Nelson Mandela and Apartheid

Nelson Mandela.The first black president in South Africa. A uniter of people. Most of all, a great man. Mandela was born 18th July, 1918. He served as president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. One of the many awards won by Mandela is the great Nobel Peace Prize that he won in 1993. 

He was born in Mvezo, a small village located in the district of Umata, the Transkei capital. After the 1948 election victory of the Afrikaner-dominated National Party, which supported the apartheid policy of racial segregation, Mandela began participating in politics actively. In 1952 he prominently led the African National Congress(ANC)' Defiance Campaign and in 1955 the Congress of the People. Mandela was arrested with around a 150 other activists in 1956. He was arrested for treason. While serving time in prison he was accused of sabotage and other felonies. He was sentenced to life in prison on Robben Island. While in prison he¨s reputation grew around South Africa and he became known as one of the main black leaders. on Robben island black prisoners and political prisoners were kept away from the other prisoners and received fewer privileges. Since Mandela was both black and a political prisoner, he was treated terribly. 

In 1989, South Africa reached a crossroads when current President Botha suffered a stroke and was replaced as president by Frederik Willem de Klerk. De Klerk was not against the ANC like the previous presidents. He announced Mandela's release in February 1990. South Africa's first multi-racial elections in which full enfranchisement was granted were held on 27 April 1994. ANC won most of the votes and Nelson Mandela was elected President of the Republic of South Africa. Nelson Mandela decided to retire after his 5 years in office. He was succeeded by Thabo Mbeki. After his presidency he continued to fight for human rights. Mandela has made several appearances in human rights movements and other occasions like the 2006 Winter Olympic Games.

South Africa was a country filled with Apartheid and racial segregation. Black individuals were treated worse than white. this happened all around the country. Blacks were not allowed to vote until the 1994 election when Mandela won. In 1994 the 300 year long apartheid of racial segregation were ended. Some say this is only because of Nelson Mandela.

The racial segregation in South Africa was a global challenge. It was, because South Africa was not the only country suffering from this. The United States was also a country ruled by apartheid. the UN opened ratification for people responsible for apartheid. Apartheid is now illegal in every UN country. this law was set to prevent: inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.

9/11 - The Movie

Summary

A few months before the tragedy on 9/11 occurred two brothers from France went to a New York fire station to film a documentary about a rookie starting out as a fireman, to become a man as they said in the movie. During the first months they were following their rookie, Tony, no fires occurred. One day, when tony was off work, one of the brothers practiced his filming technique on a routine gas leak. The gas leak happened a few hundred feet from the World Trade Center. Since planes don`t fly over New York often, every person in the street looked to the sky when a plane flew over them. As did the brother covering the gas leak. Suddenly, they see the plane crash into one of the towers. The firemen ran into the building with the camera man filming what he saw. The firemen in the building spent every breath they had saving the people that could be saved. 

A little later, both of the towers fell down, tower two first and tower one not long after that. Everybody still in the towers died. The firemen the film focused on got out right before the towers fell. The rest of the film was about how the firemen spent their next days. Working in shifts of twenty four hours digging for survivors. All in all, they found one person. The movie ended with pictures of every fireman that lost their lives in the disaster. 

What i thought of the movie

I should start by saying that the movie was shot in real life, this was not a reenactment. This fact made the movie far better than it originally is. To see the firemen and the civilians with tears in their eyes, blood running down their faces and the firemen telling stories of the terrible things they saw was hard to watch. Every little detail in this movie actually happened. 

The movie in itself is filmed with small cameras and is therefore not a high quality film, still, this is one of the things that made this movie so good. I would say the brothers filming this did a great job, catching the reality in the situation. I like the movie. I loved the movie.

Narnia by C.S. Lewis + Comparing the author with J. R. R. Tolkien

Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) is an author. He´s most famous books is the Narnia books. There are seven books. The lion the witch and the wardrobe, prince Caspian, The voyage of the dawn treader, the silver chair, the horse and his boy, the magicians nephew and the last battle. The Narnia books and all of his other books show influences by his religious beliefs. The author has sold over 100 million books.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Movie)

This is the first Narnia books made into a movie. The movie is about two brothers and their two sisters: Peter, Edmund, Susan and Lucy. They leave to a professors house when their city is stricken by WW2. While they are at the professors house they find a wardrobe leading into a different world. In this world(Narnia), they meet a beaver who tells them to travel towards Aslan, their savior. Edmund, the second youngest of the siblings leave the group to go see the white witch and she captures him. The rest of the siblings decides to go see Aslan for help on getting their brother back. On the way to Aslan they meet Santa Clause and some other animals. The witch´s secret police(wolves) go to find the siblings and bring them back to the witch, but Aslans army Kills the wolves and follows one of them back to save Edmund. Later on, the witch travel to Aslans camp to explain to the group that Edmund shall die since he betrayed their brothers. Aslan sacrifices himself and the rest of the group goes to fight the witch and her huge army. The fight goes badly for the good guys until Aslan wakes up from the dead and brings an army to finally defeat the witch. They do, and the movie ends with the siblings (30 years later) returning to the real world.

My thoughts on the movie

I am a big fan of Narnia, so i love the movie. The actors does their parts perfectly, especially the actors that played the siblings Peter, Edmund, Susan and Lucy. I certainly enjoy the religious influences in the movie and how their were perfectly placed within the story at the perfect places. I feel safe saying that this movie is a masterpiece, nothing less. I must also say that i am grateful for obtaining the opportunity to see such a great movie in class.

Comparing J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis

Tolkien and Lewis were close friends throughout most of their lives. Tolkien was the one who converted Lewis to Christianity, which has always been a big part of his writing. Lewis repaid this by pushing Tolkien to expand his fictional writing, which you can see the result of by reading his book The Children of Hùrin. Both Tolkien and Lewis taught at Oxford university and they were both interested in literature(they were both members of a group called the inklings together with several other famous authors). One of the big similarities between these to authors is the Christian themes and principles. It has also been revealed over time that they often had disagreements. These disagreements were often about the quality of the Narnia books.

Though Tolkien liked the concept of the Narnia books, he did not approve of the obvious Christian references in the book, the way Lewis struck the reader over the head with Christian symbols. The character Aslan for example who sacrifices himself for a traitor and rises from the dad for a last battle against evil, and then saves the world. Tolkien`s books also contain several Christian symbols and references, he spent far more time hiding it withing the writing, and therefore made it more invisible for the reader. Tolkien also complained about the characters in the Narnia books,there are talking animals, children and witches, while Tolkien designed his own creatures and therefore made it more original. 

All in all, Tolkien did not approve of Lewis`s books, since it could give the reader a false interpretation of the his Christian beliefs and therefore giving people the wrong idea about Christianity and the beliefs it contains. Another conflict also came to fruition when Lewis became a protestant Christian instead of following Tolkien`s beliefs, which lay with the catholic church.