Post-reading Activity

Task 1.Answer the following questions.

1. What is freedom?

2. What must people have to be free?

3. Can any organized society provide all these conditions at all times? Why? (Why not?)

4. What is society’s must?

5. In what way can most freedoms be divided?

6. What does political freedom mean?

7. What do most people realize now?

8. Provided what does the right to vote have no value?

9. What does social freedom include? (Dwell on each point)

10. What is economic freedom?

Task 2. Make a short summary of the text.

Task 3. Here are some opinions about freedom. Read and translate them. Choose one and make your comments. (You may work in pairs).

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Martin Luther King

A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is a possession of only a savage few . Juge Learned Hand

Do not believe in freedom in the philosophical sense. Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity.

Albert Einstein

It is often safer to be in chains than to be free.

Franz Kafka

In our country we have three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and the prudence never to practise either.

Mark Twain

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

George Bernard Shaw

Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

George Orwell

Man is condemned to be free.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Task 4. Agree or disagree with the following statements – support your opinion by some facts or examples.

• Since freedom is responsibility, and young people are not responsible enough (due to their young age) they shouldn’t have all freedoms.

• It is necessary to defend the Rights of the Child.

• Pupils should be allowed to leave school whenever they or their parents like.

• Any ways (efforts) to strengthen the state inevitably lead to the suppression of political freedom.

• Today the media are being put on a short leash, the information space is being gradually brought under state control.

• The number of women in parliament should be equal to the number of men.

• To conscript (draft) to military service is to restrict freedom of the individual.

Task 5. Comment on the following “Matters of Fact”.

- Governance. More than 70% of the world’s people live under relatively democratic regimes. In Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, almost all the countries have held multiparty elections since 1990. In South Asia, 15 parliamentary elections have taken place in the last decade. So far, 144 countries have ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Many countries have taken steps to increase women’s participation in economical and political arenas. Political parties in 34 countries have binding quotas for women in governing borders and in legislative elections.

(Human Development Report commissioned by the UNDP)

T E X T 2

Pre-reading Activity

Task 1. Answer the questions.

1. For people to have freedom, they must have the power to decide on the choices they make in life. Does this include “the right to die”?

2. Have you ever heard the word – euthanasia?

3. Can you explain what it means?

4. Are there any countries where euthanasia is considered to be legal, is not forbidden by the law?

Task 2. Look up the following words in the Glossary to make sure you know their meanings: euthanasia, decriminalize, hospice, terminally ill.

Reading Activity

Task 1. Scan this article and say if euthanasia is an important issue in our society.