Word: feudality
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Here, in the Northern Region, live close to 20 million people, mostly Moslems, who still remember the jihad (holy war), in which, 156 years ago, the Fulani horsemen of Imam Othman dan Fodio overwhelmed the original Hausa inhabitants. Though it is still an essentially feudal society in which Hausa-speaking masses are ruled by stern Fulani emirs, the North today, by sheer weight of numbers, controls Nigeria's federal House of Representatives and, in the person of Sir Abubakar, lords it over the bright brats of the South...
These measures failing, the imperial government seized and burned the British opium stocks at Canton. In the Opium War that followed, the primitive Chinese navy was blown to pieces and its feudal armies scattered. Under the peace treaty, the humiliated Emperor had to permit free trade at five Chinese ports, pay an indemnity of $21 million, and give to the British "a large and properly situated island" off the coast, "from which Her Majesty's subjects in China may be alike protected and controlled...
...bosses, Merchán in Viotá, Varela in Sumapaz, are as much masters of their lands as any feudal lord. They fly a hammer-and-sickle flag, liquidate or banish dissenters, brainwash the populace with dinning P.A. systems, maintain their own efficient militia backed by arsenals that include machine guns and mortars. They even collect their own taxes, currently set at 10% of harvests...
...constant plea that the family must bear the burden of teaching the culture. In a real community, there is an economy, with its crafts and its ideas. The shape of the community makes the culture evident. But, lacking this strong community, kids invent their own, reviving the feudal code of Alfred the Great, marking out safe territories, and making provision for special classes of revenge...
...Ahmadu's bloodline runs back to his great-grandfather, who in 1802 carved out a Moslem empire through the mostly arid northern half of Nigeria. But Sir Ahmadu has brought off the neat trick of turning feudal domain into political machine. When the British called elections last December, as a first step toward independence, the Sardauna stumped the walled cities of the north in a campaign that included such innovations as helicopters, skywriting and more than one stuffed ballot box. His party won 142 out of 312 seats in the federal Parliament. Already Premier of the Northern Region...