Things Fall Apart Everywhere

Osman Farah, Kamal, Ali

Century Speech

November 28, 2011

The relationship between father and son could develop to a good way or bad way. Today we could see different types of relationship between parents and son how they differ from one society to another. For example the parenting style in developing countries is different from non-developing countries. Let's take Umuofia as an example of this relationship. The father who is Okonkwo tried to dominate his family and epically his son Nwoye. The son had more relation with his mother than his father. Okonkwo wants his to be not like his father as a lazy and gentle human. .Okonkwo tribe used to be in different believe. They believe that each one has his own god in his soul. But when the new religion came to this tribe it changed them and converts them to Christianity.  Nwoye converted to Christianity against his father and Igbo tradition. And all of that will make the situation worse and complicated to solve

I would believe that there is resemblance relationship between father and his son and between leader and his or her community. In other word, if any father has a good manner and characters, open minded and adjustable with society changes, his son could act like him. We might apply the same rule on the relationship between leader and his nation. For example, the title that we chose for our presentation “Things Fall Apart everywhere and every time” is to conclude that each society would have similar leaders avalanches to that occurred to Okonkwo. Until recently millions of people around the world saw the avalanche of dominated leaders in North Africa, and in the Middle-East. Let’s take the Libyan president for example, M- Al-Qaddafi, who dominates his country more than forty years, and commits a lot of crimes against his people, in one reason to keep his leadership. Similarly, Okonkwo commits crimes and violence against his family and his tribe, in one reason is to appear his power and hide his weakness in front of his tribe.

 

     I am very respectful to stand in front of you and it made me very pleased to present my final presentation. Today I would like to talk three subjects the biography of the author, time related grasshopper and ants, and describing the father and his son. Before I say any word I would like to thank our respected teacher Madame Alicia Andre. We would like to thank you for teaching us from Jamaica Kincaid to Okonkwo things fall apart  how to use drop box to blog and the entire contribution of the course that you did. One of my beliefs says if someone teaches you a single word you must offer that person the greatest honor in this world. That is the one we have for you Madam. As far as we know the author had experienced happiness and sadness in his life. As you said earlier he was born in 1930, at age 29 he wrote this novel things fall apart he joined Broadcasting Corporation in Lagos; he was a prestigious writer in the  meantime he was a professor of some universities here in the US. But the author had difficult experiences in Biafra war in Nigeria. As we aware there was wars and separatist or pro-independence movements throughout the world. From Tamil Tigers of Siri-lanka  to Unita of Angola in Africa. Eta movement in Spain to Contras resistance of Nicaragua in Latin America, all those wars and movements no one is remembered as we remember Biafra war all the time because of the involvement of the author. After corruption, nepotism and coup d’état in central government, south eastern region of Nigeria known as Biafra declared independence the rest of Nigeria. That declaration led by colonel Ojukuwa and Ojukuwa named his ambassador the author of this book. After declaration war broke out between Biafra forces and Nigerian government. Biafra loyalists were Igbo tribe mainly Christian believers and government loyalists were Hausa Felony mainly Muslim believers. That war cost the lives of 30000 Igbo tribe, 1.8 million Igbo tribe became refugee in the northern part of Nigeria in addition to that there was starvation, malnutrition and many other humanitarian catastrophes. The war that started July 1967 ended Jan 1970 after Nigerian forces reclaimed the entire region of Biafra. The war attracted the attention of the international community, south against north, tribe against another tribe, faith against another faith. After military defeat and humanitarian crises Achebe came to America and Europe and ask  for help. Finally, the international community intervened and peace agreement was reached in Ghana. That agreement paved the way or gave a chance the ambassador to participate political role in Nigeria. Unfortunately, he did not stayed longer he quit and come back to the US. He involved an accident and partially disabled. That is what I know the author so far. It was a beautiful afternoon and day two to my class. Our teacher told us be ready for quiz next week. I came the following week without reading and I got my fair results Zero out of ten. One of my friends got 85 percent and he was happy and loved his teacher. I put more hours and keep my tests 9 out of ten. My friend put less hours and dropped down his grade. Finally, I finished the class the highest grade and my friend got F. I am not the example of this class Madam organizer fardosa is the example of this class. She comes to school some days 8 am and she leaves 8 pm. My classmates  a week from today we will have our final test and good luck for you.    Okonkwo was a strong man like Gaddafi; he has been ruling his family with iron fist. But we must not forget that Okonkwo weakness beating about his wives. In my point of view every culture has its own value for example Yanomamo men offering their wives to others for sexual encounters and beating women who refuse them. In my own experience someone from northeast Kenya told me that they visited in the rural area and met displeased woman and they asked many questions that made her angry and uncomfortable. They asked her if her husband not giving her some money and she answered yes he gives me, and he takes care everything in my house. They asked her what her problem is. She answered he doesn't beat me. So we have to respect what other people's culture pleases them. Okonkwo and his son have different feelings and we have to respect that. 

       Vietnamese cam an , Latino , Japanese  Arigato , Togolese Isobodi.

       Chinese xie xie , eth amisi ganaleh ,shukran ya aqii, mahadsinidiin, my language merci beau coup our language thank you.  God bless you and may god bless

Do you think language unites or divide us?

Language is the best way to communicate between people in the entire world. It keeps us in one circle and I mean it unites us. The majority of people speak English however English maybe not their native language. My native language is not English but I like to learn it because I want to connect with people surround me. Many of the students have the same situation but English unites us and make nice bridges between the people. I practice my English language outside home and inside the school because I am still having problem with it however I will focus to get the best knowledge from this language. This would work with all languages but English language has the most impact in our life. We need to fill the gap that divide people and choose perfect language to solve these problems. The population of the United States is growing of different types of people and English is the only language could unite us. I cannot speak Chinese language with my friend and he cannot speak Arabic but both of us could speak English. We are learning basic language and that would not help us in our future. The teachers should focus on deeply. We don’t want to learn surface language that makes a gap between us and native speakers. People should recognize the language before learn it. For me as ESOL student, I would say that getting English college classes would force you to learn language in the best form. 

My Immigration experience

Before I came to the United States, we used to live with our family and friends and all of them were happy. When the war started to take off Saddam Hussein from his presidency and make Iraq free country, we didn’t leave the country. It was a very hard time for me and my family however we stayed there until 2007. Our family had been divided, my brother went to Jordan and my mother and sister went to Syria with me. We were wishing to live to gather but the Jordan Government didn’t allow us because of some reason and we still don’t know. We went to Syria because the situation got worse in Iraq. Syria had about 1 million Iraqi immigrants and Jordan had more than 500 thousands immigrants on their land. We lived about two years in Syria before we got accepted to come to the United States. All my mother family had been lived inside the US for more than 10 years. I saw a lot of immigrants from different countries and all of them speak more than one language. The United States is a country of immigrants. All the countries should make solution for their immigrants before time goes up.