During 2007 Norwegian peace scientist Professor Johan Galtung, the so-called “father of peace studies”, pays Namibia a visit on the invitation of the German Technical Aid Agency, GTZ, as well as the Namibian Goethe Centre in Windhoek, with the aim of looking into the genocide committed against the Herero people during the German colonial occupation of Namibia at the beginning of the last century. Amidst mounting calls for reparation by the Herero people against the German government, the film follows Galtung and Herero historian, Alexander Kaputu, on their journey to the Omaheke desert, traditional ancestral land of the Herero people. Here they visit the Waterberg plateau and the Otjisongombe Gorge, scene of the 1904 catastrophic last battle between the Hereros and the German ‘Schutztruppe’, ending with the disastrous annihilation of the Herero tribe under German General Von Trotha. Almost entirely dialogue driven, Johan Galtung, provides deep insights into this difficult period of Namibia’s and Germany’s shared history, leaving a host of questions for the future unanswered.
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