Globalisation

Saturday 29 January 2011

How hard it is to get a definition for globalisation...
Its effects can't be ignored and we can not forget that it has many pros and cons. While I am trying to create my own definition and understand its real meaning , I would like to show you this video I have found. I wish globalisation was like moving towards living in a borderless world but, as the most controversial aspects in life, it has two sides we can't disregard.



I hope you like it!
Daniela :)

good (and funny) moments :D

Tuesday 25 January 2011

Enjoy. These are good times.

Ana Isabel 12ºB

Bon Jovi - It's my life

This song is one of those which will never die!
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Raquel Moreira 12ºB

Prominent Refugees - Luis Buñuel Portolés

Monday 17 January 2011

Luis Buñuel Portolés (22 February 1900 – 29 July 1983) was a Spanish filmmaker who also acquired Mexican citizenship and worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the United States. He is considered one of the most influential directors in the history of cinema.

Buñuel was born in Calanda, a small town in the province of Teruel, in Aragón, Spain. In 1917, he went to university in Madrid. While studying at the University of Madrid (current-day Universidad Complutense de Madrid), he became a very close friend of painter Salvador Dalí and poet Federico García Lorca, among other important Spaniard artists. Buñuel first studied agronomy then industrial engineering and finally switched to philosophy.

The advent of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 caused the expatriation of many artists and intellectuals from the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco.

In exile after the Spanish Civil War, Buñuel settled in Hollywood to capitalize on the short-lived fad of producing foreign-language versions of American films for sales abroad. After Buñuel arrived in Mexico in 1946 and acquired Mexican citizenship in 1949. He relinquished his Spanish passport as it was not possible to have dual citizenship then.

While in Mexico he collaborated with Oscar Dancigers, whose result was his critically acclaimed Los Olvidados (1950), which was recently considered by UNESCO as part of the world's cultural heritage. This made Buñuel an instant world celebrity and the most important Spanish-speaking film director in the world.

Buñuel remained in Mexico for the rest of his life, although he spent periods of time filming in France and Spain.

In 1977 he retired from film making, and wrote an autobiography published in 1982, which provides an account of Buñuel's life, friends, and family as well as a representation of his eccentric personality. In it, he recounts dreams, encounters with many well known writers, actors, and artists such as Pablo Picasso and Charlie Chaplin.  Buñuel was famous for his atheism and in a 1960 interview with Michele Manceaux in L'Express, Buñuel famously declared: "Thank God I'm an atheist."

Buñuel died in Mexico City in 1983.

Antonio Moreira

Prominent Refugees - Joseph Brodsky

Joseph Brodsky 

Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky, was born on May 24^th 1940 and died on January 28^th 1996. He was a Soviet-Russian-American poet and essayist.

He was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1972 for alleged "social parasitism"* and settled in America. He taught thereafter at universities including those at Yale, Cambridge and Michigan.

Brodsky was awarded the 1987 Nobel Prize in Literature "for an all-embracing authorship, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity".

He was appointed American Poet Laureate in 1991.

Brodsky was born into a Jewish family in Leningrad where they lived in poverty and were marginalised by their Jewish status. He later commented that many of his teachers were anti-semitic and that he felt like a dissident from an early age. He noted "I began to despise Lenin, even when I was in the first grade, not so much because of his political philosophy or practice [...] but because of his omnipresent images."

After leaving school at the age of 15 and various unsuccessful jobs, Brodsky engaged in a program of self-education were he learned Polish so he could translate the works of Polish poets like Czesław Miłosz, and English so he could translate John Donne, acquiring a deep interest in classical philosophy, religion, mythology, and English and American poetry.

In 1963, Brodsky's poetry was denounced by a Leningrad newspaper as "pornographic and anti-Soviet." His papers were confiscated; he was interrogated, twice put in a mental institution and then arrested. After a secret trial in 1964, he was charged with social parasitism.

“Since the stern art of poetry calls for words, I, morose,

deaf, and balding ambassador of a more or less

insignificant nation that's stuck in this super

power, wishing to spare my old brain,

put on clothes - all by myself - and head for the main

street: for the evening paper.”

from "The End of a Beautiful Era," (Leningrad 1969)

In 1971, Brodsky was twice invited to immigrate to Israel. When called to the Ministry of the Interior in 1972 and asked why he had not accepted, he stated that he wished to stay in the country. Within 10 days officials broke into his apartment, took his papers, and on 4 June 1972 put him on a plane to Vienna.

Although the poet was invited back after the fall of the Soviet Union, Brodsky never to returned to his country.

“I was born and grew up in the Baltic marshland

by zinc-gray breakers that always marched on

in twos.”

From the title poem in A Part of Speech (1980)

In 1987, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, the fifth Russian-born writer to do so. In an interview he was asked: "You are an American citizen who is receiving the Prize for Russian-language poetry. Who are you, an American or a Russian?" He responded: "I am Jewish – a Russian poet and an English essayist"

Brodsky died of a heart attack in his New York City apartment on 28 January 1996.

In the year after his death, a plaque was placed on his house in St Petersburg (Leningrad) with his portrait in relief, and the words "In this house from 1940 to 1972 lived the great Russian poet Iosif Aleksandrovich" 

*social parasitism is a charge that is leveled against a group or class in society which is considered to be detrimental to the whole by analogy with biologic parasitism

Andreia Pinto

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees - UNHCR

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees aka UNHCR was established in December 14^th of 1950.  

The UN Refugee Agency is a United Nations agency mandated to protect and support refugees at the request of a government or the UN itself and assists in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to a third country. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland.

The UNHCR has won two Nobel Peace Prizes in 1954 and 1981.

As of 1 January 2007, UNHCR reported a total of 21 018 589 individuals falling under its mandate.

“UNHCR’s mandate is to provide, on a non-political and humanitarian basis, international protection to refugees and to seek permanent solutions for them.” – UNHCR




Andreia Pinto

Prominent refugees

Sunday 16 January 2011

Rudolf Nureyev (1938 - 1993)



Rudolf Nureyev



Profession: dancer, choreographer, actor
Country of origin: Russian Federation
Country of asylum: France
 
"I was utterly possessed. From that day I can truthfully date my unwavering decision to become a ballet dancer. I felt "called" watching the dancers that night, admiring their other-worldly ability to defy the laws of balance and gravity. I had the absolute certitude that I had been born to dance".
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I'd already heard about Nureyev in a dance class I attended once, but I had no idea that he was a refugee. Why are these people so important? Refugees are an essential part of our society because they “have achieved special status within a community due to their achievements, or because they have overcome hardship to build a new life.”  They have the ability and the opportunity, not only to teach us a very important life lesson, but also to spread their message throughout the world.
 
Nureyev was born on a Trans-Siberian train near the shores of Lake Baikal. "It seems to me very symbolic and revealing that I should have been born en route in between two places," he once said. "It makes me feel that it was my destiny to be cosmopolitan. Ever since I was born, I have had no real sense of 'belonging', no real country or house to call my own. My existence had none of the usual, normal limitations which make for a feeling of permanence and this has always left me with a strong sensation of having been born stateless."
 
His family was constantly moving, until they settled in Moscow when he was three months old. Three years later, a bomb destroyed their home and they lost everything. They were obliged to move to their region of origin. It was there that he discovered dancing. It was during a performance at the local opera that he understood his true vocation.
 
Rudolf Nureyev's legendary leap over the barrier at Le Bourget airport on June 17, 1961, marked a turning point in the extraordinary career of this talented artist and a significant moment in the history of the Cold War. Following triumphant performances in Paris in 1961, the young prodigy from Leningrad's Kirov Ballet decided to ask for political asylum in France.
 
A solitary character, Nureyev never really settled anywhere. Born in the USSR, he resided in France and worked all over the world. Being 50 years old and the Director of Ballet at the Paris Opera did not stop him from dancing. As he said himself, the theatre was his homeland, and dancing his whole life.
 

 
I hope you like it!
Daniela :)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Miriam Makeba

Thursday 13 January 2011

Miriam Makeba gave a powerful testimony of the injustice of the regime in South Africa, she was punished, having to leave the country.

Living abroad, she became an icon of African Culture, connected to "Black is Beautiful", a movement of the 1960s, against racism.



Makeba began her career as a singer in 1952.

She had an appearance in a documentary called "Come Back Africa" which granted her invitations to visit Europe and America.

Then she got professional proposals that made her famous.

The impact of the documentary caused the South African government to revoke her citizenship.

Raquel Valente , 12ºC



Bela Bartók

Wednesday 12 January 2011

Profession: Pianist, Composer

Country of Origin: Hungary

Country of Asylum: United States of America

Date of birth: 25 March 1881

Died: September 1945



Hungarian composer Bela Bartók is known as one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century. He began performing at the age of 11. His first compositions revealed the influence of Liszt, Brahms and Strauss, but most of his inspiration came from exploring national folk music. Using folk elements and traditional techniques, Bartók achieved an original modern style that has had a great impact on 20th-century music. He became known for his compositions for piano (such as "Mikrokosmos", 1926-27), for violin ("Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta", 1936), and for orchestra ("Concerto for Orchestra", 1943).

Bartók firmly opposed the rise of Nazism, the persecution of the Jews and the banning of their work.

He was not a Jew, but said he was ready to become one just to protest against the persecution which was extending itself to Austria and Hungary.

One of his famous sentences was: “My main idea, which dominates me entirely, is the brotherhood of man over and above all conflicts ... This is why I am open to influence by any fresh and healthy outside sources, be they Slovak, Romanian, Arabic or other,”

So, when war took over Europe, he reluctantly decided to run away to the United States in 1940.

He received an honorary PhD from Columbia University, and continued with folk song research as a visiting assistant in Music until 1942.

In September 1945 he died, leaving  the last 17 bars of his "Concerto for Viola" unfinished. His works were performed more often during the years following his death than during his entire lifetime. In 1988, 43 years after his death, his remains were brought back to Hungary for a state funeral.



Diogo Andrade

Prominet Refugees - Raphael Lemkin

Raphael Lemkin was born on August 24, 1901. The country of his origin was Poland but he had to seek exile in the USA. He coined the word "genocide" before the world had to face the horrors of Aushwitz, Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen and Dachau.
A Polish Jewish refugee, he was the man behind the first UN human rights treaty, the Convention of the Prevention and Punishment of the crime of genocide.

Ana Isabel, 12ºB

Prominent refugee: "Calculus"

Philip Emeagwali aka Calculus

Profession: Computer Scientist
Country of origin: Nigeria
Country of asylum: USA
Date of Birth: 23/08/1954

     Called the Bill Gates of Africa this "father of the internet" is a computing superbrain that spent years of his childhood in a refugee camp and now he is one of the greatest minds of the information Age.

     Since early age he proved to be extraordinary with maths, and in the 5th grade his teacher allowed him to take over the class.
     Later on his life, a fight between the government and the ethnic Ibo population lead the country to a civil war, and Philip spent most of the war period in a refugee camp.
     In 1974 Philip went to USA on a scholarship with 140 dolars in his pocket. Fifteen years later he graduated in maths, civil, coastal and marine engineering and computer science.

• Awarded with the Computing Nobel Prize (1989)
• Solved one of the USA top 10 most difficult computing problems ever.
• His contribution is used to maximize the oil extraction (between others).

    When Emeagwali was asked what qualities he would like to pass on to his son, he replied, "I want him to be inspired by the fact that I was a high school dropout and an ex-refugee who overcame racism and made scientific contributions that benefited mankind."

      His own website: emeagwali.com


     Miguel Pedro 12ºA

Prominent Refugees...

Tuesday 11 January 2011

Albert Chinualumogu Achebe, aka [1] Chinua Achebe,  was a writer from Nigeria . He went to USA for asylum .We was born on 16 November 1930 .
"Home and Exile" is the title of a book of essays by prize-winning Biafran poet and novelist Chinua Achebe, and it is a theme he knows something about.
Achebe was born and raised in Biafra, and his life has been shaped by the civil war that has torn his country apart. At school he read the works of British writers such as Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare and Joseph Conrad. He could not recognise the Africans portrayed in these works, and as he felt himself identifying more with the white characters, he began to worry he was forsaking his African roots. He was particularly irritated by the portrayal of Nigeria in Joyce Cary's 1939 novel, "Mister Johnson". At University College, Ibadan, he switched from medicine to the arts, and decided to become a writer. In 1990 a car accident outside Lagos, in Nigeria, left him paralysed from the waist down. He sought medical care in the United States, and has been teaching literature at Bard College, California, while waiting for the situation in Nigeria to improve so that he can return home on a permanent basis. He recently went back to Nigeria for a visit that inspired "Home and Exile", published in 2000.

[1] Aka means "Also Knowned As"

Miguel Amaral 12ºA

Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday was a former well-known American jazz singer and songwriter. She was also called "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young. Holiday was a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists, pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo.
Critic John Bush wrote that Holiday "changed the art of American pop vocals forever." She co-wrote only a few songs, but several of them have become jazz standards, notably "God Bless the Child," "Don't Explain," "Fine and Mellow," and "Lady Sings the Blues." She also became famous for singing "Easy Living", "Good Morning Heartache," and "Strange Fruit", a protest song which became one of her standards and made famous with her 1939 recording.


By the way, here is a music from Billie Holiday. It's called "God Bless the Child"

   :)

I hope you all enjoy it ;)


Miguel Amaral 12ºA

Prominent Refugees...

VICTOR HUGO

Profession: Writer

Country of Origin:  France

Country of Asylum:  United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Date of birth:

26 February 1802

For nearly 20 years, Victor Hugo, one of the greatest writers France has ever known, was banished from the Empire. But far from being forgotten, he came to symbolize the struggle of the individual for justice and freedom.

 Victor Hugo was already revered and honored as a great poet when the future Napoleon III overthrew the Second French Republic in 1851. However, he had also become active in the political arena and was forced to leave the country. He was left with no choice, although he observed ruefully, "One does not even have the satisfaction of being oppressed by something great."

Hugo Queiros

Prominent Refugees

     Prominent Refugees are refugees who have made a difference. They are refugees or former refugees who have achieved special status within a community due to their achievements, or because they have overcome some kind of hardship to build a new life.

     Here I leave you two examples of prominent refugees you probably didn't know!

Frédéric Chopin

Profession: Composer

Country of Origin: Poland

Country of Asylum: France

Date of birth: 1 March 1810

Died: 17 October 1849

     Passionate, tragic, melancholic and patriotic, the great 19th-century composer Frédéric Chopin dreamed of freedom for Poland.

     Chopin, in exile, wrote music rooted in the Polish spirit.

     As a student, he and his friends planned an insurrection against the Russians. Chopin's role was to publicise the cause of Poland abroad, through his music.

     Chopin left Warsaw for Vienna, and some months later, when fighting broke out, he was advised not to return.
     In September 1831, he arrived in Paris. He was soon discovered and welcomed into the drawing rooms of high society and the exiled Polish nobility. Here he found both an appreciation of his genius and a way to financial independence - with eager, aristocratic pupils.

Albert Einstein

Profession: Scientist

Country of Origin: Germany

Country of Asylum: United States of America

Date of birth: 14 March 1879

Died: 18 April 1955

     The face is human, thoughtful. We have all seen it, a mass of unruly white hair framing a weary, yet endearing face. And we've all heard of Albert Einstein and his scientific theories. Yet few of us know of his days as a refugee, when his books were thrown into Hitler's bonfires, and as a German Jew, Einstein was accused of treason.

     The rise of the Nazi party and anti-Semitism made it increasingly difficult for him to work and in 1932 he took up the offer of a post at Princeton. He became a citizen of the United States, but retained Swiss citizenship.

Raquel Moreira 12ºB

"I have a dream" - Common feat. will.i.am"

Wednesday 5 January 2011

   Now to relax a little bit from the long speech, a song that has to deal with it, once it was inspired on it.
   I hope you like it as much as I do!

Raquel Moreira 12º B

"I have a dream"

  Hello everybody!
  Here is the famous speech made by Martin Luther King, on 28th of August, in Washington.
  His fight was about civil rights, more specifically, about the cicil rights of the black people once those who were black at the time didn't have such a thing.
  Even though today the world is not that massive amout of people who respects everyone around, certainly the so called white people can deal with those who are black, not hanging them like they were some kind of beast.
   In my opinion, you should listen to this speech. I know is quite long, but as responsable citizens we should ear what the others have to say about whats wrong for them. Also because of the huge importance of the words of this icon known all over the world.

Raquel Moreira 12º B