African self-determination.

African self-determination is seen as a joke. We admire nation-states like Rwanda, Morocco & Eswatini but we don't really like what it takes to make a social democrat land like those in Scandinavia. Most adult Africans want a conservative society but have a largely leftist youth & public that opposes helpful conservative ideas that would help the country progress. We simply need to focus on what's best for our lands & what will suit us going forward. Parliaments & governments can't be implementing laws that do harm or make no sense to the people they govern. 

I struggle to figure out what's difficult as a leader in putting yourself in an average citizen's shoes or point of view & seeing what life is like for them & how it can be better. The money to improve citizen's lives may not always be there but the state governs the land & all it's finances. State projects should make the state money & in turn help the citizens of the land live better because the people of the land are those that make the land. The engineers, mechanics, teachers, soldiers, doctors, nurses, businesspeople, sportsmen & other professions are all people of the land - which the state needs to support to make the land better. 

If you show hatred to your citizens as a political leader, what kind of country do you think you're making? You would naturally make a country that rejects & dislikes authority. The brief as a politician is simple: 1) put yourself in other people's shoes & 2) be fair. This will ensure the people's favour helps your governance. 

ETHNOSTATE AFRICA: 

This is one idea that terrifies many Africans because they fear being amongst their own people & creating national institutions with their people within their own ethnic homeland. While many conservative Africans like the idea of an ethnostate Africa, it's more a fanciful idea & they're unlikely to act on it. An ethnostate Africa, I believe, would pull us back to order. An unkempt Nigeria, Namibia, Mozambique or Congo is an accepted reality. A unkempt modern Benin Kingdom, Herero state, Tsonga Kingdom or Lingala state is another story because, it reflects on that ethnicity. It's easy for Hausas, Igbos & Yorubas to slander Nigeria but not a sovereign Hausaland, sovereign Igboland or sovereign Yorubaland. Most Kenyans seem to like Kenya because it's united by a language & indigenous name but they're still said to vote among ethnic lines. We innately & subconsciously want to go back to our ethnic confederations as Africans but modern life won't allow us to, we have bills to pay & lives to live. But I want you (the reader) to consider the benefits of your life in a true nationstate as an African, the pros & cons - most often the pros outweigh the cons because as it would appear (when comparing Africa's development with smaller nation-states worldwide) ethnic tensions can steal decades & centuries from a country's progress. Should you act now? Perhaps not. But we should consider referendums on whether certain regions & populations want to return to their ethnic confederations or not. We sanctify what we identify with, we seldom respect what is forging our consent. 

AN IDEAL AFRICA 

Civilised Africans

Growing up, a lot of black people really believe that before the arrival of Europeans or even Arabs - we were simply swinging on tree vines in the jungle, fighting lions & things of that sort when the reality is a little different. There were hunter-gatherer communities for the most part of African history who used tools like spears, axes & bows & arrows with basic shelter but on the eve of European colonization (late 15th century); most of Africa was inhabited by agri-pastoralists (i. e. people who ploughed fields for crops & kept livestock) & semi-nomadic pastoralists (i. e. people who migrated to favourable regions & kept livestock). Agri-pastoralists & semi-nomadic pastoralists would, on occasion, hunt should need arise. On the eve of European colonization in Africa, hunter-gatherer communities were limited to tribes like the San, Sandawe & pygmies (Twa) in the equatorial rainforests of Africa (N. B. The Khoi were semi-nomadic pastoralists & kept livestock). 

It always comes as a shock to people how civilised Africans were - to the point of being capable of storing food for dry/colder seasons. 

AFRICAN INNOVATION

As historical archives would have it, Africans were no strangers to water travel. Below, is an article of sea travel by Swahili people of East Africa: 

2000 YEAR OLD SWAHILI BOAT MAKING: 

The Mtepe was a distinctive wooden sailing vessel developed by the Swahili people along the East African coast. It was used in present-day Kenya, Tanzania, southern Somalia, the Comoros, northern Mozambique, and western Madagascar, where it played an important role in trade across the Indian Ocean. Ancient Greek writers described sewn-plank boats sailing from East Africa as early as the 1st century AD in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. The Mtepe was also recorded by the Portuguese in 1661 in the Lamu Archipelago, present day Kenya.  

Unlike ships held together with iron nails, the Mtepe was built by sewing wooden planks together with strong coir rope made from coconut fibre and securing them with wooden pegs. It had a broad, shallow hull with pointed ends, a forward-leaning mast, and a square sail woven from palm or coconut fibres, making it well suited for coastal waters and long-distance voyages. Measuring between 12 and 30 metres in length, Mtepes transported goods such as ivory, gold, mangrove poles, salt, pottery, and other valuable cargo between the ports of East Africa and trading centres in Arabia, Persia, and India. They were especially admired for their speed and were often decorated with carved prows, geometric designs, tassels, small flags, and protective amulets. By the early 20th century, the traditional Mtepe had largely disappeared and replaced by modified vessels such as the dau la mtepe. 

#Swahili #Mtepe #EastAfrica #AfricanHistory #MaritimeHistory #IndianOcean #History #Heritage

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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 Industry

The KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa was structurally set up to be an independent Zulu country only for it to be denied sovereignty on the eve of the 1994 national elections. The quest for the independence of "Natal" goes back further in recent history when British colonizers sought for independence from the Union of South Africa when South Africa became a republic through referendum & obtained complete independence from British rule in 1961. I suppose the British South Africans of Natal felt that a nationalist state by Dutch descendants wouldn't be in their favour. 

Greater Zululand (KwaZulu): The entirety of the Zulu-speaking region & regions historically under Zulu rule. 

Today, I just wanted to show you all the institutions the Buthelezian Zulu State (Bantustan) established perhaps to just inspire other nations & remind people of what could've been. 

Established by the KwaZulu Bantustan government: 

• Ithala Development Finance Corporation: Or simply Ithala Bank, was established to offer financial services to the rural & urban Zulu masses. This included savings, loans & insurance. Unfortunately, it is now defunct as a bank from 2025 because Ithala SOC Limited was allegedly said to have no banking license. 

Ithala became the last black-owned bank to become defunct in 2025.

• University of Zululand: UniZulu was founded as a way to offer tertiary education for the mostly rural Zulu youth of then Natal. It's a very modern university boasting a library, computer lab, student residences & various sporting facilities. 

• Ingonyama Trust: Ingonyama Trust was established in the twilight of Apartheid as a board which would manage matters of land tenure, land use & finances. The sole trustee of land administered by the Ingonyama Trust Board is the Zulu king. 

Personally established by Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi: 

• Mangosuthu University of Technology: Is a university founded in Umlazi Township in the year 1979. It focuses on mainly technical degrees such as construction, chemistry and electrical & mechanical engineering. 

M. U. T. : The Mangosuthu University of Technology.

• Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi Airport in Ulundi: It's service area includes Ulundi, Melmoth & Nongoma. It accommodates aircraft up to the size of a Boeing 737 on its' main runway. It has hangar space, vehicle & aircraft parking, a fuel depot & radio navigational approach systems. It's used for regional charters & local connections, such as flights linking to Pietermaritzburg. 

Ulundi Airport also know as Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi Airport.

Other national institutions of the Zulu people include: 

• Ukhozi FM: A variety radio station, primarily in Zulu established in 1960. It is the largest radio station in South Africa & Africa by listenership. 

• AmaZulu FC: A Zulu football team initially created to represent the Zulu people in 1932 as a national team with the blessing of King Phumuz'uZulu kaDinizulu but evolved into a football club which;  

- won the South African League in 1972, 

- South African interleague cup in 1992, 

- won two second division titles in 2001 & 2003 then 

- participated in the CAF Champions League in 2022 after qualifying as South African league runners-up in 2021. 

• KZN TV: A variety satellite TV channel in the Zulu language which features traditional music, updates on the royalty & chiefs of the land as well as national news. 

• Newspapers Ilanga, Bayede & Isolezwe are sold weekly. 

I imagine if there were a Zulu state, these institutions would be central in the runnings of that state among other Zulu-made businesses & franchises.  

ZULU MEDIA