After 32 years into our constitutional democracy, a profound cultural and spiritual dislocation continues to trouble the soul of the African people.
We celebrate our progressive constitution, debate political policies and defend our rights in the highest courts.
Yet an uncomfortable question remains — have we truly liberated ourselves if we remain estranged from the indigenous foundations of our identity?
We have built a modern house while neglecting the foundations upon which much of our ancestral heritage was built.
In the process, we risk marginalising an institution that helped sustain African communities through colonial conquest and apartheid oppression — African royalty and traditional leadership.
Humanity was created in the image and likeness of the Maker.
This foundational truth establishes a moral principle — no human being, empire or foreign system has the inherent right to deny another people their dignity, identity or capacity for self-determination.
Liberation must, therefore, mean more than voting rights and new legal frameworks. It must also restore cultural dignity and recognise indigenous knowledge and wisdom.
Before European conquest, African societies were not lawless territories waiting to be civilised.
They possessed systems of governance, justice, social organisation and communal responsibility.
At the heart of many stood African royalty, connecting leadership with the land, ancestry, spirituality and the wellbeing of the community.
Royalty was more than a political office.
It represented continuity, belonging, custodianship and collective identity.
At their best, traditional institutions embodied consultation, communal accountability, respect for elders and ubuntu — the understanding that our humanity is bound up with the humanity of others.
Colonial conquest and apartheid profoundly disrupted these indigenous systems.
African kingdoms were defeated, territories fragmented, and monarchs deposed, manipulated, or subordinated to colonial authority.
Under apartheid, the Bantustan system further distorted traditional leadership by incorporating it into a racially engineered political order.
These interventions disrupted not merely administrative arrangements, but the relationship between African communities, their land, heritage and institutions of belonging.
Yet African royalty survived. Its continued existence testifies to the resilience of a people whose identity could not be extinguished by colonial decrees.
Why, then, in democratic South Africa, do we still struggle to give indigenous institutions the recognition and meaningful place they deserve?
Our public discourse too often presents a false choice — to be modern is to embrace Western institutions, while African systems belong to an outdated past.
This overlooks a fundamental truth — modernisation does not require cultural self-rejection.
A nation can embrace constitutional democracy and technological advancement without abandoning its indigenous wisdom.
Chapter 12 of our constitution recognises traditional leadership, subject to constitutional principles and applicable legislation.
Yet recognition alone does not resolve the deeper question of how traditional institutions can contribute meaningfully to contemporary governance.
Their role deserves honest reconsideration, without romanticising the past or treating indigenous authority as an inferior appendage of modern government.
The answer is not to recreate precolonial society or place royal authority above the constitution.
Traditional leadership, like every institution exercising public authority, must respect human dignity, equality, accountability and justice.
Heritage must never excuse abuses of power or silence women, young people and ordinary community members.
Rather, we must recover the ethical strengths of our indigenous institutions and enable them to contribute meaningfully to democratic nation-building.
Constitutional government and African royalty need not be adversaries. They can complement one another in preserving heritage, strengthening social cohesion and advancing human dignity.
From my Christian understanding, God, our Maker, created humanity in His image and entrusted the nations of the earth with distinct histories, cultures and gifts.
African identity is not an obstacle to universal human dignity; it is an expression of humanity's rich diversity.
We should neither surrender our heritage to foreign cultural standards nor use it to deny the dignity of others.
Our task is not to choose between our constitution and our African heritage, but to build a constitutional democracy that is authentically African, firmly democratic and faithful to the dignity of every human being.
Perhaps it is time to stitch the umbilical cord back together, reconnecting our people with their history, our institutions with their indigenous wisdom, and our democracy with the cultural foundations that give communities a sense of belonging.
A people cannot be fully liberated while being made to feel ashamed of their heritage.
Our freedom will deepen when we honour the wisdom of our ancestors, confront historical injustices and build a future in which African identity and democratic freedom flourish together.
Kenneth Macibela, uKrila, is an African thinker, independent management consultant and retired public servant
