Wars of Unification: One Federal Bantu Republic

At least the Bantustans are not warring against each other. But they are not united either. They still need to be united. The unification of the Bantustans is long overdue. Unity is elusive. Unification, a concept slightly bigger than unity is even more elusive.

Unification is the process of becoming one. It is a process of combining disparate pieces into one. It’s a process of being made whole again. The Bantu Nations of Southern Africa are disparate entities with self-determination. These nations must be merged to form one entity.

One Constitution. One Country. One People. One Republic. Out of many emerges one.

Colonial Rhodesians tried it and failed. We can do better.

Why should the Bantu nations be unified into One Nation-State?

Unification sets us on the right path for the remainder of this century and the coming centuries. Of course, there are benefits to reap now, in terms of economic development but the major benefits are to prepare for the coming centuries. We ought to move forward into the future as one united nation in Southern Africa. That’s our best foot forward. One Entity. One Colony.

The goal should be to create a techno-advanced solid and strong nation-state in the Southern part of Africa. A giant nation with one foreign policy capable of standing on its own two feet in international affairs and looking out for the interests of the people residing in Southern Africa.

The capable techno-advanced state should be able to defend itself in the future (if need be) against any future techno-barbaric state. That is the main benefit. To give a chance at future survival for the people that dwell in the Southern part of Africa.

Okay, we all agree the colonial era is over. No country is going to colonize another. Let’s assume this is 99% true for the remainder of this century. Will it also be true for the next century, and next after the next? Who really knows? What we know for truth is that colonization, territorial wars, and aggressive foreign policies are the norm. Universal peace and non-expansionary foreign policies are a “rarity” ushered in the last century.

If China wants to exercise an imperial foreign policy on our disparate nations right now, it can do so without much resistance because we are weak. We are open to abuse by any member of the international community. We have no voice that matters at United Nations and global talk shops because we are fragmented, insignificant, and weak. If we are one, we can be significant and strong.

As currently prevailing individual countries, we are weak. As one united country, we can be strong. One nation state in Southern Africa can be taken seriously in the global scheme of things.

Other benefits of unification are as follows:

1. Economic Integration — the EU’s way of gradually collapsing economic borders is not the type of idea that can be successfully implemented in Bantu Nations in a reasonable period of time. The gradual tearing away of the EU in a Brexit-like manner will expose the glue tying the arrangements together to be of poor quality compared to a scenario where unification is one-directional, ultimate, and irreversible. Economic integration in Southern Africa is long overdue. The Bantustans are still colonial constructs with very little trade between each other. Economic integration will create a larger market for goods and services. We will share the problems (such as chronic underinvestment in power generation) and share the successes (such as undertaking a US$ 10 billion investment in a nuclear power plant to generate more electricity). The countries are not much different from each other. Free movement of people and goods will push us forward.
2. Political Integration — talk shops and coffee meetings such as the SADC are useless. They do not integrate us politically. What is needed is a larger entity that spans beyond Bantustans and tribes. The region needs to be one country. The politics of tribal identity will be diluted if we have one Bantu republic. New political formations will crop up to replace the old ones, or old ones will have to morph their identity to appeal to a broader audience thus economic policy starts to matter more than identity politics. One President, One Parliament, one electoral system. These disparate country elections have to cease. The unification of Bantustans of Southern Africa into one republic will de-emphasize tribal differences on the political front. No single tribe will be too big to be way too significant at the national scale. National political programs to deliberately dissolve tribes and their sub-cultures can be carried out as part of the long-term unification process.
3. One Foreign Policy — foreign policy discord among the Bantu countries of Southern Africa poses an existential threat to the entire region. The talk shops cannot craft one foreign policy for the region. We need one government, with one president to preside over the foreign policy. Bigger countries, in the global scheme of things such as China, the USA, and Russia take advantage of us because they are big enough to matter on the global stage. We are too fragmented like Europe, which is now struggling to keep up with China, the USA, or Russia. At least the European nations have a union that is somewhat functional in terms of adopting a single common foreign policy. No one knows how the future will shape out. But what is almost definite is that the global giants, that are large enough to matter will eventually dominate foreign policy and craft their aspirations on the global landscape. The future of humanity will either be that of a one-world government or that of one super-power dominating global affairs. To usher ourselves into the Age of Technology beyond 2050, and beyond 2100, we have to speak with one voice. We have to be one. A SADC type of cooperation and coordination is useless. The EU type won’t cut it. Only a proper unitary foreign policy will be significant at the global level.
4. One Industrialization and 4IR Policy — we cannot industrialize sufficiently to match the unit costs in Europe, China, and the USA without scale. Unification will firstly create one large unitary market that justifies the necessary scale. Even with a large population, we can still be a shithole. But it’s better to be one united shithole that to have many smaller shitholes. Let us rise and fall together as one because we are one. If we industrialize, we do it for the whole region. If we fail to industrialize, we fail as an entire region. It is necessary to tie our fate together because we stand a better chance of winning in that manner.

Unification as a forced matter?

Matters of the State are generally beyond the comprehension of the average voter and the average modern politician. State-building is a difficult undertaking.

The fastest way to unite territories is via a war. It is very difficult to attain true unification peacefully. Unification has to be forced upon the people. It is to be a forced matter. It is good for the people, but they won’t know that, because it has never been done efficiently in a manner that brings widespread prosperity to all.

The most critical front of the Unification Wars is information. The narrative needs to be changed. The people are too divided. The people are divided by colonial borders and pre-colonial tribal land identities. The people are divided along tribal lines. The people are divided by dialects and small cultural differences. But as we move into the future, we need to be united as one. We must rise above the colonial constructs of what constitutes a specific country. We must rise above pre-colonial tribes and kingdoms. We must rise above the existing identity to forge one Bantu identity. The new identity doesn’t necessarily need to be a Bantu one, but it needs to be a Southern African one.

Shaping the narrative that we are one, and we need to be one is a WAR. It is war whereby the people who have been miseducated need to be firstly de-educated and then re-educated. The current generation might be lost already but the next must be made aware that our differences (what separates us into countries) are artificial and are merely mental constructs. The idea of one borderless nation-state in Southern Africa is a multi-decade theme that can be brought into existence after making formidable progress in the Information War. The Information War doesn’t need to be outrightly won. Unification can proceed without an outright win.

The Information War is a forced matter. People consume information that is available, hence the need to force matters and ensure the information is available for consumption.

An outright win on the Information and Narrative fronts will mean that the Unification Wars end there. With an outright win, Unification proceeds peacefully on the political, economic, and military fronts. But an outright win is elusive, thus necessitating a War on the Political front whereby politics in the fragmented states has to be shaped in favor of unification.

Food for thought!