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Content
A listing of transcripts of the dialogue and narrative of this section.
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Structure
The list provides the transcript, info about the text, and links to references contained in the text.
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Special Report
Transcripts for Section 3 of Episode 75
| Time | Summary | | | 17:44 | The Truth Commission has 16 commissioners. Two are Afrikaners. Tonight we want to introduce you to one of them, Wynand Malan. | Full Transcript | | 17:54 | My great, great grandfather came to South Africa with the French Huguenots in 1688. My grandfather fought in the Anglo Boer War and ended up in India as a prisoner of war. My father landed up in Koffiefontein in the Second World War where he was held without trial, he was interned by Jan Smuts, who, when we were little, we saw as England’s agent. I was born while he was in the camp. I was four months old when he came out. My mother and I were alone during that time and immediately we left for the Transvaal. I went to Pretoria University, practiced as a lawyer in Johannesburg for about 11 years and then landed up in politics. | Full Transcript | | 18:53 | Truth Commissioner Wynand Malan has often been the outsider. His background is a conservative Afrikaans one. He should have found a political home in the National Party, but unable to stomach the rule of PW Botha and his securocrats Malan resigned from the NP and ultimately threw in his lot with the Democratic Party. | Full Transcript | | 19:14 | We should also be measured against the background of main objective which is forging a new nation. | Full Transcript | | 19:19 | An intensely cerebral man, and a voracious reader, Wynand Malan finds his duties as a Truth Commissioner have interfered with his more academic pursuits. But Malan doesn’t see himself in a University when the TRC is through. He intends to continue working as a mediator and problem solver, facilitating reconciliation and understanding amongst diverse peoples. | Full Transcript | | 19:44 | I don’t sleep much, I want to read more. I love philosophy, theology, myths, everything to do with the understanding of life. I believe very firmly that different people think differently, not just over the content of their thinking, but also to do with the manner in which they approach things. It’s almost like listening to the radio, if you are tuned into a particular station – you are now on 5FM, there is no way you hear the SAFM broadcast. So in a sense you have to key into the frequency of the listener and then communicate in that language. I was often near despair precisely because of the fact that it was a project that had no preparatory work done, with few procedures that we tried to create in the actual process. With our different ways of understanding tried to create in the actual process. With our different ways of understanding of both procedures and process it is for me an exercise in reconciliation even though it is only with my fellow commissioners. And I am sure ...more | Full Transcript | | 20:14 | For now the outsider has found a place very much inside the Truth Commission. | Full Transcript | | 22:20 | I think that the most difficult, and it’s at the same time a low and a high, is the people who testify before us, especially the women, the aunties that came for the first time to tell their stories, who were thankful for the opportunity that the state paid attention – that moves me – that talks to me. It’s difficult and it’s heavy, but one could also say it’s a high point in terms of what we want to achieve. For me it’s extremely symbolic of the re-integration the Act also talks about. For me it’s extremely symbolic of the re-integration the Act also talks about the Act talks about the restoration of human rights. But it’s actually the awakening of the person who found himself dead, so many of these people. One gets the impression that after the suffering they went to go lay down like a foetus curled up and the opportunity to testify brought them new birth and here I am as a person, I can handle myself and I can handle the world around me and now I am going to go ...more | Full Transcript | | 23:43 | After the break the special hearing for the religious communities and Winnie Mandela and the just war. | Full Transcript |
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