Very few people – least of all anyone in government – seem to be taking seriously the claim by Votani Majola, lawyer for King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo, that the AbaThembu tribe had seceded from South Africa. This is curious, given the fact that Dalindyebo was confirmed as the only King of the AbaThembu in 2008 by a Commission set up in terms of the Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Act.
Dalindyebo’s actions might seem laughable, but he has quite an impressive family history and one would suspect the reason why the authorities are not making a big noise about this is that they do not want to inflame the passions of some of the Kings subjects. Dalindyebo is a descendent of Paramount Chief Sabata Dalindyebo who resisted efforts by Kaizer Matanzima to co-op him into supporting “independence” for the Transkei. Matanzima did everything in his power to depose Sabata as paramount chief.
Ironically Mantanzima succeeded only in 1980 when a Transkei court found Sabata guilty of violating and injuring the dignity of the state president. Sabata had told a gathering of more than 1 000 people at his Sithebe Great Place that he had refused an offer from Matanzima to become the first president of Transkei because homelands were “pigsties and dummy institutions”. Sabata fled the Transkei and ended up in Zambia, where he threw in his lot with the African National Congress and later died.
Recent events are therefore – to say the least – rather ironic. The media reported last week that Majola, the lawyer for the AbaThembu king, had served a “secession notice” on Parliament and quotes Majola as saying that the “AbaThembu Tribe have seceded from South Africa. The sooner the nation aligns with this reality and start preparing to form the State of Thembuland the better”. Majola said the nation was no longer part of South Africa and that the ANC-led government would have no say in the new independent state, which would be headed by Dalindyebo.
Dalindyebo was sentenced in the Mthatha High Court in December for crimes including culpable homicide, kidnapping, arson and assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm. He is obviously a rather eccentric character because he claimed R80 billion in compensation from the government for the indignity he suffered when he was sentenced to a term of 15 year imprisonment. Some analysts also claim that Dalindyebo is being persecuted because many of his subjects voted for the UDM in previous elections.
Obviously, the statements of the King’s legal representatives and the delivery of a secession note will not have any legal effect and Dalindyebo and all his subjects remain South African citizens. In the absence of specific unlawful acts by Dalindyebo or his subjects to undermine the authority of the South African state, it is thus understandable that the government is pretending this farce is not really happening.
But a few interesting legal questions do arise. The King is being paid almost a million rand a year by the South African government in accordance with the Remuneration of Public Office Bearers Act, which provides for the payment, amongst, others, of Kings and other traditional leaders. What will happen if the South African government stops paying him on the basis of his own claim to secession? I suspect the government could not stop payment as the secession is not legally valid and Dalindyebo thus remains the King – despite all the bluster by his legal representative.
But section 10 of the Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Act does provide for the removal of a King, in which case he will lose the payment. This can happen where a King has been convicted for an offence and given a sentence of imprisonment for more than 12 months and the Royal family requests the President to remove the King. In such a case the next in line to the throne will be invested as the new King.
One wonders whether the present posturing does not have to do with the internal politics of the Royal family and whether the King is not trying to pre-empt any effort to remove him as King.
Lastly, a larger set of questions comes to mind: why is it that the South African tax payer is paying kings and traditional leaders such exorbitant amounts of money? What value do we get for our tax money from this system? What is it exactly, say, that King Goodwill Zwelethini does that warrants the payment of large amounts of public money to him to furnish a lavish lifestyle? Is the notion of Kings, kingdoms and traditional chiefs to be squared with a constitutional democracy at all or is it not profoundly undemocratic?
I am a Republican at heart and have always thought it was utterly ridiculous that Britain had a Queen who dressed up in funny hats, spoke in a constipated accent and travelled around her country opening factories while smiling benignly and waving to the crowds. Surely in a democracy one should not be considered better than anyone else merely because you were supposedly born to be a King or a Queen? So why do we have this same ridiculous notion in South Africa, given the fact that the traditional leadership system in our country have been thoroughly corrupted by colonialism?
The ANC used to be opposed to these anti-democratic leaders who are part of a system that was bastardised and exploited by the colonial masters and later by the apartheid government to ensure white control over the local population. But in recent years the ANC has decided to embrace the traditional leaders and has forgotten its own critique of the system which is not really in line with the achievement of the National Democratic Revolution.
What happened?
Pierre, I’m not but possibly what’s happened is political expediency.
Take King Goodwill: he has in fact, one way or another surrendered his sovereign authority to the republican state. But he still has the very real ability to influence the conduct of many folk who consider themselves Zulus. Now you wouldn’t want to place someone like that in a position of poverty and have resentment building up, both in respect of himself and his subjects. Let’s face, the thought of thousands of angry impi’s is enough to make any take a step back. And so, for the sake of political stability the necessary is done. In a way I think may be the right thing too, leaving aside questions of stability. Traditionally the king would have had the right to levy taxes (or tributes) on his subjects. This has been surrendered to the republican state in return for some financial payments.
I wonder whether consititutionally the Traditional Leadership will survive challenge insofar as the removal of a king from office is concerned? Surely, there is a traditional “constitution” in each grouping that determines how the king is identified and selected and removed. How can the republican state simply ride roughshod over those traditional rules, the king’s apparent misdemeanours notwithstanding? It can withhold payment very well but actually remove the king?
What a weird system! Never knew this rather strange system of royal patronage existed in the Republic of South Africa?!
Bizarre to say the least
If they manage to secede it will ease the South African taxpying public’s burden.
Perhaps this new country will also outlaw some of the ‘ills’ that have beset South Africa under the post 1994 dispensation. LOL.
@ Pierre
“What happened?”
1994 and beyond happened!
“But in recent years the ANC has decided to embrace the traditional leaders and has forgotten its own critique of the system which is not really in line with the achievement of the National Democratic Revolution”.
Sounds pretty much like a rewrite of Dickens’ – “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way”
OK. Firstly, your claim that “analysts say” Dalindyebo is being persecuted because of his UDM connections seems rather strange. Who are these mysterious analysts? Or are you confusing the name of the King with the name of the municipality which the UDM controlled?
Secondly, it seems rather obvious that Dalindyebo’s entire motive is to stay out of jail. Same as Zuma’s under similar circumstances. The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
Thirdly, the need to buy off the “traditional leaders” was obvious. The traditional leaders, as you should know but evidently don’t, were bought up wholesale by the colonial masters and then handed over to the apartheid state, whom most of them faithfully served. Some of them, like Buthelezi, Matanzima and company, served most brutally and loathesomely. In order not to face a series of tribalist revolts (and to prevent the NP from taking advantage of this in the run-up to the elections and thereafter) the ANC, which had always been doing its best to peel off as many “traditional leaders” as possible, decided to give them a whacking big pay-off.
Mandela, of course, was himself a traditional leader (a real, historical one at that). Mbeki wasn’t, and was a bit cooler towards the actual “traditional leaders”, but a lot of his provincial leaders were more enthusiastic. Zuma, of course, depends very heavily on colonial Zulu myth-making for his appeal (at least in the white community) and so is terribly keen on traditional leaders. Which may discourage them from the fading-away process which I suspect that the ANC (which in the early ’00s was gradually sidelining traditional leadership in favour of elected municipal councillors) originally wanted.
“What happened” is that traditional leaders realised the ANC had secured the power of patronage, and the ANC realised traditional leaders had the power to secure the votes of unsophisticated rural tribespeople. It was a win-win situation, and to hell with the principles that underpinned the struggle.
I rather like queens and kings as heads of state in constitutional monarchies, where they can be such for ALL their citizens, unlike partisan politicians, who more often than not alienate their citizens by their partisan politics . Politicans come and go, but the civil service, armed forces etc. are loyal to the country in the person of the monarch as head of state, even though he or she does not rule directly.
That’s why the Italians were able to dump Mussolini in 1943 because the king of Italy fired him as prime minister. No such luck for the Germans, who were stuck with Hitler until the bitter end, because he was head of state, head of government and head of the party.