Rober Mugbe's road to presidency

Our teacher was at a teacher seminar this week so we had a substitute teacher who was born in Zimbabwe. We talked about the history of Zimbabwe and the current situation there. An important person for the development of Zimbabwe over the last decades is the president of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe.  Because of his importance, I wanted to find out more about him before he became the president of Zimbabwe.  

Robert Mugabe was born February 21, 1924 in Kutama, Zimbabwe, or Southern Rhodesia as it was known back then.  He was born just months after his area had become an English colony, and several new laws caused limitations to education and job opportunities in his village. Although it was unusual in his village, Mugabe was fortunate enough to receive a good education. A powerful influence on Mugabe was one of his teachers at the local Jesuit mission school, who taught him that all people should be treated equally and educated the local Jesuit mission. Mugabe moved on to become teacher himself, and he taught at several mission schools whilst studying on his own.

After teaching and studying for a while, he returned to his hometown with Bachelor degrees in education, art and science, and also his fiancée that he meet whilst studying in Northern Rhodesia. He then experienced that tens of thousands of black families had been displaced by the new colonial government and that the white population had increased massively. The new government was suppressing the black population, and this lead to violent protests. Mugabe was outraged, and in 1960 he attended a protest march where he spoke to the crowd consisting of over 7000 people. Just weeks later, he was elected public secretary of the National Democratic Party. The party became banned in 1961, but the remaining supporters came together and formed the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU). Mugabe and other members of ZAPU were frustrated with the leader, and they formed their own resistance movement Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). Mugabe and the ZANU were willing to go even further than the leader of ZAPU, and they began with guerilla operations. There were violent conflicts between the government and the resistance movement, and several people in the in ZANU and ZAPU was imprisoned, including Mugabe. He was keep prisoned for over 10 years, and while still incarcerated, Mugabe was elected the leader of ZANU. In 1974, Mugabe was allowed to attend a conference in Northern Rhodesia, but he escaped and returned to Southern Rhodesia where he kept fighting against the government. By the end of the decade, the situation in Zimbabwe had reached a low-point, and the British surrendered. They agreed to monitor the changeover to black majority rule, and by 1980, South Rhodesia was liberated from British rule. Mugabe was elected the prime minister of the independent Republic of Zimbabwe after running against the leader of ZAPU. Disagreements between ZANU and ZAPU caused a battle that lasted until 1987 when they agreed to merge their unions, and just a week after the agreement, Mugabe was appointed President.

 

Sources: http://www.biography.com/people/robert-mugabe-9417391?page=3
                http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mugabe
                http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mugabe_1979_a.jpg

My in-depth project

We have been given an assignment in our international English class, where we have to write an in-depth project about a topic that we can chose ourselves.  The only requirement is that the topic has to be from either one of our other classes, or cover one or some of the international English curriculums.

I have chosen to write about endurance training, because I enjoy running a lot. I have always enjoyed running, but I became more interested in how to improve my endurance when my father signed me up to participate in “Oslo Halvmaraton”, which is a 21 kilometres route through the streets of Oslo. I completed the half marathon in 1 hour, 33 minutes and 5 seconds, and I have already signed up for the next half marathon. I really want to improve me time, and the only way to do so is by improving my endurance.

In my in-depth project, I will focus on how and why to do endurance training.   

"The White Tiger"

I have just finished reading “The White Tiger”, which is a novel written by Aravind Adiga, an Indian author and journalist. In 2008, “The White Tiger” won the “Man Booker Prize”, which is literary prize awarded for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Republic of Ireland, or Zimbabwe.I feel this book deserved this award, because I found it very interesting and fun to read. I have chosen two paragraphs from the book which I felt are important for the entirety of the book.  

HOW DOES THE ENTERPRISING DRIVER EARN A LITTLE EXTRA CASH?

1. When his master is not around, he can siphon petrol from the car, with a funnel. Then sell the petrol.

2. When his master orders him to make a repair to the car, he can go to a corrupt mechanic; the mechanic will inflate the price of the repair, and the driver will receive a cut. This is a list of a few entrepreneurial mechanics who help entrepreneurial drivers: Lucky Mechanics, in Lado Serai, near the Qutub R.V. Repairs, in Greater Kailash Part Two Nilofar Mechanics, in DLF Phase One, in Gurgaon.

3. He should study his master's habits, and then ask himself: "Is my master careless? If so, what are the ways in which I can benefit from his carelessness?" For instance, if his master leaves empty English liquor bottles lying around in the car, he can sell the whiskey bottles to the bootleggers. Johnnie Walker Black brings the best resale value.

4. As he gains in experience and confidence and is ready to try something riskier, he can turn his master's car into a freelance taxi. The stretch of the road from Gurgaon to Delhi is excellent for this; lots of Romeos come to see their girlfriends who work in the call centers. Once the entrepreneurial driver is sure that his master is not going to notice the absence of the car—and that none of his master's friends are likely to be on the road at this time—he can spend his free time cruising around, picking up and dropping off paying customers.

I chose this paragraph because in my opinion, this is the turning point for Balram Halwai. This is when he stops being the polite and obedient servant and human, to becoming more independent and selfish. He had stopped sending   money home to the family, but I believe that was not due to selfishness, but to anger towards the remaining family he had. Using the tricks on how an enterprising driver earns a little extra cash, Balram becomes another person.

When I drive down Hosur Main Road, when I turn into Electronics City Phase 1 and see the companies go past, I can't tell you how exciting it is to me. General Electric, Dell, Siemens—they're all here in Bangalore. And so many more are on their way. There is construction everywhere. Piles of mud everywhere. Piles of stones. Piles of bricks. The entire city is masked in smoke, smog, powder, cement dust. It is under a veil. When the veil is lifted, what will Bangalore be like? Maybe it will be a disaster: slums, sewage, shopping malls, traffic jams, policemen. But you never know. It may turn out to be a decent city, where humans can live like humans and animals can live like animals. A new Bangalore for a new India. And then I can say that, in my own way,  I helped to make New Bangalore. Why not? Am I not a part of all that is changing this country? Haven't I succeeded in the struggle that every poor man here should be making—the struggle not to take the lashes your father took, not to end up in a mound of indistinguishable bodies that will rot in the black mud of Mother Ganga? True, there was the matter of murder—which is a wrong thing to do, no question about it. It has darkened my soul. All the skin-whitening creams sold in the markets of India won't clean my hands again. But isn't it likely that everyone who counts in this world, including our prime minister (including you, Mr. Jiabao), has killed someone or other on their way to the top? Kill enough people and they will put up bronze statues to you near Parliament House in Delhi—but that is glory, and not what I am after. All I wanted was the chance to be a man—and for that, one murder was enough.

This paragraph, in my opinion, lets us know how Balram feels about those who are very successful in life. He tells us about his hopes and fears for the future of Bangalore, and also the rest of India I presume. He talks about the difficulty of “not to take the lashes your father took” as he says it, and to become a man in the eyes of other. I feel this paragraph almost sums up Balrams dreams,  to become a man, and for India to evolve into a decent society.  

"The White Tiger", an Indian entrepreneur

A few weeks back, I started reading “The White Tiger”. It is a novel written by Aravind Adiga, an Indian author and journalist. In 2008, “The White Tiger” won the “Man Booker Prize”, which is literary prize awarded for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Republic of Ireland, or Zimbabwe.

I have now read the first three chapters of the novel, and I have to say I enjoyed much more than I thought I would. The books that the teachers choose for us  is in my experience not that fun to read, but this time I actually enjoyed the book. I have read 117 pages, which is approximately 1/3 of the book, and I have finally started to understand the story and who the different characters are. At first it was a bit confusing with all the different names and places, but it is more understandable further into the novel. The main character is Balram Halawi, the white tiger. He was called a white tiger by a school inspector because he was a rare kind in his village Laxmangarh. Laxmangarh is a village in a part of India known as “the Darkness”, where the people are poor, and your destiny is determined by your caste.

Balram Halawi narrates his life in a letter to the Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, who is visiting India shortly. He wants to tell the Prime Minister the true story about India, and to tell the story of how he went from just being the son of a rickshaw-puller to, according to himself, a successful entrepreneur. Through several letters, Balram tells how he got successful through his own efforts. He even revels that he had to kill his beloved master Mr. Ashok on his way to become an entrepreneur.  

In my opinion, the story was a bit slow in the beginning, but it is getting more and more exiting. He has not told why he killed Mr. Ashok, and the reveal of this is what I look forward to the most.

 

Picture: Link here

 

English varieties, Singapore, South Africa and India

 

Singapore (by Erlend J.C.)

English is one of fore official languages in Singapore, and Singapore English is divided into two different sub-forms, Standard Singapore English (SSE) and Singapore Colloquial English. Singapore was a British Colony from 1819-1965, and like in many of the other nations that were British colonies in the past, English has maintained a firm ground. English was the administrative language of the British colonial government, and the Singaporean government chose to keep English as their main language, when they gained self-government in 1959 and independence in 1965. This decision to keep English was made in order to maximize the economical prosperity of Singapore, as well as being a lingua franca for the various different ethnicities and cultures of Singapore.

Standard Singapore English resembles British English in its’ grammar and way of writing, but the pronunciation. Unlike SSE, Singapore Colloquial English (Singlish) includes linguistic features from Malay, Mandarin and Hokkien. Singlish is not commonly used in formal speech or writing, due to it´s reputation of being a low-prestige form of English. Wikipedia states, on based on various sources, that 71% of Singapore´s population in 2010 spoke English as their native or second language. These are quite a few Singaporeans!



This video displays some Singlish charateristics.

 

South Africa (by Jørgen F.)

In South-Africa there was apartheid for 46 years, from 1948 to 1994. The white European descendants controlled South Africa, and used apartheid to suppress the natives/ black people. Because of this, the South-African English today is very affected by the British English. English is only one of the eleven official languages in South-Africa. That also means that The South-African English not only is affected by the British, but also by the ten other languages in the country.

What characterizes the South-African English depends on the form. In South-Africa there are three different forms of English, often referred to as “The Great Trichotomy”, or just three groupings. The three different forms have are much affected by the social varieties. The most formal and "finest" of the three forms is the Cultivated. This type of English is often associated with the upper class. The second type is called General, and is a social indicator of the middle class. The third type of English is called Broad, this form of speaking is mostly associated with the working class. It is also in many ways similar to the other official language Afrikaans. In other words, the more formal the setting, the more British English they talk in South-Africa, and the more informal the occasions are, the more influenced by the other official languages in the English is.



A scene taken from the film Invictus, South African accent.

India (by Sindre G.)

The British first arrived in India in the early 1600s and they established trading posts in a number of cities under the control of The East India Company. Over the next hundred years, the British influence grew to a much greater extent, and English became the administrative language. The British did not force their language on the Indian population, but it was slowly accepted as the language of the government, the national press and the social elite. India became a British colony in 1858, and it stayed so until 1947. The intentions of the Indian government after they gained their independence, was that English gradually would be phased out as the administrative language. The government had problems finding a language to replace English, due to the fact that there are many different languages, so choosing one as the national language became almost impossible. Even Gandhi, who was a proponent of a native variety as a national language, expressed that his message was most widely understood when he used English. Therefore, English stayed as a strong language in India, wieldy used in the media, the government and higher education. Recent studies shows that nearly 4% of the Indian population speak English as their main language. This equals to approximately 35 million speakers. India is the largest English speaking country in the world, apart from America and the UK.

English is mostly taught as a second language. Many Indians are therefore strongly influenced by the linguistic habits of their first language. Because there are large diversities in the Indian language and culture, there are also different accents depending on where in India, and the social background of the speaker. Some Indians speak English with an accent very close to a Standard British accent, while others lean towards a more vernacular accent. The diversity is so large that some words can even have different meanings in different parts of India. The grammar, such as the accents, is influenced by the native language of the speaker. Indians tend to often use idioms literal translated from their own native language, although this is less common amongst the proficient speakers, who also tend to use grammar closer to standard British. Down below is a video showing many of the different accents.

A sampling of different Indian English Accents.

Comparison

All of the countries above were British colonies, and bear linguistic traits from the colonial times. Local languages and others have influenced the further development of the English, differentiating the varieties today. They serve to some degree as a lingua franca in the Singapore, South Africa and India, but aren´t necessarily the mother tong of the majority of the population. By looking at some characteristics for these English varieties they can be recognized.




This post was written as collaboration post with two of my fellow students. Links to their blogs:

Jørgen
Erlend

Lynching in America 1882-1968

 Watching the movie “The Great Debaters” really opened my eyes for the horrifying history of lynching. The term lynching apparently originates from a man named Charles Lynch, who headed an irregular court in Virginia that used unorthodox methods to punish loyalist supporters of the British during the American Revolutionary War.  Lynching is defined as murder by mob.

During the time period 1882, the first year with reliable sources, to 1968, the year when the classic form of lynching had disappeared, a total of 4,743 lynches took place in the United States. Even though this is a terrible high number, but it is know that not all of the lynches were recorded. The majority of the people who were lynched were black, but there were also many white victims. 3,446 of the killed were black men and women, and 1297 were white. Many of the white victims were lynched for helping the black or being against lynching.

Most of the lynching took place in the south, and the state with the highest lynching was Mississippi, with 539 black victims and 42 white. Mississippi was followed by Georgia with 492 black victims and 39 white, Texas with 352 and 141, Louisiana with 335 and 56, and Alabama with 299 and 48. Even though lynching took place in most states in the US, there are also some states without any records of lynching from 1882 to 1968. These few states are Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Alaska, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. There are also some states did not lynch any black to record, Arizona, South Dakota, Idaho, Maine, Wisconsin, Vermont, and Nevada.
From 1882 to 1901, the annual number of lynches nationally usually exceeded 100. The record holder is 1892, with 230 recorded deaths, 161 black and 69 white. The amount of lynches declined somewhat in the twentieth century, there were still 97 in 1908, 89 black and 8 white, 83 in the 1919 76 black and 7 white, 30 in 1926 23 and 7, and 28 in 1933 24and 4. The numbers continued to decline until the classic form of lynching had disappeared in 1968.

This is a gruesome and horrifying part of the American history, and it is terrifying to think that this was something that happened just 50 years ago.

 

 

Pictures: http://www.slideshare.net/mcgoverne/lynching-statistics-choropleth-maps-presentation

http://americanhistory.unomaha.edu/module_display.php?mod_id=118&review=yes  

 Sources: http://www.chesnuttarchive.org/classroom/lynchingstat.html                  http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/lynching/lynching.htm  

The Edublog Awards Nomination 2013

I nominate Jørgen Frydenberg and his blog theamazingbookblogg.blogspot.no as the student blog of the year. He has a sharp mind, and with his technological intellect, he does good and thorough research before posting an interesting and informative blog post.

I nominate Ann Sørum Michaelsen and her blog annmic.wordpress.com as the teacher blog of the year. With over 177.000 hits on her blog, her words reach out to many people all over the world. This blog is an amazing tool for all teachers, and a lot of teachers can learn a lot. There are many good and fascinating tasks to be found on this blog, and doing them will give a good understanding about the world as it is today.