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