How I'd enforce a six-month compulsory military service training.

I think I've mentioned on a few occasions on my blog entries how I think compulsory state farm service & compulsory military service could benefit a land. In military service, we'd need to specialise for 1) air force, 2) land army, 3) navy, 4) cyber security & espionage & 5) special task forces. 

In general training: 

• all troops would need to wake up at 5 AM, make their bed & do a kilometre long jog, thirty pushups & reach an obstacle course, 

• do the obstacle course & jog back to have breakfast, 

• after this, soldiers will practice a set of martial arts (advanced stick fighting, laamb wrestling & capoeira) including sparring in each martial art & using all martial arts as a combo, 

• disassembling & assembling a standard service pistol & rifle, 

• soldiers will be required to slaughter & pluck their own chicken for the week, 

• swimming a kilometre & staying under water for a minute, 

• firing the service pistol & rifle at a target, 

• a paintball game set, 

• & chess or mlabalaba before dinner (6 PM) & the day ending (7 PM). 

Shock wake-ups (between 12 AM & 4 AM) could be done once every second week on varying days of the week where the trainee soldiers could jog & do obstacle course or swim a kilometre & stay under water a minute. 

The obstacle course: Low crawling net in mud (over 20 metres), hurdles (50 metres), monkey bars (for 15 metres), climbing wall (15 metre ascent & descent), 30 kg weight lift & drop (for 15 metres), rock throwing target practice (at object 30 metres away-hit twice & move on), rope climb (20 metre ascent & descent), spear throwing (at object 50 metres away), wet ground rock skipping (for 20 metres), decomposing animals tunnel crawl (40 metres). Done.

The above listed would be done every weekday (except target practice with firearms which would be done once a week) & weekends would be left for laundry, cleaning the residences, mowing the lawns, Saturday afternoon braai, Sunday church service, recovery & resting. 

Soldiers will eat twice a day: porridge, tea & egg sandwich/sausage in the morning then chicken curry or grilled chicken & a starch (rice/pap) in the afternoon. 

Each soldier will get five khakhi shirts & pants for the training as well as an army cap & boots of which they will be required to return the cap & boots, four of each of the shirts & boots after training or pay for if damaged. 

No television would be allowed, cellphones would be allowed weekends only, radio sets would be allowed but no loud music would be allowed. 

After training; navy, air force, land army (& border guard) are sorted where navy will be taught all about sea vessels & how to control them, air force guys will be taught to fly & maintain aircraft with each aircraft having three pilots each, land army will be used on peace keeping missions & guarding borders. Any who feel they do not belong in the military would be allowed join the police or to go home until a time when the land may be forced to recruit them in battle. 

All military & police personnel would get motorcycle & motor vehicle driving lessons & a driving license for both. 

The problem with the death penalty in South Africa & how Lex Talionis could fix it.

I'd like to start with a disclaimer & say I have no research in which punishments work in the correction of criminality. 

I'm listening to talk radio in South Africa & heard someone say that "the death penalty does not decrease crime" or something along those lines. Alright, maybe the death penalty would work for people like me (i. e. people who don't want to die) so I'm not sure how it would work for people who do not fear dying & anarchists. Sure, the death penalty should best be used if there is undeniable evidence that someone committed a dreadful crime like murder, mass murder, mass poisonings etc. because we don't want to sentence someone to death with incomplete evidence only to find later that the state killed someone because of a lie someone told. I also do not believe crimes like treason deserve a death sentence today because sometimes the good seem treasonous to corrupt leaders, so the worst punishment a treasonous person could be dealt with is be expelled from the land for an extended period. At times, a death sentence could be given to someone for a crime that truly does not fit his execution because of public sentiment on something & this is where Lex Talionis comes in. 

Lex Talionis, otherwise called "an eye for an eye", is the legal concept that someone should be handed a punishment equal to the crime he or she committed. A CIT robber could get a set amount of lashes & spend the rest of his incarceration working to pay off the amount of damage he committed, a murderer would be punished in being executed the same way he killed his victim, a rapist could be castrated, a person who stole R1000 would get lashes & pay the victim the amount taken... This all might sound funny to some but what is better than being handed the exact action you committed as punishment for the crime you committed? Assault gets assault, theft gets lashes for the thief & repayment to the victim. I imagine a kleptomaniac or a repeat thief could have a finger chopped of for every theft if they could not pay back what they stole. Equal punishment for the crime you committed because doing drugs, theft & murder are not all the same thing & deserve their own unique punishments. And for this reason, I believe thieves, rapists & murderers should be incarcerated in segragated cells & according to the severity of their crime. Because while not paying a parking ticket is disobeying the law, it is not the same as bloodthirsty mass murder.

What a team sports game should be...

I've played a few mobile games - I've played the old Java PES, Real Football on Tizen, FIFA 19 from iOS App store, FIFA 22 from Playstore & I've picked up some things... In older games you'd unlock teams when winning a tournament & now you unlock players to build a team & to me it just doesn't feel the same. And now that FIFA has taken it's name off of the game (EA FC), I wonder why simple, older formats aren't used. 

• Initially, getting a lower ranked team in a tournament & unlocking teams as you beat them. 

• Tournaments available could be a multitude of international, continental & domestic leagues. 

• Creating your own fictional players. 

• Creating a team (with your own custom kit) from any of the players in the world which would participate in any of the available tournaments in the game. 

• Competing with other gamers online with your own team of stars & not players the algorithm chose for you. 

• Ability to play offline: Because while NBA Live on Android is a great game, you often can't play it offline.

I've played the NBA game on Android & the old Java AND1 game years ago... the old AND1 game was more fun & I think the above format above could be used for a FIBA game. 

Some guy surely wants to be Lazio competing in Serie A, or São Paolo in Copa Libertadores, TP Mazembe in the Club World Cup or even Azerbaijan in the World Cup. The thing is not everybody wants to build their own team, some just want to pick a known team, play a friendly or compete in a tournament. 

As an African football fan, I would love to see African tournaments being displayed in a game. I'd love to have the option of being Al Ahly, Enyimba or another African team participating in the CAF Champions League or even pick a national team to play in AFCON. 

Maybe there could even be an option to download any specific league you want worldwide. You could download the New Zealand league & play as a team in that league or a team you made on the game. 

If Konami, EA & especially Gameloft would get on to something like this. It could be one of most popular games around. Licensing issues & FIFPro would be worth it if the game keeps this simple format. 

The same for the FIBA game. The option of playing Euroleague, G-League, BAL or Intercontinental Cup & creating your own team, players & custom kits would be a breath of fresh air for all basketball fans. 

Some Xbox game covers I designed with some tournament endorsements so fans know what they're getting.

National Unity.

I am an admirer of the concept of "national unity" as I have seen how much a lack of national unity has harmed South Africa. Were South Africa as unified as China or Sweden, we'd be near a first world country but we are so divided, the stark ideological & cultural differences within South Africa have consistently proven to us that we are forcing a united country in vain on many occasions. So I propose this (more conservative) branch of Kwatuism to deal decisively with disunity in nations. I studied global politics to reach this conclusion so I cannot give this political concept an African name. Instead, it's based on Old World-ist tried & tested methods of national unity. 

• The state language: I don't understand how a land does not embrace the concept of a national language more often. In South Africa we insisted on having a full eleven official languages rather than simply choosing English as the medium of instruction in schools, language of the media, language of communication & our lingua franca. This could've avoided a lot of problems nationwide. Instead now, we have remained divided in islands of indigenous languages which find it difficult to integrate with the larger land. The most spoken & understood language being Zulu will not be learnt by tribalists of Xhosa, Sotho, Tswana, Pedi & other groups. When whites, Tsonga, Swazi, Ndebeles & even Vendas don't find a problem with the Zulu language - we find tribalists truly loathe the concept of Zuluness nevermind learning the language. A national language likely provides unity more than anything else. If South Africa is to unite, we may need to consider adopting the European languages of English or Dutch/Afrikaans as the national language in all media (TV, radio, internet & print) & daily life because learning any of our indigenous languages will simply increase tribal hatred. 

• The state religion: A state's faith provides a moral foundation of a people & ensures all the people in a land understand the land's concept of wrong & right. The state religion should naturally bleed into the nation's legal frameworks with the religion of the land being the foundation of the law of the land. While living in a land that has laws that oppose an individual's religion today is the norm, it is what causes religious extremism. I imagine that the Ethiopian Orthodox Church could gain ground in Africa instead of Roman Catholicism, Protestantism & other Christian sects which were founded in Europe. If not, Africans could resurrect their ancient faiths which would ultimately be both their faith & law. 

• Integration of foreign names: I'm a studier of languages i. e. linguist & study how languages define culture. I understand how the Anglophone, Lusophone, Francophone & the Castillian-speaking world integrates & understand how foreign names can cause confusion in a land. So for this I propose, domestication of foreign names into the local language. Everything from provincial names, city names, river names, mountain names & even the names of individuals in the land. I'm of the belief that a rich & vibrant language is vital in maintaining a successful nation. Using my native indigenous/vernacular language as a reference base: Biblical names could be indigenized (e. g. Eve ~ Eva, Michael ~ Mayikheli, Jacob - Yakobe, Thomas ~ Tomasi etc.) while foreign names could be translated into local names (e. g. Thomas ~ Wele, Harold ~ Mbusi/Mholi, Henry ~ Mzuziwendlu, Paul ~ Mphansi etc.) This could be done by default for anyone on the national database who has citizenship in the land. They would need, at least, one name in the indigenous language to obtain citizenship & perhaps prevent ridicule of individuals in intolerant communities.

• The head of the state: Ideally, the head of state could be a leader elected with open ballot elections but this causes problems in time & lacks consistency. Whereas a monarch & the elected ministers could provide long-term consistency, a minister under a monarchy could stay twenty years & grow to understand his portfolio better than the five-year ministers of our democratic elections. A monarch is often a descendant of the ancient rulers of the land so provides a link from the land's past into the future which serves in legitimising a land & it's institutions. 

Many of the readers of this blog entry are going to ask where any of this has worked in the world or in Africa particularly. You're in luck as I have plenty examples: Imperial Ethiopia, Japan, Thailand, England, the Netherlands, Spain & the entire Scandinavian world (Denmark, Sweden, Norway & Iceland somewhat). Germany & France have a state language even though they no longer have a monarchy & have a more secular society today. The same secularism that is now proving a problem in Western Europe with the influx of Islamic extremists. Eswatini loosely employs two of the four above-mentioned points in unifying their land but they are less insistent on using Swazi as the absolute language of the land, I suspect that they are more tolerant of different faiths as well as foreign names so only have their monarch & partly their language as unifying factors in their land. Another example of language creating unity would be the East African bloc where language unity through the Swahili language has made it possible for them to seamlessly work together across different countries. A state religion works in unifying lands especially in Islamic lands, where their faith is their culture & often their law which often indirectly accelerates development of a nation (e. g. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, & the UAE). So the above-mentioned four points have genuine real-world examples of their success & are not just fabrications of this blog post writer. 

The above-mentioned four points may seem unimportant but become defining factors in divided lands to forge unity. This could be the early stages of an index measuring a country's national unity in place of using economic or financial equality as measures of a country's unity.

What the Zulu language missed...

The Zulu language is a language I'd describe as a language of both oppression & disenfranchisement as well as a language of daily life as a native Zulu speaker. The Zulu language has never faced extinction no matter how many foreign words it adopts because luckily, an elder has always been around to reinstate it's correct form... so a more correct language could easily be formed with a regulating board for the language & an indigenous alphabet / script for the language. An indigenous script could give legitimacy to the language as well as embolden it's identity when it separates from the more common Latin alphabet. An indigenous script would make IsiZulu more insular but would ensure Zulu concepts remain Zulu & foreign concepts do not permeate into Zulu culture & dilute indigenous concepts. 

Today, the Zulu language has borrowed many English, Afrikaans & Portuguese words. A Zulu language board (IsiZulu: Inhlangano Yokuqondisa Ulwimi LwesiZulu) would create new words for modern concepts & technologies as well as print a Zulu language dictionary which would be used in schools perhaps every five years, adding new words for new modern concepts & new technologies. 

In time, the Latin alphabet could be phased out from Zulu society in favour of a Zulu script. 

African languages 

The modern Zulu language

What made the 2000s great (personal experience)...

In the 2000s, some things were really messy because of foreign entities for me but the 2000s had times of being great in that whatever was expected of you was written clearly on paper or put verbally in simple terms. 

You could listen & watch anything you liked on any media without feeling you're selling out to some cause. 

People weren't out to try make you something you never were other than entitled outsiders. 

You weren't obliged to be anywhere or with anyone. If you wanted to see someone, you went to see them or arranged to meet them somewhere. Simple. 

The world really felt bigger than you in the 2000s. Today, the world almost feels like it's being designed as you live. It's a very counterintuitive & unsettling feeling. It makes the world feel flimsy, fabricated & unstable. When in the 2000s people were busy with their lives... Today, it feels like people are busy with other peoples lives & this culture of small-mindedness really makes mice out of people you expected to be "bigger-minded". It makes huge authoritative, educational, financial, political, industry & social establishments you used to respect as a child feel tiny & unserious. 

Today's world really makes a joke of itself. All the good, strong men that would lead us in the past are now scavengers for anything including anything that you have. It's really pitiful. I would have never believed such things would happen if you showed me how life would play out in 2025 as a twelve year old back in 2002. 

The kids of today don't know what it means to respect something, anything. And I'm not sure if that's what God Himself wants. 

The post-2000s world really feels surreal, not genuine, unnatural & illegitimately fabricated. 

And I think today's world just shows the importance of keeping to yourself & looking out for what's important instead of tiny, meaningless things. 

Living in a world that is bigger than individuals keeps everyone sane & safe.

What is a sport?

When watching equestrian (show jumping & horseracing), I used to wonder how such events got into the Olympics. I used to be of the belief that sports are events where you'd have to do an amount of running & sweating but it turns out that my concept of sport is biased. 

My preferred sports haven't changed but I'll now have to classify motorsport racing, equestrian, diving & maybe even board games as sports while rodeo & freestyle football are left out in the cold in the Olympics. 

Maps that can stop wars...

After European colonialism, three continents were left with newly-imposed borders: Africa, Australia & America. None of these continents have their indigenous name & they still have incorrect ethnic borders to this day. These borders cause ethnic wars & ethnic tensions but little has been done to address the problems they cause. As Europe & Fareast Asia are already divided into their respective ethnic regions, only South Asia, Africa, Australia & America are left to be "fixed". 

 Africa (or Kwatu). 

The east of Asia has it's ethnic borders aligned with it's political borders. From India going west, it looks like a bit of a jumble. 

Australia. | N. B. Aborigines of Australia, New Zealand & Oceania are not black i.e. "not from Africa". 

The Americas: North & South America in their natural state.

The United Nations, African Union & the South African constitution recognises that indigenous communities exist & has legislature preventing ethnic discrimination & it's associated traits. Secession of indigenous lands is even promoted in the African Charter on Human & People's Rights as well as legally allowed in the legislation of South Africa.