Text One Cost of Living

Lycée Thuriaf Bantsantsa Port-Gentil English Department Terminales A1A & B1 Teacher: Sébastien Nzuzi School Year: 2011-2012 TEXT ONE COST OF LIVING

5 Welcome to Libreville, the capital of Gabon where the cost of living is as high as London. Many people have never heard about Libreville. It is the capital of an oil-producing country with wealthy elite leading a luxury life. Gabon’s huge oil reserves are no stranger to such a lofty position. 10 According to a survey carried out by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), London has climbed into the top 10 of the world’s most expensive cities where it has joined Libreville the capital of Gabon. It has shot up from 14th to 6th position The high value of the sterling, the escalating cost of food, drink, 15entertainment and public transport are to blame for the elevated ranking of England’s capital. The cost of living in London is now compared unfavourably to most other European cities where costs have stayed roughly the same in the past few months, making the capital now more expensive than Paris. 20 Virginia Thorp, editor of the EIU’s Worldwide Cost of Living Survey said: “Expatriates who are living in Gabon are mostly there because of the oil industry. Quality good have to be imported and the prices are inflated.” Ms Thorp added: “I think that London has probably peaked and 25we may well look back at this as the highest ranking it has achieved.” The survey which is based on the view of expatriates who move around cities and countries as part of their jobs, cover 119 cities. The Japanese cities of Tokyo and Osaka are the most expensive places to live in, closely followed by Hong Kong in the third place. The Norwegian 30capital, Oslo, remains the most expensive city in Europe. The western European cities are in the top half of the ranking, making Eastern Europe a better bet for holiday-makers as a cheap destination. Representatives in each of the cities fill out a questionnaire detailing the cost of goods such as alcohol, tobacco, household items, clothing and 35books. Transport, recreation and “personal care costs” are also compared.

Linus GREGORIADIS, The Independent, Friday 26th June 1998 Lycée Thuriaf Bantsantsa Port-Gentil English Department Terminales A1A & B1 Teacher: Sébastien Nzuzi School Year: 2011-2012 TEXT TWO FAKE 5 Chris De Buysscher, a Belgian customs official, intercepted a shipment of 20.000 kilograms of fake Lipton tea from China last year. He also discovered 800.000 knockoff oral-B toothbrushes because the accompanying paperwork was vague about their final destination. 10De Buysscher, head of the port of Antwerp’s counterfeit-hunting squad, is on the frontline of a new battle in the war against knockoffs: fake brand- name items including tea, shampoo and soap. Fraudulent products hurt sales of companies such as Nestlé, Procter and Gamble and Unilever, the owner of Lipton tea, and may pose 15health risks. Colgate-Palmolive, the world’s biggest toothpaste maker, said it was cooperating with the U.S. Food and Drug administration to identify the makers of toothpaste falsely packaged as Colgate. Colgate- Palmolive warned American consumers that counterfeit toothpaste that may contain a chemical anti-freeze was found at stores in four U.S. 20states. They were discovered at discount stores in New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Pennsylvania, and may contain the toxic chemical diethylene glycol, the company based in New York said. “It’s gone from being a local problem to a multinational problem”, said Richard Heath, Unilever’s global anti-counterfeiting counsel, who is 25based in London. “all the investment the counterfeiters make is the packaging, and not what goes inside, and that’s the worrying thing”. In 2006, European Union customs officers seized 254 million fake products from 85 million in 2002. Seizures of personal-care products and perfume rose to 1.6 million items from 112,132 in 2002. Officers caught 301.2 million food and beverage products, up from 841,000. The damage to companies is “immeasurable” because seizures represent a tiny portion of counterfeit goods and lost sales are only one part of the equation, said Bryan Roberts an analyst at Planet Retail in London. “Any attempt to quantify it seriously will underestimate the extent 35of the problem”, he said “but they will suffer in term of the reputation of their brands”.

Stephanie Bodoni, Hugo Miller & Naween Mangi, The International Herald 40 Tribune, 14 June 2007 Lycée Thuriaf Bantsantsa Port-Gentil English Department Terminales A1A & B1 Teacher: Sébastien Nzuzi TEXT THREE BRAZIL TO DEEPEN School Year: 2011-2012 TIES WITH AFRICA 5

Brazil, under President Lula, is emerging as a major economic and political force on the global stage. Part of the new strategy is to develop strong links with Africa, with which it has an ancient cultural link. Fayçal 10Benhassain reports.

The 2002 election of Luis Ignacio da Sylva, popularly known as Lula, as Brazil’s new president signalled1 a profound change in Brazil’s international relations. As a committed socialist2, Lula had always 15believed that Brazil should forge closer economic and political relations with developing countries, especially those in Africa. Determined to begin a new era of co-operation with the entire continent, and not solely with fellow Lusophone countries, Lula made his first trip to Africa in November 2003. He visited South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Mozambique as well as 20Sao Tomé and Principe. Shortly afterwards he made further visits to Lybia and Egypt, and it is no coincidence that Brazil is opening new embassies in Addis Ababa, Dar es Salam, Kinshasa and Yaoundé. Why this new focus on Africa? “Firstly”, says Lauro Barbosa da Silva Moreira, director of the Brazilian Agency of Cooperation (ABC) 25“because Brazil is itself an African country.” According to the last census figures, the country’s population has increased tenfold in the last century to reach some 175m – some 70% of African heritage. “Our co-operation with Africa was already important, what is new is our increased co-operation with non-Lusophone countries. That has 30been increasing since Lula became president.” […] “Brazil has always been very active in its international co- operation. But what we call South-South co-operation is increasing,” says Moreira. “Brazil has achieved a highly developed position in various areas and can now be compared, in many respects, to many developed 35countries. This has allowed us to acquire expertise that is probably more appropriate to developing countries than the expertise of richer nations.” According to a survey recently published on openDemocracy.net (an online global magazine of politics and culture) the idea of South- South co-operation started to influence the field of development studies in 40the late 1990s. It was fuelled3 by the growing realisation that poor nations might find appropriate low-cost and sustainable4 solutions to their problems in other developing countries rather from the rich north, using existing models of how to deal with common problems. [Brazil’s] co-operation strategy was spelled out5 during Lula’s first 45visit to South Africa in 2003. In his speech, the Brazilian president emphasised the importance of effectively addressing issues relating to poverty eradication, food security, health services, employment and education. He also insisted on the necessity to protect human rights, democracy and the environment. During his visit both countries agreed to 50intensify trade, investment and technological co-operation and committed themselves to co-operate in the promotion of racial and gender equality.

Fayçal BEHANSSAIN, African Business, October 2005

55 1. to signal: indiquer ; 2. a committed socialist: un socialiste engagé ; 3. to fuel: alimenter; 4. sustainable: durable; 5. to spell out: expliquer clairement Lycée Thuriaf Bantsantsa Port-Gentil English Department Terminales A1A & B1 TEXT FOUR THE VISA NIGHTMARE Teacher: Sébastien Nzuzi School Year: 2011-2012 5 Foreign embassies in Africa have realised an easy way of making money __ and that is all they are doing, because they know that no matter how many times they reject us, we will re-apply. Something has to be done about the whole visa application process. The current system is a fraud! 10 For the first time in my life, I had to go through the process of applying1 for a UK visa from Ghana, what a nightmare! I had heard stories about what people go through when applying for visas to Europe and America and had seen the never-ending queues outside high 15commissions and embassies in Ghana, but I tell you, until you go through this awful experience yourself, you will never truly feel for those who have to suffer it. Personally, two things made this experience even worse. One was that I was not applying for the visa myself, but was helping a relative; and the other was that Britons2 wishing to visit Ghana do not go through 20half of what my fellow Africans on the continent go through. Maybe if I talk you through the process, you will see why I call my experience a nightmare. The first thing we had to do was visit the Visa Section of the UK High Commission (visa applications are handled by an Indian company in Ghana). On arrival, we were told by the security personnel to 25stand outside, in the hot sun, and talk to someone through a tiny “window”. I know for a fact that in UK, those visiting the Ghana high Commission are not met outside by security personnel, nor are they dealt with through a tiny “window”. People just walk in, sign the visitor’s book, take a numbered ticket and wait for their turn. Not at the UK high 30commission or any of the European embassies in Ghana! People are attended to initially outside the building, right by the side of the road. In our case, we were told to download an application form3 from the High commission’s website and return it with all the necessary documents they require, such as a letter of invitation from the 35UK, the utility bills4 of the host, proof of employment, mortgage payments5, bank statements6, and any other relevant documents that we felt would help our application. Oh and all documents had to be originals. In our case, because the reason why we were applying for a “family visa” was so an aunt could go to the UK and help my sister with her baby, we 40also had to add to the application my sister’s National Health Service card as well as her maternity records7. Once you have downloaded your application form and want to submit it, you are allowed inside the high commission building. However, there are a number of processes you have to go through. First, the security personnel outside the building will 45ask what your business is. Right there, in front of everybody. So much for privacy! If the security is satisfied with your answer (and these security men and women are our own people hired by the embassies!), they will slightly open the gate for you - I’m talking about a little jar8, just enough so you can slide in! After being permitted to slide in, another security 50man/woman (sometimes two of them) will body search9 you, after which you are asked to hand over your handbag, if you are a woman to yet another security man/woman before you enter the waiting room where you wait for as long as they want to make you wait. Akua Djanie, New African, August - September 2009

1. to apply for: faire une demande; 2. Briton: a native or inhabitant of Great Britain; 3. application form: formulaire de demande; 4.utility bills: factures d’électricité, d’eau, de 5gaz, de téléphone ; 5. mortgage payments : remboursements d’hypothèques ; 6 : bank statement: relevé bancaire ; 7. maternity records: carnet de santé ; 8. jar: ouverture ; 9. to body search: soumettre à une fouille au corps Lycée Thuriaf Bantsantsa Port-Gentil English Department Terminales A1A & B1 TEXT FIVE AFRICA’S SCIENTIFIC Teacher: Sébastien Nzuzi School Year: 2011-2012 5 TRADITION

[...] There was a time when Africa was first in the field of knowledge and science. Cheikh Anta Diop, the celebrated author of the African Origins of Civilisation demonstrates that the building blocks of 10what we call civilisation, including the invention and application of mathematics, began in ancient Africa. In Stolen Legacy, George G. M. James declares that the Greek philosophy is a misnomer1 and documents the African origins of Grecian civilisation. 15 In the Sirius Mystery, Robert K. G. Temple sheds light on the extraordinary astronomical knowledge of the Dogon people of Mali and how the binary star system called Sirius A and B is central to the Dogon way of life. Peter Tompkins in the Secrets of the Great Pyramids says that the 20Egyptians built on existing African knowledge, including that of the star system mentioned above, to construct their magnificent pyramids. He says the builders knew the precise circumference of the Earth, the mean2 length of the Earth’s orbit, the value of what came to be known thousands of years later as the ‘Golden Section’, the speed of light and 25trigonometric calculations among a host3 of other branches of knowledge. [...] But researchers tell us that knowledge of ancient African philosophical, scientific and civilisational systems is at a very early stage and much, much more is still to be revealed. Because of racial 30prejudices, no research was carried out on ancient Africa for centuries – the assumption being made that Africa had no history prior to4 the advent of the European. This is now changing, but in my opinion, not fast enough. The point is that the first discernible5 examples of scientific 35thinking and the application of this thinking to daily life occurred in Africa, which means that Africans have a natural predisposition to this pattern of thought6. What happened over the centuries to disrupt7 and partly destroy this tendency since those golden times can be found in history. 40Colonialism almost dealt a death blow to African scientific thinking, but I’m pleased to learn that vigorous measures are being taken to catch up on time lost. The Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology, based considerably on India’s admirable IIT (Indian Institute of 45Technology) model, is expected to take off in the very near future. The aim is to establish four centres of scientific excellence in each of the sub- regions. As in India and China the plan is to roll out8 large numbers of excellent African scientists to enable us to not only cope with9 but prevail10 in a world dominated by science in virtually all human (and non- 50human) activities.

Anver Versi, African Business, January 2008 1. to be a misnomer: porter un nom inapproprié; 2. mean : moyen(ne); 3. a host: a great number; 4. prior to: before; 5. discernible: perceptible; 6. pattern of thought: modèle de pensée; 7. to disrupt: désorganiser; 8. to roll out: sortir; 9. to cope with: être à la hauteur; 10: to prevail: l’emporter 5 Lycée Thuriaf Bantsantsa Port-Gentil English Department Terminales A1A & B1 TEXT SIX THE RULES HAVE Teacher: Sébastien Nzuzi CHANGED School Year: 2011-2012 5

The rules of the American life have changed profoundly in the 1990s, upsetting1 the foundations most Americans have taken for granted2 in the past fifty years. One result is that the US government is 10now routinely blamed by many of its citizens for every ill which befalls 3 them, from the alligator in the pond4 of their vacation home to the apparent moral, social and cultural decline they see all around them. […] At the heart of this unease5, there is a profound disconnection between America in the aggregate6 and America in the anecdotal, 15between how well the United States appears to be doing as a country and how satisfied many of its citizens are with their lives. America in the aggregate is booming… American ideas, ideals and products dominate almost everywhere and almost everyone. If you have ever worn blue jeans or listened to rock and roll, flown in an 20aeroplane, watched a Hollywood movie, made a telephone call by satellite, used Microsoft computer software7 or eaten a hamburger, then the triumph of the United States has already affected your life. […] America has conquered the world, and yet American have found little peace… two fundamental American beliefs which helped create the 25American middle class in the past fifty years appear to have collapsed since the end of the cold war. These two beliefs, almost amounting to the American Creed8, are that if you work hard you will make it in America, and that each generation will do better than their parents. But not in the 1990s. At least not for many middle-income 30Americans. Job insecurity is widespread9 everywhere in the industrialized world from Munich to Middlesbrough to Miami and Melbourne, as new technologies deliver some of the promises of the information age. Such insecurity is the number one fear of working Americans because technological change has been more rapid in the United States, and 35because it is more unsettling10 in a society which does not have the European tradition of welfare state11 safety nets. To lose a job in Munich or Middlesbrough is bad enough. To lose it in Miami means something worse – losing health care for your entire family and, quite possibly, the threat of losing a middle-class way of life. 40 In America the questioning12 has gone further and faster than anywhere else. Besides, this is not a mere country. It is a continent and an idea of human progress, bigger, often better, and frequently more colourful and complex than anything foreigners could ever imagine. Whatever subject is under discussion there is more of it in 45America: more wealth, more consumption, more freedom, more poverty, more contradictions, more success, more failure, more violence, and, most definitely, more anger and anxiety, but always more, more, more.

50 Gavin ESLER, The United States of Anger, 1997

1. to upset: (here) mettre mal à l’aise ; 2. to take for granted: prendre pour acquis, convenu ; 3. to befall : (used only in 3rd person) to happen to; 4. pond: bassin; 5. 55unease: malaise; 6. in the aggregate: dans son ensemble; 7. software: logiciel; 8. the creed: credo; 9. widespread: found in a very large region; 10. unsettling: worrying; 11. welfare state: état providence; 12. questioning: interrogation, questionnement. Lycée Thuriaf Bantsantsa Port-Gentil English Department Terminales A1A & B1 BLOOD ON THEIR Teacher: Sébastien Nzuzi TEXT SEVEN School Year: 2011-2012 HANDS 5 I've written 14 movies. My characters smoke in many of them, and they look cool and glamorous1 doing it. Smoking was an integral part of many of my screenplays because I was a militant smoker. It was part of a bad-boy image I’d cultivated for a long time - smoking, drinking, partying, 10rock 'n' roll. Smoking, I once believed, was every person’s right. Efforts to stop it were politically correct, a Big Brother assault on personal freedoms. Second-hand smoke2 was a non-existent problem invented by professional do-gooders3. I put all these views into my scripts. 15 In one of my movies, Basic Instinct, smoking is part of a sexual subtext4. Sharon Stone’s character smokes; Michael Douglas’s is trying to quit. She seduces him with literal and figurative smoke that she blows into his face. In the movie's most famous and controversial scene, she even has a cigarette in her hand. 20 I'm sure the tobacco companies loved Basic Instinct. One of them even launched a brand of ''Basic'' cigarettes not long after the movie became a worldwide hit, perhaps inspired by my cigarette-friendly work. My movie made a lot of money; so did their new cigarette. Remembering all this, I find it hard to forgive myself. I have been 25an accomplice to the murders of untold5 numbers of human beings. I am admitting this only because I have made a deal with God. Spare me, I said, and I will try to stop others from committing the same crimes I did. Eighteen months ago I was diagnosed with throat cancer, the result of a lifetime of smoking. I am alive but maimed6. Much of my larynx is gone. 30[…] I don't think smoking is every person's right anymore. I think smoking should be as illegal as heroin. I'm no longer such a bad boy. I go to church on Sunday. I'm desperate to see my four boys grow up. I want to do everything I can to undo the damage I have done with my own big- 35screen words and images. So I say to my colleagues in Hollywood: what we are doing by showing larger-than-life movie stars smoking onscreen is glamorizing smoking. What we are doing by glamorizing smoking is unconscionable7. Hollywood films have long championed8 civil rights and gay rights and 40commonly call for an end to racism and intolerance. Hollywood films espouse a belief in goodness and redemption. Yet we are the advertising agency and sales force for an industry that kills nearly 10,000 people daily. A cigarette in the hands of a Hollywood star onscreen is a gun 45aimed at a 12- or 14-year-old. (I was 12 when I started to smoke, a geeky9 immigrant kid who wanted so very much to be cool.) The gun will go off when that kid is an adult. We in Hollywood know the gun will go off, yet we hide behind a smoke screen of phrases like ''creative freedom'' and ''artistic expression.'' Those lofty10 words are lies designed, at best, to 50obscure laziness. I know. I have told those lies. The truth is that there are 1,000 better and more original ways to reveal a character's personality. [...]

Joe Eszterhas, The Toronto Star, August 15, 2002 1. glamorous : séduisant ; 2. second-hand smoke : tabagisme passif ; 3. do-gooder: a naïve idealist or reformer (un bien pensant); 4. subtext : sujet sous-jacent ; 5. untold : 5incalculable; 6. maimed : mutilé; 7. unconscionable : inadmissible ; 8. to champion: se faire le défenseur de, faire la promotion de; 9 : geeky (slang): crétin ; 10. lofty : noble

10 Lycée Thuriaf Bantsantsa Port-Gentil English Department Terminales A1A & B1 Teacher: Sébastien Nzuzi School Year: 2011-2012 TEXT EIGHT AN AFRICAN 15 PERSPECTIVE ON POLYGAMY

[…] The term polygamy is the practice of a man married to more than one woman at the same time. Polygamy has been practiced in Africa and all over the world. Nevertheless, most populous countries are 20monogamous, and this form of marriage is therefore accepted by far the greatest number of people though some people believed polygamy was a religious issue, and it was not condoned1 by Christians. Others believe that many Christians did not condone polygamy because they associated it with the savagery of the Natives2. On the other hand, Western religious 25teachings have long supported the idea of monogamy as does most of contemporary Western civilization. Polygamy is made up of polygyny and polyandry. Polygyny can be described as a man having more than one wife, and polyandry is a woman having more than one husband. 30Polygamy is in more individual societies than monogamous relationships. Like monogamy, the term polygamy is used in a de facto3 sense, applying regardless4 of whether the relationships are recognized by the state. The general presupposition in the church is that polygamy is inherently sinful5 and that those who contract polygamous marriages live 35in sin because not long after God set into motion the created order— which He had pronounced as “very good” (Genesis 1:31) man began to tamper6 with the divine will, and altered God’s original intentions concerning human sexuality. Lamech—not God—introduced polygamy into the world (Genesis 4:19). God could have created two women for 40Adam, but He did not. Rather, He made one man for one woman for life. That is the divine will—“male and female He created them”. Furthermore the church assumes that one cannot sincerely love Christ and be a polygamist at the same time. The reasoning of the church on polygamy leads to the conclusion that a polygamist cannot take part in the Lord’s 45Supper as long as he does have more than one wife. […] Throughout human history in most African societies polygamous marriage was viewed as a culturally accepted and socially respected institution. And women in African tradition did not look at polygamy as a sign of women's degradation. They viewed polygamy positively and felt 50polygamy can be a happy and beneficial experience if the co-wives cooperate with each other. Polygamy became taboo with Colonialism due to the conflict with inheritance in large families, the social-economic threat caused by increased African populations and the Eurocentric7 Christian values. […] 55 Reverend Mbayu Ilunga, An African Perspective on Polygamy in the United Methodist Church (Essay), Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, D.R. Congo, 2010

1. to condone: to approve; 2. natives: indigenous people; 3. de facto: in fact, actual, real, as opposed to “official”; 4. regardless of whether the relationships are recognized by the state: que l’Etat ait reconnu ou non la relation; 5. is inherently sinful: est par nature 10un péché; 6. to tamper with: altérer; 7. Eurocentric: reflecting a tendency to interpret the world in terms of western and especially European and Anglo-American values. Lycée Thuriaf Bantsantsa Port-Gentil English Department Terminales A1A & B1 Teacher: Sébastien Nzuzi School Year: 2011-2012 TEXT SEVEN THE HIGH PRICE 5 OF CHEAP ETHANOL IN BRAZIL

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has a lofty goal. By 102030 he wants his country of Brazil to be the world’s largest biofuel supplier. Brazil wants to supply the world with cheap ethanol from their sugarcane. Many consider ethanol to be the answer to global warming. Unfortunately, there are approximately one million people harvesting this sugarcane at slave wages in Brazil. 15 […] The attraction to Lula’s dream is that it could mean that industrialized nations wouldn’t be forced to economize to save fossil fuels. Ethanol would be inexpensive and drivers would not have to feel guilty about their consumption. The reality of Lula’s dream is that ethanol is produced by slave labor and people are living and suffering as veritable 20slaves on sugarcane plantations in Brazil. In Brazil, sugarcane is grown on over 14.8 million acres of land with plans to expand this production. Brazil was once native rain forests...but those were destroyed long ago. Brazil is now an ethanol zone with entire villages razed to plant sugarcane. There are numerous 25bedroom villages1 for the cane harvesters. These are groups of dirty huts thrown together in the oppressive heat. The huts are crude2 and the furnishings are stark3. Children play in the dirt and raw sewage4 runs through nearby ditches5. The cane harvesters and their families are there because there is nowhere else for them to be. There are no other 30opportunities for them. During their work shifts6, harvesters are not given anything but cornmeal and water. They work six days per week and earn a pittance7 during the growing season8. Growing season lasts no more than six months and the workers are forced to make their wages last the entire 35year despite the fact that their earnings are not sufficient to support them. Ethanol production may be beneficial for Brazil, but it does not benefit the people of this country. The plantations are like individual communities where abuses and accidents go unreported and unmonitored9. There are only nine 40inspectors to cover 140,000 cane workers. There are no standards or protections in place for the workers’ safety. Workers often spread toxic pesticides onto the sugarcane with bare hands10 and without masks. Human casualties are numerous. Ethanol is considered a promising alternative to fossil fuels, 45however, it cannot be allowed to be produced on the backs of slaves.

Jo Hartley, www.naturalnews.com, Monday, February 02, 2009

50 1. bedroom villages: villages dortoirs ; 2. crude: (here) grossier, grossière ; 3. stark: désolant ; 4. raw sewage: les eaux usées ; 5. ditch: fossé ; 6. shift: quart de travail ; 7. pittance: des salaires de misère ; 8. growing season : saison agricole ; 9. go unreported and unmonitored: ne sont pas déclarés ni supervisés ; 10. bare hands: mains nues