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 Nels on Mandela was a very difficult period of my life. I was twelve years old. It was in 1952 and Ma ndela was the black lawyer to whom I went for advice. He offered guidance 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 school where I studied for only two years was three kilometers away. I had to leave because my family could n ot continue to pay the school fees and the bus fare. I could not read or write well. After trying har d, I got a job in a gold mine. However, this was a time when one had got to have a passbook to l ive in Johannesburg. Sadly I did not have it because I was not born there, and I worried about wh ether I would become out of work.

The day when Nelson Mandela helped me was one of my happiest. He told my how to get th e correct papers so I could stay in Johannesburg. I became more hopeful about my future. I never forgot how kind Mandela was. When he organized the ANC Youth 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 and progress, until today we have reached a stage where we have almost no rights at all.”

It was the truth. Black people could not vote or choose their leaders. They could not get the j obs they wanted. The parts of town in which they had to live were decided by white people. The places outside the towns where they were sent to live were the poorest parts of South Africa. No o ne could grow food there. In fact as Nelson Mandela said:

“…we were put into a position in which we had either to accept we w ere less important or fi ght the government. We chose to attack the laws. We first broke the law in a way which was peac

eful; when this was not allowed…only then did we decide to answer violence with violence.

As a matter of fact, I do not like violence…b ut in 1963 I helped him blow up some governm ent buildings. It was very dangerous because if I was caught I could be put in prison. But I was h

appy to help because I knew it would help us achieve our dream of making black and white peopl

e equal.

THE REST OF ELIAS' STORY

You cannot imagine how the name of Robben Island made us afraid. It was a prison from wh ich no one escaped. There I spent the hardest time of my life. But when I got there Nelsom Mand

ela was also there and he helped me. Mr Mandela began a school for those of us who had little le

arning. He taught us during the lunch breaks and the evenings when we should have been asleep.

We read books under our blankets and used anything we could find to make candles to see the wo

rds. I became a good student. I wanted to study for my degree but I was not allowed to do that. L

ater, Mr Mandela allowed the prison guards to join us. He said they should not be stopped from st

udying for their degrees. They were not cleverer than me , but they did pass their exams. So I kn

we 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 educated, I got a job working in an office. However, the police found out and told my boss that I had been in prinson for blowi ng up government buildings. So I lost my job. I did not work again for twenty years 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 Robbe n 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 re membered the beatings and the cruelty of the guards and my friends who had died. I felt I would not be able to