Places and forms of power : south africa

I am going to talk about the notion of places and forms of power.

First, I would like to give a definition of power. Power is the ability to control others and to make things happen despite obstacles, resistance, or opposition. This of course leads to conflict between those who have and exercise power and those who have none or little of it. As a consequence, the exercice of power within a community requires that its members accept a complex system of laws and respect symbols such as specifics places especially court, parliament and prison.

To illustrate this notion, in classroom we have chosen to focus on South African places and forms of power.

So my presentation will deal this question : How can people from different cultures live together in harmony ?

First I will show how apartheid was put in place and I will highlight the opposition of this forms of power. Eventually, I will related the abolition of apartheid and the difficult creation of an harmonious nation in spite of different cultures.

First, we studied the establishment of Apartheid in south Africa. Europeans strated to settle in South Africa since 17th century. But the apartheid was set by the National Party, which won the election in 1948. The apartheid it's a politcal system that established the legal segregation of social groups based on race. Blacks, and others coloured persons were separated to the Whites, because the white south africans wanted to control the country. Many Africans, who didn't work for white people, where packed in reserves named "Bantustans". They were forced to live in arid lands which were poorly equipped and were far away from the major cities. Their lives were a daily struggle, without clean water or electricity, without access to the education and health, increasing the infant mortality rate. Moreover they needed passbooks to travel in the country an to get into “white cities”. These laws were meant to create a distinct nation.

But at the same time, there is a political organisation founded by blacks south africans since 1912, the ANC, African National Congress, who fight against apartheid, for justice and equality. So when government has begun more restrictive with black population, the ANC protests but with legal means and no violence. In 1960 Nelson Mandela become a leader of ANC and the civil disobedience is then observed among the populations put aside. We saw in the 1960s black South Africans burning their passbooks, which represent white domination. They seemed relieved as if they were regaining their freedom. Similarly, marches and boycotts are organized. But the government used force, violence and arrest to preserve the apartheid. In 1961, Nelson Mandela, which represent a counter power, got a life prison sentence In Robenn island for sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the state. In june 1976 we have seean an important demonstrations in Soweto, where many black people were killed by the police that day.

Thanks to lot of courageous people the government finally reject apartheid in 1989 then was abolished in 1991. Mandela was released from prison and became the first democratically elected president in 1994 after were given Nobel peace price. He wants to build a new South Africa that would be democratic, non racist and non sexist. He wrote a new constitution which claims

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