 This is Stink Tech, Hawaii. Community matters here. Bingo. It's about justice. It's about global justice. It's about perspectives on global justice. And the host of that show is my guest. We're doing this kind of in reverse order. I like that. Because Beatrice Cantelmo is a star, and we're going to reveal her as a star today. She's global justice, social justice, and she's into perspectives, and amnesty international, and all the things that try to make our world right. And it isn't right, it needs help. So we talked yesterday, and you were going to watch Ai Weiwei's movie, Human Flow. So did you like it? I did. And at the same time, I also had a really hard time with it. Well, tell us what it is, the start at the beginning. Yes. So this amazing Chinese movie maker, an artist, you know, an activist, they don't like him too much in China. They tend to throw him in jail. He was in captivity for 81 days, and things were really tough for him. But he decided to visit 23 refugee camps around the globe to really figure out what's going on. Have a very fast-hand glimpse on what's happening in the camps. But also in the process, he was able to speak with the people who are directly in that camp. Yeah, he somehow got into the camps. Not all of them. You know, I hope you realize that some of them were at a distance, and he had fabulous photography in any event, including drone shots that make your mouth water in photography. But he got into a lot of them, and he was able to talk to the people there. That was interesting. I mean, that's a lot of good social engineering that he managed to get inside these camps. Well, not only he's an artist, but he's a shaker and mover. I think also his brain as an architect is really about building foundational blocks. And what I really enjoyed about his work was that it was very like to the core of the issues. Like, you know, like if you're thinking about 65 million people worldwide being displaced right now, either because of, you know, fear of persecution, violence, climate change, he touched base on all three elements. Can we talk about them for a minute? Yeah, oh, absolutely. Let's just sort of define our terms. 60, I remember 60 million, about 65, that works. 65 million people in these camps, including the ones he visited, and maybe the ones he didn't visit, but the ones he knows about. Because the whole movie had like this poetic, you know, poetic thing that he read or showed on the screen, and he gave you the poetry of what he was trying to tell you. It was very succinct, too. And to me, it was not trying to advocate for, you know, activist kind of action. He was just telling it like it was, and mostly it's a very sad story. So these refugees, I want to get a handle on that. I remember that from the movie that a lot of them have been in these camps for decades, and a lot of them are going to stay in these, as it stands, a lot of them are going to stay in these camps for decades, for life, and a lot of them have died in these camps. You don't hear about that from the kinds of diseases you get in these camps. And there are cemeteries outside these camps, reflecting all the people that have died over years and years of being neglected in a substandard health situation, you know, with no running water, no sewage, that's really quite awful. No human dignity. No human dignity. And somebody puts them in the camp. Somebody enforces the fence around the camp and says, you may not leave, and if you leave, we'll do bad things to you. So you know, in general, how have they gotten there? You say refugees, refugees from where? What's the common denominator story about how these 60 million, 65 million people have accumulated? Yeah. There are 65 million people, human beings. We have to also remember that almost 23 million of them are children under the age of 18. Many of them who have never been able to go to school, and who were born in the camp and raised in the camps. Without school? Without school, or very minimum access to education and health care, and the basic human right dignities that you and I afforded. And by the virtue of the privilege of being in a country that is not under, you know, conflict, that jeopardizes our safety and peace, right? And also by the virtue of climate change where we haven't been massively impacted yet. We're starting to kind of get the taste of it in some regions. Like if you think about Puerto Rico, actually today, a year ago, Puerto Rico was devastated with Hurricane Maria, and people are really struggling, like there is no electricity, it's off the grid for a big part of the island, people died, almost 3,000 people died for like a very basic care, such as clean water. And the United States did precious little to help them, by the way. I'd like to add that. And Trump went down there and he threw towels and people that remember that, but he didn't really help them at all. But the thing is, you know, we have to actually include Puerto Ricans, it's not them, it's us. Puerto Rico is part of the United States, it's another state of the United States. And just last in the month ago, Hawaii was hit with three hurricane warnings of category three to five that luckily, you know, didn't hit us, it took a detour, but we could be in the same shoes. I'll tell you what, that all leaves me. We still have to talk about how these refugees got there, but I'm laying the foundation. And I want to take footnotes on your foundation. But one footnote is that, you know, I wake up in the morning and I do think about this. I think this is, you know, maybe the finest hour for Hawaii. I think it's wonderful to wake up and see good weather and people who are kind in Aloha for the most part. Yeah, we've got potholes and we have a rail system we probably won't complete it. These are small issues. How about the issue of running water? How about the issue of decent food and health care? How about the issue of children who die prematurely? How about that? And there's so many people in the world and they exist at the same time as I wake up in the morning and see the sunshine. And I feel terrible that the global system, however it is, is permitting this to happen. And there is virtually no organization, not the United Nations, not anyone who is concerned about these refugees. Well, I think that there are concerns. What is lacking is really a commitment that comes from all governments, from all over the world and also from every single human being to look at the refugee issue from a humanitarian standpoint and beyond the part of feeling sad and frustrated but say, what can we do about it? The fact of the matter is that this is going to only get worse. Not only because I think that in terms of peace and security relations, we are doing a great job, but we're not. There's more conflicts, more governments, they're turning into more of the right, authoritative, fascist type of... Right. So the number of people in the camps, the number of camps likely to grow. Yeah. And not only that, but we also have to link that to global warming. Global warming is a fact. 99.7% of scientists have been able to determine that. We don't have to argue that here. We don't even need to argue that. But what that means is that resources are going to get scarcer and scarcer over time. We are going to deal with more regions in the world that are going to have drought. Island places like Hawaii, many islands in the Pacific are already... We know that it's going to be a sea level rise, but there's not a plan on what do we do with environmental refugees or people who are going to be displaced because of those environmental changes. It's a whole different kind of refugee. Exactly. It's a climate change refugee. But nonetheless, I think that at the end of the day, you have already almost 66 billion people who because they have been already hit so hard and devastated with their ability to be safe, they had to flee the country to be able to survive with all they had, which most of the times is like the clothes that they wear, the documents and their loved ones. But we're talking about life and death here. Yes. Because ultimately the people in these refugee camps will die for the lack of a decent life. They will be discouraged. They will not have the basics of a decent life in society and they will die. And millions of them over time will die. I mean, where is the world's conscience? What is the United Nations doing? I know there's a refugee organization in the United Nations is it doing anything? There's the UNHCR. I mean, I think that the issue has been so big and so complex in terms of politics and in terms of not being able to have people and government aligned to work together to commit to this. I think what you're saying is that people don't care perhaps as much as they might about the lives of those individuals in the camps. Those individuals are poor downtrodden, but they're remote, removed, behind a fence. And we don't know about them. We don't have any reminder of their problems. Out of sight, out of mind is one aspect. Out of sight, out of mind. But the other aspect too that I see as an activist and also as a human being is the sense of overwhelm and hopelessness because it's such a large issue that you wonder what can you as a person or as a group can do in your region or globally to make an impact to make that shift happening. That was the point, I think, or the way he left it my way, way at the end of human flow. It's huge. It's overwhelming. It's hard to say what we can do. And for the lack of an easy answer, we don't do anything. And right now, actually Beatrice, you and me, we're not going to do anything for one minute. We're going to take a break. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. When I was growing up, I was among the one in six American kids who struggled with hunger and hungry mornings make tired days. Grumpy days. That kind of days. But with the power of breakfast, the kids in your neighborhood can think big and be more. When we're not hungry for breakfast, we're hungry for more. More ideas. More dreams. More fun. When kids aren't hungry for breakfast, they can be hungry for more. Go to hungareas.org and lend your time or your voice to make breakfast happen for kids in your neighborhood. 皆さんこんにちは。 Think Tech Hawaiiが日本語でお届けする。 こんにちは。 Hawaii の日本語放送のコスト。 国主へゆかりです。 各州月曜日の2時からお届けしています。 日本語コミュニティー。 Hawaii の日本語コミュニティーに便利なお助け情報、 ニュースなどをゲストを招きしてお届けする番組です。 こんにちは。 Hawaii 各州の月曜日2時から。 ぜひ皆さん見てください。 コストの国主へゆかりでした。 アロン。 Bingo. We're back. And I have to admit we had a very interesting conversation during the break as we always do. This is Beatrice Kintemo. She's the true host and the true star of perspectives and global justice. And we're talking about Ai Weiwei's really hard film called Human Flow, where he shows us 65 million people in 23 plus refugee camps around the world, which the public doesn't know about and which nobody is doing much about. And these people by the millions are living and dying without food, water, any meaningful food, water or health care in these camps. And it is not only a tragedy but a statement of the immorality of governments everywhere. And we have to remind ourselves we can do something. So the point you made during the break is climate change is going to create more refugees, maybe you, maybe me, maybe our friends. We're going to be refugees in the same set of circumstances. Maybe this will make us as a community more sensitive to what happens in other refugee communities. What do you think? I think that that is correct. And if you really think about the history of migration in the world and, you know, the fast migration occurred from Africa 140 million years ago. We have to start to think about mobility as a human right. You know, all of these refugee camps and walls that we are creating, it's actually quite interesting because in 1989 before the Berlin Wall fell, we had about 11 walls around the world. And in 2016, it was 17. So we are creating these walls and we are creating these subhuman conditions for people to exist in refugee camps. But it's not going to work. It's not the solution. Camps are not designed for people to live in long term. You know, good fences build good neighbors, Carl Sandberg. And he was joking. It's not true. Good fences do not build good neighbors. It was tongue in cheek the whole thing. And Trump's Mexican wall is not only tongue in cheek, it's ridiculous. But what happened about the migrants coming from the Middle East and Central Asia and Africa into Europe has created a lot of these new walls. These walls are not sustainable. They can't stay. They can't stay in the larger view of the species. They can't stay. So my question for the rest of our time here on the block, if you will, okay, what can we do about it? Your first step is get uncomfortable and learn. You know, one of the biggest tools I think Amnesty International has is the one of education and awareness building. You know, here in Hawaii, from where I can speak from, it's been very hard to actually walk with this topic. We've had some success in bringing some awareness when it came to the travel ban. You know, that was like our lovely attorney general and Judge Wilson, you know, pretty much said no. That's his own kind of wall. We built lots of walls with the immigration service. But said no, we're not going to allow for this to happen. So it kind of, you know, put a curb in that for a little bit of a year. But at the end of the day, we do have a travel ban, you know, in place. Not as bad as, you know, it was originally proposed, but nonetheless, it's still there. So you know, so the part of it is like education is key because, you know, you cannot know what nobody have taught you or talked to you about it. So there are so many layers, you know, people need to understand history. How did these countries, you know, got into conflict? What is the role of first world nations, you know, to either support these conflicts or to make it worse? Where is our role in the United States? I think the second level of this is advocacy. And that can happen in terms of the conversations we need to have. We are very uncomfortable with our neighbors, with our coworkers, with our family members and with our representatives. And so that comes also legislative work. So advocacy not only is about accountability and conversation time, but it's the part of asking for change. So this year in the United States, and so there was a conference in Virginia in January where all chapters, you know, from all over the country got together. And we had a lobby day and, you know, why it was what we presented. I came along and we had our co-chair, Kerry Vochie, and we had the legislative coordinator. You spoke. I did. And so we went to speak with our representatives. And we wanted to, we had an agenda. It was very, it was very specific. We wanted for our representatives in our state to advocate and to support robust funding for the support of these encampments, you know, in Europe. Okay, let's take a moment now and ask, you know, how would that funding help the problem? There's 65 million people out there. If I gave you all the money you want, all the money I funded you until you were blue in the face, how would you convert that funding to resolving this problem? We were not asking for funding, you know, to support every single refugee camp. But we were asking for emergency funding to support basic needs such as clean water, medication and food. You know, many of these camps, they only survive. The crisis situation. It's for the crisis. It's really a bandit in a hemorrhage because if you're really going to talk about how you're going to make a sustainable shift, you know, you have to be able to have individuals actually placed in different countries where they can have a chance to have housing, training, you know, being able to get into the workforce. So how do you spend the money? I'm giving you a blank check. How do you spend the money? How do you resolve the 65 million people, you know, who are refugees with whatever money it takes? How do you do that? If I had that, you know, magic wand and money was not a problem. I would use that money and connect with every country in the world and say, let's figure out how can we send refugees into your region of the world and with that money support his and her reintegration into society so that they can rebuild their, you know, most basic needs and hopes and dreams again. That is what I would do. How do you convince the country to take people who've lived for decades in squalor and have no education and speak maybe one language that is not appropriate, not spoken in that receiving country? How do you do that? I suggest an answer and see if you agree. You have to educate them. You have to make them worthy citizens of the world. They have to speak multiple languages. I'm reminded of that company I always see the ads for, Babel, you know, it's out of the Bible, it's out of the Tower of Babel where nobody spoke the same language and everything collapsed. But if you could make people speak languages that would enable them to survive in a society in another country, if you gave them skills, whatever skills they may need to survive and be useful and have a decent life and purpose in that country, then the country would be more likely to take them and then the walls would come down. So it's a matter of preparing them for reentry into, what do you want to call it, the first world or the other world? The first world or different world to continue this journey. I think that what a lot of people forget is that before these areas were hit by a massive environmental, you know, problem or political war, that people were actually, you know, many of them were educated, you know, had resilient societies. It's not that these skills have been forgotten. They can be transferred and they can, you know, there's more than can be done to add an additional, you know, foundation there for them to continue to move forward. I also think that, you know, other countries, host countries need to remember that there is no one pure place, you know, like we all come from somewhere that, you know, in terms of identity, what is identity, like, okay, you're an American man. But how do you see yourself as an American man? What is your heritage? What do you bring? Water, you know, makes you J-fidel, you know. So we need to remember that. We need to remember our humanity and humility too. And I think that this movie really helped me and I think it could help a lot of viewers in a really reprimand the narrative that we are telling ourselves or what we are avoiding to talk about it. So what, now you're associated with, you've been associated with Amnesty International for a long time. What is its involvement in this issue? Well, the involvement goes in many layers. So one of the things that I talked about was education. One of the things Amnesty is well known for and respected around the globe is our documentation and research. We go to the trenches. We really go and we map out what's going on. We talk to people. We find out what's going on. We find out what's going on and we help write reports and we help validate what is going on. And then we have bipartisan. I think one of the things that's very important is to be able to really work with both sides of the fences or multiple sides of the fences, but also to say, look, this is a human right issue on many layers of human rights that's being violated and these are the violations. So we share the bad news. I think the other thing that's very important that Amnesty does is that we don't speak from a place of like being the experts. The people who are directly impacted by these human rights violations are the experts because they are on the front line experiencing these atrocities. And so we want to make sure that their voices are not completely silenced and that they have that platform to be able to say, this is happening. So it's not just about a boring, thorough research. The richness of it is the stories, they're devastating, but that the people are telling what is going on with them in different parts of the world and what prompted them to live and how they're living now, what their hopes are and how also I think Amnesty makes a big difference is that this is an organization that is grassroot based. We have over 6 million members worldwide, people like you and me, I don't get paid to do this work. This is completely unavoled. They do have some staff that are paid, but I think that people get ticked with it because they see that it's like look, it is the power of many that can make a difference. But you've got to actually activate them in a time when there is not a lot of clarity in the world. There is so much noise, so many competing issues and everybody wants our attention and all these things. But you see that. And this doesn't necessarily rise to the top. But I think gradually it's going to, it's inevitable and it is an issue of survival that's going to get worse because it's going to get worse. So either we work together or we perish together. And I think the other part of Amnesty that to me is still very attractive and I do see it when it works, how it works as a charm, is when you get educational awareness, research and advocacy working together to put pressure at legislative level, not only locally, but also globally. So one of the things that we have been addressing in the United States with regards to refugee issues and didn't go very far this year with regards to how many refugees we could take as a nation. On the United States? Yeah. Because it's a shame just this week, we turn our backs on them. We went for 140,000 to like half of it, which is what this government administration wants. But we are the country that has the number one economy in the world and I can't believe the countries, they are much smaller with much less resources, but we are there. And I think it's the issue of having great perseverance and continue. Wait until the midterms and maybe the next presidential election. So let me ask you this, we only have time for one more question. Before we started the show, before we came on the air, you were saying that, or maybe it was after we came on the air, you were saying you had trouble with the movie, that there was something about it that troubled you. Can you articulate your trouble with it and give us your thought about it? Where does it fit in the firmament of this international conversation, this question of global justice? The trouble to me was sitting for two and a half hours watching suffering at the most extreme level as a human being and seeing how normalized this is becoming. And also, yeah, normalized. A new normal. It's a new normal. Another bad new normal. That really tears me apart. And I think part of the problem for me is seeing, you don't have to have refugees to see the similar things happening in your own community. Look at our houseless situation here in Hawaii and across the country. And so I think that the trouble for me was seeing that and to see how unnecessary suffering people have to go through and the reminder of how human rights are so important and the discomfort of actually having the privilege of having these human rights intact in my life by the virtue of opportunities that people didn't have and the unfairness of it. And wanting to do something and not being able to yet, you know. The interest when I get out of that, when I get out of this whole discussion is that morality, humanity, care and concern about our brothers and sisters, global justice, if you will, doesn't come automatically. It doesn't come by itself. You have to work for it. You have to work for it inside. You have to work for it outside. You have to work for it in your community. You have to work for it in a larger community. And I commend you and admire you for working for it in every way you do. Thank you. Thank you, my dear. Kisses, Beatrice. I love you.