Challenges and Prospects for Traditional Leadership in Africa: Towards Innovative Ideas to Enhance African Values among the Youth in South Africa

Abstract

The highly contested public law issue of the recognition of African values in South Africa with emphasis on the youth is addressed in this article. The arguments mooted revolve around the hypothesis that the youth in Africa ngenerally, but particularly in South Africa, are seldom involved in debates relating to African values, with the instance of African traditional leadership as a case in point. In expanding on this hypothesis two different approaches/schools of thought relating to the recognition of traditional leadership are highlighted. On the one end we find the ‘traditionalists’ with their emphasis on the ‘continued existence of traditional leaders’ for various reasons. On the other end, we find the ‘modernists’ who campaign for the total abolition of the institution of traditional leadership. However, the adoption of a more pragmatic middle course (an ‘inter-entrenched’ goalpost) is advocated. Nevertheless, the central question remains ‘how the South African society should move between the two goalposts (between traditionalism and modernism)?’ The answer to this question is the challenge.