Europeans and people of European descent, plus their counterparts from Asia, almost invariably delude themselves or were taught that Africans do not have their own theories and perspectives on anything. Quite the contrary, Africans have their own theories and perspectives on everything.
The majority of the descendants of Europeans and Asians, for example, say South Africa’s constitution is the best in the world. On March 12, a white South African and an Indian South African were extolling the virtues of the South African constitution on Power FM. The Indian South African guest said it would be a bad constitution if it did not guarantee the rights of the minorities. He said guaranteeing minority rights was guarding against the tyranny of the majority. These two gentlemen agreed on almost everything.
When asked who drafted that “best constitution in the world” and if they have ever perused ancient African constitutions, they were dumbstruck, they could not answer. They went off on a tangent. They were probably hearing for the first time about ancient African constitutions, which were really the best in the world.
Professor Chancellor Williams writes that the constitution of any people or nation, written or unwritten, derives from their customary rules of life. Did this “best constitution in the world” derive from the customary rules of the African people’s lives?
It was negotiated in secret between the white elite and ANC top brass specifically to curb the power of the African people who had been under the yoke of oppression for centuries. This country’s constitution should have been drafted by a constituent assembly and ratified through a referendum. This did not happen. How then is it the best in the world?
If one goes to Europe, America and Asia, there is no talk of guaranteeing minority rights or guarding against the tyranny of the majority. It is only where Africans are in the majority that queer phrases such as “the tyranny of the majority” surface. If there is a semblance of Africans exercising the sheer power of their numbers then phrases such the “tyranny of the majority” are invoked.
This is a condescending predisposition which inadvertently betrays the racist attitude that Africans cannot be trusted with power. And the ANC top brass capitulated to this sort of racist mentality. At any rate, the way South Africa’s constitution was drafted, the African people were emasculated; they have no power. On guaranteeing minority rights, PAC founding president Robert Sobukwe said, “We guarantee no minority rights because we are fighting precisely that group exclusiveness which those who plead for minority rights would like to perpetuate.
“It is our view that if we have guaranteed individual liberties, we have given the highest guarantee necessary and possible.”
The ANC leadership went against all the best ideas Sobukwe espoused, which is why they are today in a quandary on most sticking social, political and economic issues.
Political theories and principles of ancient African constitutional law and the fundamental rights of the African people:
It will suffice to cite only five from political theories and principles of ancient African constitutional law and three under the fundamental rights of the African people.
The people are the first and final source of all power
* The rights of the community of people are, and of right ought to be, superior to those of any individual, including chiefs and kings. (a) The will of the people is the supreme law; (b) chiefs and kings are under the law, not above it.
* Kings, chiefs and elders are leaders, not rulers. They are elected representatives of the people and the instruments for executing their will.
* Government and the people are one and the same.
* The land cannot be sold or given away. The chief is the custodian of all land, the principal duty being to assure fair distribution and actual use.
The fundamental rights of the African people
* The right to equal protection of the law.
* The right to a home.
* The right to land sufficient for earning livelihood for oneself and family.
Obviously, the ANC and agents of imperialism who tied the nuts and bolts of this country’s constitution in secret did not consider models of ancient African constitutions. That is why some white and Indian South Africans ostentatiously displayed a paucity of knowledge of ancient African constitutional law on March 12 and kept on singing panegyrics to South Africa’s “best constitution in the world”.
Most white and Indian South Africans don’t think that Africans have their theory on the creation of the universe which is called the steady state model, as opposed to the West’s Big Bang theory, and the African people’s theory is more plausible than the Western theory. About 15 years ago there was a raging debate the author had with some white academics in The Star newspaper about the anteriority of Egyptian civilisation to Greek and Middle Eastern civilisations and the Africanness of ancient Egyptians.
To them the ancient Egyptians of the pharaohs, the authors of the first civilisation in the world, could not have been African but also not black. When the debate ended, the author had backed his arguments with facts including Dr Cheikh Anta Diop’s melanin dosage test.
This test was done on the skins of Egyptian mummies to prove they were black. The US uses Diop’s method to identify badly burnt bodies.
Late last year, also in The Star, some professors and doctors tried to pedantically dismiss my argument on the dangers of vaccines to children, but could not back their arguments with facts. Africans have a world view, the patronising attitude and idiosyncratic views of people of European and Asian extraction notwithstanding.
* Ditshego is a fellow at the Pan Africanist Research Institute.