Geographie 021 - Tainted Heroes

Wie bereits vor einigen Tagen angekündigt, möchte ich endlich die PDF-Version der Übersetzung des Dokumentarfilms Tainted Heroes [x] veröffentlichen. Diesem habe ich eine zehnteilige Serie auf diesem Blog gewidmet. Da ich meine inoffizielle Übersetzung auch dem Produzenten senden werde, habe ich gedacht, dass es wohl sinnvoll sei, das ganze Dokument zweisprachig zu machen. Dazu übersetzte ich meine von [y] etwas überarbeitete Einleitung in die englische Sprache, hoffentlich auf einem annehmbaren Niveau. Für meine deutschsprachigen Leser gibt es mit Ausnahme der Datei und einem Eindruck meiner Übersetzerqualitäten in die andere Richtung nichts neues zu sehen.

As announced a few days ago, I would like to publish the pdf-file of my translation of the documentary film Tainted Heroes [x]. I devoted a series of ten articles to that film on this blog. Because I will send my unofficial translation to the producer, I thought that it would be a good idea to make the whole document bilingual. Therefore I translated the slightly rearranged introduction from the German original [y] to English, hopefully on an acceptable level. For my German speaking readers there is nothing new to see here with the exception of the file and an impression of my talent as a translator in the other direction.

.pdf: Roets E - AfriForum - Tainted Heroes - 2017.pdf - 1,8 MB
https://yadi.sk/i/e3BOpNyF3Sn4Ln

.docx: Roets E - AfriForum - Tainted Heroes - 2017.docx - 1,1 MB
https://yadi.sk/d/tD0ul4jg3Sn4GS

Introduction

Politics in General

In the field of politics there is a wide range of topics which are not easy to discuss. In most cases because they are part of past or actual conflicts. Based on conflicts there usually are hostile groups. Across these groups open communication can be difficult or nearly impossible.

With the exception, that I belong to the class of lower middle class, I have never been interested in things like classes, societal status, the pursuit of conflicts between hostile social classes and similar things. Even though I had in the beginning a very strong feeling of respect towards authority persons like teachers, professors and officials and felt very distant from them. I now consider it of high importance that normal citizens speak out what they truly think.

Until now I very rarely appeared publicly, but it increasingly the case that I simply talk to the people I meet, if they grant me some time. If the other person feels superior to me, she is allowed to do so, but should as well be able to prove the correctness of that feeling.

In my opinion and voluntarily I promote and stand for civic and middle class interests. My attitude towards many things is rather dry and unemotional and I am not known for just moving within a closed, small group which wants to bean another group. Therefore I rather often find myself in a position where I want to issue mitigation to all sides. This position may be a dangerous one, when opposing groups recognise that there is an individual whose position does not show much overlap with all these groups.

In my blog I already mentioned and discussed some cases of continued and hardened conflicts. I tried to present how in my relatively distant view a true dialogue at eye level could look like. For example the culture of remembrance of Germans [1] is a topic of high importance in the German speaking area. Then there is an increasing number of hostile acts against Jews in Europe. I analysed this with the help of a documentary produced by German TV channel WDR, which was not broadcasted there. Its title was «Auserwählt und Ausgegrenzt - Der Hass auf Juden in Europa» [2], which in English spells «Chosen and Excluded – The Hate against Jews in Europe». I also tried to go into Anti-Jewish clichés, which I noticed during my childhood and youth.

This topic is very closely connected to the conflict in Palestine [3], where since 1948 there is a Jewish State named Israel [4]. In addition there are Arabs who live on the same territory and/or left the territory during that time. This by far did not happen voluntarily in any case and there were wars waged for that territory. The Arabs who fled from Palestine into the neighbouring Arab countries were not cordially accepted, but put into camps, where many of them still live today. They were not allowed to become a part of society there, to work and so on. The number of Jews in these neighbouring Arab countries has decreased rapidly over the same period.

Besides of Israel there are more areas and countries on which it is difficult to have a cultivated discussion. Conspicuously often the old power blocks from Cold War [5] play an important role in the background. People who orient themselves towards the west often speak up for these countries and people who were loyal to this alliance [6]. While people who sympathise with the eastern, socialist power block [7] often show their solidarity to the countries, groups and movements which were supported from that side.

Examples in America are Chile [8], since the 1970s with the fall of the Socialist President Salvador Allende (1908-1973) [9] and the military dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet (1915-2006) [10]; Cuba [11] and Venezuela [12] are similar cases but are easier to discuss.

South Africa – The Case in General

When it comes to South Africa [13], the discussion normally becomes very difficult. Essentially this is a country which is shaped by three or four societal classes which can be recognized by their skin colour. Culturally it is very diverse.

This translation will deal with this country. It is the translation of the documentary film Tainted Heroes [14]. During autumn 2016 (spring in South Africa) I had the opportunity to spend two weeks in South Africa within a group tour [15]. I spent most of the time in the region of Cape Town up to Port Elizabeth. During that trip I certainly got to knew things about South Africa I did not know before, but there were not many profound conversations with the local residents. I am still connected with two Coloured people who I met there. Both of them are not satisfied with the actual government. Via Yuri N. Maltsev, the Russian-American economist who is known on my blog I heard that the largest town of South Africa, Johannesburg, recently got a new Mayor. His name is Herman Mashaba [16], he is a black entrepreneur and a libertarian.

Upon the recommendation of Yuri Maltsev I got the information, that there is a documentary film which deals in a critical way with the political movements which were suppressed under Apartheid and later came to power. It is predominantly about the party African National Congress (ANC) [18] where Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) [19] was of the most prominent members.

I decided to translate this film of about two hours from the English original to German. The documentary was written by Ernst Roets. I do not know many things about him. The things I know are that he is a lawyer, in favour of the free market economy and the head of the private political organisation AfriForum [20], which has about 200’000 members .

I liked the film very much and consider it to be filled with information which one does not hear very often in Europe. On the one hand because there were freedom-oriented and open-minded people involved and because there is no one-sided propaganda for one particular group in South Africa in it. On the other hand because it shows the form of struggle for liberation the ANC and the South African Communist Party [21] were involved in. It also shows clearly how the struggle was intensified and heated up from outside South Africa.

The film shows the extent of this influencing and why particularly because of the application of violence there was no improvement of the situation. On the contrary it came to a poisoning of the circumstances. The conflict was intensified and there is no real agreement between the four societal classes which were a reason of state in the old days of Apartheid.

Even in this case an old rule holds: With destruction alone, no order is created, no prosperity achieved and no constructive cooperation in peace is created.

As I usually do, there will be quite a list of references and remarks, such that there is a substantial package of information for the interested reader and a first step to further information is already done.

I do not seek a moral discussion. My goal is to translate the mentioned documentary and to transfer it unaltered to the German language. Most of its content I let speak for itself. I did not co-write in that project and therefore the content does not have to be a word-by-word testimony of my own opinion. Like it is probably true for most of my readers, South Africa also for me is a country which lies far away from my home.

The Population of South Africa

As far as I know there are not many people in the multi-cultural country of South Africa who could refer to themselves as being truly indigenous residents of that country. The most indigenous people of South Africa are the people of the San [22] and Khoikhoi [23] – who collectively are also named Khoisan [24]. In population numbers they are very small. In the whole country there are about 100‘000 San and 2‘500 Khoikhoi. For that reason they are not in the position to claim substantial power over the country.

Until the year 1993 the administration of South Africa was the Apartheid System [25], a system of so-called racial separation. In that system the people were separated by four racially defined societal classes. There were Blacks, Whites, Coloureds and Asians. But these groups were not ethnically homogeneous. There was even more separation and the colour of the skin was the first category.

So-called homelands [26] were allocated to the black people. Today these societal structures softened a little bit, but it is obvious, that the hope for the integration into a multi-cultural society which is proud of its land, which cooperates and which goal it is to achieve true progress will either take a few generations’ time from now or it is significantly enriched by wishful thinking.

I will not engage in discussions about who is to blame to which extent for the situation of today, which is not relaxed. I do not consider this to be my task. And I think it would be presumptuous and arrogant to do that from afar as a person who is not involved.

The black people who are about 79 % of the population of South Africa, about 44 of 55 million, belong to a variety of ethnicities. The largest black ethnicity are the Zulus [27], about 11 million people or 20 %. The Zulus colonised South Africa at about the same time when the first people from the Netherlands arrived there. They as well came from the north. Their origins lie in the Kongo. Bantu [28] is a collective expression for Zulus and about 400 more ethnicities who communicate in similar languages.

More ethnicities with dark skin colour are the Xhosa [29], about 8 million people (14,5 %), whose language is a very unique one and features clicks, the Basotho [30] where the estimates are rather widespread, about 4,5 million people (8 %). The Tswana [31] with up to 4 million people (7 %) are the fourth largest group, the Tsonga [32] are about 2,3 million people (4 %). Further people are the Swazi [33], 1,3 million (2,5 %), the Ndebele [34] and Venda [35], each about 1 million people (2 %). The people mentioned here are forming an incomplete list, because they only cover about 56 % of the total population of South Africa. 23 % of the whole population is made up by black people of other, smaller ethnicities.

The Whites whose safety in South Africa today is at stake, I often hear about acts of violence against them, still are the most productive and in the average best earning group in the private sector. There are about 5 million white people living in South Africa, which is about 9 % of its total population.

White people not only came from the Netherland and Great Britain to South Africa. Many of them have their origins in Germany, France, Switzerland or Eastern Europe. Since the replacement of the race separated political system many whites left South Africa, about one million people

Within the white population there are predominantly two larger groups. The largest group are the Boers [36] who originate from the Netherlands. They were the first people who established the European colonisation in the then sparsely populated South Africa. The mostly came during the height of the Dutch Empire in the 17th and 18th century [37]. The second large group are settlers of British origin. They came later, beginning at the time, when the Netherlands fell into a substantial crisis.

The British occupied parts of South Africa and waged war against the Boers [38] twice with the help of the British Empire. The second Boer War took place from 1899 to 1902 and ended with the defeat of the Boers. Winston Churchill (1874-1965) [39], who later became Prime Minister of Great Britain and politician of the century, was present in South Africa as war correspondent. He was captured once, but he managed to flee to Moçambique, which then was a Portuguese colony.

The class of coloured people counts about the same number as white people. They are about 5 million people or 9 % of the whole population. Coloured people are people with mixed origins, European and non-European. They are neither clearly identified as light-skinned nor dark-skinned like it is typical for central African ethnicities. In the USA the term is used differently. There it is used for people with central African origin and dark skin.

The Asians who originate predominantly from India and Malaysia (South and Southeast Asia) are the smallest group. They are about 1,4 million people or 2,5 % of the whole population. Partly they were brought as slaves to South Africa, by the Dutch and the British. Some as well migrated voluntarily to South Africa in order to work there. These people predominantly live in the province KwaZulu-Natal in the East of the country.

2018-01 - ZA Provinzen.png

The organization of South Africa today [41].
Geographically South Africa consists of 9 Provinces on an area of 1’219’900 km2. For comparison, South Africa is 29,5 times as large as Switzerland and 3,5 times as large as Germany. With a population density of about 42 people per km2 it belongs to the countries with a rather low population density, even in Africa.

2018-01 - ZA Homelands.png

The organization of Homelands in South Africa during the Apartheid System [42].

The Apartheid-System, which I certainly do not praise, today is condemned around the globe, as well in Europe. I do not a reason to praise it and in the contrary I criticized it. The problem of such condemnations often is, that they result in politically influenced opinions and historiography. In such cases neutral descriptions without prejudice become an exception. I criticise that, because in the human history there never was a political zeitgeist, which endured for a very long time. When this zeitgeist changes, in whatever direction, it becomes difficult to understand old documents in their true meaning. If the goal is to derive or condense the truth out of them, which it hopefully is, the task becomes more difficult proportional to the amount of political and ideological influence.

In an interview in Swiss German with the late Swiss historian Erwin Bischof (1940-2005) [43], which I transcribed one year ago, South Africa was also a topic. As a historian it is much easier to get insight into classified secret documents in the Swiss Federal Archives on South Africa than documents on the Eastern Bloc. Partly it was even possible to get secret documents on the former topic clearly before the completion of the retention period of 50 years has ended. On the ladder topic, the Eastern Bloc, some documents are not released even after 50 years.

On the Documentary

After the introductory part which was a quite general introduction by the translator, we now come to the translation of the documentary film Tainted Heroes [x], which was written and produced by Ernst Roets [z], a citizen of South Africa. As I usually do I wrote an introductory part to present some facts and some of my own thoughts about the topic. The topic is that the politics of certain countries are very difficult to discuss, often because there are toxic conflicts based on contrary ideologies. After mentioning a few different countries I presented some basic facts about South Africa [13], the country the documentary is all about. As in my other translations I first give the original text, which here is in the English language. My translation to the German language follows that, paragraph by paragraph.

The text which is written in the subtitles of the film has been published on a website named Above top Secret, including some remarks [x]. I adopted most of it with the exception of very few parts where I understood the spoken word differently.

The things I changed compared to the original version are

1st that I changed the tense to past in the parts that are not quotations,
2nd that I wrote all names which are mentioned at least once in full including the corresponding basic life data.

[x] Tainted Heroes Full Documentary. TocheStationFan YouTube Kanal, January 21, 2017
Tainted Heroes official webpage: http://taintedheroes.co.za/
Text of the documentary as it is presented in the subtitles, with some remarks.
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread1193570/pg1
[y] Geographie 011 - Südafrika, Film Tainted Heroes - 1/10 - Einleitung. @saamychristen, 17. Januar, 2018 https://steemit.com/deutsch/@saamychristen/geographie-011-suedafrika-film-tainted-heroes-1-8-einleitung
[z] Ernst Roets and AfriForum. Ernst Roets on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ernstroets?lang=de
AfriForum webpage, twitter and Wikipedia: https://www.afriforum.co.za/home/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AfriForum
https://twitter.com/afriforum?lang=de