Reinvigorating African Values for SADC : The Relevance of Traditional African Philosophy of Law in a Globalising World of Competing Perspectives

Africa has an important role to play in a globalized world. However, as Africa moves into the playing field, most of its value systems and legal heritage are getting weather-beaten as African governments throw in the towel to forces of Western civilization and globalization. It is discernible that this attrition has occurred largely for the sake of expediency and convenience. With a special focus on African traditional philosophy of law, this paper shows that traditional African jurisprudential thinking has been sidelined as being anti-development or too archaic to promote development; or it has been subjected to the so called universal human rights norms and eroded. Implicit in this approach, and underlining the perception of African governments about traditional legal and value systems, is the evidence of a jurisprudence that remains too Eurocentric and legalistically state-centric; it denies that a postmodern, globality-focused legal scholarship is possible, provided modern African governments adopt pluralist lenses and legislators become legal plurality conscious in any legislative process. This paper will present a model for the commandeering of an African legal identity, challenging most African states’ projects of uniformising globalization, and highlighting and advocating legal glocalisation and a recognition and respect of the internal diversities of laws across Africa. In this light, the paper shows the strength of African traditional value systems and philosophical thinking as a foundation of African legal systems, highlighting that different discourses have built up around the African traditional legal systems in a modern African state. Thus, after pointing out the scepticism surrounding the existence of African jurisprudential thinking, some important jurisprudential thoughts are explored in a bid to show an Africology of legal philosophy. The paper then advocates a plural, universal epistemology that goes beyond Eurocentrism and other ethnocentrisms