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Apartheid south africa short history
Apartheid south africa short history
Apartheid south africa short history
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“If you believe Might is Right, it follows that whoever cannot hold their ground does not deserve to keep it.” -James D. Sass. The autobiography, Kaffir Boy, by Mark Mathabane, follows Mark growing up during apartheid in South Africa, dealing with poverty, death, and not having enough food. He got an education, played tennis, and was able to leave South Africa.Mark dealt with tragedy and triumph fighting under the grip of apartheid. Mark Mathabane, Chanrithy Him, and Hannelore Wolfe all had similar events happen to them, which were tragedies that became triumphs. Mark was a victim of apartheid and the unfair laws in South Africa. His family was poor, and had trouble getting and keeping jobs from the unfair passbook laws. They would look for jobs so their passbooks would be in order, but they would get raided and arrested for not having proper passbooks. Mark’s father was on his way to get a job and “His pass was scanned and found to have an out-of-work stam; he was taken in,”(35). Mark also saw plenty of death and dead people. Mark saw a baby wrapped in a package at a garbage dump, and he saw a young girl he knew get dragged and killed during the Soweto protests. He was so shocked “after I witnessed the grisly murder a strange feeling that I should end my own life suddenly came over me”(167). Mark was a …show more content…
victim of apartheid and dealt with tragedy everyday. Mark had some triumph in his life too.
He was able to go to school to get an education, where he excelled and enjoyed learning. The principal confronted Mark about his reading and “said to me, ‘Are you planning to read every single book in this library?’”(253) He was smart and got a scholarship from Simba Quix. He was able to play tennis with other blacks, and some whites, then he played tennis at Barretts, a tennis ranch. He looked up to Arthur Ashe and he “even skipped school expressly to see him”(235). He was able to leave South Africa and go to America because of tennis. Mark’s life improved with tennis and his education, it became more triumph than
tragedy. Hannelore Wolfe, Chanrithy Him, and Mark Mathabane are all victims of their respective genocides. Hannelore had plenty of tragedy and triumph as did Chanrithy. Hannelore experienced death, undernourishment, and dehumanization during The Holocaust similarly to Mark. Chanrithy also experienced death, malnourishment, and dehumanization during cambodian genocide similarly to Mark. Hannelore was overworked in the concentration camps, she never got enough food, and she had to fight off diseases with horrible medical care and unsanitary conditions. Once she was sick from lack of nutrition and couldn’t stay in the infirmary for fear of getting killed. Chanrithy was also overworked in the rice paddies of Cambodia, she got little food that would decrease in amount, and she had to be careful of infections and diseases in the unsafe paddies. Chanrithy had gotten sick from not having adequate medical care or nutrition and couldn’t work, but she was scared of getting killed by the Khmer Rouge for not working. The three of them were all able to leave the place of their oppression and travel to America. Mark, Chanrithy, and Hannelore all had tragic events happen in their life, and they were all able to get past them to have better lives. From the books, Kaffir Boy, When Broken Glass Floats, and I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree, I learned about the horrors of multiple genocides and how the survivors made it out alive. The authors all had struggles and overcame them spectacularly. Their tragedies became triumphs after their hard work and need to survive.
Remember that boy in high school that was the star of the basketball team? He still holds most of the records for the team. He scored more points than anyone else in the school’s history. He never studied much because he was an athlete. His basketball skills were going to take him places. But high school ended and there are no more games to be played. Where is that former all-star now? In his poem “Ex-Basketball Player,” John Updike examines the life of a former high school basketball star. Flick Webb was a local hero, and he loved basketball. He never studied much in school or learned a trade because he was a talented athlete. Now years later, the only job Flick can find is working at the local gas station. He used to be a star, but now he just “sells gas, checks oil, and changes flats” (19-20). The purpose of Updike’s poem is to convince the reader that athletes should also focus on getting a good education.
The author, Sherman Alexie, is extremely effective through his use of ethos and ethical appeals. By sharing his own story of a sad, poor, indian boy, simply turning into something great. He establishes his authority and character to the audiences someone the reader can trust. “A little indian boy teaches himself to read at an early age and advances quickly…If he’d been anything but an Indian boy living in the reservations, he might have been called a prodigy.” Alexie mentions these two different ideas to show that he did have struggles and also to give the audience a chance to connect with his struggles and hopefully follow the same journey in becoming something great. By displaying his complications and struggles in life with stereotypical facts, Alexie is effective as the speaker because he has lived the live of the intended primary audience he is trying to encourage which would be young Indian
The killings made by the slaves are saddening, too. Mutilating the whites and leaving their bodies lying is inhumane. It is such a shocking story. This book was meant to teach the reader on the inhumanity of slavery. It also gives us the image of what happened during the past years when slavery was practised.
The book Boy Overboard by Morris Gleitzman shows Afghanistan through the eyes of a boy named Jamal. Gleitzman is expressing his sympathy for refugees. The story follows Jamal as he and his family daringly escape to Australia to evade the government. Jamal grows and pushes himself as he comes across difficult situations, and is forced to adapt and be versatile. Jamal has to be brave to help his family, or they will perish, and he has to take a leadership role to survive and make it to Australia. Jamal is forced to grow up quickly, and his personality changes to fit.
One man, a musician by the name of Buddy Walker, saw Althea play one day and had a revolation. He figured that if Althea was so good at table tennis, then she would excel in regular tennis as well. At the time, no one realized just how beneficial this idea would be for the young Harlem girl, Althea Gibson. Through donations raised to pay for her membership and lessons, Althea became a member of an African American club called the Harlem Cosmopolitian Tennis Club. It was here that she aquired the skills needed to compete in tennis matches at a higher, more competative level.
This employment of omitted and skewed events creates an inevitable sense of balance. Written by Markus Zusak recounting the stories of his mother and father's past, The Book Thief is a natural example of this form of biased writing. Within the narrative, Markus Zusak distances the characters present from the negative connotations of NAZI Germany and, In order to achieve this the choice of narration being Death, Markus Suzak must distance the narrator from the concept of death itself. The initial, and inevitable concept of death which holds negative connotations, especially in the context of NAZI controlled Germany is distanced from Death throughout the novel. One such way of effectively employing this is to humanise the character of Death and hence distance the character from the bludgeoning concept of death.
Kaffir Boy enlightens the understanding of apartheid by exposing the crippling mental, social, and economical effects it had on blacks in South Africa, preventing them
The main character’s self-reflection reveals a past that was full of naivety and invisibility. It is also full of underlying race and class segregation. The dream-like setting of the battle which the main character took part of, even though he had spent his life partaking in good conduct, adhering to the wishes of white folks and being praised by them for his excellent conduct (Charters 295), is symbolic of the racial and class struggles which African-Americans have to partake in simply because they are born with different colored skin, because they were not born White. The glass ceiling, violence and hatred which the main character is forced to confront in the story is reminiscent of the struggle African-Americans face in a Capitalist White America which often overlooks successful African-Americans in favor of White-Americans, further dividing the races and feeding oppression. Segregation and oppression hinders the personal growth of the main character even though he does receive a scholarship to attend an African-American college and a first-class article from Shad Whitmore’s shop
Later the narrator is an educated young man in his teens. He's followed his grandfathers' words and it results in him being obedient to the views of the white men. The narrator is invited to recite a speech at a local town gathering which included politicians and town leaders. The narrator is forced to compete in a battle royal. He had to box blindfolded, get electrified by a rug filled with fake brass coins, and humiliated when it was time for him to give his speech. The problem with the boys understanding of the grandfather's ideology is that he doesn't know where his limit is. It almost seems as if he would go through anything the white men put in his way but even after that, the men tell him to correct himself when he even mentions social equality. The narrator is rewarded for his obedience with a scholarship, but the true value of the scholarship is questioned in a dream where the scholarship paper read, "To Whom It May Concern Keep This Nigger-Boy Running.
He hated the fact of education and thought it was only for white people. In the excerpt from Kaffir Boy, Mark Mathabane states “They, like myself, had grown up in an environment where the value of an education was never emphasized, where the first thing a child learned was not how to read and write and spell, but how to fight and steal and rebel” When he said that he means that school wasn't a priority to people where he was from. The reason why it's not important to most people there is because of poverty. Mark Claims that “Throughout seven years of hectic living the number of baths I had taken could be counted on one hand with several fingers missing.” What he means is that the poverty was so bad that even showers were taken only a few times a year or even less. School taught Mark that its not only for white people but its for all, and it can change
In 1930’s and 1940’s South Africa, many people suffered through traumatic events, whether it be a robbery, a loss of livelihood, a beating, or the ultimate tragedy, the loss of a loved one. In his novel Cry, the Beloved Country, Alan Paton makes sure that this is not left out of his true-to-life, albeit fictional, account of life in South Africa. James Jarvis is the recipient of this tragedy in the novel. His son, Arthur Jarvis, is murdered in his home by Absalom Kumalo during a botched robbery attempt. This sudden loss breaks Jarvis’ heart and sends him reeling. He goes to Johannesburg for the trial and ends up realizing that he really didn’t know his son at all. Reading his son’s writings causes him to have a moral conversion, and he begins his new life when he returns to Ndotsheni. Even though James Jarvis is a man of few words, he has much to say after his son’s death and he speaks through his actions.
The society of the small urban town called Ndotsheni, from which both Stephan and Author come, is based largely on the native African tribal system. This town also suffers from a drought that drives away the young men to work in the mines of Johannesburg. Johannesburg directly contradicts Ndotsheni with no tribal system and the brake down of the moral fibers of its people. Yet in Johannesburg there is also hope for the future and ideas that help lead to the restoration of Ndotsheni. During the time the story is set in Johannesburg the reader is introduced to two exceptionally different characters. The first is John Kumalo, the brother of Stephen Kumalo. He is a corrupt politician with the voice of a “lion,” but a week hart, who spoke about the injustices of the whites to the blacks and their need to revolt. The other an enlightened priest, Msimangu, who prayed for loving and restoration through coming to amends. Their influences help to shape Kumalo into a new person. Furthermore, throughout his story Paton stresses the idea of irresponsibility contradicted by individual responsibility. Eventually the idea of unified responsibility is shown to be the only manor by which South Africa can be saved.
Nelson Mandela’s life can be seen as a double climax: where he survived events directly related to the Apartheid’s cruel/unjust actions along with enduring medical ailments later on in his life. In a four year span, from 1960 to 1964, Mandela had to find strength and will power to persevere through a rollercoaster of events. Mandela’s affiliation in the African National Congress allowed him to organize supporters and protest against the inequality of whites and blacks in Africa, and bring attention to the abuse blacks have been forced to endure for far too long. The constant back and forth commotion between the apartheid and the freedom protestors caused a snowba...
Growing up during a time of violent political upheaval in Sri Lanka, Arjie travels an especially bittersweet journey into maturation in Shyam Selvadurai’s Funny Boy. The adults in Arjie’s extended family mostly belong to an older, more conservative generation that attempts to fit Arjie into society’s norms. The adults that Arjie meets in the community through his family are individuals who prompt him to see past the confines of his childhood, and it is Arjie’s peers who give him the extra push to understanding himself. With guidance from his extended family, his adult friends, and his peers, Arjie is able to discover his identity through understanding the impact of race and gender on his life.
Nelson Mandela in his book, Long Walk to Freedom argues through the first five parts that a black individual must deal, coop, and grow through a society that is hindering their lives' with apartheid and suppression of their rightful land. Rolihlanla Mphakanyiswa or clan name, Madiba was born on July 18, 1918 in a simple village of Mvezo, which was not accustomed to the happenings of South Africa as a whole. His father was an respected man who led a good life, but lost it because of a dispute with the magistrate. While, his mother was a hard-working woman full of daily choirs. His childhood was full of playing games with fellow children and having fun. In school, Mandela was given his English name of Nelson. After his father's death, he moved to love with a regent, who was a well-off individual and owed Nelson's father for a previous favor. The next several years were full of schooling for Nelson. These schools opened Nelson's eyes to many things, which we will discuss later. He and the regent's son, Justice decided to travel to Johannesburg and see what work they could find. They left on their journey without the regent's permission, but eventually escaped his power and settled down in the town. In Johannesburg, Nelson settled down in a law firm as an assistant and went to University of South Africa and Witwatersrand University to further his law education. Witswatersrand University brought many new ideas to Nelson and awakened a spirit inside of him.