Fiches D'anglais Pour Le Bac

Myths and Heroes

“The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example” (Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister and Novelist)

Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela: both exceptional

heroes because of them we are alive today

It isn’t easy to be at the eyes of the world as a hero. Life’s events make us so limited in our capacity and in our success. In another hand, human populatio6יייn is not like animals: they are not very different one of each other (despite their different capacities and characters)… therefore, one to make a very heroic action, should gather forces more than another person and has to do something special.

Acts of heroin could be defined as an extraordinaire act that everyone had dreamt to do, or a simple action that anyone had thought but has no way how to do it. In fact, most people when they’re young had thought to be one day a hero. But, the life teaches us, that usually especially people didn’t have in the idea to be one, at the end, this is what they became.

Heroes are usually people who managed to suffer through hungry or risk of death as in a war or in poverty. Some of them even went through prison to become what they were and are now. In fact, nowadays we change our usual view of hero, and it left place for the person who affirms his opinion and thoughts in front of a great public without scariness. More than that, a hero is a person who is not afraid for his life by saying or doing what he is got in his mind.

Martin Luther King

A hero is a person, who through his determination against obstacles that make slow down the most, manages to give over to others his moral force and to strengthen their hope, because they identify themselves to him: he gives them the example.

Martin Luther King worked all his life to defend human rights generally and civics’ rights of the blacks especially against segregation and injustice. Part of the heroic character is to be not violent; this last was in particularly peaceful, he just used the disobedience to fight against injustices. This pacifist, influenced by Gandhi was opposed to the Vietnam War. His end was tragic, loosely killed because he represented a threat for the racist order of his age.

He wanted always equality between races, especially with blacks. Rightly many are the people who were inspired by him, who consider him as a great hero.

Nelson Mandela (1918-2013)

Mandela was born in Transkei, South Africa, on 18 July 1918 and was given the name of Nelson by one of his teacher.

Spaces and exchanges

“A simple way to take measure of a country is to look at how many want in. And how many want out" (Tony Blair, British Prime Minister)

Globalization and transnational firms

After the second war world, we can observe a very big change in the world. Countries together import and export one to each other. We estimate the economical growth as 300 times more in about 30 years that is going from 60 milliards of dollars in 1948, to 1800 milliards of dollars in 1980.

Then the commercial activity grew again from the 80es until today times 7. 80% of them are material acquisitions, 20% of them are services (like tourism, transports, culture), and the other 20% are for raw materials (the oil is the first merchandise exchanged in the world). From the 1980es, the extension of capitalism and liberalism is touching about 2/3 of the world.

A big part of the production of the aliments or the products of the agriculture is eaten inside the country’s borders. The flows are especially built by different ways, like airports, train stations, motorway, or commercial port. About 90% of the exchanges are used by the commercial ports.

On the other side, immaterial exchanges are made by Internet flows, and undersea cables which connect for example the Wall Street new 24/7.

In 2011, the 82000 transnational firms are making a third of the world PIB. Few of them are even stronger than states and their customers can be counted by hundreds of millions people. For the world leader China Mobile we count 700 millions of people.

The international division of labor consists of specializing a country for his own production. This economic movement allows three advantages coming out of it: the world has a easier access to the raw materials, to the money markets and the valorization of the socio-economic inequalities we count among them, Coca Cola, Toyota, Apple….

Nevertheless, nowadays, states are more and more searching to limit the spirit of ultraliberals movement and are trying to develop their own territory to be maximum attractive and to answer to the population needs.

The world becomes so multipolar, because of the reunion of the states, like the European union, the ALENA… this forms the G8, and the G20. They are trying to coordinate their politics. The NGOs are making a public opinion through the Medias and internet. Traffics are also making a big part of the world market, 870 milliards of dollars per year, according to the UN.

The cause of this revolution of globalization is surly linked to the fact that it occurred in the last 60 years a abnormal demographic growth: 2.5 milliards in 1945, to 7 milliards of people today. The urban population is naturally biggest than the rural one, but they need and use much more than the last ones: energies, manufactured products, services… this surly due to the increase of life expectancy. In 1950 life expectancy is 46 and 69 in 2010.

The creation of the GATT in 1947 helped the liberalization of the exchanges inside Europe. Customs duty went down from 40% in 1947 to less than 5% today. In 1995, OMC succeeded to the GATT. In the latest 1970s, especially in the United Kingdom and the United States, a new liberal politic just created named deregulation. It encourages the concurrence in different sectors of the economy, and the privatization.

Commercial ships knew the most of the change in the economic growth. The oiler during Second World War could carry only a mass of 18 000 tones. In 1976, Saint-Nazaire try the first a navy which can carry 550 000 i.e. 30 times more in thirty years. Obviously, this occurs because of

...