberated, is not only that it doesn't work, but that in the end, as Adam Przeworski has commented, it delegitimises democracy as the 'people learn that they can vote, but they cannot choose'. Patrick Heller is a visiting researcher at CPS. Endnotes -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IMMIGRATION POLICY - Draft bill retains framework of control The government is moving slowly towards managing, rather than fruitlessly attempting to prevent, immigration. But the shift is ambiguous and contradictory, reports Maxine Reitzes, and may make cross-border migration more, not less, of a governance problem THE draft bill on immigration released in February suggests several subtle shifts in the government's understanding of this phenomenon, and an attempt to formulate new policies in line with this. While the bill is now in abeyance - because parliament's home affairs portfolio committee says the ministry did not keep its promise to submit it to public participation - it is an important reflection of current government thinking on the issue. In keeping with the preceding white paper, the assumption that 'foreigners steal South Africans' jobs' is recast to suggest that the availability of foreign workers undermines incentives to train local labour. There is a qualified recognition that immigration is linked to economic growth; an acknowledgement that all foreigners - including those who are illegal - are entitled to the protection of certain rights; and an implicit recognition that South Africa lacks the resources and capacity to seal its borders. But the bill casts immigration chiefly as an economic issue, and is formulated in a framework of control. The tension between the shifts in thinking and its provisions results in anomalies, ambiguities and contradictions. At the heart of the government's inability to frame a sustainable migration management regime is a failure to acknowledge that migration cannot be stopped and can only be managed and governed, possibly because it fears losing short-term support if it is seen to be pursuing immigration policies which voters perceive as a threat. As South Africa continues to lose skills, the bill proposes steps to discourage the immigration of those who could provide them. The logic, explained in the white paper, is that immigration hampers local skills development. This ignores the fact that South Africa must compete for skills with more attractive destinations; that enrolments at South African universities are declining; and the likely impact of HIV/AIDS on the economy. It also fails to recognise that foreigners can assist local skills transfer and training. An added bonus of importing skills, which is not recognised, is that they add value to the economy without South Africa having to finance their development. Permits The bill spawns 15 types of temporary residence permits. Some entitle the holders to work, subject to stringent conditions. Permits for investors and self-employed persons permits may be issued only if the applicant invests a 'prescribed financial contribution'; they must be renewed within 18 months, and then every two years. The capital requirements may be waived for businesses 'prescribed from time to time to be in the national interest or when so requested by the Department of Trade and Industry'. A work permit may be issued if the Department of Labour or a chartered accountant certifies that the terms of employment are equal to those of locals. Employers must pay 'an amount prescribed' into a training fund. A work permit lapses if, within six months of its issue and then within every year, the employer of its holder fails to submit certification from a chartered accountant that he or she is employed on original terms in the same job. The levy can be waived if, after consultation with the Department of Labour and the DTI, the employer has an adequate training programme for citizens and permanent residents, or if the DTI believes this will stimulate foreign investment. The annual number of work permits issued for each prescribed category may not exceed a quota. Exceptional skills or qualifications permits can be issued under terms and conditions to be determined. An intra-company transfer permit is designed for foreigners employed by a South African company abroad who are needed here for up to nine months. The conditions again include certification by an accountant that the employer needs the employee; employers must post financial guarantees to defray deportation costs if the foreigner fails to leave when no longer allowed here. Corporate permits would be issued subject to a quota for each firm. Employers must report foreign employees who deviate from the act, and provide financial guarantees for deportation costs if the permit is withdrawn or the employees overstays it. Applicants must show a need to employ foreigners and report their job descriptions, the number of citizens or residents employed, and their positions. Exemptions Some industries may receive exemptions from the need to certify that foreigners are not being employed under conditions commensurate with those of citizens, and corroborate the need to employ foreigners. The government may, in terms of a bilateral agreement with a state, require employers to hire people from particular states and remit part of their salaries to these countries. This seems designed to implement previous agreements allowing mines to employ foreigners but is extended, by implication, to agriculture. Permanent residence can be granted to foreigners who have held a work permit for five years and have an offer of permanent employment, if a certificate describing the job by the prospective employer's accountant is submitted, and the Department of Labour certifies that work conditions are equal to those of locals. The job must be advertised in a prescribed way, and no suitably qualified citizen or resident must be available to fill it; a yearly limit will be imposed after consultation with the DTI, the Department of Labour, and NEDLAC. Permanent residence can also be granted if 'extraordinary skills or qualifications' have been demonstrated, or the applicant intends to establish a business, investing in it a prescribed financial contribution. This can be waived if requested by the DTI. The certification must be renewed within two years, and three years thereafter. Direct residence can be obtained by a foreigner who is the spouse of a citizen or resident if the authorities are 'satisfied that a good faith spousal relationship exists'; however, it will lapse if the relationship ends within three years. Administration of this plethora of permits is likely to be onerous and costly, not only for prospective immigrants and their employers but also for the government. In an attempt to shift immigration control from the border to internal agents, the bill proposes controls intended, according to the white paper, to 'cause illegal aliens to operate in a hostile environment in which it becomes increasingly difficult for them to find employment opportunities, receive public services, or conduct a regular life'. It advises any organ of the state to establish the citizenship of those receiving its services, and to report an illegal foreigner. It adds that this 'shall not prevent the rendering of services to which illegal foreigners and foreigners are entitled under the constitution or any law'. It recommends a R25 000 fine for anyone facilitating illegal immigrants' access to public services. Immigration Service Administering these regulations will be the responsibility of an Immigration Service with the power to investigate and monitor immigrants. But the service would be bound to 'promote a human rights-based culture in both government and civil society in respect of migration control'; prevent and deter xenophobia; and promote economic growth by ensuring that businesses may employ foreigners who are needed; facilitate foreign investment, tourism and industries which rely on international exchanges of people; and enable exceptionally skilled or qualified people to enter South Africa. A thread of ambiguity runs through the bill: it urges respect for the rights of foreigners - including those who are illegal - but suggests that should they attempt to access such rights they will be deported. Stipulations that the Department of Labour and the DTI agree may result in stalemate, as they differ on immigration, with the DTI adopting a more liberal stance. The bill charges the IS with preventing and deterring xenophobia, but seems to encourage it by obliging citizens to report on the presence of foreigners. Many recommendations, including exemptions, and provision of services to foreigners while simultaneously reporting them may promote corruption. The bill recognises that vain attempts to keep foreigners out threatens the economy, while hostility towards them undermines respect for rights and complicates governance. But by retaining the fiction that they can and should be kept out, it proposes an approach which is impossible to implement and will make the need to manage rather than wish away immigration more apparent. Maxine Reitzes is a CPS policy analyst.
HIV/AIDS STRATEGIES - Society must be brought on board Effective governance often has less to do with fancy systems and techniques than with getting people to work together towards common goals, writes Steven Friedman; current government approaches to one of the greatest threats facing the society, HIV/AIDS, may be a textbook case of how not to go about it OUTSIDE the rich countries of the north, responses to AIDS are said to have succeeded in only three countries, whose political systems and cultures are very different: Cuba, Thailand and Uganda. What they reportedly had in common was that, in each case, the head of government took the lead in convincing society that it faced a common threat against which it needed to work. The message is crucial, paradoxically because no southern society - possibly no northern one either - can fight AIDS successfully if the task is left to government alone. Citizens must, for example, change their behaviour, and agree to care for those living with the epidemic and those orphaned by it since no southern government has the resources to do this on its own. So the government's chief job is to persuade citizens to play their part; yet, without a lead from it, they are unlikely to do this. That means that the political management of HIV/AIDS is crucial: that the government needs to send a clear message that it takes the epidemic seriously and wishes to inspire society to work together to fight the virus. If we accept that, South Africa presents a curious case. On one level, concern over the effects of the disease is so widespread that an AIDS ribbon on a garment is almost obligatory for members of the elite. Yet efforts to control and manage the epidemic have been ineffective. And the reason seems to lie in the messages and approaches of government. First, the widely publicised presidential desire to discover whether there is a link between HIV and AIDS may stem from a genuine wish to contribute to scientific knowledge, despite the insistence of medical specialists that it is a little like convening an inquiry to reopen the debate on whether the earth is flat. But, whatever the intention, the effect is to divert attention from the seriousness of the threat. Instead of receiving a clear signal that we have an enormous common problem to which we must respond, the government may have sent an unintended message to citizens that we are still in the process of finding out what sort of problem we have. This deters action, and raises doubts about whether the types of behaviour required to stem the spread of AIDS are really needed. Division created Second, government responses to calls to provide anti-retroviral drugs to combat AIDS have created division, raising suspicions among specialists and social activists whose skills and efforts are needed that the government is more concerned with cutting costs than with combatting AIDS: for some, the interest in investigating whether HIV is linked to AIDS stems originally from an unwillingness to pay for drugs. This does not mean that the government is obliged to pay for medication for every citizen. But it does mean that, in the face of a large problem, and armed with meagre resources, the question of how much we can afford to pay for which drugs has to be the subject of a consensus, at least among those with the skills and energies to fight AIDS. Yet the government has insisted on a monopoly over decision-making on drugs: the minister of health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, has rejected two reports from the Medicines Control Council on this issue. Thirdly, and similarly, relations between the government on the one hand and AIDS activists and specialists on the other seem to be both hostile and worsening. In March, Tshabalala-Msimang was jeered at the second national conference for People Living with HIV/AIDS after she refused to answer questions. As she left the podium, delegates booed, shouted, and banged on tables. Behind the incident lay claims by AIDS organisations that the government had not honoured commitments to them. The issue is not whether the reaction was justified. But the incident does suggest that the government has not convinced non-governmental AIDS fighters that it is working with rather than against them. The state of relations is also illustrated by the fact that the recently appointed National AIDS Council includes none of the major South Africa AIDS researchers, specialists, or medical professionals. Neither has the AIDS NGO sector been included, creating the impression that the government does not recognise its expertise and effort. Tshabalala-Msimang has rejected criticism of the council's composition, arguing that, since specialists would be used in the technical teams advising the NAC, they were not being excluded. Nevertheless, it is hardly surprising that local AIDS specialists view the council's composition as a snub. Limited success That the government needs help in the fight against AIDS is illustrated by the limited success of its efforts. While it distributed about 198 million condoms last year at a cost of about R32 million, Medical Research Council interviews with 1 473 patients attending sexually transmitted disease clinics show that only 37 per cent had used a condom during the last six months. A survey by MarkData of 2 200 people over 16 years old found that about 45 per cent of people in low-income townships as well as hostel and shack dwellers believed AIDS was not a fatal disease. In an important sense, the failure to manage AIDS politically is a symptom of a wider problem, a tendency in government to insist that technical expertise - real or imagined - can substitute for winning public confidence and co-operation. Beginning with GEAR, which was drafted by specialist teams rather than negotiated with key economic actors, there has been a shift away from the stress on consultation and negotiation that marked the early years of post-apartheid governance. The change is justified by key figures in government on the grounds that delivering effective governance, rather than winning political support for the new order, is now society's key priority. But the lack of progress in fighting AIDS demonstrates starkly that bringing society on board is not a substitute for effectiveness - it is, rather, its key. Steven Friedman is the director of CPS. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAND REFORM - 'The land never bought, the land never sold ...'1 Land invasions in Zimbabwe have put land reform throughout the region under the spotlight - but what exactly could it achieve? Tobias Schmitz traces the major reasons why policy-makers adopt land reform programmes, and asssesses the chances of these goals being met in South Africa and Zimbabwe POLITICAL leaders sometimes create conflict as a tool to divert popular attention away from an event or process that reflects badly on their style of governance. In Zimbabwe, the state faces a political and economic crisis whose elements include 50 per cent unemployment, 70 per cent inflation, fuel shortages, faltering tobacco production, local and international attacks on government legitimacy, a lack of foreign capital, and threatening food shortages. In response, the government has rekindled the flames of the land issue, turning on large-scale commercial agriculture to deflect attention from its style of governance. But, although such a conflict is 'created' for a political purpose, it is not artificial: it builds on popular sentiments on land ownership and control around which there is latent or dormant conflict. In Zimbabwe, the post-colonial state's failure to implement effective land reform has, with some qualifications, maintained the inequities in land distribution imposed during the colonial era, and has thus left a structural tension in society unresolved. It took a political and economic crisis to rekindle the flames and transform a latent conflict into a manifest one. As the media responded, reporting on Zimbabwe's pre-election politics became diluted by reports on events surrounding land invasions, and elements unrelated to this were relegated to the background. At the same time, what in developmental terms is expected of land reform becomes less important than the political capital various parties to the conflict seek to gain. Given that the land issue in Zimbabwe and South Africa has been prominent in the media, it is fruitful to ask what role land reform can hope to play in the modern economies of these two countries. For instance, in the context of a global human exodus from rural areas to cities, and a decline in the role of value-added production in agriculture relative to industry, mining and services, what role is land reform designed to perform, and, in the light of international experience, can it live up to expectations? Three reasons Land reform can be implemented for three sets of reasons, which are not mutually exclusive. First, it can be born of concerns with efficiency. Proponents of this view argue that small farmers use land more intensively and more efficiently than those with large tracts of land under their control. Land reform is carried out as part of a national economic strategy, in the hope of boosting agricultural production and the revenue earned in this sector. But others argue that, given the structural decline in the contribution of agriculture to gross domestic product and the prevailing global glut in agricultural produce, land reform is consigning a large part of the population to an existence which promises declining returns. Thus in South Africa agriculture, forestry and fishing contributed 21 per cent to GDP in 1911, and this declined steadily to 4,7 per cent in 1991.(2) In Zimbabwe, the contribution of agriculture to GDP declined from 18 per cent in 1965 to 13 per cent in 1985.(3) When placed against the background of the current global rise in the role of (labour-intensive) services in national economies and the persistent strength of the manufacturing sector, it does not appear as though land reform and agricultural development can play much more than a marginal role in economic development strategies. Second, land reform can be born of concerns with equity. The arguments revolve around a view that part of the population have been locked out of the development process, often through active dispossession. This view argues for land reform to generate a basic source of livelihood for this section of the populace (often through subsistence production rather than commercial farming). The usefulness of land redistribution lies not in contributions to the economy but in the social benefits of combating poverty. In a context in which the state has limited resources with which to implement its policies, land reform is a relatively low-cost means of achieving some social equity. For instance, there was almost universal agreement that land reform in India would be the single most effective measure in combating rural poverty.(4) However, the political will to carry through reforms for poverty alleviation must exist. In both Zimbabwe and South Africa, equity and in particular social justice have been prominent among the reasons put forward for land reform. The historical dispossession and relocation of rural populations by white elites have added a strong moral flavour to the drive for land reform based on equity arguments, and land restitution claims thus exist alongside the internationally more common drive for land redistribution. Nevertheless, South African land policy has recently shifted away from poverty relief, with an egalitarian settlement grant of R16 000 being scrapped in favour of a three-tier farm establishment subsidy scheme under which farmers buying larger farms receive larger subsidies than those buying smaller ones.(5) Rural elite Third, land reform can be implemented for political reasons. In this view, rural elites employ repressive production regimes and may build strong relations with the state to the detriment of the rural masses. This creates built-in tensions in society which may unleash themselves on the state. Land reform can break rural elites' stranglehold and empower the rural citizenry, creating a more stable state. However, in both South Africa and Zimbabwe (until very recently), the state has been unwilling to pit itself against the rural elite, thus transforming rural power relations. In South Africa, land reform has been implemented, without much pressure from the state, on a willing seller, willing buyer basis. Alongside this has been the land restitution process, which has only processed some 4 000 of the 63 000 land claims lodged since 1994.(6) However, events in Zimbabwe have recently triggered a more aggressive South Africa stance on land reform, with the ANC threatening to force the sale of land at prices determined by the state if land owners do not become more co-operative in releasing land on to the market.(7) Other options In Zimbabwe, commercial farming accounts for 40 per cent of export earnings, and this has until now held government back from subdividing commercial farms into plots for landless citizens.(8) However, the recent crisis has created renewed political will for land reform as a defensive or counteroffensive measure by the embattled ruling party. There are two sets of circumstances which may reduce pressures for land reform. The first is the extent to which the other sectors of the economy are growing, and the corresponding degree to which they can generate livelihoods and absorb labour from rural areas. Internationally, only South Korea and Taiwan, and the People's Republic of China have experienced rates of industrial growth that have reduced rural unemployment despite continued population growth. In South Africa, the country's rapid industrialisation after World War 2 has certainly absorbed a portion of the rural unemployed into other economic sectors, but it has done so without reducing rural unemployment, which is twice as high as unemployment in urban areas (the overall unemployment rate is 30 per cent).(9) Zimbabwe has considerably less prospects for labour absorption outside agriculture, and, as mentioned above, unemployment stands at 50 per cent. The second circumstance that could lessen pressure for land reform is the extent to which the state and other actors can compensate for a lack of land by providing small farmers with other inputs - such as high-yield seed varieties, fertiliser, and irrigation water - in order to boost incomes from the existing plots of land. Zimbabwe has succesfully implemented the latter strategy, which was for many years dubbed the 'African miracle' because of a sustained growth in agricultural production that almost kept pace with the country's population growth . International evidence suggests that, partly because of population growth and partly because of the limited extent of reforms, landlessness is still a major problem in most countries that have implemented land reforms.(10) The only exceptions seem to have been Taiwan, South Korea, and the People's Republic of China. In these three countries, a radical land reform process coincided with a major social transition. In other words, the momentum of social transition was used to break the hold of the rural elite over rural production and rural assets. Both South Africa and Zimbabwe had this opportunity in principle, but for various reasons the state favoured the maintenance of good relations with the rural elite above the implementation of radical reforms. Poverty relief To conclude, land reform can be implemented for a triad of reasons, namely efficiency, equity, and political considerations. Given the declining role of agriculture in economies internationally, and specifically in South Africa and Zimbabwe, land reform can only contribute marginally to economic development. The main arena in which it can generally make a strong contribution is poverty relief, where it can generate a basic source of livelihood with little cost to the state. However, there are very few examples internationally where rural unemployment has been reduced by land reform, and in these examples other economic sectors assisted the process by drawing labour out of rural areas on the one hand, and using the momentum of radical social transition to implement radical land reforms on the other. Neither in South Africa nor in Zimbabwe has this been the case. Finally, land reform can be implemented for political reasons. Until recently the political will has not been present in South Africa or Zimbabwe to push land reforms through rapidly. But recent political events in Zimbabwe have radically reversed this trend, substantially raising the political will for land reform in that country and triggering a more aggressive stance towards land reform in South Africa. However, whether this is born of political opportunism and will therefore fade after the Zimbabwean elections, or whether it has now reached a level at which it can accelerate land reform in both countries in the long term, remains to be seen. Tobie Schmitz is a CPS policy analyst. Endnotes
TRADITIONAL LEADERS - Discussion document brakes social evolution Effective governance requires adequate knowledge of the governed, their beliefs and attitudes. However, writes Mcebisi Ndletyana, government policy on traditional leadership seems to be based on untested assumptions, not evidence THE Department of Constitutional Development has released a discussion document(1) that will culminate in a long-awaited white paper on traditional leaders. Its purpose is not to establish 'whether or not to recognise the institution of traditional leadership'; both the constitution(2) and the local government white paper(3) do so. To this end, houses of traditional leaders have been formed, providing chiefs with forums in which to comment on law-making at the provincial and national levels. Rather, the green paper's aim is to solicit views on the precise role traditional leaders should play in local government, which remains undefined in the constitution and the white paper. But constitutional recognition may not be grounded in social or historical reality; it may simply be an imposition from above by the political elite, based on its assumptions about rural realities. It should therefore have been preceded by a test of rural opinion to establish the saliency of this institution in these areas. A brief look at the historical evolution of social institutions in general and traditional leadership in particular suggests discord between the institution and its present social location. Berger and Luckman(4) argue that institutions embody the values of societies in which they are located. As societies evolve, so do institutions, which regulate social relations according to values recognised by people who are the objects of this regulation. Equilibrium (or order) is reached when institutions symbolise, uphold and enforce values that hold sway in a society. The chieftaincy is thus a product of a particular society at a certain time - one characterised by a belief in the supernatural and military instability, and in which wealth is easily translated into political influence. Religion, military prowess and wealth were the core sources of the legitimacy of a chief. Religion was a crucial foundation of chieftaincy.(5) Traditional leaders were believed to possess mystical powers others lacked: they were regarded as superordinary beings. A chief was a conduit between the dead and the living; the dead exercised enormous influence on the living, who communicated with the dead through a chief. These beliefs were sustained by the practice of periodically doctoring a chief with medicine to renew his isithunzi (magical aura). It included powdered bone of lion, leopard or elephant to make him strong and fearless, and bone of baboon to improve his marksmanship (based on the belief that a baboon never misses). Patron-client relationships Wealth - or how it was used - complemented religion. Relations between chiefs and their subjects were, inter alia, patron-client relationships. Subjects addressed a chief as mlondekhaya (protector of the home). A chief was the father, and the subjects his children. He attended to their material needs, as a father would for his offspring. It was common for a pauper to ask a chief for inkomo yesondlo (a cow to feed his family), or for visitors to the palace and attendants to the court to be fed by the chief. Sometimes a chief would slaughter a cow for his people to feast on without a particular reason. A chief also paid lobola on behalf of a young man who did not have cattle, and issued land to his subjects. Fulfilment of these needs determined the extent to which subjects remained loyal to a chief. When a chief could not provide materially for his subjects, they absconded to a wealthier one, regardless of his religious importance. Chiefs derived their wealth primarily from their subjects, who paid tributes in proportion to their wealth - normally at the first fruit ceremonies, the inauguration of a chief, or contributing to a chief's lobola when he got married. Subjects also provided amaqola (a contribution in the form of cattle or food), which chiefs would store for emergencies. A chief also extracted fines from those convicted at his court.(6) Politics and economics thus coincided. Those who controlled cattle controlled men. As the King of the Gcaleka, Hintsa, told his son, Sarili, who later succeeded him: 'Love your cattle. My people love me because I love my cattle; therefore you must love your cattle as I have done. If you have cattle, poor men will not pass by your place.'(7) Wealth, manifested in the practice of busa,(8) easily translated into political influence, particularly at an imbizo (gathering) where people supported the views of the wealthy regardless of their merits. Or they would choose to attend a feast called by a wealthy man instead of an imbizo called by their chief. Wealthy individuals were another site of power in the community, and a potential political threat to a chief. It was thus common for chiefs to use pretexts such as witchcraft accusations to strip their potential rivals of their wealth. Though unverifiable, a mere accusation from a chief's inyanga was enough to deprive a man of his wealth.(9) Military prowess Military prowess, particularly the ability to provide protection against other chiefs, gained a chief respect. In times of military conquest, deserters joined powerful chiefs for protection even though the latter could not meet their material needs. Alternatively, if a rightful successor to the throne was not militarily inclined, he would be overlooked in favour of a younger brother who was. Military strength was also crucial in determining the wealth of a chief and the population of a chiefdom. Military raids were common means of acquiring more land and cattle that could be dispensed to subjects. Military strength also dissuaded desertions of subjects in the absence of material fulfilment. Fear of a chief was sufficient to discourage desertions. The legitimacy of chiefs was thus based on the cultural beliefs of the time, the ability of chiefs to meet the material needs of their subjects, and their role as a source of protection. The recognition of traditional leaders presupposes that they still hold the same significance and perform similar functions as in pre-colonial times. But rural communities have drastically changed since the pre-colonial epoch. Exposure to education has convinced people that social phenomena can be explained through science, and the spread of Christianity has further ensured that chiefs no longer carry the same mystical aura. Nor are they able to provide military protection or material fulfilment. As citizens, rural people can claim these from the modern state. The chiefly power to dispense land, its sole remaining source of patronage, is now under threat from changes in the law. So it may well be that chiefs, because they are unable to meet their obligations to their subjects and are no longer mystical figures, have lost the allegiance of their 'subjects'. Yet their constitutional entrenchment and subsequent inclusion in local government denies this possibility without an information-gathering exercise to test it. A social evolution may thus have been temporarily arrested. Mcebisi Ndletyana is a CPS policy analyst. Endnotes
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