Positives and Negatives

Net effects of imperialism in Africa were:
Positives:
They made railroads and improved their transportation system.
Brought in communication system
Brought power
Sea ports
New technologies
discovered more natural resources
New governments


Negatives
Destroyed African cultures
Killed many people
Slavery
Tribes got killed
racism
Europeans took away almost of their raw materials

Southern Africa Today

Nowadays South Africa is the strongest economy in that region and they have stable government. The challenges of South Africa is ending of apartheid problems, separating different races. Related to the a[artheid problems, many foreign countries refused to invest money in South Africa, and other sport organizations didn't include South Africans in the competition. South Africa has more resources and industry than other countries in the region, and that helped bringing opportunities of strong economy.
Small inclave countries like Lesotho and Swaziland has fewer resources and land, resulting as a poor country. Namibia has just gained its independence in 1990 from South Africa, but most of its land is desert, making them not suitable for mass products from agriculture, so they are a poor country. Botswana is on of Africa's most success countries of the world's highest economic growth since 1960s. zumbabwe is a poor country due to high inflation. they do have resources, but it doesn't affect country's wealth that much. Mozambique is one of the world's poorest counties because of civil wars happening often. Madagascar is working to improve country's struggling economy, and their incomes are mostly exports of coffee and other natural resources. Madagascar is also popular with tourists visiting to see unique plants and animals. So as a result, South Africa and Botswana are two most successful countries in the region, and the factors of wealth are they have big lands, and plenty resources. And other countries are very poor mostly due to civil wars.

Current Event 3 - Southern Africa

Link -
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/11/20/zimbabwe.health.crisis/index.html

this news article is about callapsing of health service in Zimbabwe. it is improtant for the region because Zimbabwe is one of the countries in Southern Africa and most of African counties already have some porblems related to health sicknesses. And there are already lots of people protesting against it. When health care system falls, then the death of people will be more serious. and the country will become poorer than now.

Imperialism Cartoon

The main visuals in this cartoon are map of africa in black, and a foot step, and on that foot print, there is a desert like, dry land surface. i think this cartoon is about European countries taking control over africa, and where they have been, the land is dried. and in real life, i think after Europeans have been to Africa, they have made it worse. and i don't think that the authors thoughts are positive, because there were things that the Europeans brought to africa to help, but in the drawing, it is kind of a negative sign. because the foot print is i think the Europeans' and it dried off the land. and i think it is persuasive because it is simple, and doesn't have anything else which possibly could distract the main point the author is trying to say.





image from:http://img.photobucket.com

History and Culture - Southern Africa

Before European countries came to take over Africa, there were many other African tribes. The most well known tribe in southern Africa during 1400s would be the Shona. The Shona is best known for Great Zimbabwe, their stone-walled towns. They were founded in the late 1000s and it was a trading center. Later, their gold mines developed and became a large trade center and traded widely over the world. The evidence is there were chinese pircelain and other artifacts from Asia. but they only lasted till 1500s due to the decline of gold trade. Then the europeans came to Southern africa The Dutch, on the way to Asia, they had to go around the tip of South Africa, so they settled down and set up a trade station near the Cape of Good Hope. Afrikaners, who were Dutch, French, and German, settled in south Africa until the Great Britain took over the area of the cape. there was another tribe in near South Africa called the Zulu. They were strong, powerful tribe who conquered surrounding African people, and creating their empire. But the British, after series of battles defeated the Zulu. and in the early 1900s the government of South Africa, which was dominated by the Afrikaners were increasingly racist against the blacks. to defend their rights, the africans formed a ANC ( African national congress) and there was a policy which divided different races into : whites, blacks Coloureds, and Asian. So overall, the history of Southern part of africa is mainly different tribes and european countries taking over each other and during the early 1900s, there were problems related to racism.

Scramble For Africa

1. first we looked for countries with plenty resources that our country needed. and also some places which might take advantages against other countries.
2. the main reason i think was the resources, because European countries wanted resources and raw materials, and also the advantage against other countries, like Suez Canal, and Cape Town, they could control other countries' shippings.
3. Great Britain, we had the biggest land area. (us! me and jonathan!)
4. Probably Spain.

Africa Current Event 2

Link to the news event -
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/11/03/zimbabwe.money/index.html


This current event is related to our region in Southern Africa, because Zumbabwe is one of the countries in southern part of Africa. They just made a new currency note of Z$1 million note, due to the affect of hyperinflation. Zimbabwe has the highest rate of inflation which is 230 million percent. and it is hard for people to buy things, because everyday the value of Zimbabwe dollars go down, so the prize of the products go up everyday. It is going to affect Zimbabwe economically.

Physical Geography

Physical Geography of Southern Africa is mainly a large plateau, deserts, shrubs, rivers and a mountain range in the eastern part called Drakensberg. there are quiet a few of rivers in southern Africa. One of them is Okavango river which flows from Angola to a basin in Botswana and never touches the ocean. The rivers in southern Africa are home of many wild animals like crocodiles, zebras, and hippos. also there are tropical forests too in southern Africa. For exmaple in a large island called Madagascar, mostly made up of forests contain about 50 spcies of lemurs, apes etc. and also southern Africa has lots of minerals and other natural resources. South Africa supplies most of the world's gold. and also other countries like Botswana, Namibia and South Africa is productive diamond mines. The climaste varies from west region and the east region, the east is wet due to evaporation brought from the indian ocean and since the mountain ranges are so high, the west regoin of southern africa is dry, resulting having deserts. So overall Southern Africa has valuable minerals, home of wild animals, plateaus, deserts, and rivers. And it is a good place to visit and see the real nature and animals.

To Be a Slave - Can we trust?

Yes i think it is OK to trust the book To Be a Slave, because the author's ancestors were slaves, and he might know well what it is to be a slave and how they became slaves. Also, the book is very realistic and it is possible that similar things happened in the book. He also wrote this book using other reliable sources related to the slaves. And also by looking at his academic background, he is a professor in a famous university in U.S, teaching african studies.

Current Event - Southern Africa

News link-
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/10/13/sa.hiv.ap/index.html

Barbara Hogan , new health minister of South Africa broke from a decade of discredited government policies on AIDS. On monday, two weeks after she became health minister, she pronounced that HIV and AIDS are related, and so will scale up mother-to-child prevention programs. and she also said in last 10 years government policies had failed, and needs to improve on anti-AIDS medicines. Because south Africa has the highest rate of HIV and AIDS.

This news story is worthy because it is about to change what has happened last 10 years. and it is going to affect alot of people, and it maybe affect countries in that region, since alot of other african countries have similar problems with AIDS and HIVs.

5 Themes of Geography

Movement is when they made Sphinx, they moved materials like bricks from some where else. and there are tourists coming from different places. Region can be defined with cultural, because it was made by ancient Egyptians and they built it because they believed in after life. It can also be defined with physical because in the picture it looks like it is pretty dry, hot, and deserted area. for Human Environment Interaction, they had to build with what they had. like it looks like it was easier to get bricks to build. Location- relative location is it is in front of the great Pyramid. the absolute location would be 30 degrees north, 31 degrees east, Gaza. place, physical characteristic is, it is desert


http://www.belovedegypt.com/28_-_Sphinx_and_Pyramid.jpg

Violence leads to more violence

In the book Julius Caesar, there was a similar situation of violence lead to more violence.
When Brutus and other conspirators killed Caesar, Antony, and Octavius fought against them. Also all the citizens, after the speech of Antony, got upset and started to go against Brutus and Cassius. So the first violence was when the conspirator stabbed Caesar, and it lead to a bigger violence which resulted as a war between the conspirators and Antony and Octavius. nowadays i think it is more less, because you can't really go to war that easily. but one of the examples will be when there are normal citizens uprising or protesting against the government, then the government will try to stop by adding more army or police support to the city, and there would be a bigger and more violence between people and the government.