加载中…Alan Paton (1903-1988). South
Africa.
Alan Paton was born in Pietermaritzburg in Natal in 1903. His
father was James Paton, a Scot who had emigrated to South Africa in
1895. His mother was Eunice Warder James Paton, the daughter of
English immigrants. His father was a deeply religious Christian and
a strict authoritarian. His disciplinary practices led Alan Paton
to despise and openly oppose all forms of authoritarianism. His
father's influence was not exclusively negative; he also taught
Alan to love books and nature, two passions which figure
prominently in his work.
His most famous and most acclaimed work is Cry, the Beloved Country
(1948). By the time Paton had died in 1988, it had sold over 15
million copies. It has been made into two films, in 1951 and again
in 1995. It is the story of a black Anglican priest from Ixpopo,
Stephen Kumalo, who goes to Johannesburg to search for his son and
sister. When he arrives, he discovers that his sister has become a
prostitute, and that his son has murdered the son of a white Ixpopo
farmer. Stephen Kumalo returns to Ixopo with his daughter-in-law,
who is pregnant, and his sister's son, whom she leaves with Stephen
and his daughter-in-law. Gertrude, his sister, never returns to the
village. He eventually reconciles with the murdered man's father,
who decides to actively help the black community.
After writing Cry, the Beloved Country, Paton resigned from his job
as the director of the Diepkloof reformatory, and dedicated himself
to writing. He wrote another novel, Too Late the Phalarope (1953),
in 1951. It received less critical acclaim than the first novel, in
part because it is more polished and less moving than the earlier
work. In 1953, Paton formed the South African Liberal Party, which
was disbanded in 1968, when interracial parties were deemed illegal
in South Africa. He continued to write until his death, although
none of his work was judged as good as his 1948 novel. (KJ)
Cry, the Beloved Country: A Story of Comfort in Desolation. New
York: Scribners, 1948.
Too Late the Phalarope. New York: Scribners, 1953.
Towards the Mountain. New York: Scribners, 1980.
Alexander, Peter F. Alan Paton: A Biography. Oxford, UK: Oxford
University Press, 1994.
Apartheid:social and political policy of racial segregation and
discrimination enforced by white minority governments in South
Africa from 1948( the enactment of apartheid laws )to 1994(Nelson
Mandela was elected president). 种族隔离
Apartheid is an English word that came into South African English
from Afrikaans(南非的公用荷兰语), the language of the Dutch
settlers of South Africa. They in turn had made up the word from
the Dutch word apart, meaning separate, and the suffix -heid, which
corresponds to our suffix -hood. Thus apartheid literally means
separateness. The Dutch had earlier borrowed the word "apart", as
did we, from the French phrase "a part", meaning "to one
side".
Although South Africa has not furnished a great number of words
that have achieved general currency in British and American
English, one in particular, apartheid, has gained wide circulation.
The first recorded use of "apartheid" as an English term, in the
Cape Times on October 24, 1947, is an ironic commentary on much of
the word's use since then: "Mr. Hofmeyr said apartheid could not be
reconciled with a policy of progress and prosperity for South
Africa." According to the March 15, 1961, issue of the London
Times, the word "self-development" was supposed to replace
"apartheid" as the official term used by the South African
Broadcasting Corporation for the Government's race policies.
Afrikaan
Afrikaner
Afro-American/African American
Afro-Asian
Afro-Saxon 黑皮白心人
The History of Apartheid in South Africa
South Africa (see map) is a country blessed with an abundance of
natural resources including fertile farmlands and unique mineral
resources. South African mines are world leaders in the production
of diamonds and gold as well as strategic metals such as platinum.
The climate is mild, reportedly resembling the San Francisco bay
area weather more than anywhere in the world.
South Africa was colonized by the English and Dutch in the
seventeenth century. English domination of the Dutch descendents
(known as Boers or Afrikaners) resulted in the Dutch establishing
the new colonies of Orange Free State and Transvaal. The discovery
of diamonds in these lands around 1900 resulted in an English
invasion which sparked the Boer War. Following independence from
England, an uneasy power-sharing between the two groups held sway
until the 1940's, when the Afrikaner National Party was able to
gain a strong majority. Strategists in the National Party invented
apartheid as a means to cement their control over the economic and
social system. Initially, aim of the apartheid was to maintain
white domination while extending racial separation. Starting in the
60's, a plan of ``Grand Apartheid'' was executed, emphasizing
territorial separation and police repression.
With the enactment of apartheid laws in 1948, racial discrimination
was institutionalized. Race laws touched every aspect of social
life, including a prohibition of marriage between non-whites and
whites, and the sanctioning of ``white-only'' jobs. In 1950, the
Population Registration Act required that all South Africans be
racially classified into one of three categories: white, black
(African), or colored (of mixed decent). The coloured category
included major subgroups of Indians and Asians. Classification into
these categories was based on appearance, social acceptance, and
descent. For example, a white person was defined as ``in appearance
obviously a white person or generally accepted as a white person.''
A person could not be considered white if one of his or her parents
were non-white. The determination that a person was ``obviously
white'' would take into account ``his habits, education, and speech
and deportment and demeanor.'' A black person would be of or
accepted as a member of an African tribe or race, and a colored
person is one that is not black or white. The Department of Home
Affairs (a government bureau) was responsible for the
classification of the citizenry. Non-compliance with the race laws
were dealt with harshly. All blacks were required to carry ``pass
books'' containing fingerprints, photo and information on access to
non-black areas.
In 1951, the Bantu Authorities Act established a basis for ethnic
government in African reserves, known as ``homelands.'' These
homelands were independent states to which each African was
assigned by the government according to the record of origin (which
was frequently inaccurate). All political rights, including voting,
held by an African were restricted to the designated homeland. The
idea was that they would be citizens of the homeland, losing their
citizenship in South Africa and any right of involvement with the
South African Parliament which held complete hegemony over the
homelands. From 1976 to 1981, four of these homelands were created,
denationalizing nine million South Africans. The homeland
administrations refused the nominal independence, maintaining
pressure for political rights within the country as a whole.
Nevertheless, Africans living in the homelands needed passports to
enter South Africa: aliens in their own country.
In 1953, the Public Safety Act and the Criminal Law Amendment Act
were passed, which empowered the government to declare stringent
states of emergency and increased penalties for protesting against
or supporting the repeal of a law. The penalties included fines,
imprisonment and whippings. In 1960, a large group of blacks in
Sharpeville refused to carry their passes; the government declared
a state of emergency. The emergency lasted for 156 days, leaving 69
people dead and 187 people wounded. Wielding the Public Safety Act
and the Criminal Law Amendment Act, the white regime had no
intention of changing the unjust laws of apartheid.
The penalties imposed on political protest, even non-violent
protest, were severe. During the states of emergency which
continued intermittently until 1989, anyone could be detained
without a hearing by a low-level police official for up to six
months. Thousands of individuals died in custody, frequently after
gruesome acts of torture. Those who were tried were sentenced to
death, banished, or imprisoned for life, like Nelson Mandela.
The term apartheid (from the Afrikaans word for "apartness") was
coined in the 1930s and used as a political slogan of the National
Party in the early 1940s, but the policy itself extends back to the
beginning of white settlement in South Africa in 1652. After the
primarily Afrikaner Nationalists came to power in 1948, the social
custom of apartheid was systematized under law.
The implementation of the policy, later referred to as "separate
development," was made possible by the Population Registration Act
of 1950, which put all South Africans into three racial categories:
Bantu (black African), white, or Coloured (of mixed race). A fourth
category, Asian (Indians and Pakistanis), was added later. The
system of apartheid was enforced by a series of laws passed in the
1950s: the Group Areas Act of 1950 assigned races to different
residential and business sections in urban areas, and the Land Acts
of 1954 and 1955 restricted nonwhite residence to specific areas.
These laws further restricted the already limited right of black
Africans to own land, entrenching the white minority's control of
over 80 percent of South African land. In addition, other laws
prohibited most social contacts between the races; enforced the
segregation of public facilities and the separation of educational
standards; created race-specific job categories; restricted the
powers of nonwhite unions; and curbed nonwhite participation in
government.
The Bantu Authorities Act of 1951 and the Promotion of Bantu
Self-Government Act of 1959 furthered these divisions between the
races by creating ten African "homelands" administered by what were
supposed to be reestablished "tribal" organizations. The Bantu
Homelands Citizenship Act of 1970 made every black South African a
citizen of one of the homelands, effectively excluding blacks from
South African politics. Most of the homelands, lacking natural
resources, were not economically viable and, being both small and
fragmented, lacked the autonomy of independent states.
Though the implementation and enforcement of apartheid was
accompanied by tremendous suppression of opposition, continual
resistance to apartheid existed within South Africa. A number of
black political groups, often supported by sympathetic whites,
opposed apartheid using a variety of tactics, including violence,
strikes, demonstrations, and sabotage - strategies that often met
with severe reprisals by the government. Apartheid was also
denounced by the international community: in 1961 South Africa was
forced to withdraw from the British Commonwealth by member states
who were critical of the apartheid system, and in 1985 the
governments of the United States and Great Britain imposed
selective economic sanctions on South Africa in protest of its
racial policy.
As antiapartheid pressure mounted within and outside South Africa,
the South African government, led by President F. W. de Klerk,
began to dismantle the apartheid system in the early 1990s. The
year 1990 brought a National Party government dedicated to reform
and also saw the legalization of formerly banned black congresses
and the release of imprisoned black leaders. In 1994 the country's
constitution was rewritten and free general elections were held for
the first time in its history, and with Nelson Mandela's election
as South Africa's first black president, the last vestiges of the
apartheid system were finally outlawed.
alcohol: Intoxicating liquor containing alcohol.
酒,酒精饮料,含有酒精的能醉人的饮料
liquor: An alcoholic beverage made by distillation rather than by
fermentation.
蒸馏酒,通过蒸馏而不是发酵制成的酒精饮料;酒,酒类,烧酒
spirits: An alcoholic beverage, especially distilled liquor.
含酒精饮料,尤指非发酵的烈酒
Vintage: Wine, usually of high quality, identified as to year and
vineyard or district of origin.
美酒,同一年和同一葡萄园生产的或源于同一地方的高品质酒
water of life
生命之水, 灵魂的振奋剂; 酒
wet goods:湿货(指酒类)
顶