Hardworking but mostly invisible in public life, South African queens have set a course to work together across royal houses to formulate a common vision of their collective contribution to peace and development in South Africa.
Queens from seven South African kingdoms recently gathered at the University of Pretoria (UP) for mediation and dispute resolution training, and to articulate their roles in conflicts and disputes related to royal succession.
With more than 860 senior traditional leaders in South Africa, scores of royal succession disputes are playing out at any given time. These sometimes erupt into violence that disrupts community life and service delivery. Queens play an essential role in peace-making and dispute resolution in their communities, a task that is said to require extraordinary skill and tact in predominantly patriarchal settings.
“We want to give them the tools to do the things they’re already doing, even better,” said Dr Sokfa John, Deputy Director of the Centre for Mediation in Africa (CMA). The centre presented the training in partnership with the national Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta).
“This is an important event because it is an opportunity to recognise what the queens are doing, to give them a platform to discuss and deliberately engage, and to think about their challenges and what they want to do about those challenges,” Professor Cori Wielenga, Director of the CMA said.
Wielenga added that this is history in the making. “This is the first time in South Africa that queens from all over the country have come together in this way to articulate their roles and formulate a common vision.” According to John, South Africa’s queens work extremely hard, often rolling up their sleeves to assist community members in need.
“One of the queens here is a firefighter. Some work with children. There is a queen who was instrumental in the installation of solar panels in her community. Another goes into flood waters to help rescue victims.” One of the queens, not named for reasons of protocol, remarked that they are not just ceremonial figures or trophy wives. “We have brains, passion and drive, and we take our work seriously.”
The discussions touched on the tensions between customary law and the Constitution when it comes to traditional leadership, the importance of preserving cultural heritage while adapting to change, and the need for inclusivity and a sense of collective vision among queens from the different kingdoms.
Another queen remarked: “There is no superior kingdom. We should all be treated alike. There must be peace and harmony among one another so that we can set an example to others.”
Some of the queens expressed strong views about the need to professionalise and modernise the kingdoms by harnessing digital technologies and the internet. They applauded the efforts of one particular queen whose website “has provided a working model that we can latch onto.”
They also agreed that it is vital to share information and lessons learnt with other nations that have monarchies, from Namibia to the Netherlands. On the second day of their training in Pretoria, the group of South African queens met with Ambassador Joanne Doornewaard of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in South Africa, to discuss the role of queens.