Common People Fighting for Human Rights
COMMON PEOPLE FIGHTING FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Looking backwards in human history, one can find many people who, wanting to fight for their own rights, ended battling for what is morally good and correct for a whole country. Born in different nations, of different cultures and struggling for different reasons, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela and Estela Barnes de Carlotto have demonstrated, through direct and non-violent action, that common people can obtain welfare for themselves, for their contemporaries and for future generations.
The childhood and adolescence of these two people show parallels but also great differences. Mandela was born in 1918 in a village in South Africa, and groomed to adopt high office as Chief after his father’s death. He heard his elders’ stories about his ancestors’ braveness when fighting for their fatherland and wanted to bestow freedom to his people. His primary education took place at a local mission school and his secondary studies at a Wesleyan school of some repute in Healdtown. After that he went to University and obtained a Bachelor of Arts Degree, which he finished by correspondence after being suspended for joining in a protest boycott. Estela Barnes, born in 1930, was the only child in a lower-middle class home. She was a very good student; she liked theatre, reciting poems, singing, and being the conciliator between their class mates every time they had differences. She went to the Hermanas de la Misericordia Secondary School, a catholic institute administrated by very progressive nuns and later she studied to be a teacher. Strong family traditions and religion as well as study, which are similar at some points, but differ at some others, shaped both personalities. Living in countries where an important part of the population was being deprived of their basic rights, a turning point would take place in their lives. Mandela, together with a small group of young Africans, become part of the African National Congress – ANC –
Looking backwards in human history, one can find many people who, wanting to fight for their own rights, ended battling for what is morally good and correct for a whole country. Born in different nations, of different cultures and struggling for different reasons, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela and Estela Barnes de Carlotto have demonstrated, through direct and non-violent action, that common people can obtain welfare for themselves, for their contemporaries and for future generations.
The childhood and adolescence of these two people show parallels but also great differences. Mandela was born in 1918 in a village in South Africa, and groomed to adopt high office as Chief after his father’s death. He heard his elders’ stories about his ancestors’ braveness when fighting for their fatherland and wanted to bestow freedom to his people. His primary education took place at a local mission school and his secondary studies at a Wesleyan school of some repute in Healdtown. After that he went to University and obtained a Bachelor of Arts Degree, which he finished by correspondence after being suspended for joining in a protest boycott. Estela Barnes, born in 1930, was the only child in a lower-middle class home. She was a very good student; she liked theatre, reciting poems, singing, and being the conciliator between their class mates every time they had differences. She went to the Hermanas de la Misericordia Secondary School, a catholic institute administrated by very progressive nuns and later she studied to be a teacher. Strong family traditions and religion as well as study, which are similar at some points, but differ at some others, shaped both personalities. Living in countries where an important part of the population was being deprived of their basic rights, a turning point would take place in their lives. Mandela, together with a small group of young Africans, become part of the African National Congress – ANC –