Synthèse lieux et formes de pouvoir

I am going to talk about the notion “places and forms of power”

First of all I would like to give a definition of this notion. A place can be a limited space or an institution. In politic or science social, power is the ability to influence people’s behaviour. Power is the ability to control and influence other people or functioning of the world. To illustrate this notion I would like to focus on the form of power in South Africa during the apartheid years.

Apartheid is a word which means separateness. It was also a political system and a social organisation of oppression and racism . Thus we may wonder how South Africa became a “Rainbow Nation” after the so called “apartheid years”?

First of all I am going to introduce what was the political system and the social organisation of apartheid then I will talk about the long walk to freedom of South Africa.

To my mind they are three documents studied in class that perfectly illustrate the notion of places and forms of power. Let me explain the reason why I have choosen these documents.

The first document studied in class in September was a video about apartheid, and it perfectly illustrate this political system and social organisation . It summed up the history of South Africa during the apartheid years. Apartheid starred in 1948 when the nations party voted 148 laws which made white people officially superior to non white people. Apartheid years was a long story of injustice and racism in South Africa and it impacted all aspects of life, particularly of non white people with this 148 apartheid laws.

This video perfectly illustrate the idea of power, it demonstrate the ability of non white people to control whereabouts , movements of black peoples in South Africa who was also exploited.

We just saw that apartheid was a segregationist and racist politics now we will see how South Africa became the so called rainbow nation after this period of time.

The second document I have chosen was also very interesting it demonstrate the long walk to freedom of Mandela for all South Africans. It was an another video about mandela’s life and his role in the struggle for equal rights

. All his life Mandela dreamt for equality for all South Africans against all odds. In fact he was predestined to become a leader, He achieved his dream when apartheid definitely disappeared in 1994 when he became the first black president of South Africa.It’s worth noticing that his long walk for freedom started when he joined the ANC ,a political party for freedom and equality for all South Africans.

Mandela and his friends organised civil disobedience to show that apartheid were unjust. This document proves that it is in part thanks Mandela’s fight for freedom that South Africa became free.Mandela represents some form of power or countervailing power in the sense that a long part of his life he fought against a repressive power and he finally won the fight.

Then the third document I have chosen describe the 1976 Soweto uprising. In class we have studied 2 documents about Soweto uprising but I’ve chose the first document because it was more clear. This article was about the 1976 Soweto uprising, this year thousands of black students took to streets of this township. They protested against the decision of the government

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