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1、-高一英语必修一第五单元课文-第 4 页Unit 5ELIAS STORYMy 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 was in 1952 and Mandela was the black lawyer to whom I went for advice. He offered guidance to
2、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 not continu
3、e to pay the school fees and the bus fare. I could not read or write well. After trying hard, I got a job in a gold mine. However, this was a time 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 be
4、come out of work.The day when Nelson Mandela helped me was one of my happiest. He told my how to get the 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.
5、 He said:“The last thirty years have seen the greatest number of laws stopping our rights 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 jobs they wanted. The parts
6、 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 one could grow food there. In fact as Nelson Mandela said:“we were put into a position in which we had either to accept we were less i
7、mportant 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 allowedonly then did we decide to answer violence with violence.As a matter of fact, I do not like violencebut in 1963 I helped him blow up some government buildings.
8、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 of making black and white people equal.THE REST OF ELIAS STORYYou cannot imagine how the name of Robben Island made us afraid. It was a prison from which
9、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 evenings when we should have been asleep. We read books unde
10、r our blankets and used anything we 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 allowed the prison guards to join us. He said they should not be stopped from studying for their degrees. They
11、 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 educated, I got a job working in an office. However, the police found out and told my
12、 boss that I had been in prinson for blowing 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
13、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 show visitors over the prison, for I helped to make our people free in their own land.