Drs. Elise Kant: People on the Move Deserve Support, Respect, and Human Rights

The keynote speech delivered by Drs. Elise Kant at the opening of the academic year and commencement ceremony, titled “People on the Move Deserve Support, Respect, and Human Rights,” on September 7th, 2024.

Last Monday, at noon, I was cycling in The Hague. Suddenly, the monthly city siren went off. Loud noise coming from all directions. My heart clenched and I thought about my mother. She was born in 1933 and lived in The Hague throughout the second world war. She walked long distances to and from school. And during the war, the siren would go off. Always unexpected, never knowing how much time she had in order to get to the nearest shelter. Now in 2024 the siren goes off every first Monday of each month. It is a test, so we are sure it works when a disaster takes place. Cycling in the sunshine and hearing all that noise, it hurt, and I tell you why.

My mother was sent to the Northern part of the Netherlands during the famine winter in 1944/45. There she waited for liberation in a bomb shelter for thirteen long days. She was 12. The war never left her head. She still dreams about it and, she still fears it.

In 1993, I was 28, I landed a job in Cambodia for a few months to conduct a baseline survey in a province where people lived that were either original inhabitants, or internally displaced persons or refugees returning from the camps near the border of Thailand. Between 1975 and 1979 Cambodia was ruled by the Khmer Rouge, the army of Pol Pot that ruthlessly killed half the population in less than 4 years. It forced people to abandon cities and work on the land until they died from exhaustion or died by random killing of everyone who had an ‘educated or intellectual’ look. Even wearing glasses could give one an educated/intellectual look and that was a license to be executed. In 1993 there was supposed to be peace in Cambodia. The UN told the world there was peace. They bragged about the successful UNCTAD mission that led to peaceful elections. They did not tell that the Khmer Rouge was still alive. The did not tell that they were still around, killing, attacking and murdering. I did not know. I jumped on a plane and apart from my physical luggage my mental luggage contained the things I learned during my studies and jobs, my faith and the lessons from my father that people are intrinsically good.

Cambodia was not at peace. Not at all. People told me horror stories every day about the period of Pol Pot’s power over the country. An endless list of stories of how many family members were killed. Ten every day at least. Also, The Khmer Rouge was really still there. Hiding in the jungle. They sent out a threat to kidnap me and to kill the staff I was working with. We had to decide to stay or go. Being the first international NGO in the area we knew that leaving would be bad for so many reasons, so we stayed. And every day felt if it could be my last.

Drunken soldiers misbehaved, one evening putting their gun on the head of my colleague. Only then I realised what it means ‘to freeze with fear’. And I saw the depth of fear. I have never been so frightened in my whole live as during those months, and I pray to God I never will be. I was in my bed, hearing guns, fearing guns, wondering whether I would be going home in a coffin. It made me realise of all the problems in the world war and how it affects people is the biggest one, the meanest one. You never know what will happen and when; you are sure it will and there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. I knew one thing: I felt small, useless, and guilty but knew I had to dedicate the rest of my live to this. To people in warzones, coming from war zones. People who experience the gravest forms of injustice and violence.

A few years later I went to Northern Uganda, also a forgotten war. As cruel as the Khmer Rouge. Same levels of inhumanity. I felt the most urgent need to tell the world what was happening there. Killing, gang rape, miming, people forced by the rebels to cook their children. Writing a book about this felt good, at least I did something that could make people think, make a change, but it also killed what was left of my trust in myself, in other people and in God. One day I just could not stop crying anymore.

In these years between Cambodia and Uganda I realized how hard it is to explain to a regular Dutch citizen what I had been through. People know war and cruelty from television, but most not from real life. When I talked about what happened to me, it was clear most of them could not envision what I experienced, They would not feel the fear, they could not imagine horror at that level. It was the loneliest time of my life. And I did not know what to do with God. I said: God does not exist and then forgot about this country. I could not believe there really was no God, but where was he amidst cruel and grand injustice? I did not know how to trust people. I heard one of the staff in Cambodia was indeed killed. I felt the smallest being on earth. In the end I was lucky enough to get help. Trauma counselling, people who loved me, a church that helped me finding my faith again, although in a completely different form. And the most important lesson I learned was: People out of a war zone, a stressed zone, violence zones need support! They need safety and safe spaces to tell their stories, as otherwise their minds, their feelings, their inner selves will never find rest. I learned to see that God was not a big wizard with a magic wand but was happening between people. Where someone would stand up and support another one. That God was there in the moments you can feel the spirit move between people. In places and feelings that are whole.

I found places to heal

But I also found places where healing was not on the agenda. The items on the political agenda of the Netherlands today are: hate, numbers instead of people, full blown lies when it comes to refugees, to migrants, to people fleeing from violence and war. Perpetuating injustice along the borders of Europa. Legitimizing killing in the Mediterranean and North Seas, in cruel treaties with countries that return people to the desert to die. So, when I had the honour to become the director of the Haella Foundation, I knew that I could put all of this on the agenda of this foundation that has guts and the spirit to handle this.

Fighting together for human rights and justice, for support and respect can only be done in a truthful way: When you and I connect, when there is space for your story and mine, and people who want to listen.

I know that I am deeply privileged. Being a white highly educated woman, born in a rich country, having my dream job, having access to power, having learned how to speak the truth to power as well having possibilities to do so. That comes along with responsibilities, which I gladly take. It also brings questions about sharing that power. I might have been in two wars, I never had to flee one. I might have felt fear and desperation at horrible depths, I had the possibilities to heal. I might have access to two million euro’s Haella money, how do we spend them?

I realized the deep wisdom in a quote from Lila Watson who is an indigenous Australian, visual artist, activist and academic working in the field of Women's issues and Aboriginal rights : “If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let’s work together”

The challenge for us today is: what do we mean by here? This quote was meant for foreign helpers coming to countries who were considered to be in need of help, or worse “backwards”. You all did the opposite. You came here. Filled with hopes and dreams. And you all were one way or another let down by Dutch society. Not willing to give you a permission to live here, not listening properly to your story and, most of all, giving you the message over and over: don’t come, don’t stay, go home. While you found your home here.

Foundation Academy of Amsterdam and Haella are strategic partners. The challenge ahead is how can we build on that partnership, so we find ways to join our forces even more strongly.

Fighting together for human rights and justice, for support and respect can only be done in a truthful way: When you and I connect. When there is space for your story and mine, and people who want to listen. When together we can find ways to tackle the grave injustices in Dutch society when it comes to people on the move.

A first link in this respect is the now already long relationship between the Foundation Academy of Amsterdam and Haella. We are strategic partners. The challenge ahead is how can we build on that partnership, so we find ways to join our forces even more strongly. To find ways to show the world: We are all people with our own stories. Our own pain and our own joy. We are all human. It really is as simple as that. Yet it seems an almost impossible challenge for the world to acknowledge that.

I do not have the answers right now, but I really would like to take this opportunity to call for collaboration, to connect minds, vision, faith and hope and means. You all came from far, in the different meanings of these words, and you are making the change you want to see in the world. You will have a new year ahead to challenge and be challenged, to learn and to teach, to experience joy and suffer pain. And yet, I do know - you are all led by the wonderful and esteemed Samuel Lee and his staff - you will be the ones that will mean so much for so many people. You will be leaders full of hope, in a world that desperately needs you.

Thank you. Elise Kant