Places and forms of Power : where is the power in South Africa during the Apartheid and how can we resist to it ?

Places and forms of Power

I’m going to talk about the notion places and forms of power. First of all power is the ability to influence people’s.

PROBLEM:

Where is the power in South Africa during the Apartheid and how can we resist to it?

Plan:

To answer this question I choose 2 documents, the first is the presentation about the South Africa and the Apartheid and the second document is a video about Nelson Mandela’s early life.

Development:

South Africa is a big country situated at the Southern tip of Africa. Most African are black, in fact 90% of them are colored.

However, for many years, only white minority had power and refused to share it with the black majority. A man named Nelson Mandela fought for equal rights for all South Africans.

He was sent to prison. After 27 years, he was released and he was elected as the first black president of South African Republic.

The election of Nelson Mandela caused the official end of the white minority domination in South Africa. The white domination called Apartheid.

Apartheid was a system of segregation that which governed for almost fifty years.

The aim of Apartheid was to help the domination of the white minority over the non-white majority.

Apartheid had effects in every aspects of life. When Apartheid laws were voted in 1948 (nineteen forty eight) it was the continuation of past injustices.

Afrikaners (the white minority) believe that the non-white race was superior. The black majority was seen considered as the threat.

There were many laws like:

-Blacks had to carry ID permits at all times, they had to obey strict curfews.

-Public facilities (like restaurants, schools, hospitals...) were separated.

-Marriages between blacks and whites were banned.

South Africans were divided into 4 categories:

-white

-black

-Indian

-colored (of mixed origins)

-Black people had to live so called « homelands », those homelands were called Bantustan, were overcrowded. Bantustan looked like ghettos. Outside their homelands, black people had no rights, they were not considered as citizens.

-Education was also divided; black children went to black schools.

In class, we watched a short documentary about Nelson Mandela’s early life.

The video was very objective. Mandela achieved his dream of equality for all South Africans; he made his dream come true.

Mandela was born in July 1918; he was born in a small South African village. His father was a leader. At the age of 7, he had a British education.

When his father died, Nelson was sent to live another tribe « the Thembu people ».

The leader of this tribe he educated Nelson to become a leader.

Mandela was allowed to attend council meetings.

Mandela was sent to the best schools. During a break from college Nelson ran away to Johannesburg to escape a prearranged marriage.

In 1941, Mandela discovered the brutal reality of Apartheid.

Mandela entered Johannesburg as an anonymous black person, so he had a first-hand experience of the life of black person in a big city.

He did not know apartheid before arriving in Johannesburg; it was an immediate confrontation with the apartheid regime.

Nelson had studied law at university. Nelson began attending political meetings. He joined the ANC (African National Congress). This political party was created in 1912. The ANC wanted to establish a democratic government in South Africa.

...