December 1, 2023 • 46 mins
In the 100th episode, UNSUGARCOATED with Aalia welcomes Thomas Madden, the son of a Belgian diplomat, is a filmmaker, journalist, activist and founder of A Mad Production. Having personally documented life in Congo, South Sudan, Nepal, Iraq and Gaza on behalf of UNICEF, Thomas sheds light on how different stakeholders approach global geopolitical and humanitarian crises. Especially calling attention to the atrocities, oppression, and genocide taking place right now, he urges Western media to convey the reality and break the systematic oppression towards Palestinian people.
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From Ubin Studios. You're listening toUnsugarcoated with Alia, bringing you interviews with
public figures and inspirational people speaking onself improvement with empowered themes, and I'm
your host, Ali Alaneous. Hello, Hello, and welcome back to another
episode of Unsugarcoated with Alia. Asyou know, we are continuing this incredibly
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special curated season, as I've said, the most important season I've ever produced.
Because of the topic, our theme, from Los Angeles to Gaza,
a plea for humanity. It's beenstressful, it's been emotional to conduct these
conversations, but of course that isnothing compared to the people living it.
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You know, I continue to seedaily videos of Palestinians suffering, being killed,
being pulled from rebel, being completelyobliterated, and nurses, you know,
hospitals, every the list goes onand on, and it's devastating.
It's devastating to know, quite frankly, that the world stands by and somehow
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condones this. But there are alot of people that want to focus on
October seventh, which, albeit ahorrible day. If we can be upset
about this day, we have tobe upset about every day since then,
and less than two blocks from myhouse. Last evening there was a screening
held of the events. It washosted and put together by Galgadot and a
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woman that you know I had previouslyhoped and as having children that are part
Palestinian myself, I loved the characterof I've loved the character of Wonder Woman
since I was a child, andI really hoped in her even playing the
character, that it would be asign of potential, piece of potential mutual
agreement of integrity and decency that shouldbe allowed between two cultures. We need
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to bring people away from extremist ideas, so that was frustrating. I value
the importance of filmmaking and documentarian work, one of which is because we know
how it is a double ledged sword. It is a sword that can cut
you free from the lies that youbelieve, and it can also stab you
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in the heart, as we knowJoseph Goebels did when he created the propaganda
and rhetoric that fueled Nazism during WorldWar Two, and it's something that I
really feel is critical. We alsoknow that democracy dies in darkness, and
what we're seeing right now is targetedefforts to shut up journalists, to kill
them, even to kill their families, to tell them to shut up.
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We're seeing influenced and influencers and peopleof notable stature that are being told be
quiet. You're speaking for terrorists,and I know it's not the case.
So in this I'm grateful for thepeople with their experiences that have come onto
the seasons as we continue to pushthe needle forward in the name of humanity.
And so today we're by a filmmaker, journalist, and an activist to
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share this conversation on why storytelling iscritical when it comes to humanity, as
well as his own personal experiences.Thomas Maddens is a filmmaker and passionate activists
focusing on vital issues such as humanrights, climate justice, and reproductive rights.
Together with his wife and partner EllenAndres, he co founded a Mad
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Production a decade ago, dedicated toproducing impactful films and campaigns centered around these
critical themes, collaborating with organizations,creatives, and activists. Thomas's journey as
a filmmaker has been nothing short ofextraordinary. He spent the initial decade of
his career documenting her humanitarian crises forthe United Nations, bearing witness to some
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of the world's most pressing challenges andfinding innovative ways to communicate them to global
leaders at the UN in New York. His extensive work covered regions and crisis
including Eastern Congo, South Sudan,Nepal, Iraq, Palestine, Gaza,
and many others. Beyond his humanitarianefforts, Thomas leads a team that captures
survivor's testimonies from various genocides, includingthe Holocaust, Rwanda and shedding light on
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these important narratives. In addition,Thomas and his partner co produced Maendo,
a film that played a pivotal rolein changing societal perspectives on endometriosis in Belgium,
ultimately leading to the creation of thenation's first law addressing this condition.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome misterThomas Maddens, Thank Ham and thanks for
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having me today. It is itis genuinely my pleasure and I always love
to give the origin stories of ourguests. You know, again, thank
you for joining us. I knowthere's a time difference and these issues are
critical. People like yourself were gettingpulled on from all different directions, but
your story from the beginning has beentranscontinental correct and so how did that impact
and shape your earlier So my fatheris a diplomat, and so he's a
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Belgian diplomat, and so actually Ispent my young life moving around with him,
and we were stationed in various places, from kurracausin Venezuela, to New
York, to Vienna, to DarSlam in Tanzania, and then coming back
to Belgium to go to film school. It very much instructed my work in
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various ways. I mean, onthe one hand, there was this really
kind of multicultural element of the expatcommunity that we were living in, which
is kind of this it's not reallyreal, realistic representation of what multiculturalism is,
but it was the way in whichI grew up. But mainly,
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I think what instructed my work themost was very early exposure to really intense
forms of injustice and privilege. Andyou know, the world's the different and
the different places that people find themselvesin. And now I've come to learn
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that a lot of that is todo with you know, oppression, oppressor
dynamics. But it very much kindof instructed the reason why I wanted to
become a filmmaker, which was oneI wanted to understand the mechanisms of the
world, the geopolitical kind of structuresof the world. I was never interested
in like kind of war journalism orthat kind of thing, because that really
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didn't interest me. What interested memore was the strength of people who were
able to flee war and continue tosurvive. I basically spent the first ten
years of my filmmaking career doing that, and I had this thing in my
head of like, Okay, ifI work for the UN, that's a
way that I can see the world, and I can use my camera and
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I can visit the crises of theworld and find ways to communicate these to
geopolitical leadership, which is exactly whatI did, and it kind of it
really opened my mind in a way. It was very traumatizing at times as
well, but I also started tosee the interconnectedness of it all, that
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these weren't just isolated crises and events, but that they were all kind of
interconnected in this, you know,a greater existential crisis, which is which
brings me to my work in theclimate crisis. Because you have worked with
the UN closely and you have thispurview, you know a lot of people
feel like, why does the UNnot step in, like why are we
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not rolling in and being like yo, both you guys need to stop or
you know what I mean, andthis needs to stop. We need to
get this like why is it thatwhen we feel that there's this power here
that's supposed to kind of be theyou know, the altruistic body, why
do we not see that. It'sa frustration that I share for sure,
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definitely having worked at the UN andhaving gone through various kind of memorials,
ceremonies of the genocide in Rwanda andother genocide specific work that I was involved
in at the UN, it isreally frustrating right now because with my knowledge
about genocide, and I've done hundredsof hours of interviews with survivors from various
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genocides, but a lot of themaround the Holocaust and Rwanda specifically, all
the red flags are there and havebeen there for decades when it comes to
Israel and Palestine. So it's reallynot it's not a stretch to say it.
I don't understand why everyone is kindof tiptoeing around the term because to
me, having been there, it'sextremely clear what was going on because it
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was so blatant. It wasn't tryingto be put away. But the UN,
I think Gutierrez, the Secretary General, has was very early to use
some of the strongest language of anykind of global leadership. I think the
tricky situation that he's in is obviouslyhe's not like an authoritarian dictator where he
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can just kind of, you know, decide how it is. The UN
is a global platform. It's aplace like for example, the General Assembly,
is a place where it's the biggestkind of arena for geopolitical leadership to
have a voice. So that's mainlyits goal and its use is to provide
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a platform for the world. Now, if we're talking about the Security Council,
that's supposed to be the instrument withwhich we can address this type of
situation. Unfortunately, the permanent memberveto of the Security Council, I personally
think it makes it completely an irrelevantinstrument because, and we've seen it again
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now, is if we can,if the permanent members can veto so easily
and so simply and just stop anyaction for being undertaken, what's the point.
I mean, you can there isa mechanism where if the Security Council
veto happens they can go back tothe General Assembly and with some kind of
resolution circumvent the veto. But it'sa very as I would say, it's
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very un it's very complicated, andit's very slow, and it's very complex,
and it's but it's I understand thefrustration and I definitely share it.
But I also think people overestimate maybesometimes the power of the UN in that
regard because it's not it's not necessarilywhat all of it is designed to do.
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Because obviously there's so many different elementsto the UN as well. You
have the General Assembly of the SecurityCouncil, you have all the humanitarian organizations,
so there's so many levels on whichit plays. But I do I
absolutely share the disappointment and the appallingdecisions being made by the Security count at
the moment. It's just, uh, it's frightening, very much so,
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and I agree with you and Ithank you. You know, is it
is it something that more young people, younger people need to be, you
know, comfortable getting involved because alot of us, and I'll say this
even for myself when I was younger, you know, Okay, the adults
will figure this out, right,But I think that by the time people
really start recognizing Wait a minute,this does impact my life. I want
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to be part. I want aseat at those tables, like do you
do you feel that one of thecritical things is for other people, younger
generations to start being involved, notlet the older guys in the room make
those decisions one hundred percent. Imean, if you look at those kind
of family portrait pictures of big organizationslike the UN or like even like NATO
or those kinds of organizations, it'sstill and sorry to stereotype, but it's
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still a bunch of old white men. Yeah, there's no let alone that
there's like a diversity in terms ofskin color. There's also very few women
still in these spaces, and sothere is no kind of there still is
no real diversity in these spaces.So I feel like if we're not even
at that point yet, then we'renot really getting diverse opinions being heard.
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I know, in the last fewyears there's been this really like conceited effort
to bring young voices in, particularlyaround things like climate. That's something where
young involvement is really a key kindof has become a key thing. I
think young people need to recognize theirpower as well, and this whole apathy
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towards politics and democracy and getting involvedin this, I think, even just
strategically, it's a bad decision tonot be involved. Because as a friend
of mine who's in them, he'sin the federal Parliament in Belgium, he's
a politician here. He often sayslike, if you don't care about politics,
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politics cares about you. So whetheryou're going to get involved or not,
it'll drag you around. So Ithink there is absolutely value in getting
involved, I think, and youcan do it in so many different ways.
You can do it by you know, being loud on your platforms,
or you can do it by organizingand mobilizing and doing things. You can
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do it by you know, gettingtogether in your schools and doing actions or
things like that. Or you cando it by voting or that kind of
thing. So there's like it's notthat it's like this one size fits all
kind of way of getting involved.I've always had this sense of like I've
had privilege in my upbringing and Iam going to use every ounce of that
privilege that I have to fight injustice. And that's a really intense responsibility that
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I feel, and I know noteveryone feels that, but I think I
urge people who have the capacity todo it to do that because we are
careening to words. I mean IsraelPalestine is just one example. But we
are careening towards a completely inhumane andinhuman world, and we have to stand
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up against it because it's just it'snot Humanity will not make it, you
know. I mean for people whoaren't aware, there's of course I know
you are. Is They predict thatby twenty fifty a billion people will be
displaced, you know, and whenwe look at how people can't seem to
get along, I don't think theyunderstand we might need each other in this
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world. We need each other.We do need each other. So in
that segueing into that, you haveyour own personal experiences in Gaza, you
know, please share with our audience. You know, first of all,
what was that like, what broughtyou there and what was your experience?
Like? It's a bit strange.I mean to some people it may sound
strange, but from when I wasa kid, Gaza specifically was number one
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on my I don't want to callit a bucket list because that has like
a like a positive connotation, butthis was more a fascination of places that
I wanted to go because I wantedto understand. Because I remember as a
kid with a diplomat father when wehad when he would have like colleagues over
and they would discuss things, andI would kind of pick things up as
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a kid. I remember when itwas Israel Palestine, and particularly when we
were living in New York at thetime, it would always be this really
intense conversation and it was like nothingelse that anyone talked about and so,
and that was how I kind ofinterpreted as a kid. But then as
I grew up, I started readingmore about it, and I watched documentaries.
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I saw Louis Thrue's like a documentaryon Zionism, and I saw all
these and five broken cameras. Youknow, the Academy Award. I think
it won the Academy Award at onepoint or it was nominated. And I
have this real kind of sense abilitytowards injustice, and when I see it,
I want to kind of get involvedand get my hands kind of dirty
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in a way. And to me, my theory of change really is storytelling.
And I think the only the bestway to do that is to go
to a place and meet the peopleand talk to the people and get an
understanding of the situation, because youknow, you can read books and you
can see films, but that's juststill one person's perspective, that's not my
own perspective. And so when Iwas working for the UN, I was
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constantly trying to find these opportunities togo to Gaza and to try to understand
what was going on. And afew times we wanted to make it happen,
but then the security situation changed andthen we couldn't get in. In
twenty seventeen, there was a littlethere was a window where we could get
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in, where we could cross theborder into Gaza. I mean, we
flew into tell Iv, even wentto Jerusalem, and then crossed the border
and went into Gaza. It wassuch an onslaught to everything. It wasn't
even that because at that time thesituation was somewhat stable. It wasn't right
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after a war, it wasn't orright after an escalation in the conflict,
or it was kind of a stablesituation. But the stories I heard from
people and just going into Gaza itself, like crossing that border and crossing that
wall and seeing like these the sentryguns and you know, illegal weaponry by
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international humanitarian law. To cross intothis border and to see the level of
oppression was completely, in my experience, unrivaled. And this was after I
had gone to Eastern Congo and SouthSudan and Iraq, and I had been
to all these different crisis areas andplaces where oppression and was a thing,
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But this I had never seen before. The level to which these people were
being oppressed, the level to whichthey were being surveilled, detained, tortured,
murdered, the siege around the place, the inability to escape. I
used to call it an open airprison, but I've also learned from my
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Palestinian friends in the meantime that that'sactually not really fair because a prison implies
that it has prisoners there, whichmeans they have done something wrong. So
it is more like actually a concentrationcamp. It was, and every single
story from every single person that Imet there was lowered my bar for humanity,
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and I already had quite a lowbar seeing the things I had seen,
and I constantly have this hope oflike humans are good and humans are
good, but Gaza, honestly,it really really challenged my view on that
sense, because the people in Palestinethat I met were actually also and this
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has to be said, they werewonderful people across the board. And we
met people in kind of various layersof society, because that's the wonderful thing
about making documentaries is you have toget into people's lives, and you have
tea with people, and you meetsome people on a policy level, and
you meet some people in the humanitarianspace. And these people just wanted to
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share their stories and wanted to sharetheir lives. But and they were so
kind and so warm and so inviting. And the contrasts on the other side
of the wall or you know inIsrael, or you know, authorities in
Israel, or the Defense Force inIsrael, the way we were treated by
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them, by them just for evengoing into Gaza. And I mean,
it's important to understand this was likea it was a UNICEF mission, so
it was it was a humanitarian Ithad a humanitarian context. Like the film
we made didn't have like a politicaldrive. It was more just understanding what
you know, children in this situationwere going to school like, like what
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they were living like. Because itwas a part of a VR film series
that we were making about where childrenLearn, and we had an episode in
Nepal, we had an episode inKibera, which is a slum just outside
of Nairobi, and then we hadan episode in Gaza. So there was
no like political angle to the film. But even so, I felt the
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way that I was looked at byIsraeli authorities just for even saying that I
was going into Palestine and going intoGaza. I didn't feel like I was
looked at as a huge and itjust struck me that I was like,
and this is me with a Belgianpassport and a UN team and a film
crew and all these things. Ijust imagined, like, what is this
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like for people who are actually,you know, living there and living this
and oppressed by this regime and besiegedby this regime? And I was.
I remember coming back from that tripand just being so angry I was.
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I couldn't even place the anger Ifelt, because I was like, how
is it possible that this is soblatant and so clear? And I was
only there for like two or threeweeks, but it didn't take long to
understand what was going on. AndI kept repeating to myself like it's not
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that complicated. It's pretty clear what'sgoing on here. Nobody is trying to
keep it a secret. How isthat possible? The main conclusion that I
came to then, and the mainquestion I had was, and it's a
dark question, why is Gaza stillthere? And why is the West Bank
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still there? Because with all theresources being thrown at this oppressive regime,
the might of the American military industrialcomplex being thrown at this oppressive regime,
and still these little bits of countryremain. And I just found myself wondering
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why. That was when I starteddigging deeper and I actually got in touch
with somebody who I had met inSouth Sudan before and who's done a bunch
of work around Israel Palestine, AnthonyLowenstein. He's a writer and he wrote
the book The Palestine Laboratory, andwhich is all about kind of battle tested
surveillance technology and military technology that Israelkind of exports around the world, but
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basically using the Palestinian people as aresource almost to test military technology on.
And to be honest, like thatwas the sickening conclusion that I drew as
well coming out of that place.I still have a hard time placing the
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trauma that I have from there,And I feel kind of bad even calling
my thing a trauma, because Ihave friends who fled from there to here
in the meantime and literally live inGhent and with me, and when I
talk to them and when we talkabout their lives up to this point,
I think most people can't imagine thedarkness that they've experienced. What struck me
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was that there's when we talk aboutthat dynamic between Israel and Palestine. When
I talk to the Palestinians, thePalestinians were often like, we don't want
Hamas, we don't want the Israelis. We just want peace and freedom,
which is a very kind of straightforwardand simple to understand and just narrative,
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Whereas whenever I talk to somebody whois from the other side of the wall,
suddenly there's all these complications that getsthrown in, and there's all these
like these holy books that need tobe referenced and all these things. And
it's not to minimize that in anyway, but like if we talk about
the last seventy five years, tome, it's pretty straightforward. It's a
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settler colony that's increasingly and increasingly oppressedand grown its allies and with European and
American funding, has just slowly pusheda group of people from their land.
Yeah, and you know on that, you know, I hear a lot
of people. In fact, Igot an email this morning. You know,
why don't they just leave? Whydon't they just leave? Leave their
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land, leave the leave the oceanthat they love, leave the culture that
they've known. Why aren't they complicentin erasure of who they are? Right?
Just why don't they leave? Withregards to the journalism that's been attacked
and actually how we became connected,you were part of an Al Jazeera article
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that focused on the suppression that youknow hear advocates and activists such as yourself,
with a wealth of knowledge and experiencecoming from a very humanitarian place,
are finding that they're being canceled,that their comments are being deleted. That
you know, and when you're noteven saying anything. I know myself,
I actually gave someone a compliment.Next thing, you know, I get
it, it had nothing. Ijust said nothing. But you know,
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and next thing, you now,you have violated your your comment is being
deleted. And you you know,when we talk about how democracy dies in
darkness and how journalists are the guardiansof democracy. They are there to keep
us accountable. They are there tolet us know what's happening. I remember
my grandfather when I was a kid. I'd walk into the house and he'd
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say, what's happening in the worldtoday, And if I said I don't
know, oh my goodness, Iwould get a complete rant on why I
needed to know what was happening inthe world and I could not just be
focused on myself. And I'm gratefulfor that, But at the same token,
I recognize that half the time I'mnot really getting from the media and
this you know, it is abiased media. And you know, as
I've said, thank goodness for socialmedia at this point, because if it
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was not for social media the informationthat is getting out, we wouldn't have
the view into this crisis the waythat we do. In your experience,
you know, and and when youwere in as part of that article,
share with us your frustration and sharewith us, you know, your perspective
on why this really does threaten us. Because as an American society, right
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I'm speaking from the Americans. Idon't take away my freedom of speech.
Why should people recognize that whenever thattype of behavior is happening, it is
a threat to us all. Thisis one of those real kinds of masks
are off moments. I think wehad it with recently in recent history,
with COVID nineteen. We had itin I think you and I are people
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who can remember things like nine toeleven happening, like those kinds of big
fundamental societal shift moments. This isabsolutely one of those two for me,
where you suddenly I'm very connected topeople on the ground in Palestine, and
so when this started happening, Iinstantly started messaging them and getting videos from
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them about what was going on,and I got in touch with the reality
on the ground. And that wasall through social media WhatsApp, but also
Instagram and TikTok as well and allthese things. So I knew the reality
on the ground, and I alsohad this kind of fundamental understanding of what
it was like from having been theremyself, and then to see at least
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here in Europe, I mean alsoin America because as I follow American media
outlets as well, to see theway the narrative was just being just so
one sided and the words that werebeing used to describe things was absolutely terrifying.
It's kind of like it gets thisreally kind of existential fear and dread
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of like, but what has everythingthat I've been reading my entire life been?
And to me that this was sucha clear example of that, of
like the focus on these these attacksand the justification of this escalation in bombardments
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and things with and ironically like thiswhole this historical justification ignoring the recent history,
which I find found very strange.There was all like these mind bending
things happening of like whose land isWho's and all these things. But like
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to me, as you said beforebefore the interview here, but it's kind
of a it was always waiting tohappen, and that was the situation that
was created and perpetuated. And theHamas attacks of October seventh are we can
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absolutely condemn them. They were horrific, but I also have the ability to
see to place them in their slightlybroader context in the sense of like,
if a people is oppressed, violentresistance is usually a symptom of that,
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a symptom of that oppression. Soto expect that that's not going to happen
is just factually incorrect. And asa side note, armed resistance against oppression
is legal within international humanitarian law.This is not to justify Hamas's actions,
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and they can be prosecuted as warcrimes, although I don't know how the
International Criminal Court would judge that,because, like I said, if you're
talking about people being oppressed, andif organizations like Amnesty International can see the
Palestinians and the Israelis and living inan apartheid state, I wonder what the
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call would be. But to me, like this whole focus and this like
little narrative that's happening now, that'spart of this much greater or system much
better funded system of oppression. Andthen to see how the media was like
using those to like kind of justifyit and even calling it a war,
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I was that keeps driving me kindof nuts, to be honest, because
like, it's not a war.It never was a war. A war
means they're like two nations that arefighting each other on somewhat kind of equal
ground, like Ukraine and Russia.That's a more kind of definable war situation.
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This to me, was never awar. It was always it was
an oppression. It was an apartheidstate, and it was koreening and has
now gone into full fledged Genosidt,and the fact that very few media outlets
are actually even using that term iscompletely insane to me. I agree,
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and I think that history will lookback on them and they will maybe feel
differently because two things that I wantto say to what you've said, and
you know, I mentioned this inanother episode on the season. Let's just
say that the Jewish people that werebeing held in concentration camps had somehow managed
to rise up against the Nazis.Call them terrorists, right. And furthermore,
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for people who don't know their history, they should recognize that there were
resistance groups at part of the Jewishcommunity and they did try to use violence
to exert some sort of freedom fromthe oppression that they were feeling. You
know, And to your point aboutwar, I agree my and I had
shared it on my social media acouple weeks back. But I was caught
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in the two thousand where my familywas caught in the two thousand conflict.
I only wasn't personally physically there becausemy son was coliquy and I didn't want
to make the journey, but myhusband at the time was in the airport
when Israeli forces bombed in July oftwo thousand and six following Hesbaala kidnapping two
soldiers. Now to your point,people call this the Lebanon, you know,
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Lebanese Israeli war. But what myfamily, my entire mediate family experienced,
was a consistent bombardment, you know, of innocent civilian lives, a
complete demolition of fifteen years of infrastructurethat was demolished in a week with you
know, and yet let's call ita war. No, let's call this
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an aggression once again against you know, a neighbor, and and I and
just not you know, not sayingthat the two soldiers' lives didn't matter.
But consistently we see that. Okay, Well, you know, for everyone
Israeli life, we're going to decimatean entire village and we're going to call
it justice. And you know,it's hard to swallow that, and it's
hard to sit there. And andin fact, I don't watch a lot
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of the media. I read,try to read because you know, when
I hear certain words and I hearthat language, I'm with you, Thomas,
I'm just like, are you kiddingme? You've got to be kidding
so so filmmaking right now and theunadulterated truth is critical. How do you
really feel that people should be focusedon that? How can that be accomplished?
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You know what efforts are you doingtogether? Because I can tell by
who you know what you are.You've already had one. And for people
who haven't watched, there are amazingdocumentaries on these subjects. Born in Gaza
is currently on Netflix. You know, I encourage everyone to watch it,
but yes, for you, whatdo you feel is most important? How
can people do that? And whatdo you feel your move is towards speaking
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on this crisis. The first thingI felt the need to do was to
speak from my experience, and thatwas also the first thing I did was
I just grabbed the camera and Ijust said, look, this is my
take on it, because I thinkeveryone in my direct environment is getting it
wrong, and I wanted to beloud about it. I think that was
important and I think that is importantfor everyone. I think everyone needs to
(34:35):
be loud about this because in five, ten, fifteen years time, I'm
sure we'll have our policymakers standing atsome remembrance saying, oh if only we
had known, and like we dowith Rwanda, like we do with the
Holocaust. So my first instinct was, let try as much as we can
(35:01):
to just call this what it isand mainstream that language. I thought that
was a very That was my firstintention, was like, this is a
genocide. People need to start usingthat word because it is clear as day
to me, it's not a secret. It's well documented. All the red
flags are up. Most of theexperts agree. So that was to me,
(35:27):
like, Okay, that's step one, and that's very just like doing
what we can to like kind offrame the narrative at somewhat closer to the
truth. I think what I've alsostarted investing in is my contacts here in
Ghent. There's a big kind ofPalestinian community that I'm very involved in.
(35:47):
They all have their stories because obviouslyfrom you know, this escalation of the
conflict is just the newest chapter.There's been so many decades of atrocities and
horrific stories of oppression, and thesestories also need to be told. And
(36:10):
so I'm kind of putting all thetools I have, all the capacity I
have left, I'm throwing them atthis because it is also what I do,
Like I've spent so much time withmy team kind of gathering genocide survivor
testimony. A lot of it focusedon the Holocaust. Some of it even
(36:30):
focused, as you were saying earlier, on resistance Jewish resistance movements during the
Holocaust. So I know that narrativequite well as well, but I feel
like the Palestinians just we need toamplify their voices, and we need to
amplify everyone's voices who's talking about them, because they're being suppressed and they're being
(36:52):
silenced, and there is this massivemachine of communication and propaganda that is working
against them. So we need todo everything we can to kind of wage
that, for lack of a betterword, the communications war in the other
(37:13):
direction, to get closer to thetruth, the same way that we celebrated
the end of the apartheid in SouthAfrica, the same way that we celebrated
the Berlin Wall coming down. Doyou hope and pray for a day that
that wall comes down in Gaza,that this region can somehow go to a
(37:37):
move to a place where you know, and I mean I'm speaking really dreamfully
here where the re education of evenIsraeli people can be one that says,
hey, that person over there deservesintegrity and life and freedom know differently than
I do, and their existence doesnot threaten me. You know, do
you hope and pray for a daywhere we can maybe see that. I
(38:01):
do still have hope for that AliaI am because I do believe in people,
and I also know that the majorityof the people don't want the situation
like it is right now. Ithink there is a group of the highest
(38:22):
of privileged, the most elite,who are calling shots for various reasons,
whether it's like religious fundamentalism, orwhether it's resource or geopolitical strategy, or
there are all these justifications for it. But I definitely I know that most
(38:42):
of the people also in Israel,because you could see all this like this
noise on the streets in Israel inthe last few weeks and months and years
and decades. Even there are peoplewho are very unhappy with the situation as
it is and see the oppression ofthe Palestinians for what it is, and
likewise the Palestinian side. I meanthat was the time I was in Gaza,
was kind of around the time ofthe height of the March, the
(39:06):
March of Return, you know,where every Friday they would march to the
wall and in the peaceful kind ofresistance. Unfortunately that it didn't really do
anything, which I always find sucha sad fact because I've been in movements,
I've been on the streets, I'veshouted about things, and the constant
disillusionment of you know, shouting intothe void and getting nothing from your policy
(39:31):
makers in return is disheartening. ButI do believe, I really do believe
that if you were to give atrue voice to the people, if we
would have democratic institutions that really didrepresent the voices of the people on the
ground, I believe that that ispossible. But it is about that,
(39:55):
and this brings me back to thebeginning of our conversation, where you have
these massive geopolitical institutions that lack properrepresentation. I think that is possibly the
key to actually fulfilling that almost utopiankind of hope that we dare to still
(40:16):
have. Vallee, I'm with you. I'm with you, you know,
so I really appreciate that, youknow, and I appreciate your your story,
your openness, your heart. Tobe quite honest, I know it's
not easy for people to support you, you know, where can they do
(40:37):
that where can they see your work, where can they donate to your work?
You know, please let us know? Yeah, yeah, so,
I mean, I I'm most activeon the socials, on Instagram, on
TikTok, just under my name ThomasMaddens. You can actually see most of
my films. They're all available onmy website at madfilms dot eu, and
(40:59):
there you can all so kind ofget a bit more information about what it
is I do and what my workis, because I mean, I'm a
filmmaker, but I am also verymuch an activist because I use my film
as a tool for impact, andyou can see kind of what we do
there and what we're working on currently. So those are the places to follow
me. And I always say topeople like get in touch, because I
(41:22):
do respond and my team does respond. We're interested in hearing other people's stories
and other perspectives and collaborating with othercreative people. So please get in touch
and let us know how you'd liketo work together. I love that and
I definitely am going to continue supportingand checking you out, and you know,
(41:43):
as a fellow, I mean,this is the the behind unsugar coated
media, you know, and theword unsugarcoated tells it all. You know,
this is what and I and Itake great pride in being a social
impact producer, an impact producer becausefor all the great things we experience,
like you, privilege whatever people wantto call it, and I haven't always
had that, but just to haveit now the way that I do.
(42:05):
If I'm not doing something that serveshumanity with it, then you know,
I don't really want to do it. So I completely understand. Thank you
so much for your time, andwe look forward to actually, you know,
having more conversations with you in thefuture. Thank you so much.
I appreciate it, Alia and Iand thank you so much for this and
for creating this platform and directing ittowards this because it's so important and the
(42:32):
fact that you have that whole personalconnection to it, I think it will
it can pull people in and justit can make it so much more human
than just these like talking points thatwe're getting in kind of the mainstream media
narrative. So thank you Aliah forall your work as well. Thank you
mischallal as we say, right,yeah, all right, thank you so
(42:53):
much. And for those of youwho are at home, you know,
look I'm going to share something withyou. My son, who is only
eighteen years old, he is halfPalestinian himself. And after this, you
know, in these conversations that myI've had to have with my children consistently,
he said something to me that Ifound quite profound. He said,
(43:16):
Mom, both sides need to beforgiven. And I know that a lot
of people are not going to wantto hear. That does not mean that
people have not done wrong, Thatdoes not mean that people do not need
to be held accountable. But ifwe are ever, as you know Thomas
and I just spoke about, andreally truly it is the tenet of conflict
(43:36):
resolution, which I don't even thinkmy son even fully understood what he was
talking about. And when he saidit, I'm like, you mean conflict
resolution and in order to achieve that, you have to you know, we
interviewed once Jeff Gomez. He wasone of the producers on Avatar. You
know, we all love Avatar,but if you look at that movie,
what was it about? An aggressive, oppressive machines? These people just trying
(43:57):
to live life, enjoy their culture, and in order for you know,
what he talked about in that interviewwas the conflict resolution right now, right
here, we leave everything else behind, and we speak from a place of
hope when we say that we andwe need that clarity. We need that
(44:19):
type of thinking to happen right nowacross the globe, in every single household,
from every single mother, from everysingle grandmother, from every single father.
For God's sakes, we need itnow. Furthermore, while I am
not anti Israeli, i am antimindset that causes any person to believe that
(44:42):
they need to hate someone else.And nothing kills me more when I see
interviews of people who who somehow haveadopted a belief that they're not good.
They're a threat to our world,they're a threat to our existence. It
kills my soul because if we reallylook back at World War Two and the
(45:04):
vitriol and the true extremism of theNazis, like I said, we were
all happy when we could finally celebratetheir freedom, their liberation, the apartheid,
the Berlin Wall. You know,Palestinians deserve that right now. They
deserve our support, they deserve ourhumanity. And for people in the Israeli
(45:28):
community, if you also want tohave that same piece, then we have
to come to a resolution that makessense for everyone. I appreciate your time,
I appreciate your energy. Most ofall, I appreciate you letting us
be unsugarcoated. We'll talk to yousoon. Thank you, Take care,
From Ubin Studios. You're listening toUnsugarcoated with Alia, bringing you interviews with
public figures and inspirational people speaking onself improvement with empowered themes, and I'm
your host, Ali Alaneous. Hello, Hello, and welcome back to another
episode of Unsugarcoated with Alia. Asyou know, we are continuing this incredibly
(00:24):
special curated season, as I've said, the most important season I've ever produced.
Because of the topic, our theme, from Los Angeles to Gaza,
a plea for humanity. It's beenstressful, it's been emotional to conduct these
conversations, but of course that isnothing compared to the people living it.
(00:45):
You know, I continue to seedaily videos of Palestinians suffering, being killed,
being pulled from rebel, being completelyobliterated, and nurses, you know,
hospitals, every the list goes onand on, and it's devastating.
It's devastating to know, quite frankly, that the world stands by and somehow
(01:07):
condones this. But there are alot of people that want to focus on
October seventh, which, albeit ahorrible day. If we can be upset
about this day, we have tobe upset about every day since then,
and less than two blocks from myhouse. Last evening there was a screening
held of the events. It washosted and put together by Galgadot and a
(01:30):
woman that you know I had previouslyhoped and as having children that are part
Palestinian myself, I loved the characterof I've loved the character of Wonder Woman
since I was a child, andI really hoped in her even playing the
character, that it would be asign of potential, piece of potential mutual
agreement of integrity and decency that shouldbe allowed between two cultures. We need
(01:55):
to bring people away from extremist ideas, so that was frustrating. I value
the importance of filmmaking and documentarian work, one of which is because we know
how it is a double ledged sword. It is a sword that can cut
you free from the lies that youbelieve, and it can also stab you
(02:17):
in the heart, as we knowJoseph Goebels did when he created the propaganda
and rhetoric that fueled Nazism during WorldWar Two, and it's something that I
really feel is critical. We alsoknow that democracy dies in darkness, and
what we're seeing right now is targetedefforts to shut up journalists, to kill
them, even to kill their families, to tell them to shut up.
(02:39):
We're seeing influenced and influencers and peopleof notable stature that are being told be
quiet. You're speaking for terrorists,and I know it's not the case.
So in this I'm grateful for thepeople with their experiences that have come onto
the seasons as we continue to pushthe needle forward in the name of humanity.
And so today we're by a filmmaker, journalist, and an activist to
(03:02):
share this conversation on why storytelling iscritical when it comes to humanity, as
well as his own personal experiences.Thomas Maddens is a filmmaker and passionate activists
focusing on vital issues such as humanrights, climate justice, and reproductive rights.
Together with his wife and partner EllenAndres, he co founded a Mad
(03:23):
Production a decade ago, dedicated toproducing impactful films and campaigns centered around these
critical themes, collaborating with organizations,creatives, and activists. Thomas's journey as
a filmmaker has been nothing short ofextraordinary. He spent the initial decade of
his career documenting her humanitarian crises forthe United Nations, bearing witness to some
(03:45):
of the world's most pressing challenges andfinding innovative ways to communicate them to global
leaders at the UN in New York. His extensive work covered regions and crisis
including Eastern Congo, South Sudan,Nepal, Iraq, Palestine, Gaza,
and many others. Beyond his humanitarianefforts, Thomas leads a team that captures
survivor's testimonies from various genocides, includingthe Holocaust, Rwanda and shedding light on
(04:11):
these important narratives. In addition,Thomas and his partner co produced Maendo,
a film that played a pivotal rolein changing societal perspectives on endometriosis in Belgium,
ultimately leading to the creation of thenation's first law addressing this condition.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome misterThomas Maddens, Thank Ham and thanks for
(04:39):
having me today. It is itis genuinely my pleasure and I always love
to give the origin stories of ourguests. You know, again, thank
you for joining us. I knowthere's a time difference and these issues are
critical. People like yourself were gettingpulled on from all different directions, but
your story from the beginning has beentranscontinental correct and so how did that impact
and shape your earlier So my fatheris a diplomat, and so he's a
(05:03):
Belgian diplomat, and so actually Ispent my young life moving around with him,
and we were stationed in various places, from kurracausin Venezuela, to New
York, to Vienna, to DarSlam in Tanzania, and then coming back
to Belgium to go to film school. It very much instructed my work in
(05:24):
various ways. I mean, onthe one hand, there was this really
kind of multicultural element of the expatcommunity that we were living in, which
is kind of this it's not reallyreal, realistic representation of what multiculturalism is,
but it was the way in whichI grew up. But mainly,
(05:45):
I think what instructed my work themost was very early exposure to really intense
forms of injustice and privilege. Andyou know, the world's the different and
the different places that people find themselvesin. And now I've come to learn
(06:05):
that a lot of that is todo with you know, oppression, oppressor
dynamics. But it very much kindof instructed the reason why I wanted to
become a filmmaker, which was oneI wanted to understand the mechanisms of the
world, the geopolitical kind of structuresof the world. I was never interested
in like kind of war journalism orthat kind of thing, because that really
(06:28):
didn't interest me. What interested memore was the strength of people who were
able to flee war and continue tosurvive. I basically spent the first ten
years of my filmmaking career doing that, and I had this thing in my
head of like, Okay, ifI work for the UN, that's a
way that I can see the world, and I can use my camera and
(06:51):
I can visit the crises of theworld and find ways to communicate these to
geopolitical leadership, which is exactly whatI did, and it kind of it
really opened my mind in a way. It was very traumatizing at times as
well, but I also started tosee the interconnectedness of it all, that
(07:13):
these weren't just isolated crises and events, but that they were all kind of
interconnected in this, you know,a greater existential crisis, which is which
brings me to my work in theclimate crisis. Because you have worked with
the UN closely and you have thispurview, you know a lot of people
feel like, why does the UNnot step in, like why are we
(07:35):
not rolling in and being like yo, both you guys need to stop or
you know what I mean, andthis needs to stop. We need to
get this like why is it thatwhen we feel that there's this power here
that's supposed to kind of be theyou know, the altruistic body, why
do we not see that. It'sa frustration that I share for sure,
(07:56):
definitely having worked at the UN andhaving gone through various kind of memorials,
ceremonies of the genocide in Rwanda andother genocide specific work that I was involved
in at the UN, it isreally frustrating right now because with my knowledge
about genocide, and I've done hundredsof hours of interviews with survivors from various
(08:18):
genocides, but a lot of themaround the Holocaust and Rwanda specifically, all
the red flags are there and havebeen there for decades when it comes to
Israel and Palestine. So it's reallynot it's not a stretch to say it.
I don't understand why everyone is kindof tiptoeing around the term because to
me, having been there, it'sextremely clear what was going on because it
(08:41):
was so blatant. It wasn't tryingto be put away. But the UN,
I think Gutierrez, the Secretary General, has was very early to use
some of the strongest language of anykind of global leadership. I think the
tricky situation that he's in is obviouslyhe's not like an authoritarian dictator where he
(09:05):
can just kind of, you know, decide how it is. The UN
is a global platform. It's aplace like for example, the General Assembly,
is a place where it's the biggestkind of arena for geopolitical leadership to
have a voice. So that's mainlyits goal and its use is to provide
(09:28):
a platform for the world. Now, if we're talking about the Security Council,
that's supposed to be the instrument withwhich we can address this type of
situation. Unfortunately, the permanent memberveto of the Security Council, I personally
think it makes it completely an irrelevantinstrument because, and we've seen it again
(09:50):
now, is if we can,if the permanent members can veto so easily
and so simply and just stop anyaction for being undertaken, what's the point.
I mean, you can there isa mechanism where if the Security Council
veto happens they can go back tothe General Assembly and with some kind of
resolution circumvent the veto. But it'sa very as I would say, it's
(10:18):
very un it's very complicated, andit's very slow, and it's very complex,
and it's but it's I understand thefrustration and I definitely share it.
But I also think people overestimate maybesometimes the power of the UN in that
regard because it's not it's not necessarilywhat all of it is designed to do.
(10:41):
Because obviously there's so many different elementsto the UN as well. You
have the General Assembly of the SecurityCouncil, you have all the humanitarian organizations,
so there's so many levels on whichit plays. But I do I
absolutely share the disappointment and the appallingdecisions being made by the Security count at
the moment. It's just, uh, it's frightening, very much so,
(11:03):
and I agree with you and Ithank you. You know, is it
is it something that more young people, younger people need to be, you
know, comfortable getting involved because alot of us, and I'll say this
even for myself when I was younger, you know, Okay, the adults
will figure this out, right,But I think that by the time people
really start recognizing Wait a minute,this does impact my life. I want
(11:26):
to be part. I want aseat at those tables, like do you
do you feel that one of thecritical things is for other people, younger
generations to start being involved, notlet the older guys in the room make
those decisions one hundred percent. Imean, if you look at those kind
of family portrait pictures of big organizationslike the UN or like even like NATO
or those kinds of organizations, it'sstill and sorry to stereotype, but it's
(11:52):
still a bunch of old white men. Yeah, there's no let alone that
there's like a diversity in terms ofskin color. There's also very few women
still in these spaces, and sothere is no kind of there still is
no real diversity in these spaces.So I feel like if we're not even
at that point yet, then we'renot really getting diverse opinions being heard.
(12:18):
I know, in the last fewyears there's been this really like conceited effort
to bring young voices in, particularlyaround things like climate. That's something where
young involvement is really a key kindof has become a key thing. I
think young people need to recognize theirpower as well, and this whole apathy
(12:39):
towards politics and democracy and getting involvedin this, I think, even just
strategically, it's a bad decision tonot be involved. Because as a friend
of mine who's in them, he'sin the federal Parliament in Belgium, he's
a politician here. He often sayslike, if you don't care about politics,
(13:01):
politics cares about you. So whetheryou're going to get involved or not,
it'll drag you around. So Ithink there is absolutely value in getting
involved, I think, and youcan do it in so many different ways.
You can do it by you know, being loud on your platforms,
or you can do it by organizingand mobilizing and doing things. You can
(13:22):
do it by you know, gettingtogether in your schools and doing actions or
things like that. Or you cando it by voting or that kind of
thing. So there's like it's notthat it's like this one size fits all
kind of way of getting involved.I've always had this sense of like I've
had privilege in my upbringing and Iam going to use every ounce of that
privilege that I have to fight injustice. And that's a really intense responsibility that
(13:48):
I feel, and I know noteveryone feels that, but I think I
urge people who have the capacity todo it to do that because we are
careening to words. I mean IsraelPalestine is just one example. But we
are careening towards a completely inhumane andinhuman world, and we have to stand
(14:11):
up against it because it's just it'snot Humanity will not make it, you
know. I mean for people whoaren't aware, there's of course I know
you are. Is They predict thatby twenty fifty a billion people will be
displaced, you know, and whenwe look at how people can't seem to
get along, I don't think theyunderstand we might need each other in this
(14:33):
world. We need each other.We do need each other. So in
that segueing into that, you haveyour own personal experiences in Gaza, you
know, please share with our audience. You know, first of all,
what was that like, what broughtyou there and what was your experience?
Like? It's a bit strange.I mean to some people it may sound
strange, but from when I wasa kid, Gaza specifically was number one
(15:00):
on my I don't want to callit a bucket list because that has like
a like a positive connotation, butthis was more a fascination of places that
I wanted to go because I wantedto understand. Because I remember as a
kid with a diplomat father when wehad when he would have like colleagues over
and they would discuss things, andI would kind of pick things up as
(15:22):
a kid. I remember when itwas Israel Palestine, and particularly when we
were living in New York at thetime, it would always be this really
intense conversation and it was like nothingelse that anyone talked about and so,
and that was how I kind ofinterpreted as a kid. But then as
I grew up, I started readingmore about it, and I watched documentaries.
(15:45):
I saw Louis Thrue's like a documentaryon Zionism, and I saw all
these and five broken cameras. Youknow, the Academy Award. I think
it won the Academy Award at onepoint or it was nominated. And I
have this real kind of sense abilitytowards injustice, and when I see it,
I want to kind of get involvedand get my hands kind of dirty
(16:06):
in a way. And to me, my theory of change really is storytelling.
And I think the only the bestway to do that is to go
to a place and meet the peopleand talk to the people and get an
understanding of the situation, because youknow, you can read books and you
can see films, but that's juststill one person's perspective, that's not my
own perspective. And so when Iwas working for the UN, I was
(16:30):
constantly trying to find these opportunities togo to Gaza and to try to understand
what was going on. And afew times we wanted to make it happen,
but then the security situation changed andthen we couldn't get in. In
twenty seventeen, there was a littlethere was a window where we could get
(16:51):
in, where we could cross theborder into Gaza. I mean, we
flew into tell Iv, even wentto Jerusalem, and then crossed the border
and went into Gaza. It wassuch an onslaught to everything. It wasn't
even that because at that time thesituation was somewhat stable. It wasn't right
(17:15):
after a war, it wasn't orright after an escalation in the conflict,
or it was kind of a stablesituation. But the stories I heard from
people and just going into Gaza itself, like crossing that border and crossing that
wall and seeing like these the sentryguns and you know, illegal weaponry by
(17:41):
international humanitarian law. To cross intothis border and to see the level of
oppression was completely, in my experience, unrivaled. And this was after I
had gone to Eastern Congo and SouthSudan and Iraq, and I had been
to all these different crisis areas andplaces where oppression and was a thing,
(18:06):
But this I had never seen before. The level to which these people were
being oppressed, the level to whichthey were being surveilled, detained, tortured,
murdered, the siege around the place, the inability to escape. I
used to call it an open airprison, but I've also learned from my
(18:30):
Palestinian friends in the meantime that that'sactually not really fair because a prison implies
that it has prisoners there, whichmeans they have done something wrong. So
it is more like actually a concentrationcamp. It was, and every single
story from every single person that Imet there was lowered my bar for humanity,
(18:56):
and I already had quite a lowbar seeing the things I had seen,
and I constantly have this hope oflike humans are good and humans are
good, but Gaza, honestly,it really really challenged my view on that
sense, because the people in Palestinethat I met were actually also and this
(19:17):
has to be said, they werewonderful people across the board. And we
met people in kind of various layersof society, because that's the wonderful thing
about making documentaries is you have toget into people's lives, and you have
tea with people, and you meetsome people on a policy level, and
you meet some people in the humanitarianspace. And these people just wanted to
(19:38):
share their stories and wanted to sharetheir lives. But and they were so
kind and so warm and so inviting. And the contrasts on the other side
of the wall or you know inIsrael, or you know, authorities in
Israel, or the Defense Force inIsrael, the way we were treated by
(20:00):
them, by them just for evengoing into Gaza. And I mean,
it's important to understand this was likea it was a UNICEF mission, so
it was it was a humanitarian Ithad a humanitarian context. Like the film
we made didn't have like a politicaldrive. It was more just understanding what
you know, children in this situationwere going to school like, like what
(20:23):
they were living like. Because itwas a part of a VR film series
that we were making about where childrenLearn, and we had an episode in
Nepal, we had an episode inKibera, which is a slum just outside
of Nairobi, and then we hadan episode in Gaza. So there was
no like political angle to the film. But even so, I felt the
(20:48):
way that I was looked at byIsraeli authorities just for even saying that I
was going into Palestine and going intoGaza. I didn't feel like I was
looked at as a huge and itjust struck me that I was like,
and this is me with a Belgianpassport and a UN team and a film
crew and all these things. Ijust imagined, like, what is this
(21:11):
like for people who are actually,you know, living there and living this
and oppressed by this regime and besiegedby this regime? And I was.
I remember coming back from that tripand just being so angry I was.
(21:33):
I couldn't even place the anger Ifelt, because I was like, how
is it possible that this is soblatant and so clear? And I was
only there for like two or threeweeks, but it didn't take long to
understand what was going on. AndI kept repeating to myself like it's not
(21:56):
that complicated. It's pretty clear what'sgoing on here. Nobody is trying to
keep it a secret. How isthat possible? The main conclusion that I
came to then, and the mainquestion I had was, and it's a
dark question, why is Gaza stillthere? And why is the West Bank
(22:18):
still there? Because with all theresources being thrown at this oppressive regime,
the might of the American military industrialcomplex being thrown at this oppressive regime,
and still these little bits of countryremain. And I just found myself wondering
(22:41):
why. That was when I starteddigging deeper and I actually got in touch
with somebody who I had met inSouth Sudan before and who's done a bunch
of work around Israel Palestine, AnthonyLowenstein. He's a writer and he wrote
the book The Palestine Laboratory, andwhich is all about kind of battle tested
surveillance technology and military technology that Israelkind of exports around the world, but
(23:07):
basically using the Palestinian people as aresource almost to test military technology on.
And to be honest, like thatwas the sickening conclusion that I drew as
well coming out of that place.I still have a hard time placing the
(23:30):
trauma that I have from there,And I feel kind of bad even calling
my thing a trauma, because Ihave friends who fled from there to here
in the meantime and literally live inGhent and with me, and when I
talk to them and when we talkabout their lives up to this point,
I think most people can't imagine thedarkness that they've experienced. What struck me
(23:55):
was that there's when we talk aboutthat dynamic between Israel and Palestine. When
I talk to the Palestinians, thePalestinians were often like, we don't want
Hamas, we don't want the Israelis. We just want peace and freedom,
which is a very kind of straightforwardand simple to understand and just narrative,
(24:17):
Whereas whenever I talk to somebody whois from the other side of the wall,
suddenly there's all these complications that getsthrown in, and there's all these
like these holy books that need tobe referenced and all these things. And
it's not to minimize that in anyway, but like if we talk about
the last seventy five years, tome, it's pretty straightforward. It's a
(24:38):
settler colony that's increasingly and increasingly oppressedand grown its allies and with European and
American funding, has just slowly pusheda group of people from their land.
Yeah, and you know on that, you know, I hear a lot
of people. In fact, Igot an email this morning. You know,
why don't they just leave? Whydon't they just leave? Leave their
(25:00):
land, leave the leave the oceanthat they love, leave the culture that
they've known. Why aren't they complicentin erasure of who they are? Right?
Just why don't they leave? Withregards to the journalism that's been attacked
and actually how we became connected,you were part of an Al Jazeera article
(25:21):
that focused on the suppression that youknow hear advocates and activists such as yourself,
with a wealth of knowledge and experiencecoming from a very humanitarian place,
are finding that they're being canceled,that their comments are being deleted. That
you know, and when you're noteven saying anything. I know myself,
I actually gave someone a compliment.Next thing, you know, I get
it, it had nothing. Ijust said nothing. But you know,
(25:44):
and next thing, you now,you have violated your your comment is being
deleted. And you you know,when we talk about how democracy dies in
darkness and how journalists are the guardiansof democracy. They are there to keep
us accountable. They are there tolet us know what's happening. I remember
my grandfather when I was a kid. I'd walk into the house and he'd
(26:06):
say, what's happening in the worldtoday, And if I said I don't
know, oh my goodness, Iwould get a complete rant on why I
needed to know what was happening inthe world and I could not just be
focused on myself. And I'm gratefulfor that, But at the same token,
I recognize that half the time I'mnot really getting from the media and
this you know, it is abiased media. And you know, as
I've said, thank goodness for socialmedia at this point, because if it
(26:26):
was not for social media the informationthat is getting out, we wouldn't have
the view into this crisis the waythat we do. In your experience,
you know, and and when youwere in as part of that article,
share with us your frustration and sharewith us, you know, your perspective
on why this really does threaten us. Because as an American society, right
(26:47):
I'm speaking from the Americans. Idon't take away my freedom of speech.
Why should people recognize that whenever thattype of behavior is happening, it is
a threat to us all. Thisis one of those real kinds of masks
are off moments. I think wehad it with recently in recent history,
with COVID nineteen. We had itin I think you and I are people
(27:11):
who can remember things like nine toeleven happening, like those kinds of big
fundamental societal shift moments. This isabsolutely one of those two for me,
where you suddenly I'm very connected topeople on the ground in Palestine, and
so when this started happening, Iinstantly started messaging them and getting videos from
(27:32):
them about what was going on,and I got in touch with the reality
on the ground. And that wasall through social media WhatsApp, but also
Instagram and TikTok as well and allthese things. So I knew the reality
on the ground, and I alsohad this kind of fundamental understanding of what
it was like from having been theremyself, and then to see at least
(27:56):
here in Europe, I mean alsoin America because as I follow American media
outlets as well, to see theway the narrative was just being just so
one sided and the words that werebeing used to describe things was absolutely terrifying.
It's kind of like it gets thisreally kind of existential fear and dread
(28:19):
of like, but what has everythingthat I've been reading my entire life been?
And to me that this was sucha clear example of that, of
like the focus on these these attacksand the justification of this escalation in bombardments
(28:40):
and things with and ironically like thiswhole this historical justification ignoring the recent history,
which I find found very strange.There was all like these mind bending
things happening of like whose land isWho's and all these things. But like
(29:00):
to me, as you said beforebefore the interview here, but it's kind
of a it was always waiting tohappen, and that was the situation that
was created and perpetuated. And theHamas attacks of October seventh are we can
(29:21):
absolutely condemn them. They were horrific, but I also have the ability to
see to place them in their slightlybroader context in the sense of like,
if a people is oppressed, violentresistance is usually a symptom of that,
(29:41):
a symptom of that oppression. Soto expect that that's not going to happen
is just factually incorrect. And asa side note, armed resistance against oppression
is legal within international humanitarian law.This is not to justify Hamas's actions,
(30:03):
and they can be prosecuted as warcrimes, although I don't know how the
International Criminal Court would judge that,because, like I said, if you're
talking about people being oppressed, andif organizations like Amnesty International can see the
Palestinians and the Israelis and living inan apartheid state, I wonder what the
(30:26):
call would be. But to me, like this whole focus and this like
little narrative that's happening now, that'spart of this much greater or system much
better funded system of oppression. Andthen to see how the media was like
using those to like kind of justifyit and even calling it a war,
(30:48):
I was that keeps driving me kindof nuts, to be honest, because
like, it's not a war.It never was a war. A war
means they're like two nations that arefighting each other on somewhat kind of equal
ground, like Ukraine and Russia.That's a more kind of definable war situation.
(31:12):
This to me, was never awar. It was always it was
an oppression. It was an apartheidstate, and it was koreening and has
now gone into full fledged Genosidt,and the fact that very few media outlets
are actually even using that term iscompletely insane to me. I agree,
(31:37):
and I think that history will lookback on them and they will maybe feel
differently because two things that I wantto say to what you've said, and
you know, I mentioned this inanother episode on the season. Let's just
say that the Jewish people that werebeing held in concentration camps had somehow managed
to rise up against the Nazis.Call them terrorists, right. And furthermore,
(32:01):
for people who don't know their history, they should recognize that there were
resistance groups at part of the Jewishcommunity and they did try to use violence
to exert some sort of freedom fromthe oppression that they were feeling. You
know, And to your point aboutwar, I agree my and I had
shared it on my social media acouple weeks back. But I was caught
(32:23):
in the two thousand where my familywas caught in the two thousand conflict.
I only wasn't personally physically there becausemy son was coliquy and I didn't want
to make the journey, but myhusband at the time was in the airport
when Israeli forces bombed in July oftwo thousand and six following Hesbaala kidnapping two
soldiers. Now to your point,people call this the Lebanon, you know,
(32:45):
Lebanese Israeli war. But what myfamily, my entire mediate family experienced,
was a consistent bombardment, you know, of innocent civilian lives, a
complete demolition of fifteen years of infrastructurethat was demolished in a week with you
know, and yet let's call ita war. No, let's call this
(33:06):
an aggression once again against you know, a neighbor, and and I and
just not you know, not sayingthat the two soldiers' lives didn't matter.
But consistently we see that. Okay, Well, you know, for everyone
Israeli life, we're going to decimatean entire village and we're going to call
it justice. And you know,it's hard to swallow that, and it's
hard to sit there. And andin fact, I don't watch a lot
(33:28):
of the media. I read,try to read because you know, when
I hear certain words and I hearthat language, I'm with you, Thomas,
I'm just like, are you kiddingme? You've got to be kidding
so so filmmaking right now and theunadulterated truth is critical. How do you
really feel that people should be focusedon that? How can that be accomplished?
(33:49):
You know what efforts are you doingtogether? Because I can tell by
who you know what you are.You've already had one. And for people
who haven't watched, there are amazingdocumentaries on these subjects. Born in Gaza
is currently on Netflix. You know, I encourage everyone to watch it,
but yes, for you, whatdo you feel is most important? How
can people do that? And whatdo you feel your move is towards speaking
(34:10):
on this crisis. The first thingI felt the need to do was to
speak from my experience, and thatwas also the first thing I did was
I just grabbed the camera and Ijust said, look, this is my
take on it, because I thinkeveryone in my direct environment is getting it
wrong, and I wanted to beloud about it. I think that was
important and I think that is importantfor everyone. I think everyone needs to
(34:35):
be loud about this because in five, ten, fifteen years time, I'm
sure we'll have our policymakers standing atsome remembrance saying, oh if only we
had known, and like we dowith Rwanda, like we do with the
Holocaust. So my first instinct was, let try as much as we can
(35:01):
to just call this what it isand mainstream that language. I thought that
was a very That was my firstintention, was like, this is a
genocide. People need to start usingthat word because it is clear as day
to me, it's not a secret. It's well documented. All the red
flags are up. Most of theexperts agree. So that was to me,
(35:27):
like, Okay, that's step one, and that's very just like doing
what we can to like kind offrame the narrative at somewhat closer to the
truth. I think what I've alsostarted investing in is my contacts here in
Ghent. There's a big kind ofPalestinian community that I'm very involved in.
(35:47):
They all have their stories because obviouslyfrom you know, this escalation of the
conflict is just the newest chapter.There's been so many decades of atrocities and
horrific stories of oppression, and thesestories also need to be told. And
(36:10):
so I'm kind of putting all thetools I have, all the capacity I
have left, I'm throwing them atthis because it is also what I do,
Like I've spent so much time withmy team kind of gathering genocide survivor
testimony. A lot of it focusedon the Holocaust. Some of it even
(36:30):
focused, as you were saying earlier, on resistance Jewish resistance movements during the
Holocaust. So I know that narrativequite well as well, but I feel
like the Palestinians just we need toamplify their voices, and we need to
amplify everyone's voices who's talking about them, because they're being suppressed and they're being
(36:52):
silenced, and there is this massivemachine of communication and propaganda that is working
against them. So we need todo everything we can to kind of wage
that, for lack of a betterword, the communications war in the other
(37:13):
direction, to get closer to thetruth, the same way that we celebrated
the end of the apartheid in SouthAfrica, the same way that we celebrated
the Berlin Wall coming down. Doyou hope and pray for a day that
that wall comes down in Gaza,that this region can somehow go to a
(37:37):
move to a place where you know, and I mean I'm speaking really dreamfully
here where the re education of evenIsraeli people can be one that says,
hey, that person over there deservesintegrity and life and freedom know differently than
I do, and their existence doesnot threaten me. You know, do
you hope and pray for a daywhere we can maybe see that. I
(38:01):
do still have hope for that AliaI am because I do believe in people,
and I also know that the majorityof the people don't want the situation
like it is right now. Ithink there is a group of the highest
(38:22):
of privileged, the most elite,who are calling shots for various reasons,
whether it's like religious fundamentalism, orwhether it's resource or geopolitical strategy, or
there are all these justifications for it. But I definitely I know that most
(38:42):
of the people also in Israel,because you could see all this like this
noise on the streets in Israel inthe last few weeks and months and years
and decades. Even there are peoplewho are very unhappy with the situation as
it is and see the oppression ofthe Palestinians for what it is, and
likewise the Palestinian side. I meanthat was the time I was in Gaza,
was kind of around the time ofthe height of the March, the
(39:06):
March of Return, you know,where every Friday they would march to the
wall and in the peaceful kind ofresistance. Unfortunately that it didn't really do
anything, which I always find sucha sad fact because I've been in movements,
I've been on the streets, I'veshouted about things, and the constant
disillusionment of you know, shouting intothe void and getting nothing from your policy
(39:31):
makers in return is disheartening. ButI do believe, I really do believe
that if you were to give atrue voice to the people, if we
would have democratic institutions that really didrepresent the voices of the people on the
ground, I believe that that ispossible. But it is about that,
(39:55):
and this brings me back to thebeginning of our conversation, where you have
these massive geopolitical institutions that lack properrepresentation. I think that is possibly the
key to actually fulfilling that almost utopiankind of hope that we dare to still
(40:16):
have. Vallee, I'm with you. I'm with you, you know,
so I really appreciate that, youknow, and I appreciate your your story,
your openness, your heart. Tobe quite honest, I know it's
not easy for people to support you, you know, where can they do
(40:37):
that where can they see your work, where can they donate to your work?
You know, please let us know? Yeah, yeah, so,
I mean, I I'm most activeon the socials, on Instagram, on
TikTok, just under my name ThomasMaddens. You can actually see most of
my films. They're all available onmy website at madfilms dot eu, and
(40:59):
there you can all so kind ofget a bit more information about what it
is I do and what my workis, because I mean, I'm a
filmmaker, but I am also verymuch an activist because I use my film
as a tool for impact, andyou can see kind of what we do
there and what we're working on currently. So those are the places to follow
me. And I always say topeople like get in touch, because I
(41:22):
do respond and my team does respond. We're interested in hearing other people's stories
and other perspectives and collaborating with othercreative people. So please get in touch
and let us know how you'd liketo work together. I love that and
I definitely am going to continue supportingand checking you out, and you know,
(41:43):
as a fellow, I mean,this is the the behind unsugar coated
media, you know, and theword unsugarcoated tells it all. You know,
this is what and I and Itake great pride in being a social
impact producer, an impact producer becausefor all the great things we experience,
like you, privilege whatever people wantto call it, and I haven't always
had that, but just to haveit now the way that I do.
(42:05):
If I'm not doing something that serveshumanity with it, then you know,
I don't really want to do it. So I completely understand. Thank you
so much for your time, andwe look forward to actually, you know,
having more conversations with you in thefuture. Thank you so much.
I appreciate it, Alia and Iand thank you so much for this and
for creating this platform and directing ittowards this because it's so important and the
(42:32):
fact that you have that whole personalconnection to it, I think it will
it can pull people in and justit can make it so much more human
than just these like talking points thatwe're getting in kind of the mainstream media
narrative. So thank you Aliah forall your work as well. Thank you
mischallal as we say, right,yeah, all right, thank you so
(42:53):
much. And for those of youwho are at home, you know,
look I'm going to share something withyou. My son, who is only
eighteen years old, he is halfPalestinian himself. And after this, you
know, in these conversations that myI've had to have with my children consistently,
he said something to me that Ifound quite profound. He said,
(43:16):
Mom, both sides need to beforgiven. And I know that a lot
of people are not going to wantto hear. That does not mean that
people have not done wrong, Thatdoes not mean that people do not need
to be held accountable. But ifwe are ever, as you know Thomas
and I just spoke about, andreally truly it is the tenet of conflict
(43:36):
resolution, which I don't even thinkmy son even fully understood what he was
talking about. And when he saidit, I'm like, you mean conflict
resolution and in order to achieve that, you have to you know, we
interviewed once Jeff Gomez. He wasone of the producers on Avatar. You
know, we all love Avatar,but if you look at that movie,
what was it about? An aggressive, oppressive machines? These people just trying
(43:57):
to live life, enjoy their culture, and in order for you know,
what he talked about in that interviewwas the conflict resolution right now, right
here, we leave everything else behind, and we speak from a place of
hope when we say that we andwe need that clarity. We need that
(44:19):
type of thinking to happen right nowacross the globe, in every single household,
from every single mother, from everysingle grandmother, from every single father.
For God's sakes, we need itnow. Furthermore, while I am
not anti Israeli, i am antimindset that causes any person to believe that
(44:42):
they need to hate someone else.And nothing kills me more when I see
interviews of people who who somehow haveadopted a belief that they're not good.
They're a threat to our world,they're a threat to our existence. It
kills my soul because if we reallylook back at World War Two and the
(45:04):
vitriol and the true extremism of theNazis, like I said, we were
all happy when we could finally celebratetheir freedom, their liberation, the apartheid,
the Berlin Wall. You know,Palestinians deserve that right now. They
deserve our support, they deserve ourhumanity. And for people in the Israeli
(45:28):
community, if you also want tohave that same piece, then we have
to come to a resolution that makessense for everyone. I appreciate your time,
I appreciate your energy. Most ofall, I appreciate you letting us
be unsugarcoated. We'll talk to yousoon. Thank you, Take care,
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