This item from Bua News was seen at
http://www.buanews.gov.za/view.php?ID=06082510451003&coll=buanew06 via
a Google alert. The topic of languages is prominently discussed. DZO
Compiled by the Government Communication and Information System
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Date: 25 Aug 2006
Title: President proposes deeper interaction with traditional leaders
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By Shaun Benton
Cape Town - President Thabo Mbeki has proposed intensified government
engagement with traditional leaders in the country on topical issues
including African languages, female leadership and traditional values.
The President addressed the National House of Traditional Leaders
(NHTL) on Thursday, and took a list of proposals and requests from the
amakhosi a step further, agreeing to an engagement between them and
the entire Cabinet.
President Mbeki further suggested a meeting between them and the
country's provincial premiers through the Presidential Coordinating
Council.
He described their role in the country as "very important" as they
were the custodians of traditional values and ubuntu.
The president agreed to open the annual conference of the amakhosi and
said that they had important roles to play to "claim back lost
territory, claiming back the promotion of ubuntu [humanness] and
cultural values", which he described as "a critical part of building
the new South Africa".
The President said ways needed to be found for all spheres of
government to respond to the programmes of action set out at their
conferences.
The chiefs - men and women - also made a commitment to deepening and
widening democracy in South Africa through engaging with and working
with municipal councils, for which President Mbeki thanked them.
He said the Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney
Mufamadi, was currently working on legislation to deal with
traditional councils.
It was necessary, said the President to find or create the
institutions which would "make it possible for us to work together" to
promote the roles of the chiefs in the upholding of ubuntu and
traditional values, as well as the promotion of African languages.
Use of African language was a key concern of the chiefs, as one
lamented the decline in the use of the languages, especially among the
country's young people.
For this reason, the traditional leaders asked that greater use be
made of African languages in the President's annual address to the
nation as well as in Parliament, citing and praising the example set
by Finance Minister Trevor Manuel in making use of words and phrases
in indigenous languages when presenting the country's budget.
President Mbeki said he was "pleased and encouraged" by their
concerns, and raised the matter of traditional medicines and the
importance of building on this indigenous knowledge, suggesting a
presidential project that would take the matter forward.
This could be achieved for example, by examining the yet to be
explored notion of consciously cultivating plants used in traditional
medicine as these plants become more and more difficult for
traditional healers to find in diminishing forests.
President Mbeki also raised the question of the role of women,
rejecting the notion that women in traditional society were oppressed.
Traditional African society "regulated this relationship in a
particular way", he said, adding that it was "the abuse of this
culture" that resulted in the oppression of women.
Several of the traditional leaders present - which included chiefs
from the Eastern Cape, North West Province, Limpopo and Free State -
were women.
In an atmosphere governed by the warmth and congeniality of
"inhlonipho" - mutual respect - the amakhosi also raised the question
of finance for their chamber, complaining that their requests for this
to a certain government department had gone unheeded.
They however thanked the Western Cape government for the loan of the
legislature as a temporary chamber, where the meeting with the
President took place.
The chiefs also raised the important question of communal land and
raised a concern around the need for a comprehensive definition of this.
Concern around HIV and AIDS was also raised, as well as their
potential roles in fighting crime. - BuaNews
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