Global Protests, Sky News

 
 
 

Vocabulary

call for	wave (3)	unprecedented
unique	take part	around (3)
fed up	mass (3)	commonly
take to	rank (2)	status quo
alight	view (3)	climate (2)
clash	faith (2)	demonstration
cut (2)	scene (2)	lead/led/led
anti-	inequality	country-wide
fiery	scandal	critical (3)
chaos	curfew	put in place
amid	systemic	motivation
violent	involve	convict (2)
jail	at least	demand (2)
theme	pervasive	movement (2)
fail	sense (2)	establishment (2)
unrest	deep (3)	corruption
elite	deal (3)	grow/grew/grown
gap	exclude	feel/felt/felt (2)
unrest	respect	win/won/won
dialog	challenge	lost/lost/lost
solve	witness	find/found/found
dozen	enormous	legitimacy
ahead	turn (2)	rationalize
vest

 
 
 
 
 

Video

 

 
 
 
 

Transcript

News Anchor: “We’re witnessing an unprecedented wave of anger: millions of people have take part in mass protests around the world recently. Motivations for the demonstrations differ, but there’s a commonly held view: people are fed up with the status quo.”

Cities around the world are alight. From Bogota to Baghdad, millions have taken to the streets.

Dr. Tim Dean, Lecturer, School of Life: “We are seeing more unrest, globally, than we have, at least in the past thirty or forty years.”

In many cases, protests have led to clashes with authorities and deaths: at least twenty-six in Chile in protests over cuts to social services, eleven in French “Yellow-Vest Protests”, and dozens in Iraq in country-wide, anti-corruption demonstrations.

While protests in Algeria, Georgia, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey and Hong Kong have also turned violent.

The chaos in Colombia has reached critical levels — a curfew for the entire capital was put in place amid protests over systemic corruption.

Aris Socratidis, Reporter, Caracol News: “Every day a new person, a new high-ranking government official is involved in a new scandal. And then they get convicted. Maybe they go to jail, maybe not.

And then five or six years after, they are still involved in politics and they are still making a lot of money.”

The specific demands for each protests are unique. Yet there are common themes in the movements.

Dr. Tim Dean, Lecturer, School of Life: “There’s a pervasive sense that the political establishment has failed us, it’s failed the people in some way. And that goes a bit deeper than just saying it’s about inequality or climate change. It’s a failure of the political establishment to be dealing with these kinds of problems.”

In most developed and developing nations, the gap between rich and poor is growing. And there is growing sense that a smaller number of people or elites has increasing control.

Dr. Tim Dean, Lecturer, School of Life: “So I think a lot of people who are excluded from this feel as though there is another group of people who have all the power, and they’re winning. And the people are losing.”

Finding a solution to these problems and ending the unrest is far from simple.

Pope Francis, Head of Catholic Church: “I respect peace and ask for peace. In all these countries with problems, we need to rationalize things, and call for dialog and peace to solve these problems.”

Dr. Tim Dean, Lecturer, School of Life: “We’re seeing around the world people losing faith in the political system itself, and it takes an enormous amount of work to rebuild that faith and rebuild that legitimacy.

And I see that as the great challenge we have in the years ahead.”

Until then, expect to see more fiery scenes and anger on the streets.

 

 

Questions

1. These protests have taken place only in Australia. True or false?

2. Do widespread protests take place every year?

3. All the protests have been peaceful. Is this right or wrong?

4. Have the protests been simple messages or have they seriously challenged the political establishment?

5. Corrupt politicians in Colombia are tarnished and ruined for life. Is this correct or incorrect?

6. Are the grievances of protesters in different countries the same or different?

7. What are the common attitudes and frustrations of the protesters?

 

A. There have been protests in my city and country. Yes or no? Are protests common in your city?

B. Who demonstrates? What are they protesting about?

C. Do protests usually bring about change, are they futile, both, in the middle, it varies, it depends?

D. What should people, governments and businesses do?

E. What might happen in the future?