oral anglais

« MYTHS AND HEROES I'm going to talk about the notion of Myths & Heroes.

First of all I would like to give a short definition of this notion: M&H representthe cultural and moral foundation of a community.

They construct a symbolical Story that make sense of world and guides people, and at National level: they mark public space and time with monuments and rituals. What are various vision of past? What place is granted to the History in our society? The Doc.

of «looking for Lenine» shows these pictures in differents ways to express the peopl's rejectionof a National symbol of communion : Lenine. Those statues are either displaced (in a forest where it can't be seen or toppled (renverser) ). 2 testimonies are effectued : the statues represent 2 feelings : the fisrt is the NEED to preserve the past and the second « a terrible Story » so he rejects parts of past. Some people want to preserve History and its symbols but others want to erease/delete what they consider as a « terrible » national Story. As we saw it in Palimpsests:everybody doesn't agree on the greatness of curcain national symbols.

For example the statues of Lenine were toppled or beheaded that has provoqued toubles in Ukraine. In spite of the criticisms(critics) against him, Wilberfocre in managed to abolish the slavery in the United Kingdom and to end the slave trade.

The slaves were transported since Africa where they were piled up. It is annoying to condemn the events concerning the statues of Confederates while denying the errors of past. We should overcome our disagreements in the construction of our collective inheritance. Oblivion touches a lot of black activists for the racial equality; few people remember it.

We have seen in class « Taking a knee » where athlets accros (à travers) the country protest against police brutality ans racism during National Anthem.

Do thay kneel or do they stand ? Teana is a student, she is sixteen and she sings the anthem at proffessional games.

Teana wrotes her own remix. To protest is a symbolical level that means refusing the National rituals, that create tensions and come authority. This document shows that this protest against racial injustice shows that when the government fails to work for the people or some of them, the situation leads to reject national symbols and collective values. What about people who are forgotten or discarded by our official history ? We saw in class also the document which dealt with/talk about Palimpsesto with Salcedo who is an artist. We have seen names formed by drops of water : they come from under the concrete and stay on it a while then disappear again.

These names are ephemeral.

Salcedo explains the meaning of water : it symbolizes the tears that we didn't cry when the migrants whose names are written on flour, died in the sea.

It also makes them temporary.

Salcedo worked on testimonies and with the families of these migrants to honor the migrant crisis. She stands against the idea that some people, victims of wars are forgotten by History.

He want that we became aware of it. To sum up the notion of M&H , we can say that a lot of people know the past but don't want to remember ans others protest against that, against this terrible past.. »