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.