House Africa documentary review

When I found out that we had to create our own documentaries I was extremely excited, but it seemed to look impossible and I didn't think I would be capable of doing such. When i found out which group I was going to be in I got a bit upset because I'm not a fan of house music, and non of my close friends were in the group, but non the less I remained exited and wanted to make this a true learning experience.

I found it very hard working with other people, but i used this experience to try better my communication skill with other people . I decided to interview a friend of mine first who is a huge fan of house music, we did the interview here at school, i asked him questions which i felt were suitable and that had to be answered in depth, he did very well, because he didn't just tell me something from the top of his head, he thought about what i was asking him and gave me a fulfilling answer that provided an understanding for people who didn't know much about the genre. Our main argument and question was to find out weather or not house music can transcend through races and nations and i wanted to sway more on the side of it not being able to transcend through it.

I found that there are many different sub cultures of house music and different types and styles that are meant to target a specific type of person or race and not house music lovers in general.

Amandla Review

Watching the documentary Amandla a lot of unexpected emotions were evoked from me, I was surprised because, i had studied history in high school and I had seen a lot of documentaries covering the same issues that Amandla does, so immediately I thought I had come to term with them.

The documentary of Amandla focuses on black in the 1970,s throughout the struggle. Black people were oppressed and segregated and placed beneath the white man. In the movie a women an d her son were waiting for a bus for hours on end, and when one eventually came they couldn't go on , because it was only for white people. Busses weren't the only thing that were used for segregation purposes, housing, beaches, schools, benches, malls and other things.

Africans made songs to express their spirituality, their pain and put their points across including their political views. At many times they couldn't put their points across or share their stories, because they were not allowed to go to court or even be near white people unless they were working, so it was easier for them to sing about they issues. Their voices were used as their weapon to fight off being oppressed. The white people happened to enjoy music produced by africans and many started making a living and a career out of singing instead of having the usual jobs assigned for African people. Whenever a song was started by someone during a time of hardship the rest would join and they would back each other up. Many revolutionist songs were made at this time including "Nkosi sikeleli Africa" our national anthem, which is more of a soothing anthem, and in the 1980's- 1990's "Senzani nah" became very popular across south Africa, they said that this song brought up their spirits and encouraged them to fight. Many resistant songs were made for the younger generations so that they didn't resent the fact that they were black but instead be proud of being black and that black is beautiful and strong.

Children at that time hated school as the couldn't learn in their own language, the songs didn't only express their emotions, but also their political views. They joined a lot of movements like the mkMkonto wesizwe in 1976 and they gained energy and got enthusiastic just from listening to their songs.

A lot of peopler died and were incriminated just for their skin color,1964 Nelson Mandela was sentenced to prison and finally on the 11th of February 1990 3pm Mandela was released from prison and 4 years later the ANC won by 64.5%. From there on we still struggle to fight off oppression and promote equality.

This movie for me was highly educational, and is a reminder for us all not to repeat history, but to try move forward and better and secure our future. The way it was documented was very good, it was intense and kept me interested and it bought a sense of realness, it touched me not only because I'm black but because im African and it made me appreciate my history and heritage even more.

Budget Speech

It is of great importance that in this environment the government is able to stimulate growth and build its capacity to implement their program. The business should also work closely and constructively with government to explore how business expertise and capacity to improve the socioeconomic conditions of people in our country.

Gordan said that there were a range of policies that old help the economy become more labour absorbent and resilient to future recessions. Along side with a focus on the delivery of better quality public services in education, health, and crime prevention. They must also be renewed emphasis on microeconomic reforms to enhance competitiveness and the ability of economic adversity.

The Treasury stated that South Africa needed policy adjustments to drive faster and more inclusive growth, create more jobs and reduce poverty. The president is under increasing pressure from the key labour union and communists allies to increase spending to boost growth,create jobs. The Treasury said that South Africa's current account deficit, which has weighed on the rand in the past, was expected to rise to 4,9% of GDP in 2010 from 4,3% in 2009, widening further to 5,8% by 2012.

References

Stella Mapenzauswa,Cape Town,South Africa-Feb 17 2010 14:40pm

Mail and Guardian Online

State of the nation address

According to Times live Zuma dismissed all critics that his speech was vague and lacklustre. This statement has a lot of truth to it as I feel that he failed to mention a lot of issues, better yet the solutions to many dilemmas that our country faces. He was repeating himself most the time and he failed to show how the past plans have progressed or can still progress.

Zuma insisted that the 480000 job opportunities that he announced in his state of the nation address that have been created in the year, were verifiable. Instead of opposition parties dismissing this figure,he said that they should rather appreciate the fact that the government had acted to "cushion" citizens from the effects of the recession.

During the 2009 State of Address, Zuma announced that the Expanded Public Works Programme would create 500 000 work opportunities by December 2009. He reiterated that these jobs were not mainstream economy and that these jobs opportunities were created to provide unemployed people with an income, work experience, and training opportunities. He was pleased to announce that by the end of December, they had created more than 480 000 public works job opportunities, which is 97% of the target they had set.

Their industrial policy action plan and their new focus on green jobs will build stronger and more labour absorbing industries. Regarding job creation Proposals were tabled to subsidise the cost of hiring younger workers, to encourage firms to take on inexperienced staff.

Many have said that the speech was full of promises one being to stem job loses, fight crime and improve the lives of many people, but provided little way of measurable targets or budget allocations. Statistics South Africa said that unemployment fell to 24,3% in the third quarter, with the economy creating 89 000 new jobs during the final three months of last year.

The uptick in the fourth quarter left job losses for the year at 870 000, and stats SA officials warned that most of the jobs created were in the informal sector, pointing to still-tough conditions in formal industries. People who have stopped looking for work, fell slightly to 34,2% from 34.4%

The total number of unemployed people stood at 4,16million in the three months to December, while the number of employed people increased by 89 0000 to 12,97million.

Referencing

Mandy Rossouw, Cape Town, South Africa-Feb 11 2010 20:42pm

-http://.mg. co. za/article/2010-02-16-all-eyes-on-Gordan-ahead-of-Budget-Speech