Word: matanzima
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...GOVERNMENT that will take over the reigns of state in the Transkei is no more promising than the new nation's economic situation. Chief Kaiser Matanzima of the Transkei National Independence Party was appointed to his post as head of the bantustan government in 1963, when the bantustan was created for members of the Xhosa ethnic group (other Xhosas were resettled in the Ciskei bantustan, a contradiction of the apartheid dogma that claims bantustans are a way for ethnic groups to regain their traditional identity...
...Matanzima, a paramount (super) chief, never bothered to submit the issue of independence to a referendum. His National Independence Party swept the territory's parliamentary elections last month, partly because he took the precaution of jailing virtually the entire leadership of the opposition Democratic Party as a "threat to law-and-order." He acted under Proclamation R-400-a preventive detention law that he inherited from South Africa and intends to keep...
...onetime lawyer and part-time farmer who raises cattle and sheep, Matanzima rules in a chiefly style. On state occasions he is preceded by a "praise singer," wrapped in a leopard's skin, who shouts of great deeds, real or imagined, by "Matanzima the Mighty." Among the new buildings being erected near Umtata is a $345,000 mansion for the chief...
Criticism is not welcomed. When the celebrated South African play Sizwe Banzi Is Dead was presented in Umtata, Matanzima was furious at its barbed references to the Transkei's independence as meaningless. Though the play has been hailed both in the U.S. and Britain, Matanzima closed it down and jailed Xhosa Actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona (who appeared in it on Broadway last year) on the grounds that the play was "highly inflammatory, abusive and vulgar...
...theory, Matanzima's nation will have a population of nearly 3.3 million Xhosas. In fact, only 1.8 million of these actually live in the Transkei; most of the others live permanently in South Africa, but from now on they will be citizens of the Transkei-not of South Africa. The Transkei's 10,000 whites will still run much of the commerce and own some of the best farm land, though South Africa is buying out some white farms and businesses and turning them over to blacks at a low cost. (Indeed, Matanzima and his younger brother George...