During the late 18th and early 19th century, a great warrior arose in South Africa, Shaka Zulu.

He lacked the background advances in civilization that preceded great European soldiers, so adjusting for that ...

... I would compare him to Alexander the Great. He was innovative, strategic and tactical. 

His predecessors used a long, throwing spear, but he developed the short stabbing spear and combined it with long shields. 

He also organised his battle lines into a horn that outflanked the enemy along the sides while engaging in the middle. 

And he drove training, fitness, discipline, while replacing a defensive tradition with highly mobile, offensive fighting units.  

Other strategic initiatives included alliances and a coexistence with settlers that enabled him to acquire new technology.

He also maintained a logistic supply line using youngsters and he had strict social rules. Historians don't all agree on that.  

However, few historians would disagree that a lot has been lost. 

The lady who works for me said that their tradition held that anyone in a village could discipline an errant child and if that child came home crying his mother would smack him again. 

But over the last 20 years, that has stopped because the law forbids physical discipline of children. 

The result has been a contemporary reenactment of the moral decay that has plagued many western school systems. 

So recency makes for a good study. My wife is a teacher who has seen lack of respect in learners and their parents. 

How far removed that all is from the days of glory when a disciplined nation rapidly conquered vast amounts of territory. 

Am I condoning conquest and violence? 

Not at all, except that in our current world, the analogue for military supremacy is market supremacy. 

And right now, reclaiming lost market place has become critical to survival and resurgence from the Covid-19 fallout. 

But let me digress a little. Italy was prosperous in the 16th and 17th centuries, but regressed after unification, largely due to land issues.   

Then the war drew out their deep love for quality and distinction. The resulting work ethic generated an economic miracle.

It lifted them to G8 status. It also brought land reform and reorganization of economic districts.  

Such is the power of any nation that reclaims its pride of place in the community of nations and the global economy. 

But that won't happen if we carry on squabbling over issues that will solve themselves through economic revival. 

To get there, we need the kind of discipline and innovation that Shaka once displayed. 

And we need to close ranks and fight for our collective economic freedom, for economic power will ensure political status. 

Essentially we have reduced ourselves to a risky investment due to labor instability, political instability and internal tensions. 

We are one of the most marketable tourist destinations on earth - rich diversity at great value for money with superb weather included. 

We also have a lot of untapped agricultural opportunity, if we can learn from Israel how to turn dry areas into flourishing farm lands.

And we still have immense natural resources, including a cornucopia of rare earth metals and strategic minerals. 

Plus we have among the best prospects for renewable energy, notably solar based. And we have great infrastructure. 

But for all our strengths, we remain chronically pessimistic, critical, petty, politically immature, given to corruption and apathetic. 

(Just for the record, blacks and whites are equally guilty of negativity, maybe for different reasons).

Oh that someone would rise up and lead us to a place of national pride and market dominance that will prove we can do it. 

(c) Peter Missing at me2u2all.blogspot.com