高一英语必修一第五单元课文

Unit 5ELIAS’ STORY
My name is Elias. I am a poor black worker in South Africa. The time when I first met Nelson Mandela was a very difficult period of my life. I was twelve years old. It wa s in 1952 and Mandela was the black lawyer to whom I went for advice. He offered gui dance to poor black people on their legal problems. He was generous with his time, for which I was grateful.
I needed his help because I had very little education. I began school at six. The sc hool where I studied for only two years was three kilometers away. I had to leave beca use my family could not continue to pay the school fees and the bus fare. I could not r ead or write well. After trying hard, I got a job in a gold mine. However, this was a tim e when one had got to have a passbook to live in Johannesburg. Sadly I did not have it because I was not born there, and I worried about whether I would become out of w ork.
The day when Nelson Mandela helped me was one of my happiest. He told my ho w to get the correct papers so I could stay in Johannesburg. I became more hopeful ab out my future. I never forgot how kind Mandela was. When he organized the ANC Yout h League, I joined it as soon as I could. He said:
“The last thirty years have seen the greatest number of laws stopping our ri ghts an d progress, until today we have reached a stage where we have almost no rights at al l.”
It was the truth. Black people could not vote or choose their leaders. They could no t get the jobs they wanted. The parts of town in which they had to live were decided b y white people. The places outside the towns where they were sent to live were the po
orest parts of South Africa. No one could grow food there. In fact as Nelson Mandela s
aid:
“…we were put into a position in which we had either to accept we w ere less impo rtant or fight the government. We chose to attack the laws. We first broke the law in a
way which was peaceful; when this was not allowed…only then did we decide to answe
r violence with violence.
As a matter of fact, I do not like violence…b ut in 1963 I helped him blow up some government buildings. It was very dangerous because if I was caught I could be put in
prison. But I was happy to help because I knew it would help us achieve our dream o
f makin
g black and white people equal.
THE REST OF ELIAS' STORY
You cannot imagine how the name of RobbenIsland made us afraid. It was a prison from which no one escaped. There I spent the hardest time of my life. But when I got
there Nelsom Mandela was also there and he helped me. Mr Mandela began a school
for those of us who had little learning. He taught us during the lunch breaks and the e
venings when we should have been asleep. We read books under our blankets and use
d anything w
e could find to make candles to see the words. I became a good student.
I wanted to study for my degree but I was not allowed to do that. Later, Mr Mandela al
lowed the prison guards to join us. He said they should not be stopped from studying f
or their degrees. They were not cleverer than me , but they did pass their exams. So I
knwe I could get a degree too. That made me feel good about myself.
When I finished the four years in prison, I went to find a job. Since I was better educa ted, I got a job working in an office. However, the police found out and told my boss that I had bee
n in prinson for blowing up government buildings. So I lost my job. I did not work again for twenty y ears until M r Mandela and the ANC came to power in 1994. All that time my wife and children had to beg for good and help from relatives or friends. Luckily Mr Mandela remembered me and gave me a job taking tourists around my old prison on Robben Islannd. I felt bad the first time I talked to a group. All the terror and fear of that time came back to me. I remembered the beatings and the cruelty of the guards and my friends who had died. I felt I would not be able to do it, but my family encouraged me. They said that the job and the pay from the new South African government were my reward after working all my life for equal rights for the Blacks. So now at 51 I am proud to sho w visitors over the prison, for I helped to make our people free in their own land.。