{"id":21086,"date":"2016-04-11T08:14:58","date_gmt":"2016-04-11T07:14:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/debezigebij.nl\/?page_id=21086"},"modified":"2017-08-03T14:35:07","modified_gmt":"2017-08-03T13:35:07","slug":"sample-translation-a-word-a-word","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/foreignrights\/authors\/frank-westerman\/frank-westerman-a-word-a-word\/sample-translation-a-word-a-word\/","title":{"rendered":"Sample translation – A Word a Word<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sample translation page 7-18<\/p>\n

Translator\u2019s note: On May 23rd 1977, a train hijacking took place in the Netherlands near the home of the author, then eleven years old. Nine armed South Moluccans campaigning for their own independent state took 50 passengers hostage. The hijacking lasted 20 days; 2 hostages and six hijackers were killed. Simultaneously, four other Moluccans took over a primary school in Drenthe, taking 105 children and 5 teachers hostage.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Prologue<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The predicted storm fails to materialize. The evening air is sticky, clouds gather and a wind picks up but doesn\u2019t have any cooling effect whatsoever. My mother says I can go sleep in the guest bedroom on the north side.<\/p>\n

In the middle of the night, I jerk awake to an unfamiliar sound, something in between thumping and rattling. It\u2019s deafening. The door to the guest bedroom opens and my mother comes in wearing her dressing gown. I toss off the sheets and rush to the window. In the lamplight I see a tank coming around the corner. It jumps forward a metre and then reverses. A solder is giving directions. The tank parks next to our drive, beneath the dead-end street sign.<\/p>\n

It must have been Saturday 11th June 1977, somewhere between four and half past four in the morning.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There have been police in our street for the past three weeks now. The Reformed church and the Civilian Protection bunker have been cordoned off with fences and plastic tape: the press centre and the crisis management team for the train hijacking and the school kidnapping that are taking place at the same time.<\/p>\n

Now all of a sudden, in the middle of the night, an extra barricade is being thrown up with a wider perimeter, enclosing our house. \u2018They\u2019re going to free the hostages,\u2019 my father, who has got up too, says. He\u2019s turned on the radio but only music is playing.<\/p>\n

In the dawn light, the tank changes colour from black to blue. I see now that it doesn\u2019t have a gun barrel. It\u2019s not a tank but an armoured vehicle.<\/p>\n

My sister has joined me. Suddenly, the windows in all of the rooms begin to dance in their frames. One fighter jet after the next darts through the sky; it\u2019s still too dark to see them. How many are there?<\/p>\n

Once the last fighter jet has flown over without returning, I quickly pull on a pair of trousers and a t-shirt. I gulp down a sandwich because I\u2019m not allowed to go to Hans Top\u2019s, until I\u2019ve had breakfast. Hans is my best friend and lives opposite.<\/p>\n

The sun hasn\u2019t yet risen as we pace up and down our dead-end street like caged animals, to the garages and back. The soldiers beckon to us. If we live here, they say, we can get a pass. Then we can go around the barricades and won\u2019t be cooped up. There\u2019s an open hatch on the side of the armoured vehicle. We\u2019re allowed to go inside one at a time; in its belly is a dark cockpit. Wires attached to headphones dangle from the ceiling.<\/p>\n

As soon as our cardboard name tags are ready, we go to try them out. In the middle of the crossroads, there\u2019s a machine gun on a tripod. A belt of cartridges hangs from it, looking like a string of firecrackers, only a shiny one. Hans and I show our passes and yes, we\u2019re allowed through: the soldiers shove aside the rolls of barbered wire obstructing the road.<\/p>\n

Sure, going back inside the enclose again is also possible; the soldiers laugh and no, we don\u2019t have to show our passes again.<\/p>\n

The barbed wire is strange, it doesn\u2019t have spikes but blades.<\/p>\n

\u2018NATO barbed wire,\u2019 Hans explains. He\u2019s two years older than me and in his first year of secondary school.<\/p>\n

There is no wind, it\u2019s the beginning of a hot day. All of a sudden the silence is shattered by a roar that reverberates off a skyscraper. A motorbike comes tearing around the bend in the fields. There are two black-haired men on it, without helmets. The driver accelerates and heads right for us. The passenger waves a rag that is coloured blue, white and green, and red. It\u2019s the RMS flag, I know by now \u2013 the Republic of Maluku Selatan. I\u2019ve got stamps from that country: a series of eight with tropical butterflies \u2013 unfranked.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is a secret copy of the village of Ossendrecht, which clings to the border between the Netherlands and Flanders.<\/p>\n

The original Ossendrecht slumbers in the fields at the top of the Brabant hill ridge. From the Catholic church\u2019s steeple you can look out over the deeply Calvinistic Zeeland polders, a bend in the River Schelde, the cooling towers of Doel\u2019s nuclear power station and the cranes at Antwerp docks.<\/p>\n

The duplicate Ossendrecht, which covers an area almost as big as the original, does not have a church. It\u2019s a satellite village of concrete constructions, equally situated on the Brabant hill ridge, but hidden away in the pine forests of the border. There is a fence around it with camera surveillance but no one lives there. \u2018Ossendrecht-2\u2019 you might say, by analogy of the forbidden, off the map Soviet cities Tomsk-7 and Krasnoyark-26 in the Siberian taiga, but this is much less shady, this is the transparent Netherlands.<\/p>\n

Ossendrecht-2, complete with a hotel, sports centre and shopping street belongs to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The police practice here:<\/p>\n

Evicting squatters.<\/p>\n

Mediating in disputes between neighbours.<\/p>\n

Cutting free environmental activists.<\/p>\n

Using tear gas.<\/p>\n

Taking out master criminals.<\/p>\n

Talking down potential suicides who have climbed onto the hotel roof.<\/p>\n

\u2018We call them jumpers,\u2019 says my host, a police officer wearing a uniform with a few gold insignias. He is prepared to give me a tour of Ossendrecht-2 as long as I promise not to reveal his name, given that he\u2019s an \u2018operational negotiator\u2019.<\/p>\n

I take his business card and ask what that means exactly, an \u2018operational negotiator\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018It means if you\u2019d wanted to come next week, I wouldn\u2019t have had time for you.\u2019<\/p>\n

Off the top of my head, I can\u2019t think of anything usual happening next week.<\/p>\n

\u2018There\u2019s the nuclear summit in the Hague with bigwigs like Obama and Merkel attending.\u2019<\/p>\n

I look at him, waiting for an explanation.<\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019ll be on standby.\u2019 His expression and the movement of the corners of his mouth betray nothing, or perhaps a certain casualness.<\/p>\n

\u2018In case anyone gets taken hostage?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Then we\u2019d come into play.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018The operational negotiators.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018You said it.\u2019<\/p>\n

Let me call him Kees. Sixty years old, quiet type. A neighborhood father figure \u2013 he seems to be monitoring the surroundings from behind his glasses. We are sitting facing each other in the Police Academy\u2019s canteen, on the Ossendrecht site, the Training Centre for Threats and Crisis Management.<\/p>\n

\u2018The state has a monopoly on violence,\u2019 Kees says. \u2018And we want to keep it that way.\u2019 Groups of special duty police officers come in, wearing jumpers with shoulder pads. Beefy-looking chaps with shaved heads, caricatures of themselves. \u2018See that there?\u2019 Kees says, moving his chin to indicate the vending machine selling Snickers, Mars bars and packets of Croky crisps.<\/p>\n

\u2018No, next to it.\u2019<\/p>\n

On the wall, neat lettering announces:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All persons in the Netherlands will be treated equally in equal circumstances. Discrimination on the grounds of religion, belief, political inclination, race, sex or any grounds whatsoever is prohibited.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2018That\u2019s what we do it for.\u2019<\/p>\n

Kees himself started with the riot police in 1976 \u2013 wearing a helmet and carrying a shield and a truncheon. He carried out simple charges. He learned how to pull a demonstrator out of a sit-in using a single Judo move, even if he had hooked his arms through those of his comrades. Judo is still part of the training; the members of the special squads all have brown or black belts. But Kees\u2019s career path took a different turn: he became a negotiator in hostage situations and kidnappings. \u2018Men without guns,\u2019 they\u2019re called mockingly within the academy. Kees doesn\u2019t think he\u2019s got the cushiest job in policing. \u2018If you\u2019re the last person to have a conversation with someone who is about to be killed, it gets to you.\u2019<\/p>\n

Like most of his fellow negotiators he\u2019s a Rotterdamer \u2013 a striking over-representation which Kees cannot explain.<\/p>\n

Perhaps, I suggest, Rotterdammers are better negotiators, mercantile as they are?<\/p>\n

Kees skillfully pilots his words around my utterance.\u2018Everything in the training is about resilience,\u2019 he says. \u2018That\u2019s what they learn you.\u2019<\/p>\n

Anyone who joins the police force is given combat training and has to spend a minimum of 32 hours a year at the shooting range. The downside is that your average cop doesn\u2019t know how to say \u2018sorry\u2019 or \u2018please\u2019 and that\u2019s a pity, Kees says, because you rarely get good results with just \u2018stop\u2019 and \u2018put the gun down.\u2019 This is why he trains the officers in using their verbal weapons.<\/p>\n

\u2018Before I let a student tackle a jumper on the roof, I ask him: and just how do you think you\u2019ll be able to employ your pepper spray here?\u2019<\/p>\n

Kees leans forwards to involve me in the dilemma. He must do this often: he lets the question hang between us in an almost hypnotic way, and I\u2019m not even under interrogation. He keeps his eyes fixed on mine for a few seconds, then he stands up. It\u2019s time for the tour. Kees slips on his jacket and pulls up his holster belt.<\/p>\n

We walk through a corridor that runs alongside the Judo room to a back entrance. Outside there are park gardens and in the distance a residential neighborhood. At first sight, Ossendrecht-2 looks ordinary. Blackbird Road crosses Pine Lane. Only a dodgy-looking Opel and a Ford Transit van are parked diagonally across the pavement, both of them burned out. There are piles of stuffed overalls on the verge next to a lamppost \u2013 lifeless, headless bodies, with limbs in unnatural, broken positions.<\/p>\n

\u2018They weigh 85 kilos each,\u2019 Kees says. \u2018The men have to drag them over the fence over there.\u2019<\/p>\n

I jot down my amazement. My guide doesn\u2019t mind me taking notes, but he doesn\u2019t wait. He walks on towards the station.<\/p>\n

Ossenrecht-2 has got a station.<\/p>\n

On the square in front of it, a bus is waiting for an imaginary crowd. A sign says PLATFORM INFORMATION.I\u2019ve entered a film set and am walking along under a roof of low-hanging clouds. There is a yellow train in front of us, rusted onto the rails, taken out of service. Destinationless. It\u2019s not an old-fashioned Mat \u201954 with its characteristic dog\u2019s head engine; it\u2019s a contemporary intercity with a driver seat perched atop its hull. The tracks end in bumpers in front of and behind it. It\u2019s a bizarre sight: a yellow and blue flash of congealed metal against the dark green of the forest. It\u2019s a line drawn across the landscape that simultaneously, and this is unavoidable, evokes the hijacked train from the backdrop of my youth.<\/p>\n

Kees joins me, his stomach sticking out.<\/p>\n

\u2018Is this for train hijackings?\u2019 I ask.<\/p>\n

\u2018We recreate them here, yes.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018With actors?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018And extras, the passengers.\u2019 Kees explains where the cordon is placed and from which points the snipers keep the train at gunpoint. \u2018You can always shoot a person down. Talking them down is more difficult, but better.\u2019<\/p>\n

We walk towards the front coach. Once upon a time this train had been headed to SCHIPHOL AIRPORT.<\/p>\n

\u2018Our business started with the first train hijacking in 1975. We didn\u2019t have any negotiators of our own at the time. After it was over, one of us went to Scotland Yard to pick up some tips.\u2019<\/p>\n

It begins to drizzle. The cloud layer is so low now that the tops of the pines have almost disappeared into it. I\u2019m welcome to take pictures, according to Kees there isn\u2019t anything special to be seen.<\/p>\n

A train is a train.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve come to Ossendrecht-2 to learn the art of talking down terrorists. More specifically: I\u2019m hoping to learn something from professional negotiators like Kees. If I tease out the deeper questions I\u2019m interested in, they go something like this:<\/p>\n

What can an orator accomplish against a murderer?<\/p>\n

Can words be equal to bullets?<\/p>\n

Which words?<\/p>\n

The news, hot off the press: the kidnapping of 276 secondary school girls in Nigeria by the Muslim brotherhood calling itself Boko Haram: \u2018western education is forbidden.\u2019 Would a twitter campaign help here? Does it make any difference that Michelle Obama is sharing a photo of herself holding a cardboard sign #BringBackOurGirls?<\/p>\n

When language and terror go head to head, which of the two wins?<\/p>\n

These are the existential questions I have become caught up in. I can\u2019t figure it out. I\u2019ve run aground before \u2013 around the turn of the millennium. As a correspondent in Russia, I witnessed the violence flaring up in Chechnya. I\u2019d barely arrived in Moscow, in 1998, when four heads were found on the southern bank of the River Terek. They were laid out on a sheet next to the tarmacked road, four hairy balls in a row. \u2018Come and get them if you dare.\u2019 The heads belonged to technicians from a telecoms company, three Brits and a New Zealander who\u2019d been kidnapped earlier.<\/p>\n

As a correspondent, it was my job to file a report from Chechnya. I travelled to the Russian bank of the Terek; the first minaret stuck up above the willow trees on the other side. There were rowing boats in the rushes and a little further, a bridge. But I didn\u2019t dare to cross \u2013 I didn\u2019t want to be chained to a cot or a water pipe in some dungeon or other for weeks or months. I didn\u2019t want to plead on camera to my parents to spare my life for sums of money they didn\u2019t have. I didn\u2019t even want to think about any other kinds of videos.<\/p>\n

In my reporting, I made a lot of the Chechynian kidnapping industry \u2013 perhaps out of self-justification.<\/p>\n

On a mountain pass in the Caucasus mountains, I interviewed a group of children who had fled Chechnya for Georgia. Two sisters described what it was like to be bombed. \u2018Terrifying,\u2019 one of them said. \u2018We screamed,\u2019 the other said. All of a sudden my Russian photographer hissed \u2018get out of here\u2019 in my ear. He\u2019d spotted some thugs amongst the refugees, men with bum-fluff beards who were giving us funny looks \u2013 he was afraid they wanted to take us across the mountain ridge into Chechnya, as kidnapped booty.<\/p>\n

Our premature departure made me feel angry. If even the sidelines weren\u2019t safe, would I have to exercise a buffer zone?<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t cherish any illusions that reporting changed the world for the better, but I did believe that stopping reporting changed the world for the worse. A correspondent was supposed to write down witness accounts and describe events at first hand. He or she mines for valuable facts \u2013 the irreplaceable fodder for dialogue and debate, for empathy and understanding.<\/p>\n

I felt defeated as a reporter on the Chechnya border. I\u2019d lost my belief in the power of free speech. It felt like a personal defeat. As I child I\u2019d had no answer to the terrorist acts close to home and as an adult in Russia, this \u2013 in as much as I\u2019d had it \u2013 had been taken away from me.<\/p>\n

Since 9\/11, the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, and even more so since IS\u2019s executioners started posting films of beheadings online, I have wondered whether we have any kind of verbal defense against terror at all. Who still believes in gentle force these days? The force of water droplets hollowing out a stone? Neither talking nor writing achieves anything; the black flag and the Kalashnikov march on. Soon a pen will start to feel like an antique instrument, old fashioned and useless.<\/p>\n

I have to brace myself to prevent my defeatism from turning into cynicism. The motto of the newspaper for which I reported was FOR NUANCE-SEEKERS. Fuck off, you can\u2019t talk to cut-throats. Send drones, kill them all.<\/p>\n

In an attempt to pre-empt this final step, I\u2019ve signed up for Ossendrecht-2.<\/p>\n

To be specific: I\u2019ve asked the managers of the Training College for Serious Threats and Crisis Management whether I can learn how to be a hostage negotiator.<\/p>\n

How do you address a terrorist? What kind of tone do you use? Should you be formal or informal? I feel the need to investigate this in the flesh, even though it\u2019s only theatre. Is there an alternative to responding to violence with violence?<\/p>\n

The director and his deputy tell me I\u2019m in. \u2018Communication in crisis situations,\u2019 the beginner\u2019s course is called. The next series of lessons will start after the summer, but given that I\u2019m already inside the practice village, I get to jump the gun. Operational negotiator Kees can give me a preliminary tour.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

From the station we walk to the street with the bakery, the jeweller\u2019s and the pharmacy. The paintings on the fa\u00e7ades are meant to suggest shops. JEWELLER\u2019S AND DIAMOND DEALER. There are no imitation shop windows.<\/p>\n

\u2018They\u2019re not necessary,\u2019 Kees says. \u2018If a report comes in that a jeweller\u2019s is being robbed, the shop front doesn\u2019t matter.\u2019<\/p>\n

I ask about the scenario.<\/p>\n

\u2018We ensure that everything goes wrong. If a robber is cornered he\u2019ll point his pistol at the jeweller\u2019s head. The only thing he\u2019ll do then is scream and make threats.\u2019<\/p>\n

At the end of Pine Lane, beyond a roundabout, there\u2019s a sandy coloured two-storey building: the embassy of a random country.<\/p>\n

My only concept of negotiation with hostage-takers comes from films.<\/p>\n

\u2018We use films during the training,\u2019 Kees says. \u2018The Negotiator<\/em>. Beautiful.\u2019 He tells me about the eleventh or twelfth minute, somewhere near the start: one of the police\u2019s star negotiators (Samuel L. Jackson) takes his superiors hostage in a Chicago office building and will only talk to his fellow negotiator (Kevin Spacey). While he is waiting for him to arrive, he talks to a regular policeman who has no idea which tone to adopt. \u2018Never say \u201cno\u201d to a hostage-taker,\u2019 Kees says, imitating Samuel Jackson. \u2018It\u2019s in the manual!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Are there manuals?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018What do you think? You think the FBI don\u2019t have protocols for hostage situations?\u2019 He doesn\u2019t say whether things are different in the Netherlands \u2013 I can draw my own conclusion.<\/p>\n

I want to know whether a terrorist, unlike a normal criminal, requires a specific approach.<\/p>\n

Kees nods, but it also looks like he\u2019s shaking his head. Somewhere between yes and no. There\u2019s one thing you have to bear in mind with terrorists: \u2018They\u2019ve got a goal, them there.\u2019<\/p>\n

All of a sudden I feel like a complete dork. I could have thought of that \u2013 them having a goal, but how could I have got to \u2018them there\u2019? I\u2019m up on street talk, I know that beef means grief and that whack as in \u2018you\u2019ll get whacked\u2019 is a death threat. But am I really supposed to master this way of talking?<\/p>\n

We arrive at Ossendrecht-2\u2019s residential area. The houses have window frames and front doors with nothing behind them. Cinecitt\u00e0<\/em>. Just when I\u2019m thinking that a theatre lamp might tumble out of the sky, Kees says: \u2018Every negotiator has to be able to tell a good joke.\u2019<\/p>\n

No joke follows. Only explanation. The point is that you should be able to parry blindness with a quip. Put things into perspective. Deadly seriousness with a wink.<\/p>\n

It sounds simple but don\u2019t you get into a bind with your own principles \u2013 sharing a joke with a murderer?<\/p>\n

\u2018Your own principles? Well, you leave those at home,\u2019 Kees says, with an airiness that spreads doubt over whether he has them or not: principles.<\/p>\n

\u2018Don\u2019t get me wrong,\u2019 he says. \u2018Apart from psychopaths, everyone has their limits. Years ago I closed my account with the ABN-AMRO bank because they started sponsoring Ajax.\u2019<\/p>\n

On Pheasant Lane, there are containers with wooden blocks the size of bricks. Fake protesters can throw them at the riot police. Kees tells me he brought along his football mates once so they could let rip, screaming and throwing, at the security forces. There are letters on the metal container: PLEASE RETURN BLOCKS AFTER THROWING.<\/p>\n

As I write this down, one thing keeps running through my head: a terrorist has a goal. Obviously: he is committed to a cause greater than himself. An ideal. But us? What can we counter this with?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Translated by Michele Hutchison<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sample translation page 7-18 Translator\u2019s note: On May 23rd 1977, a train hijacking took place in the Netherlands near the home of the author, then eleven years old. Nine armed South Moluccans campaigning for their own independent state took 50 passengers hostage. The hijacking lasted 20 days; 2 hostages and six hijackers were killed. Simultaneously,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1135,"featured_media":0,"parent":21009,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-21086","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/1135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21086\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignrights.debezigebij.nl\/wpg-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}