Acting Analysis

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European colonisers rationalized their financial establishment in foreign countries to conceal their strategies of increasing power. It is put in deeper perspective by critic Noam Chomsky: “The mindset is barbarian sort of backward inferior; and for their own benefit we have to uplift them and civilise them and educate them and so on. The psychology behind it is kind of transparent.” In that sense, the worst crime was the crime of ignorance. The main characters in Death and the King’s Horseman are haunted in their conflict to find themselves among radical changes of the face of their culture. There is no such thing as a smooth ride to equality in Africa. Though, when a limited freedom becomes available it seems that most people would rather focus on superficiality of life, and choose to ignore the bigger picture like in Sizwe Bansi is Dead.

Mr. Pilkings took the practical use of other alternatives to conform the natives than the devastating language of guns. European colonisers saw the potential in dressing people in the roles of slaves. The initiative can be compared to door that is half open. The British Empire executed a plan of creating hierarchies within the field of inferior workers; in that sense, decorating people with insignificant titles and pretend to be on some level with them. Establishing positions of all kinds was part of the tactics to fulfil their needs without as much complains. Amusa, the policeman, and the servant Joseph are good examples hereof. Both of them served as a device to achieve a weak compromise between the colonisers and the natives. The inferior’s appetite for food and materials were fulfilled, but it was done under the strict requirements of working as tools to protect and load the pocket...

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...as an equal human. The problem for people like the man lies in the fact that not all people started in the same pace of development. Africa needs comprehensive service for the public before it needs the words of freedom in order to self develop. African’s can improve their situation if action is taken against injustices, otherwise a sad tradition of lost generations will continue for decades.

Bibliography

First material:

Fugard Athol, Kani John and Ntshona Winston, 2002. Sizwe Bansi is dead, New York, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Soyinka, Wole 2002. Death and the King’s Horseman, New York, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Secondary material:

Lower Alan, 1998, Apartheid did not die, DVD, GB, Carlton Television

McCormack Pete, 2006, Uganda Rising, DVD, Canada, Mindset Media

Vandenbrouke, Russell 2002. Robert Zwelinzima is Alive, in Jeyifo ed. 528-35

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