Word: transkei
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Shunned by Neighbors. Chief Minister Kaiser D. (for Daliwonga) Matanzima, 61, who heads the Transkei government, sent invitations to most countries of the world, only to receive formal rejections or silence. He is still hoping that conservative regimes in Taiwan, Paraguay, Malawi, Rhodesia and perhaps Ivory Coast may send delegations-but that will be about all. Even his nearest neighbors are shunning him. Swaziland says it will "continue to recognize the Transkei as a region of South Africa and nothing more," and Lesotho (which is surrounded by South Africa but, like Swaziland, was never part of it) has decided that...
...South Africa's nine homelands, or tribal reserves assigned to blacks, the Transkei will thus remain a stepchild of the white-supremacy government of Pretoria. Though its gross national product ($120 million) and per capita income ($130) exceed those of a dozen independent African states, the figures are misleading. Three-quarters of the Transkei's annual operating budget is contributed by South Africa, and 70% of its national income consists of remittances from members of the Xhosa tribe who work "abroad"-in the mines, factories and farms of white South Africa -as migrant laborers. Admits a black civil...
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...
Coat of Arms. Superstition and tribal customs still abound in the Transkei, though there are many signs of modernization. The lobola (bride price) was once reckoned only in cows (ten was the average). Today transistor radios are increasingly acceptable as a partial substitute, and so are Western-style clothes. Livestock farming is the main occupation, but there are factories for making matches, textiles and cutlery. A university is planned that will ultimately cost $80 million (though at present only 6% of all Transkeian children reach secondary school). The territory even has a new coat of arms-two leopards, a bull...
...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...