Word: xhosas
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...last week was one of depression. The titles of plays being produced by Soweto playwrights reflect the joyless tone: "How Long?" "To Hell With Death" or "Lord Why" (which was also banned last week as provocative). A young black couple who named their newborn infant Vuyolweth, ("our happiness" in Xhosa language) were criticized by friends for picking such a joyful name in such sad times. Recent elections for seats on a new Community Council to replace the old Urban Bantu Council drew a scant 6% of Soweto's 137,000 eligible voters. David Thebehali, 40, head of the council...
...tortured history, the Afrikaners once again are responding to threats from without and within by going into the laager (literally, camp)?an expression from the days of the voortrekkers, South Africa's Boer pioneers, who would drive their ox wagons into a circle to fight off Zulu or Xhosa attackers. Vorster's campaign slogan is the same today as it was in the last election, in 1974: "He made South Africa safe. Keep it that way." That rallying cry, which is also the central theme of Afrikaner history, is one of self-preservation, and it has always worked...
...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...
...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 servant in one of Umtata's new government office buildings, "We are like a puppet show, with the whites pulling the strings as we dance to their tune...
...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...