Abstract
I'm going to talk about the notion of places and forms of power. ‘Places' could be important buildings that represent a form of power, like the White House for example, the symbol of the American presidency, but it can also be a country which represents a form of power like South Africa with the Apartheid, an oppressive regime. In politics and social science, power is a sort of strength, something that makes someone superior to the others. It's the ability to influence the behaviour of people and it can be exercised by individuals, an institution of the government. Thus members of a community create rules, regulations and laws in order to survive, live together and create a kind of cohesion, but it can also lead to tensions and conflicts. Even when authority is absolute, there are counter powers which question it and aim at resisting it. To illustrate this notion, I chose to talk about the Apartheid in South Africa and I chose 3 documents, the first one is a picture of three students during Soweto's Uprising taken by Sam Nzima, the second one is a poem about the Sharpeville Massacre by Dennis Brutus, and the last one is a document about Nelson Mandela's life by Bill Keller. Therefore we can ask ourselves: How did Africa go from an oppressive regime to a real democracy?
