Sample Solution Mediation The high crime rate in South Africa may become a big problem in 2010, when the Football World Cup takes place there. Every day there is an average of 50 murders and 150 rapes, and these are only the cases that are actually reported to the police. But not everyone is worried. Jackie Selebi, the head of South Africa's police, thinks there will be no problem because the situation is so much better than it was at the time of the Rugby World Cup (in 1955). The tourism industry does not agree, however. News of European tourists being attacked or even killed on holiday in South Africa may make people change their minds about South Africa, and may keep football fans away from the Cape. One of Prince Charles's friends was murdered in South Africa only a few days after President Mdbeki had claimed that crime was not out of control at all, pointing out that crime ratees had gone down since the end of apartheid. Others disagree, because the situation at the beginning of the 1990s was similar to civil war and therefore cannot be compared with the situation today. The fact is that the crime rate in South Africa today is eight times higher than the international average. Solution: A short C-test... Affirmative action is a policy that tries to make up for past discrimination, or unfair treatment, against certain groups of people. It gives such groups certain advantages when they apply for work or schools or try out for sports teams. The United States has used the policy since 1964. In 1994 South Africa began using the policy to counter the negative effects of the country's former system for keeping white and nonwhite people separated. Solution Mixed bag p 33/34 multicultural, districts, backwards, significant, persist, judge, indulges, Evidence Solution C-Test (KV 19) Solution WB p 23/6a: WB 23/6b 1. What has changed: Past: Washington felt like a big city, hot, dirty, full of noise; summer heat "before there was air-conditioning" All sounds of the city could be heard at night; Black people were not allowed to sit at a diner's counter but had to eat while standing or take their food away. Today: no city sounds can be heard at night, only the sound of the air-conditioning. Black people are certainly allowed to sit at the luncheon counter just like the whites. The city today "feels like a small city". 2. What details does he mention to recreate a child's view of the world? Bryson describes how a shot man was lying in something which looked like a pool of oil and how he certainly looked at the dead body despite his parents forbidding it. Moreover, the author describes his feelings as a boy when seeing the dead man: how he had always considered any shooting as unreal and only happening on TV. In addition, the author describes the freedoms of the adult world from the point of view of a boy as consisting mainly in the liberties of staying up all night or eating as much icecream as you liked. Finally, Bryson uses generalisation, which children often do in order to explain things with their limited experience, when he describes his thoughts as a boy how a Negroe would probably also be shot if he dared to sit at a luncheon counter. 3. What is meant by "Washington was ..."? The quote describes the fact that segregation and discrimination against blacks was still much more common in Southern states of the USA even though segregation had officially been abolished. The people in the south were obviously unwilling to give up segregation and often took matters into their own hands. Consequently the blacks in Washington, which is a city with considerable southern inflluence, were afraid that they might be harmed if they insisted on their right to sit where the whites sat. 4. What do the references to Bryson's parents show about their attitude? The first reference reveals that Bryson's parents are protective of their children. They tell them to look away when they happen to see a man being shot in the streets of Washington which shows that they do not want them to see the cruelty of the real world and intend to keep their childish innocence. When his father tries to explain why a black person cannot sit at the luncheon counter although they would be entitled to do so, he shows that he accepts this inequality as a more or less natural aspect of Southern culture. The final reference reveals that Bryson's father obviously wants to avoid the unpleasant questions of his son. It seems that he has developed a habit of looking away whenever any inequal treatment of blacks occurs and tells his son to do the same by going to sleep and not worrying "about such things" (l. 53).