A few political quotes...

"Sovereignty is the absolute & perpetual power of a commonwealth, which the Latins call 'Maiestas'; the Greeks 'Akra Exouisia', 'Kurion Arche' & 'Kurion Politeuma; & the Italians 'Segnioria'... while the Hebrews call it 'Tomech Hévet' - that is the highest power of command..." 

Jean Bodin (1576) 

"Our people are like children, who would never of their own accord decide to learn, who would never take up the alphabet without being compelled to do so by their teacher, who would at first feel despondent. But later, when they have finished their studies, they are grateful for having been made to go through them. This is evident today: has not everything been achieved under constraint? Yet now one hears gratitude for much that has already borne fruit." 

Peter the Great (1723) 

"A survey of all states in the world will show that those states which undertook reforms became strong while those states which clung to the past perished. The consequences of clinging to the past & the effects of opening up new ways are thus obvious. If Your Majesty, with your discerning brilliance, observes the trends in other countries, you will see that we can change, we can preserve ourselves, but if we cannot change, we shall perish." 

K'ang Yu-wei, Confucian reformer 

(Memorial to the imperial throne, submitted 29 January 1898) 

"No people ever die, nor stop short upon their path, before they have achieved the ultimate aim of their existence." 

Unknown 

"We estimate that if the seven billion people of the year 2000 have a GNP per capita as high as that of present-day Americans, the total pollution load on the environment would be at least ten times its present value. Can the Earth's natural systems support an intrusion of that magnitude? We have no idea." 

Club of Rome (The Limits to Growth 1972) 

Revolutionary Quotes

Quotes (IsiZulu)

An ideal Africa.

If it were up to me, which it obviously isn't, this is how I would remake Africa:

1) Rename the continent: Simply call Africa KWATU, a Pan-African name derived from the majority indigenous languages in Africa & mutually intelligible words in many African languages. This would ensure that Africa is in charge of it's land. All uses of the word Africa,  would be changed to Kwatu e. g. the African Union ~ Kwatu Union, the African Cup of Nations ~ Kwatu Cup of Nations, African ~ Kwatuan & so on...

2) Repartition Africa: Simply repartition Africa back to it's ethnic borders. Tiny ethnicities can form a federal alliance among ethnicities with mutually intelligible languages. For example, a Nguni Federation among my own people because Nguni languages are mostly mutually intelligible (they understand each other's language for the most part).

Ethiopia would get access to the Red Sea for it's massive population. It is obscene that a country that important in Africa & that populous has no sea access. Unite the divided Somalias including the Somalian enclave in Ethiopia. Give Biafra / Igboland, Hausaland, Yorubaland the Sokoto Caliphate, Benin Kingdom, Ashanti Kingdom & Songhay state(s) independence. Return lands stolen from the traditional leaders in Africa. Eswatini would get it's Delagoa Bay coast & lands in South Africa back. Lesotho would get its land in the Free State province back. M'thwakazi would become a sovereign state. Everyone would get their ethnic lands back. Decrease ethnic wars & tribalism by a massive margin.

After we have sorted this thorny issue of ethnicity & have possibly decreased tribalism & ethnic conflict by a whole lot, we could get to the ideological part of our land i. e.
3) Kwatuism: Food security (agriculture & livestock), shelter (subsidised state housing for all), national unity & a single state bank for each land to gain economic sovereignty. Kwatuism is a centre-right political ideology created with Africans in mind.

4) Rename the Indian Ocean to the Swahili Ocean across all African educational structures. This ocean does not belong to India or Indians. The Indians & others can call it the Indian Ocean, Africans can refer to it as the Swahili Ocean.

5) Language: Each nation in Africa after the ancestral lands are repartitioned would have it's own national language. Instead of using a single Pan-African language, there could be well-trained bilingual translators. Most commonly; excessively fluent people in Swahili & Arabic, Swahili & Hausa, Yoruba & Arabic would be used as these are the most spoken languages in Africa, each African country would have it's own set of translators for diplomatic & international duties depending on which nations they'd need to communicate with. I imagine people bilingual in Hausa & French, Lingala/Kikongo & Portuguese, Swahili & Mandarin/Japanese could be of use to their states. 

The problem with a Pan-African language is that it makes it easy to control a false narrative & propaganda across Africa by outside forces. Different languages would make it less easier for a corrupt, foreign idea to spread across Africa.

6) Religion: Africans must embrace their own indigenous faiths which would be written down as the national faith & law of the land. Either that or one of the Abrahamic faiths closest to Africa (Judaism or Christianity).

7) Rail, mail & transport:
• An interconnected rail system across Africa,
• an airline run by the African (Kwatu) Union which would replace all African airlines,
• a unified set of road rules & driving licence procedure,
• a unified mail system for all of Africa.

WHAT CAN AFRICA STANDARDISE ACROSS THE CONTINENT?

8) Military: I believe Africa would be better having regional or strategic military alliances with select African countries than a massive united African military which may require too much finances. But a standby force to deploy across trouble spots in Africa may come in useful & the newly created ethnostates could give something as small as 0,05% of their GDP towards the revamped standby force, for example. N. B. : The African Union already has a standby force. 

7) Currency & trade: Currency today requires a lot of technology & instead of using VISA & MasterCard for our bank card payment systems, we could use the African-made M-Pesa system which we would revamp & add some extra encryption measures to it. This system would then be easier recognised by global traders if it is implemented across Africa as the primary method of trade. Our continental currencies could simply be two currencies, the proposed Ng'ombe & Lami. 

By this, Africa could completely decolonise & achieve economic stability. And perhaps even create, maintain & fund lofty ambitions such as a Martian, Lunar & subaquatic colony for the future survival of Africa (Kwatuans). 

And for those who believe Africa is too small to have ninety or so countries because of the Mercator Map projection, Africa can comfortably have two hundred average-sized countries within it. Africa only looks small on map projections, it is a very big continent. 

It may sound like a dream but I wrote it step-by-step in point form like this because I know that once you complete one fundamental step in a larger undertaking, the momentum builds & it becomes easier to achieve other objectives. 

National Unity 

Why aren't more countries designed like this?

Zulu media on the internet.

Sometimes the best way to learn a language really is to immerse yourself in it. Here is some Zulu media on the internet for all who are learning the language.

YouTube: 

KZN TV news 

SABC Izindaba 

Newspapers: 

Ilanga 

Isolezwe 

Bayede 

Knowledge Hubs: 

Ulwazi  

Zulu Wikipedia

Zulu systems on Facebook

Bowuwazi 

Music: 

Maskandi on Spotify 

Zulu Pop 

Zulu rap

Song of the Year 

Zulu patriotic & marching songs 

Radio: 

Ukhozi FM livestream 

Ukhozi FM current affairs podcasts

Gagasi FM livestream 

Film: 

Zulu independent shortfilms on YouTube 

Zulu novels: 

Itshwele Lempangele & Amathonsi obuMbongi

Where the Zulu language is spoken in South Africa.

Masakhane Zulu 

History of the Zulu language

Why Africa seems to lag so behind when compared to the rest of the world.

I've always felt that Africa is given an unfair spotlight in certain fields, primarily technology & quality of life. The thing is, technology is often made in one part of the world then spreads across the region before spreading worldwide. While the wheel is commonplace today, it was made in Persia before spreading across the world. Austronesians, Australasians, trans-Saharan Africans & Native American tribes did not use the wheel until they learnt the technology from someone else. This goes for other technologies such as the firearm & electricity. In fact, neither the wheel, electricity or the firearm were invented or discovered in Europe. These three essential technologies of the modern world were all Asian. Technology spreads depending on it's usefulness. 

Why we did not develop our own technology in Africa despite seeing it from other peoples is because in sub-Saharan Africa we rejected a lot of developments due to simple complacency among other things. We almost didn't believe anything was greater than our way of life. Some African nations called the gun, the "coward's weapon" just to show how disdainful Africans were of Western technology. So even if we did see many modern technologies on journeys & from colonisers, we didn't think that they were better than our way of life on most occasions & technologies we saw as better or superior, we - obviously - quickly adopted. This was the southeast African mentality. 

I can quote two lectures online of people more educated than myself on why Africa didn't develop the same technologies that Eurasia managed to develop, one cites simple geography & the other cites modern misunderstandings of ancient Africa but I'm going to note that culture & the accepted ideas of a given people played a role in many African nations remaining unaccepting of foreign technology. In some regions, colonisers might have caused so much damage that anything they came up with from their clothes, food & technology may have been rejected. It was not lack of intellectual capacity that made Africa lag behind Europe & Asia but more culture, environment & geography coming together to prevent the adoption of new technologies. 

The quality of life in Africa correlates with our experiences; Africa is a large, hot, hostile continent... we have the common idea that possessions are not permanent so we often didn't bother in making non-permanent items, especially in southeast Africa. This was the same for Australasians & Native Americans as well. The only reason it seems like the southern African way of life is unique & exotic may be simply due to our skin colour. There is no other way to put it because on other continents they lived lifestyles that focused less on possessions as well. There are "uncontacted tribes" today in modern America & Asia who have not discovered the wheel & might be considered less developed than most African countries. 

Despite all this; the destabilisation of our nations, way of life & hostile environments - Africa has made a lot of contributions towards the development of the modern world. Comparing African countries to China by claiming that China was one of the poorest countries in the world thirty years ago works in humiliating Africa. Sure. But putting into context that China's massive population shares one language & national ideal while Africa's nations were forced into ethnic conflicts through European-made national borders & dealt with unfair deals in terms of land & mining since the 1800s will make you understand that China had a sociocultural advantage & was given a further economic advantage when the world (i. e. USA & associates) made China a giant manufacturing plant. There's no reason an African nation focused on agriculture, shelter, industry & defence couldn't be successful even if that African nation never reaches the heights of China & Europe. 

Our quality of life in Africa needs to be a priority or we'll forever be just the struggling, malnourished, corrupt Dark Continent. We cannot compare ourselves to other continents when we were clearly dealt a different set of cards. 

AFRICAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE MODERN WORLD 

The price we pay for Africa's development.

Why consensus in a language & identity is important in a land...

I spend some of my time studying human nature. Partly to make up for the time I was accepted to do a Sociology degree but chose to go to another university. I often study other countries concept of national unity compared to South Africa's lived reality. We have two realities in South Africa each trying to enforce their way of life as the truth. One group of people believes in a decolonised land & one believes the "natives" are savages to be tamed. This is the simple truth, a bipolarised land with no identity consensus. Anything else; crime, poverty, racism, tribalism, inequality & even some corruption are a byproduct of this underlying conflict.

We have to ask why is it that the most multiracial & multicultural countries are the most racist & tribalist. While most monocultural ethnostates, simply get things done. This is especially pertinent to Africa because we're not like Europe & Asia, our concept of nationhood was stripped away in the 1800s. The most common type of state historically & most successful type of state today is the single language nation-state. Yet, somehow, modern-day Africa did not get this memo. 

Unfortunately, in many cases where there is exteme nationalism or "rabid nationalism" as it is sometimes called, we get bouts of ethnic cleansing. This is unfortunately often a bloody process which I think could be fast-tracked by a better process of amicable deportation, making less enemies while freeing a people from an imposing group. Amicable deportation can even involve swopping of non grata population groups among countries to solve problems on two fronts. 

A monocultural ethnostate can most definitely accommodate minorities, we see this all the time worldwide but it is the native majority that is the accepted creators of the national identity not the minorities. If minorities are not imposing, discrimination of them is less likely to occur. This is simple human nature & requires no degree to comprehend. 

Language unity goes a long way in expressing ideas within the land, this alone causes the unity required for a land to move forward without implementing further unifying measures like standardised national education. 

National Unity