Apartheid

The last century was a bad time for South Africa, they had this institutionalized discrimination, but if we can see something amazing at this is how different was the world in that time, if you have time please watch this documentary and you will know what I am saying.

You will see how was the world, and it's a pretty good point to start to see, know and get informed about what happened not so many time ago.

People was being segregated in cities to keep them away from others, they couldn't get married or event had sexual relationships between these "races". Even white women couldn't vote and it wasn't too much time ago, wasn't even 100 years ago. There're people alive who still can remember this sad stories.

So please look for newspapers, documentaries and history and you will get amazed like me.

"Pocahontas"

After starting to read the book ‘The true diary of a part-time Indian’ I got interested in the history of the Native Americans and I tried to find more information about them when I found an interesting character: Pocahontas.

Who was Pocahontas? Maybe the most of us (normal people without historic knowledge) know Pocahontas thanks to Disney, but, who was her? Was a real person? Or she’s just a fictional character? Well, she did exist and her real name was Matoaka. She was a Native American that saved Captain John Smith and helped the community of Jamestown that were dying by starving.  But also she was really important for the Virginia Company. She was practically the ‘model’ of English-Indian relationship. Her image was used to persuade the natives to adopt the English ways. 

Portrait by Simon de Passe, 1616.

She was treated as a princess, and met many important people of the era.  Maybe that’s why Disney represents her as one of the princesses. 

Disney representation of Pocahontas.

Although Pocahontas helped a lot if the relationship between English and Native people, in 1617, when she died, the ‘peace’ stopped and the good treatment between both races ended. 

Everyond has the same rights

When I start to think about the civil rights movement, I immediately think about the “Martin Luther King of LGBT movement”, the great politician Harvey Milk. 

It’s really interesting how two different persons have so many coincidences (even when they are from different times, and probably, they have different values and points of view about some religious issues). Their first coincidence is the fact that they both fight for their believes. 

MLK fought for African-American rights, fought against the racial discrimination, and Harvey Milk fought for LGBT rights, against the discrimination that suffered thousands of homosexuals and transgender people. They both thought that every human has the same right to live how they wanted to live. I don’t know if Martin Luther King was able to defend LGBT rights because of his religious believes but it’s was very probably that he did it. They fought with non-violence activities like marches.

Other coincidence, and the most important, was that they both were killed by “ideological enemies” defending their dreams. Martin Luther King died in a hotel when he was fighting for workers’ rights and Harvey Milk where killed by the supervisor Dan White who was a defender of the discrimination against homosexuals because he thought that homosexuality was a danger for families.

An African-American defender and a homosexual leader, both killed and part of history.

Education and youth together or how to start a revolution

2006 "While they don't allow us to dream,
we don't allow them to sleep"

2011 "Neither terrotists nor criminals
socially aware students!"

In 2006, the world saw here in Chile the beginning of the "Revolución Pingüina" (LINK: Penguins' Revolution) that demanded the end of the "Ley Orgánica Constitucional de Enseñanza" (Organic Constitutional Act of Teaching) or "LOCE", which was enacted during the Pinochet's Dictatorship, introducing a unique national student transport pass, among other things. After that in 2011 this movement awoke again but this time stronger than 2006. It was called the "Invierno Estudiantil Chileno" (LINK: Chilean Students Winter) which was represented by different strikes and occupations in both high schools and universities that lasted even 4 months and took place along almost the whole country. That time, they demanded, among many things, to increase the quality of education and the funding, so public universities may be for free.

Even though this is one of the most important student movements in Latin America, there was another important movement started by students which acted as a catalyst. In fact, this movement was so important that motivated to a group of people to arise and fight with all their efforts against a system that oppressed them, by that time, for almost 30 years regardless the time before the establishment of the “Apartheid”. I’m talking about the “Soweto Uprising” (LINK) on the 16 of June 1976.

This history started, as we know, in 1948 when the National Party came to the power and started dozens of reforms in order to segregate white people from the other races so they could keep the political and economic power just among them. This institutionalization of the segregation of non-white people is known as the “Apartheid”. During many years, many black leaders tried to reach the equality for all through different means from pacific protests to urban violence and the system of guerrilla warfare. The consequences were thousands of casualties, most of them from the black people, and many others in jail, like the well-known leader Nelson Mandela .

In 1974 the white government forced through the “Afrikaans Medium Decree” to use the Afrikaans and English as instruction languages in the classroom and native languages just for few subjects. Black people considered English as an attractive language because its use in business and commerce while the Afrikaans represented the “oppressor’s language”. The conditions got worse when black boys knew that their white peers were allowed to choose the language that they wanted to be taught. Teachers and students from different schools united as one single group and decided to protest. Many secret meetings had been organized by the leaders of the movement before they decided to make a big march on the 16 of July 1976.

Hector Pieterson being carried by
Mbuyisa Makhubo after policemen
opened fire against the demostrators.

A little group made up by students and teachers started a peaceful protest. Many others, who just realized about the protest that very day, joined on the way to Orlando Stadium just to find out that the police had barricaded the route. In order to avoid an eventually violent confrontation, they decided to take another route but...it was useless: the police started to shoot and they loosed their dogs on the children. Students repealed them by stoning the animals to death and the police answered shooting against demonstrators which finished with, according to the government at that time, in 27 casualties but other organizations said between 176 to 700 people were killed including the little 13-year old-boy Hector Pieterson who became a symbol of the resistance after he was photographed being carried by another boy and doctor Melville Edelstein, a white doctor who had been dedicated his life to help black people but some of them stoned him to death and hanged a sign saying "Beware".

The fountain at the musseum

From that day on everything changed: the struggle against the Apartheid government was organized in a better way and it was criticized not only by the international community but many South African white people who marched in protest of the killing of children. Finally, 18 years later the Apartheid finished: it was a long way to get that but everything started there, in the township called Soweto where people still remember that event. In fact, every 16 June is celebrated as the "Youth Day" (LINK) in honor of the massacre happened in that township and there is a large museum called Hector Pietersen which has a memorial engreved with the following words: "In memory of Hector Pietersen and all other young heroes and heroines of our struggle who laid down their lives for freedom, peace and democracy"

Do you want to know a curiosity? Do you remember Zakumi, the official mascot for the 2010 FIFA World Cup? Well, its birth date is 16 June, the South Africa Youth Day.

Before leaving, I want to ask you about Chile, do you think we need a "revolution" like the one started in South Africa? If you say yes, what do you think we need, as Chilean students, to change the Chilean's mind so we could be just "one will" as South Africans were during the Apartheid?

A man with a dream

“I say to you today, my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a deep dream, rooted in the American Dream.”

Martin Luther King was an extraordinary man. He believed in freedom for his people and equality for every man and woman in this world, and he fought for it.

The 20th century was a hard era for black people, they were segregated and their rights weren’t respected. Everything was unfair, so unfair.

But this man wanted a change. He wanted to live in a country without racism, without discrimination, without having to give their sit to a white person in a bus, without kids going to different schools, depending of their skin color, without being looked down on just because your genes. We are humans! No matter if you’re White or black, we are all child of God.

He organized pacific ways to protest, and even when there were people who thought that violence was necessary to make a change,  in times where killing and fighting were daily bread, he kept strong in his words and kept on fighting for his people in a peaceful way. He gained many followers and respect of  peo

He gave a beautiful speech called “I have a dream” in where he tried to give hope to continue this belief of freedom.

If we think about the results of the Civil Rights Movement, we can see that we all were benefited because of this fight, not only because it was a movement against racism, but it was also  a movement about tolerance and equality, because we all are different but society is more open minded and those barriers between us don’t matter that much as they did about seventy years ago. 

It was a good change and we all have to say thanks to this man with a wonderful dream,  full of faith and hope, and he never gave up, he fought until his last day of life and eventhough he’s not with us anymore, he’s one of the most important and biggest overcoming models of all the time.

Here we have a song dedicated to Martin Luther King. "Happy Birthday" by Stevie Wonder, was written as part of the campaign to have the birthday of Martin Luther King become a national holiday. Stevie Wonder's words are about why a man who fought so hard for a good reason doesn't have a day that would be set aside for his recognition (established as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986)

“Free at last, free at last.

Thank God Almighty,

I’m free at last.”  

Nelson Mandela: Father of a nation.

“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” 

                                                                                                              - Nelson Mandela.

Nelson Mandela was born in Mvezo, Umtata, a little town along the Mbashe river in South Africa. Also known as "Madiba" -an honorific nickname taken from the tribe which he belongs-, he is considerated the father of his natal country because his fight against the system instaured by the National Party of South Africa: Apartheid.

In Afrikaans, Apartheid means "separateness", and it was a system of racial segregation which separates black South-Africans (who had restricted rights) from whites (who ruled the power). This laws determinates where and how black population can live, the places they can go, where thay can study and work, the hospitals they can use, etc. 



Mandela joined the African National Congress, a movement which struggled against the racial segregation and discrimination of black people in South Africa. Years later, he became one of the leaders of  Youth League, a branch of ANC which support the idea of a non-violent struggle. 

Mandela promoted a campaign of civil disobedience against racist laws, which generated the arrest of many black people, including himself, who was accused of high treason and condemned to life imprisonment. 

Despite the efforts of the people to claim Mandela's liberation, the government of  South Africa doesn't give in, until 1990 when the (in that time) President of the Nation, Frederik de Klerk, command his liberation after 27 years of confinement in horrible conditions. 

In 1993, Nelson Mandela received the Nobel Peace Prize because his struggle against the racial segregation in South Africa, and he shared this award with de Klerk. 

In 1994, Mandela becomes the first black President of South Africa, elected in a election in which everyone can vote regardless of their skin colour or social status.

Nowadays, Nelson Mandela is recognised around the world as the icon of anti-apartheid, and for South Africans he represents the freedom of their people. Also, his birthday is considerated a national (or worldwide, maybe) celebration. 

Indian cuisine and its influence

The Indian food, like their culture and traditions, are the result of the mixture of various culture from the various countries that have invaded the country through the centuries. known internationally as one of the most exuberant kitchens due to the use of species and vegetables, which give distinctive touch.
Differs Cuisine across India's diverse regions as a result of variation in the local culture, geographical location (proximity to sea, desert, or mountains) and economics.
Indian cuisine could resultarnos somewhat strange if we just mention the ingredients of the dishes, but we can not make a final judgment until we've tried a bite of these "delicious rarities".

India is a huge country and has different habits in every corner of the world. .

English cuisine has a strong influence on this area as a fusion originating from the British Raj. This is the reason why there are some Indian restaurants in London in elegant and traditional areas of the city.
Indian migration has spread of the culinary traditions of the subcontinent throughout the world. These cuisines Have Been adapted to the local tastes, and Have Also Affected Local cuisines. Curry's international appeal has been Compared to That of pizza.

China
Indian food is gaining Popularity in China, where there are many Indian restaurants in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. Hong Kong alone has more than 50 Indian restaurants, some Of which date back to the 1980s. Most of the Indian restaurants in Hong Kong are in Tsim Sha Tsui.

United Kingdom
Chicken tikka masala, a modified version of Indian chicken tikka, has been called "Britain's true national dish."

Anglo-Indian restaurants adapt traditional Indian food for British tastes, que Commonly are less accustomed to strong spices. The most famous example of this is Chicken tikka masala, que Also has been called "a true British national dish.".

United States

A survey by the The Washington Post in 2007 Stated That more than 1,200 Indian food products had been Introduced into the United States since 2000. There are Numerous Indian restaurants across the U.S., que vary based on regional culture and climate. North Indian and South Indian cuisines are Represented Especially well. Most Indian restaurants in the United States serve Americanizedversions of North Indian food, que is Generally less spicy than its South Indian equivalents.

In my opinion the Indian food has been one of the best "techniques" that would spread their culture, even though not 100% native to their land, that's what make delicious, unique and special.

So are incorporated different culinary practices brought from various corners of the world over time are mixed up to be the set of known trends and continue to hear