South-Africa

This two couple of weeks we've been working on South-Africa. This inspired me to write a blog post to give you some information about the country and the situation there.

South-Africa is a country in Africa with approximately 49 million inhabitants. There are 11 official languages, and people from all over the world live there. Now, as many of you probably know, there is a huge racism problem in South-Africa. Actually, more than 1/3 of South Africans have no cross-racial contact during an average weekday, and more than 50% of the population never socializes with people from other racial groups. This for me is mind-blowing. Living in a country like Norway makes me very open to all the other races. In Norway most people believe that every person is worth the same. We are all the citizens of the world. I was thinking why the situation is the way it is in South-Africa though…

Firstly, we can look at the Apartheid that was from 1948 and until 1994. In only 36 years South-Africa

completely changed to a racially divided South-Africa. Apartheid means separating people. The people of South-Africa were divided into groups, and only whites and Europeans could vote. The rest of the population were discriminated in areas such as work, where they could live, where they could shop etc. However, the Apartheid is not what I will focus on in th

is entry. If you want to read some more, you can go to http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid#Apartheid_i_S.C3.B8r-Afrika for further information.

If you look away from the Apartheid situation, and the discrimination against black people, why were black people really discriminated? What is it in South-Africa that makes people look at each other with such hate? According to our English-book: "Worldwide" 60% of the population have difficulties understanding the other races. Is it the multiculturalism in the country and the 11 different languages actually scary for the people? What I mean is that maybe the language and the fact that South-Africa doesn't really have the same "nationality" that many other countries have, makes it harder for the people to understand who really is a South-African. Which of the 11 languages does a "real" South-African speak? What sport does a real South-African like? This is when I want to mention the movie we w

atched in class: Invictus. It's based on a true story. I will write an entry about the movie later, but in this entry I want to say something about how South-Africa changed after the election of Nelson Mandela as a president.

Nelson Mandela was in prison for 27 years due to the danger he was to the society. He wanted a change, so he got locked up. When he came out, nothing could stop him. He wanted to change the country that had hurt him so badly, and the first thing he said was how forgiveness is the first step to a change. When he was elected president, it was historical because he was the first colored pres

ident in the country. He cared for his people, he got engage in the sports. He visited places no others would, and finally things started looking up. 2/3 has accepted racially mixed schools. But still the majority of the people disapproves of mixed marriages. There are still lots of racism in South Africa. But things have become better. You can read more about Nelson Mandela here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela . What would have happened if Nelson Mandela had given up, and the elected president approved the Apartheid system. South-Africa would have turned out to be different, maybe worse than it has ever been. I guess we will never now (luckily).

The biggest issues in todays South-Africa is poberty. According to this article: http://www.afrika.no/Detailed/19352.html South-Africa was the number one country in the world with the biggest difference between the ritch and poor in the country. This was in 2010. The poberty makes the average age of living about 50 years old. With other words, the average age has lowered with 10 years in the last 10 years! More than 40 % of the population are unemployed. These are all issues that makes gathering the country more difficult. I think if the unemployment of South-Africa could be taken care of, the mixture of different races will be easier. Maybe that's something the current president Jacob Zuma should focus on? I don't know. All I know is that more people should be aware of the situation in South-Africa so that we can work together to make things better...

Sources:

"Worldwide" by Eva Haugum, Julia Kagge, Audun Rugset, Britt W. Svenhard, Eva Ulven.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa

http://www.sor-afrika.com/i_dag.htm

http://www.afrika.no/Detailed/19352.html

http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid#Apartheid_i_S.C3.B8r-Afrika

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela

http://www.southafrica.info/about/people/population.htm

Pictures:

http://missnatee.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/s%C3%B8r-afrikatur-forelskelse-og-mareritt/

http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/governence-projects/apartheid-repression/history01.htm

http://www.rarenyheter.com/?p=13064

9/11

These two weeks we've

been watching the 9/11 documentary. It started out with two brothers who wanted to make a documentary about "a boy becoming a man". They choose a firefighter-rookie to film as he slowly turns into a firefighter and a man. Little did they know that they would end up filming probably the worst terror attack ever. The attack on the World Trade Center that killed more than 3000 people…

The thing about this attack is that until this particular day, the USA had always been a safe place to bee. The only time they had ever been attacked was duri

ng World War II when Pearl Harbor was attacke

d by the Japanese. At that time the Japanese people living in the USA were sent to camps be

cause the Americans didn't trust them - problem solved. But after September 11th the world changed. People changed. They were filled with hatred, and with good reason. The thing is whenever something bad happens; we usually want to blame someone. I guess it gives us a sort of relief to know that whatever happened happened for a reason. And no one can blame the people of New York,

the people of the USA and even the people of the entire world to wish for revenge…

What really caught my attention in the documentary was right before the first plane crashed into the tower. One of the film-makers; Gideon was randomly filming the couple of firemen who were working in New York city, when they suddenly heard an airplane. They looked up, because as one of the firefighters said "you never hear airplanes fly over New York City". They shake their heads like it was nothing, but suddenly they hear a crash and they realize that the airplane has crashed in the tower. The time was 08:45 am, and the plane hit the tower between level 93 and 99. Everyone knew that people were dead and injured. They also knew that the firefighters were going to have a huge job. What no one knew was that at 09:02 am, the south tower would also be hit, and you could see the fear in their eyes. After approximately 57 m

inutes the southern tower collapsed, quickly followed by the northern towers collapse. People were running for their lives.

People from all over the world were in the towers that now had collapsed so badly, the biggest piece that was found was a little piece of a phone. Actual organizations vanished. If you were sick that day, or for some reason couldn't make it to work, you suddenly had 200 funerals to go to… But what I want to discuss is how the world changed. Firstly, the president at the time George W. Bush innovated Afghanistan to fight against terrorism. A war that is still going on. Secondly, after 9/11, the security at airports are different. Nothing is allowed anymore. You can't even bring a bottle of water through security. If they have a single doubt, the security will question you, they will look through your stuff, they will deny you to fly. Anything to prevent the same thing to happen again. Thirdly, people have become more hostile to Muslims’. They are the enemy. In a way you can say that until this day, people were naive. They thought they had seen everything that could happen, but after 9/11 people were scared.

What's ironic is that early in the documentary, we hear about the two different kinds of rookies. The black cloud, and the white cloud. The black cloud is the rookie that comes, and suddenly there are many fires for him to go to. The white cloud, is the opposite. Whenever he's at work, there are no big fires. Tony, the rookie that we follow in the documentary wants to see his first huge fire, and one of the firefighters tell him to be careful what he wishes for. Then 9/11 happened.

If you ask anyone that was 7-8 years or older whether they remember where they were, what they were doing, what happened 9/11, they most lightly will say that they do. Personally, I remember my mother calling me, telling me to watch the news. It was live TV, and I came down to see the second plane crash, but at the time I wanted to play in my room, so I left. The next days at school, we talked about what had happened. We talked about how some people are just bad, and how others get brainwashed into doing bad things. But I think it's important to stay postive. Even though what happened was awfull, it's amazing how people cooporated the way they did to clean up the mess. It's a good thing that the security is now better, so that no one has to fear flying. But no matter what we say, do or think, 9/11 changed lives and the way people looked at the world. Like the firefighter said: "the new rookies will never know what it was like to work in New York City before 9/11"…

Here are my sources:

http://anettesylvia.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/8-ar-er-gatt/

http://www.newyorkpersonalinjuryattorneyblog.com/2010/05/judge-in-world-trade-center-litigation-says-howe-russell-fees-to-be-cut.html

http://www.vargas12.com/2010/09/11-september-2001-brutal-terror-live/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks

Can we trust everything we read online to be accurate?

The three articles I've read offer different information regarding gay rights and homosexual marriage. When you read an article it's important to look at the website to see if the information written is reliable and if you can trust it. The first article is written by "www.cc.org". This tells me that this is an organization; however, I know that cc stands for Christian coalition. This means that even though the writers name is at the bottom of the page, the information written in the article is firstly influenced by Christian views and by that particular coalition. That makes the article less trustworthy of being an informative article.

The other article is written by "www.usatoday.com". This is a big American newspaper, written to appeal to as many people as possible. They have to write to gays, non-gays, people who likes/dislikes gays and the people who don’t really care. They are objective. All of these factors make the newspaper more reliable than the previous webpage. The last article was written by "www.lesbianlife.about.com". I guess you can say that they are not going to have an informative article, but speak up to get their rights. The writer Kathy Belge tries to get people on her side by asking what the big deal is with gay marriage.They are probably angry or upset because they don't have the same rights. You can't trust the web text. To sum it up, I would say that the text written by "www.usatoday.com" is reliable.

Picture:

http://blogg.frankeivind.net/2008/06/29/hva-gjor-du-nar-internett-er-borte/

The chronicles of Narnia...

Today in class, we saw a movie called Narnia which is based on a series of 7 fantasy novels written by C.S Lewis. The movie is about the four siblings Peter, Edmund, Lucy and Susan. When their mother

sends them away to shield them from the war, they discover an entirely different world - Narnia. Soon they get to know the people who live in Narnia, and they hear about the horror they live in because of the evil white witch who is the queen of Narnia. The people of Narnia sees these kids as the four rightful kings and queens of Narnia, and after thinking about it, Peter, Edmund, Lucy and Susan decides to fight the witch.

Clive Staples Lewis was born November 29th 1898 in Belfast in Ireland. His mother died when he was 10 years old, and C.S Lewis was sent to different schools in England. He loved animals, and so he started writing stories about animals. He loved reading as well, and his father did to, so he always had new books to read. Later C.S Lewis went to Campbell College in Belfast, and in 1916 he won a scholarship to the University College of Oxford. He joined the British Army despite of his father’s advice. During that time, he made a good friend Paddy Moore. The two made a deal that if one of them died, the other would take care of their family, and when Paddy More did die, C.S Lewis held his promise. He took care of Paddy’s mother until she died in 1951 which was approximately the time he started writing the chronicles of Narnia. C.S Lewis died one week before his 65th birthday…

Usually, I don't like fantasy movies or books. I'm more of a comedy-type of girl; however, this movie was actually not that bad. Even though I know that a lion can't talk, it seemed very real to me when the lion in the movie talked. I think the animation in the movie was amazing! And not to mention the actors, especially the youngest girl was so cute! When I think of all the hard work they had to go through to make this movie, I'm impressed.

Here are the sources I've used:

http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.S._Lewis

http://cslewis.drzeus.net/bio/

Pictures:

http://blogs.babble.com/famecrawler/2010/11/20/chronicles-of-narnia-watch-voyage-of-the-dawn-trader-trailer-video/

http://my.opera.com/sykora/blog/show.dml/222750