Friday, May 22, 2020

When Did Apartheid End and How

Apartheid, from an Afrikaans word meaning â€Å"apart-hood,† refers to a set of laws enacted in South Africa in 1948 intended to ensure the strict racial segregation of South African society and the dominance of the Afrikaans-speaking white minority. In practice, apartheid was enforced in the form of â€Å"petty apartheid,† which required racial segregation of public facilities and social gatherings, and â€Å"grand apartheid,† requiring racial segregation in government, housing, and employment. While some official and traditional segregationist policies and practices had existed in South Africa since the start of the twentieth century, it was the election of the white-ruled Nationalist Party in 1948 that allowed the legal enforcement of pure racism in the form of apartheid. The first apartheid laws were the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949, followed by the Immorality Act of 1950, which worked together to prohibit most South Africans from marrying or having sexual relationships with persons of a different race. The first grand apartheid law, the Population Registration Act of 1950 classified all South Africans into one of four racial groups: black, white, Colored, and Indian. Every citizen over age 18 was required to carry an identity card showing their racial group. If a person’s exact race was unclear, it was assigned by a government board. In many cases, members of the same family were assigned different races when their exact race was unclear. Apartheid was then further implemented through the Group Areas Act of 1950, which required people to live in specifically-assigned geographic areas according to their race. Under the Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act of 1951, the government was empowered to demolish black â€Å"shanty† towns and to force white employers to pay for houses needed for their black workers to live in areas reserved for whites. Between 1960 and 1983, over 3.5 million nonwhite South Africans removed from their homes and forcibly relocated into racially segregated neighborhoods. Especially among the â€Å"Colored† and â€Å"Indian† mixed-race groups many family members were forced to live in widely separated neighborhoods. The Beginnings of Resistance to Apartheid   Early resistance to the apartheid laws resulted in the enactment of further restrictions, including the banning of the influential African National Congress (the ANC), a political party known for spearheading the anti-apartheid movement. After years of often violent protest, the end of apartheid began in the early 1990s, culminating with the formation of a democratic South African government in 1994. The end of apartheid can be credited to the combined efforts of the South African people and governments of the world community, including the United States. Inside South Africa From the inception of the independent white rule in 1910, black South Africans protested against racial segregation with boycotts, riots, and other means of organized resistance. Black African opposition to apartheid intensified after the white minority-ruled Nationalist Party assumed power in 1948 and enacted the apartheid laws. The laws effectively banned all legal and non-violent forms of protest by non-white South Africans. In 1960, the Nationalist Party outlawed both the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), both of which advocated for a national government controlled by the black majority. Many leaders of the ANC and PAC were imprisoned, including ANC leader Nelson Mandela, who had become a symbol of the anti-apartheid movement. With Mandela in prison, other anti-apartheid leaders fled South Africa and mustered followers in neighboring Mozambique and other supportive African countries, including Guinea, Tanzania, and Zambia. Within South Africa, resistance to apartheid and apartheid laws continued. The Treason Trial, Sharpeville Massacre, and Soweto Student Uprising are just three of the best-known events in a worldwide fight against apartheid that grew increasingly fierce in the 1980s as more and more people around the world spoke out and took action against white minority rule and the racial restrictions that left many non-whites in dire poverty. The United States and the End of Apartheid U.S. foreign policy, which had a first helped apartheid flourish, underwent a total transformation and eventually played an important part in its downfall. With the Cold War just heating up and the American people in the mood for isolationism, President Harry Truman’s main foreign policy goal was to limit the expansion of Soviet Union’s influence. While Truman’s domestic policy supported the advancement of the civil rights of black people in the United States, his administration chose not to protest the anti-communist South African white-ruled government’s system of apartheid. Truman’s efforts to maintain an ally against the Soviet Union in southern Africa set the stage for future presidents to lend subtle support to the apartheid regime, rather than risk the spread of communism. Influenced to an extent by the growing U.S. civil rights movement and the social equality laws enacted as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s â€Å"Great Society† platform, U.S. government leaders began to warm up to and ultimately support the anti-apartheid cause. Finally, in 1986, the U.S. Congress, overriding President Ronald Reagan’s veto, enacted the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act imposing the first substantial economic sanctions to be levied against South Africa for its practice of racial apartheid. Among other provisions, the Anti-Apartheid Act: Outlawed the importation of many South African products such as steel, iron, uranium, coal, textiles, and agricultural commodities into the United States;prohibited the South African government from holding U.S. bank accounts;banned South African Airways from landing at U.S. airports;blocked any form of U.S. foreign aid or assistance to the then pro-apartheid South African government; andbanned all new U.S. investments and loans in South Africa. The act also established conditions of cooperation under which the sanctions would be lifted. President Reagan vetoed the bill, calling it â€Å"economic warfare† and arguing that the sanctions would only lead to more civil strife in South Africa and mainly hurt the already impoverished black majority. Reagan offered to impose similar sanctions through more flexible executive orders. Feeling Reagan’s proposed sanctions were too weak, the House of Representatives, including 81 Republicans, voted to override the veto. Several days later, on October 2, 1986, the Senate joined the House in overriding the veto and the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act was enacted into law. In 1988, the General Accounting Office – now the Government Accountability Office – reported that the Reagan administration had failed to fully enforce the sanctions against South Africa. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush declared his full commitment to full enforcement of the Anti-Apartheid Act. The International Community and the End of Apartheid The rest of the world began to object to the brutality of the South African apartheid regime in 1960 after white South African police opened fire on unarmed black protesters in the town of Sharpeville, killing 69 people and wounding 186 others. The United Nations proposed economic sanctions against the white-ruled South African government. Not wanting to lose allies in Africa, several powerful members of the U.N. Security Council, including Great Britain, France, and the United States, succeeded in watering down the sanctions. However, during the 1970s, anti-apartheid and civil rights movements in Europe and the United States several governments to impose their own sanctions on the de Klerk government. The sanctions imposed by the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1986, drove many large multinational companies – along with their money and jobs – out of South Africa. As a result, holding on to apartheid brought the white-controlled South African state significant losses in revenue, security, and international reputation. Supporters of apartheid, both inside South Africa and in many Western countries had touted it as a defense against communism. That defense lost steam when the Cold War ended in 1991. At the end of World War II, South Africa illegally occupied neighboring Namibia and continued to use the country as a base to fight communist party rule in nearby Angola. In 1974-1975, the United States supported South the African Defense Force’s efforts in Angola with aid and military training. President Gerald Ford asked Congress for funds to expand U.S. operations in Angola. But Congress, fearing another Vietnam-like situation, refused. As Cold War tensions eased in the late 1980s, and South Africa withdrew from Namibia, anti-communists in the United States lost their justification for continued support of the Apartheid regime. The Last Days of Apartheid Facing a rising tide of protest within his own country and international condemnation of apartheid, South African Prime Minister P.W. Botha lost the support of the ruling National Party and resigned in 1989. Botha’s successor F. W. de Klerk, amazed observers by lifting the ban on the African National Congress and other black liberation parties, restoring freedom of the press, and releasing political prisoners. On February 11, 1990, Nelson Mandela walked free after 27 years in prison. With growing worldwide support, Mandela continued the struggle to end apartheid but urged peaceful change. When popular activist Martin Thembisile (Chris) Hani was assassinated in 1993, anti-apartheid sentiment grew stronger than ever. On July 2, 1993, Prime Minister de Klerk agreed to hold South Africa’s first all-race, democratic election. After de Klerk’s announcement, the United States lifted all sanctions of the Anti-Apartheid Act and increased foreign aid to South Africa. On May 9, 1994, the newly elected, and now racially mixed, South African parliament elected Nelson Mandela as the first president of the nation’s post-apartheid era. A new South African Government of National Unity was formed, with Mandela as president and F. W. de Klerk and Thabo Mbeki as deputy presidents.

Thursday, May 7, 2020

The American Dream In Jeannette Wallss The Glass Castle

Comedian George Carlin once stated, â€Å"That’s why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.† Financial security, freedom to live how one chooses, retiring at 65 and living comfortably in old age, owning a home, knowing that working hard pays off: these are all fundamental beliefs tied to the American Dream. As newer generations are increasingly finding the dream to be unrealistic, people are beginning to abandon the concept; however it is still a very present ideology. While many believe the American Dream is a lively goal that everyone strives to achieve, it is actually a dying illusion that is unattainable for all but the wealthiest and used to propagate a classist society, causing a cycle of ignorance†¦show more content†¦The purpose of the American dream is not to promise success as a reward for hard work; conversely, it is the idea that individuals should be able to achieve success despite their socioeconomic status. This belief is intended to inspire and create equality. Although the American Dream sounds optimistic in concept, it further propagates inequality in practice. The American Dream is not a function of ability and achievement, but a dying illusion. America is not truly the land of the free, but an ignorant classist society. Gregory Clark, an economics professor at the University of California, Davis, stated that â€Å"America has no higher rate of social mobility than medieval England or pre-industrial Sweden †¦ That’s the most difficult part of talking about social mobility - it s shattering people s dreams† (qtd. in Evans). The United States has an incredibly outdated economic system that does not allow disadvantaged citizens opportunities regardless of how hard they work. People get stuck in their social status and are not able to stray out of it, which affects their further generations. Additionally, immigrants coming to America in hopes of prosperity are likely to have even less luck than immigrants of the pass and widen the gap of social inequality. Clark continues to state, â€Å"The truth is that the American Dream was always an illusion. Blindly pursuing

The American Dream In Jeannette Wallss The Glass Castle

Comedian George Carlin once stated, â€Å"That’s why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.† Financial security, freedom to live how one chooses, retiring at 65 and living comfortably in old age, owning a home, knowing that working hard pays off: these are all fundamental beliefs tied to the American Dream. As newer generations are increasingly finding the dream to be unrealistic, people are beginning to abandon the concept; however it is still a very present ideology. While many believe the American Dream is a lively goal that everyone strives to achieve, it is actually a dying illusion that is unattainable for all but the wealthiest and used to propagate a classist society, causing a cycle of ignorance†¦show more content†¦The purpose of the American dream is not to promise success as a reward for hard work; conversely, it is the idea that individuals should be able to achieve success despite their socioeconomic status. This belief is intended to inspire and create equality. Although the American Dream sounds optimistic in concept, it further propagates inequality in practice. The American Dream is not a function of ability and achievement, but a dying illusion. America is not truly the land of the free, but an ignorant classist society. Gregory Clark, an economics professor at the University of California, Davis, stated that â€Å"America has no higher rate of social mobility than medieval England or pre-industrial Sweden †¦ That’s the most difficult part of talking about social mobility - it s shattering people s dreams† (qtd. in Evans). The United States has an incredibly outdated economic system that does not allow disadvantaged citizens opportunities regardless of how hard they work. People get stuck in their social status and are not able to stray out of it, which affects their further generations. Additionally, immigrants coming to America in hopes of prosperity are likely to have even less luck than immigrants of the pass and widen the gap of social inequality. Clark continues to state, â€Å"The truth is that the American Dream was always an illusion. Blindly pursuing

The American Dream In Jeannette Wallss The Glass Castle

Comedian George Carlin once stated, â€Å"That’s why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.† Financial security, freedom to live how one chooses, retiring at 65 and living comfortably in old age, owning a home, knowing that working hard pays off: these are all fundamental beliefs tied to the American Dream. As newer generations are increasingly finding the dream to be unrealistic, people are beginning to abandon the concept; however it is still a very present ideology. While many believe the American Dream is a lively goal that everyone strives to achieve, it is actually a dying illusion that is unattainable for all but the wealthiest and used to propagate a classist society, causing a cycle of ignorance†¦show more content†¦The purpose of the American dream is not to promise success as a reward for hard work; conversely, it is the idea that individuals should be able to achieve success despite their socioeconomic status. This belief is intended to inspire and create equality. Although the American Dream sounds optimistic in concept, it further propagates inequality in practice. The American Dream is not a function of ability and achievement, but a dying illusion. America is not truly the land of the free, but an ignorant classist society. Gregory Clark, an economics professor at the University of California, Davis, stated that â€Å"America has no higher rate of social mobility than medieval England or pre-industrial Sweden †¦ That’s the most difficult part of talking about social mobility - it s shattering people s dreams† (qtd. in Evans). The United States has an incredibly outdated economic system that does not allow disadvantaged citizens opportunities regardless of how hard they work. People get stuck in their social status and are not able to stray out of it, which affects their further generations. Additionally, immigrants coming to America in hopes of prosperity are likely to have even less luck than immigrants of the pass and widen the gap of social inequality. Clark continues to state, â€Å"The truth is that the American Dream was always an illusion. Blindly pursuing

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

A Systemic Functional Analysis of the Advertisement of the Cadd Free Essays

[pic] A Systemic Functional Analysis of the Advertisement of the CADD A statistic in 2008 shows that around one in six deaths on roads caused by drunk drivers. People may have wrong judgment and slower reaction after they drunk alcohols. A traffic accident is most likely to occur in such situations. We will write a custom essay sample on A Systemic Functional Analysis of the Advertisement of the Cadd or any similar topic only for you Order Now As a consequence, a variety of campaigns have taken numerous actions to persuade people not to drink and drive. They built websites, and published advertisements and videos to promote their ideas. The Campaign Against Drinking Driving is one of them. CADD is trying to free people whose relatives have died or injured in drunk driving from sorrows. This short essay will analyze a public service advertisement against drink and drive published in the website of the CADD. The visual images, verbal texts, and the linkage between them will be discussed in systemic functional approaches. The advertisement is displayed in a horizontal angle which involves viewers’ reflection. Two elements, a collection of smashed glasses and the sentence â€Å" What’s the price of a bottle of wine† are most salient in their color and size. In a blank background, the green glasses and the red sentence are enlarged to attract viewers’ attention. Furthermore, the distance between viewers and the visual image become intimate by close shot. Firstly, some visual metaphors can easily observed from the visual image of this advertisement. The shape of broken bottle is identical to a crashed car. The target domain is a collection of smashed glasses, while the source domain is a crashed car. The separated segment can be seen as the tyre of the crashed car. In addition, some small glasses that arranged to two lines can be regarded as car tracks. The designer used a broken bottle to form a scene of a car accident. The connection between the broken bottle and the crashed car is the wine, namely, the alcohol. It warns implicitly that a car accident will happen if the intake of alcohol is excessive. Apart from the connotation the metaphors contain, some other elements abd styles of representation are consisdered as carrriers of connotation (Machin,2007). Firstly, the participant can be analyzed. As there is no participant in the â€Å"crashed car†, it can be concluded that the result of drunk driving is being a victim in a car accident. Then, the color of these visual images also has connotations. The color of headline and text is red, while the wine bottle is green. Since the background is blank, these two contrastive colors form a sharp contrast to attract viewers’ attention. The red color also means warning, so that viewers will put more attention on the headline and text. Additionally, the linguistic messages cause the advertisement’s purpose more explicit. There are two clauses in the advertisement. The first clause is a special question which asks for the viewers’ responses. The designer wanted viewers to give an answer of â€Å"price†. According to the analysis, the â€Å"price† in the headline â€Å"what’s the price of a bottle of wine† can be analyzed in three levels. The first level is analyzing from its denotation. The â€Å"price† in this level will be the value labeled in the goods shelf. The second and third level meanings are connoted in the background. The â€Å"price† in these two levels are more likely consequences of drunk driving. As this advertisement aimed at persuading people not to drink and drive, the connotation of â€Å"price† can be derived from it. The â€Å"price† paid in the second level is drunk drivers’ health, even the life. In order to understand the third level, the background of the Campaign Against Drinking Driving should be introduced. One of the CADD aims is providing support to the families of victims killed or injured by drunk drivers (CADD). If a person killed or injured because of drinking alcohol over legal limit, his relatives will in grief for a long time. As a consequence, the â€Å"price† in the third level is the sorrows of relatives. A word play the designer made can be noticed after analyzed the three levels the headline contains. The viewers will understand the meaning of headline by digging into the word â€Å"price†. After the advertisement having guided viewers to consider the the consequences of drunk driving, the designer raise his idea timely in the following text. â€Å"Don’t drink and drive† is an imperative sentence which expresses the attitude of persuasion. If visual images linked together with linguistics messages, the advertisement will be understood better. The headline and the broken bottle are complementary in achieving the goal of the advertisement. The verbal texts appears in the top, and the image forms an illustration of it. A question is introduced by the headline, and the broken car extended viewers’ understanding of this question. The viewers are led to the direction of the relationship between the wine and the car. In this way, the visual image extends the understanding of the verbal information. In addition, the second clause also can related with the logo in the advertisement. The logo was comprised of four capital letters: CADD; which is the abbreviation of the Campaign Against Drinking Driving. The idea that transmitted by the campaign is not drinking and driving, which expresses the same meaning with the text. Moreover, there are a wine glass in the first letter D, while a car key in the latter letter D, and red slashes cut the letters. As a result of special form of letters, the topic of the advertisement is pointed out: do not drink and drive. Additionally, the red slashes echo the color used in the text and the headline, which connects the elements in this advertisement closely. In conclusion, this essay analyzed the visual images, linguistic messages and the connection between them in systematic functional approaches. The purpose of this advertisement is persuading people not to drink and drive. The designer guided people to think about the consequences of drunk driving in visual and verbal messages, then the designer’s purpose is achieved by a persuasive way. However, because the publisher of this advertisement is a campaign that mainly helps the drunk drivers’ relatives, more attention will be attracted, if some information about those people added. Word count:1022 Reference Machin, D. (2007) Introduction to Multimodal Analysis, Hodder Education CADD Retrieved from http://cadd. org. uk/aims. htm This advertisement is retrieved from http://gongyi. hexun. com/2011-08-12/132383278. html How to cite A Systemic Functional Analysis of the Advertisement of the Cadd, Papers

Sunday, April 26, 2020

Music History Essays (1130 words) - Musical Texture, Harmony

Music History Music has been a great influence in the lives of many people through lyrics and rhythm. There are many different styles that can be performed by either a male or female. Music has been around for many years and is constantly changing. Music has been divided into six periods: Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, and Twentieth Century. Music is written in symbols that represent musical sounds. The system of written symbols is called Musical Notation. "The primary requirement of any notation is that it be suited to the music it represents (Gerboth)." The simplest texture of music is monophonic or single voiced texture. Gregorian chant is an example of monophonic texture. "All music up to about a thousand years ago, of which we have any knowledge, was monophonic (Machlis 295)." Its melody is heard with out a harmonic accompaniment or other vocal lines and attention is focused on the single line (Machlis 295). "To this day the music of the Oriental world - of China, Japan, India, Java, Bali, and the Arab nations -is largely monophonic (Machlis 295)." Polyphonic or many-voiced texture is when two or more melodic lines are combined. Most Medieval polyphonic music is anonymous, though some composers were so important that their name was preserved along with their music ("Historical"). The polyphonic texture is based on counterpoint: the art and science of combining in a single texture two or more simultaneous melodic lines, each with a rhythmic life of its own (Machlis 295-96). The development of counterpoint took place at a time when composers were mainly occupied with religious choral music, which was by its nature, many-voiced (Machlis 296). Polyphony had to be written in a way that would indicate the rhythm and pitch precisely. It brought the emergence of regular meters that enabled different voices to stay together. Polychoral music is music for several chiors singing in answer to each other across the huge resesses of the church (Frowler 122). Homophonic texture is a single-melody with chords (Machlis 296). Homophonic means "same" or similar sounding. Its texture is based mainly on harmony. This texture dominated the Classical style. The Medieval period was the longest and most distant period of musical history and consists of almost a millennium's worth of music ("Historical"). One of the difficulties in studying Medieval music is that a system for notating music developed only gradually ("Historical"). A musical notation system was started in the 12th or 13th century. Notation in music, for several centuries, only indicated what pitch (or note) to sing. The Renaissance (1400-1600) began in 14th century Italy (Kirshner) and its name means rebirth. A cultural break with Medieval tradition was the Renaissance idea of humanism. "The Renaissance was a time of brilliant accomplishments in literature, science, and the arts (Frowler 445)." During the Renaissance there is an increase in individualism that is reflected by the changing role of the composer ("Historical"). In late Renaissance instrumental music went toward an independence from vocal music (Ulrich). Most of the popular songs were played on the lute. The Renaissance, in the arts, was on of the most innovative and active periods in the history of Western man, based partly on the philosophic movement called humanism (Ulrich). The Baroque period (or Middle Ages) (1600-1750) is divided into three fifty-year periods, early, middle, and late Baroque. Music of the Baroque era was characterized by the vastness of proportion, rich counterpoint, great splender and a highly ornamented melodic line (Mautz). Baroque music is often highly ornate, colorful and richly textured when compared with its predecessors ("Historical"). The term Baroque came from a French word for an imperfect or irregular pearl (Frowler 448-49). "The early baroque was a time of intense experimentation, led in large part by Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi ("Historical")." Many aspects of the Baroque art were determined by religion (Sullavin). "The intensity and immediacy of Baroque art and its individualism and detail - observed in such things as the convincing rendering of cloth and skin textures - make it one of the most compelling periods of Western Art (Sullavin)." Major events of the early 17th century were related to the invention of a new method of composition called monodic style. Monodic style music was for one singer with an instrumental accompaniment. It was achieved by a group of Florentene writers, artists, and musicians known as the Camerata, a name derived from the Italian word for"salon" (Machlis 354). Opera was born around 1600, the beginning of the Baroque era. Opera was considered by many to be the single most important achievement of the Baroque period (Machlis 354).

Thursday, March 19, 2020

Nicaragua and Terrorism essays

Nicaragua and Terrorism essays Nicaragua The following is the definition of terrorism as defined by the FBI: "the unlawful use of force against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population or any segment thereof, in the furtherance of political or social objectives" (FBI, 2003). It is the aim of this essay to determine whether the actions of the United States in Nicaragua in the early 1980s fit this American definition of terrorism, and to compare those actions with the actions of regimes that the United States government has been critical of in recent months to establish if such criticism may be seen to be hypocritical. Nicaragua gained independence from Spain in 1821, along with the rest of Central America. It was a part of Mexico for a brief time, then part of the then Central American Federation. Nicaragua finally achieved complete independence in 1838. Soon after, Britain and the USA both became extremely interested in Nicaragua and the strategically important RÃÆ'Â ­o San Juan navigable passage from Lago de Nicaragua to the Caribbean. In 1848, the British seized the port at the mouth of the RÃÆ'Â ­o San Juan on the Caribbean coast and renamed it Greytown. This became a major transit point for hordes of hopefuls looking for the quickest route to Californian gold. In 1855, the liberals from the city of Leon invited William Walker, an American intent on taking over Latin American territory, to help seize power from the conservatives based in Granada. Aided by a band of mercenaries, Walker and his fellows took Granada easily and he proclaimed himself president, one of his first moves being to institutionalize slavery. He was soon ejected from power and the country, but showed almost absurd tenacity as he repeatedly tried to invade the country. This was the first American intervention in the affairs of Nicaragua, and in many ways set the preced...