This weeks homework due on Friday 1st March.
‘White men were to blame for the mine and the blockade. A white man had given us the name of our island. White men had given me my name. By now it was also clear that white men had forgotten us.’ Discuss how the see-sawing attentions of white men affects the island, from the mine owners to Mr Watts’ teachings.
In this passage, she sees white men as these aliens that have a tendency to change dramatically. It was white men who started the blockade- she thinks the white men don’t want her, her friends, her family… She thinks that the white men have shunned them from the whites’ own society. It was white men who gave the island its name- perhaps she thinks that maybe the thoughts of the islanders, their output, wasn’t important enough to the white men that they would listen to what the natives thought about what the island should be called. She doesn’t know the mine workers, so how could she judge them? She can’t so she doesn’t. But she does know Mr. Watts, and she knows that he is essentially a good man, even if he is white, and different to her. She knows his teachings, and she knows they are good, because she learns from them, and so do the others around her. She says early on that Mr. Watts has a different style of teaching to the old teacher who left, that the old teacher was strict and cruel. I think that before she really knew Mr. Watts, she thought of all white people to be strict and scary, or uncaring, or cruel. but after she met and was taught by Mr. Watts, she can see that maybe all whites aren’t the same.
In the following passage, she shes white men as weird people. She thinks the white men had started the blockade. Whites had given us the name of our island- she thinks that the wghite people did not find it important to discuss with the islanders (black people) what to name the island. But she knows Mr.Watts, she nknows he is a good and kind man. She know his teachings are good because she has learn many things from him and also heard from other about it. Before she really came to know about Mr.Watts she thought all whites were rude, unkind and strict. But then she had realised that it is not necessary for all whites to be the same.
In the following passage, she sees the white men as a lost cause and she thinks the greedy white buisnesmen provoked the blokade without even putting into context what would happen to the black people that lived there, it changed there ethics,morals and there view on life.
The white men have brought many things to the town of Bougainville and have also been the cause of many things. The white men opened the mine in Bougainville and Mathilda believes that they are the reason the blockade was set up. The teachings of the white man have been taught in Bougainville, kindly by Mr.Watts. Out of all the things the white men have done and caused for the island it almost seems like they’ve abandoned the town of Bougainville, especially during the civil war when they are needed the most. Mr.Watts ‘ teachings and ways of teaching show that he is a kind man. This could possibly mean that the rest of the “whites” are kind people with a lot of knowledge to offer, but every other case of the white men being involved, have ended up with them ditching the people of Bougainville.
The white business man is greedy and only thinks of profits on the island, so when he is needed most he leaves because he fears a predicament that millions of other less fortunate people find themselves and cant escape
The affect of white men on the island from the natives view is that white men are strange and are crule and have everything their way. eg: Naming the island. But, after the studnts of the school learn more about Mr Watts they find out that he is kind so not all white people can be so self centered.