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E.U. Migrant Crisis; Inside a Migrant Rescue Operation; Fighting for Feminism; Imagine a World. Aired 2-2:30p ET
Aired April 22, 2015 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[14:00:10] CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST (voice-over): Tonight: the E.U. under pressure as leaders rush to an emergency summit on the Mediterranean
migrant crisis. I ask Malta's foreign minister what will it take to raise Europe's conscience and stop this scourge?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE VELLA, MALTESE FOREIGN MINISTER: Whether it's by air, by land or by sea, one has to go and get hold of these boats to try to deprive the human
traffickers from the means by which they can carry on with this obscene trade of theirs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Plus the woman calling for a sexual revolution in the Arab world. My interview with Egyptian feminist author Mona Eltahawy.
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AMANPOUR: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour.
European leaders are heading to Brussels for a first-of-its-kind emergency summit on the migrant crisis, a crisis that some have labeled massacre in
the Mediterranean. Back in October, the Italian prime minister told me this had to stop.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MATTEO RENZI, ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER: . because we think we must absolutely avoid the Mediterranean will become a cemetery. Is a sea, not a
cemetery.
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AMANPOUR: But all these months later, it is a cemetery, a watery grave for the more than 1,700 people who have died just this year and that's 30 times
more than all of those who died in the whole of last year.
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AMANPOUR (voice-over): Faced with these harrowing numbers and these scenes, the British Prime Minister David Cameron has interrupted
campaigning in a very tight election to address the summit and the U.K. is blamed for leading the effort to end its least successful but expensive
Mare Nostrum rescue program.
With bodies now filling the seas, Europe must get serious about a proper plan to end this and about a humane way to treat the migrants as Malta's
foreign minister, George Vella, insisted when I spoke to him a short time ago.
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AMANPOUR: Foreign Minister Vella, welcome to the program.
VELLA: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: Do you admit, despite what Malta has done to rescue some of these desperate people, has the E.U. as a whole failed them?
VELLA: Well, we have been for many, many years saying that we would like to see more involvement from the European Union on this phenomenon of
illegal migration. We are, as you are saying, one of the countries that are facing this tide of human beings coming from the north of Africa. They
have been asking for a long period of time for more involvement by all of the European country. This is not just a Mediterranean problem, it is a
problem which affects the whole of the European Union.
AMANPOUR: So what, then, do you expect from this summit, the emergency summit that's being convened for tomorrow in Brussels?
What do you expect to be done differently?
VELLA: What we're expecting is, first of all, not to try to dilute the attention from the tragedy that we had these last two days. In order to
start discussing from the beginning the question of migration, because that means talking about countries of original, causes of migration, countries
of transit. We think that first and foremost we should concentrate on not having a repeat of what happened these last two days with this massive
tragedy of hundreds of people going down to the bottom of the sea.
Now what we expect is that there should be something tangible, some concrete measures that would at least stop the flow of migrants and
actually try to detract and to go for the human traffickers who are behind this massive exodus and flow of people.
The question of migration is there to stay; it will stay for a long period of time. But then that will be a second (INAUDIBLE) because that one could
start discussing ways and means how to control that flow, what to (INAUDIBLE) immediately -- the immediate need now is to assure that we will
not have a repeat of what you've seen these last days.
AMANPOUR: So one of the -- one of the ways that some have suggested -- I mean, the Italian defense minister has suggested a military response. I
don't know, blow up the boats, make sure that these boats, once these people are rescued, can no longer go back to shore and be reused.
Others have suggested redoubling the search and rescue effort that in fact was cut a very successful search and rescue effort, Mare Nostrum, was cut.
VELLA: Mare Nostrum, obviously did an excellent job. But it meant bringing into Italy something like 190,000-200,000 immigrants.
[14:05:00]
The idea of going for the boats of these traffickers is itself a very good idea and because those are the means by which they are making loads and
loads of money and packing people like sardines on these boats. I mean, if the boats are not available and we know that they are getting short of
boats because recently there were cases when they actually armed persons, tried to get back the boat, which -- on which immigrants had been ferried
and taken over by the services.
So going for the boats, whatever it takes, this is what I said in council, whether it's by air, by land or by sea, one has to go and get hold of these
boats to try to deprive the human traffickers from the means by which they can carry on with this obscene trade of theirs.
AMANPOUR: A long-term solution, somebody tweeted today, reminding everybody, what in fact was the citation for the E.U.'s awarding of the
Nobel Peace Prize in 2012. And the president of the commission back then says, "As a community of nations that has overcome war and fought
totalitarianism, we will always stand by those who are in pursuit of peace and human dignity."
Well, these people are in pursuit of peace and human dignity and the E.U. is not standing by them. In fact, it's doing quite the opposite.
President Obama this past weekend in the Americas pledged something like $1 billion more to some of the Latin and Central American countries from which
lots of migrants and refugees come.
Should Europe do the same thing? In other words, attack the push factor? The factors in their own countries that make these poor people take their
lives at risk like they do right now?
VELLA: Well, the pushback is not acceptable. It just isn't -- it's morally wrong and it's not allowed by international humanitarian law. The
issue of migration, as I said, is multifaceted. It is very wide and (INAUDIBLE) one would have to start thinking in terms of taking the
different stages of migration. You can start with the plight of the people in the countries from where they come, seeing why they are so
underdeveloped, why they have to run away from extremism, from war, from persecution.
Then there are problems with the countries of transit. I mean, what's happening in countries like Libya, because one has to realize that out of
these illegal migrants, they are not Libyans. They are people coming from the west of Africa, from the south of Africa and sub-Saharan Africa and
passing through Libya to come to the Mediterranean.
But then there is the whole issue of how to control this flow of people. Suggestions have been made in the past of UNHCR, for example, having
stations on the ground to try and see who, of these people, do qualify for a religious status. But unfortunately, we're talking about a country which
has no function of government at the moment and with which nobody can do real actual agreements and business.
But even after that, when they are rescued and taken on land and passed through the system of examination, whether they do qualify or not for
refugee status, the big issue is with countries like mine, you end up with a large number of refugees and you don't have the -- don't have ways out of
what to do with these people.
You mentioned the United States. I have to say that we are (INAUDIBLE) because the United States has taken from us twice the number of all the
refugees that have been taken by the rest of all the European Union countries, which is not something which makes a good vote for the European
Union countries.
AMANPOUR: So I wonder how you react to what the pope has just said about all of this. He said, "In this world of globalization, we have fallen into
a globalization of indifference. We are accustomed to the suffering of others, it doesn't concern us, it's none of our business.
VELLA: Well, I wouldn't put it in such crude language. I'm not saying that countries are simply not interested or simply turning their face
completely. The question is to try and find the ways and the means, the legal means, to make these countries actually participate. Up to now, it
is only on a voluntarily basis. But even on one of the points made out of the 10 points by Commissioner Avramopoulos, we're still talking about
(INAUDIBLE) because there are no laws in the union which compel countries to take a definite number.
So it is all, up to now, based on cooperation and on voluntary assumption of a number of these refugees. Hopefully, we'll have to keep on drumming
that this needs pan-European and individual European countries' responsibility and sharing -- I wouldn't say all the responsibility of the
burden; it is actually also an opportunity because many of these people eventually, once they are determined that they have the will to leave their
countries because they want to have a better life and once they are put in the right environment, they prove to be real good citizens, as they've
proved to be when they are taken to the United States.
[14:10:10] AMANPOUR: That is a very optimistic note to end on.
Foreign Minister George Vella, thank you very much indeed for joining us and we will, of course, wait to see what comes out of this summit in
Brussels tomorrow. Thank you so much.
VELLA: Thank you very much.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And of course the pictures of the body bags are powerful indeed, the real ones that we're seeing carried to shore from Italy and Greece upon
the shores of the U.K. and those laid out along Brighton Beach in England. But these 200 black body bags are filled with live Amnesty International
activists, who performed this stunt to slam what they call Britain's shameful response to the migrant crisis.
After a break, we'll return to the Mediterranean rescue effort, how one couple is spending their own money to save lives on the high seas -- that's
next.
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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.
Now we have seen the horrifying images of desperate migrants rescued at sea but very rarely do we hear their voices. Listen to this man, who's escaped
from Syria.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was too much people in this port and this port was too much bad, you know. Everyone is afraid. Everyone is throw his
self in the sea. Majority of them cannot swim. But about me, I swim.
AMANPOUR (voice-over): So what is this harrowing journey really like?
Regina Catrambone (ph) has taken part in rescue missions aboard her own ship, The Phoenix. She and her husband are spending millions of dollars to
save as many lives as they possibly can. Their mission is called The Migrant Offshore Aid Station, and Regina joins me now from Malta.
Regina, thank you for joining me.
Why did you decide to take the ball by the horns and do it yourself?
REGINA CATRAMBONE (PH), THE MIGRANT OFFSHORE AID STATION: Because there were people dying out at sea and we couldn't just be staying there without
act. So we decided to answer to their people of the Malta (ph) and the people of Italy that to join them, to helping them. And so we decided to
buy a boat and we equipped it with two dinghies and two drones. And last year, we started our first mission. In six days out at sea, we were able
to save 3,000 lives.
AMANPOUR: That, Regina, is a remarkable figure, 3,000 lives you saved. That is double the number of people who've died at sea this year, as we
said, 1,700 already. You've got drones. You've got a medical team. You spent millions of your own dollars to do this.
[14:15:00] Were you hoping, I mean, obviously to save lives but, I don't know, to shame others, big nations, to do more?
CATRAMBONE (PH): I think that it's very important, the dialogue and it is important that there is a European search and rescue activity in the
Mediterranean, not only an Italian activity or a Maltese activity. People are dying out at sea per hour, the number of the people that die is
increasing. These are women, children, husbands, wives with a history in - - that they carry with them.
So they can't die in such deep desperation. We needed to help them.
AMANPOUR: What do they say to you?
What do they say to you when you're out there on that ship and you've hauled them aboard, what do they say?
CATRAMBONE (PH): They are grateful. Their eyes are full of -- they are scared. They want to be sheltered because they -- what do we see out there
is nothing compared what their travel at the journey was. They are happy that someone is there to rescue them.
AMANPOUR: What do you say to all these world leaders who say that actually we can't go ahead and rescue them, or at least that's what they've been
saying because that will just encourage more of them to come across.
CATRAMBONE (PH): No. The push factor is much more stronger than the pull factor. They are leaving their own country because these people are not
only migrant, they are refugees. They are asylum seekers. They are people that try to reconjoin (ph) with their own family. Then they need to leave
their country because in their country, there is war and desperation. So it is impossible to stop them, even if they will put a barrier there, will
put a boat them trying to stop them, they will continue to come.
(AUDIO GAP)
CATRAMBONE (PH): And they can live happy in their own country.
AMANPOUR: So what do you think and what would you say if you were able to say something to all those leaders gathering in Brussels for this emergency
summit?
What would you tell them to --
(AUDIO GAP)
CATRAMBONE (PH): -- the magic bullet, the one shot that fixes everything. There needs to be a dialogue, a negotiation, diplomacy but also real
action. First of all, these people are dying out at sea. Just to rescue them. And also other steps, steps in their own countries and steps also in
Europe. I don't think that this can be only one action. Different actions will bring a solution.
AMANPOUR: All right, Regina Catrambone (ph), thank you so much for joining us and this incredible --
CATRAMBONE (PH): Thank you very much.
AMANPOUR: -- heroic mission that you're doing with your husband privately.
After a break, we will switch gears, fighting for feminism in the Middle East, I speak to Egyptian columnist and author Mona Eltahawy about her new
book. It's called "Headscarves and Hymens." That's next.
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[14:21:01] AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, imagine a world full of young and daring people who hope for a better future. That spurred the 2011 Arab
Spring. But a new survey of young people in the region out this week suggests that hope for democracy has morphed into a fear of ISIS and
violent Islamism.
Activist and writer Mona Eltahawy was born in Egypt and raised in the U.K. and Saudi Arabia. She says the Middle East has never seriously addressed
the conservative idolatry of misogyny and patriarchy and her new book's title is anything but subtle, (INAUDIBLE).
Mona, welcome back to the program. That is a provocative title, especially for the region we're talking about, especially for the religion that we're
talking about.
Why did you choose it?
MONA ELTAHAWY, AUTHOR: Well, I think it's very important to recognize that as Arab and Muslim women were caught between these two paradigms, basically
what's on our head and what's in between our legs, and I make this argument that should be obvious to everybody, but unfortunately isn't, that we're
more than our headscarves and hymens.
And I explain that my theory of the double revolution, we began a political revolution because we recognized that the regime oppresses everybody. But
as women, we must recognize that the regime, the street and the home oppresses us specifically.
AMANPOUR: Well, let me take this particular excerpt, a line from your book.
You say, "There is no sugar coating it. We Arab women live in a culture that is fundamentally hostile to us, enforced by men's contempt. They
don't hate us because of our freedom. We have no freedoms because they hate us."
How to fix this?
ELTAHAWY: I think to recognize that misogyny lies on a spectrum. It is a global issue because, you know, a lot of the kickback that I get or the
pushback that I get is people being very defensive and saying it's not just us; it's not just us.
Yes, misogyny is global. But you know, other cultures and other countries have put a long feminist fight into making it better. So here in the U.S.,
for example, I often remind people that in the South, because of the pushed-in right wing, many women's reproductive rights are in serious
danger. In the part of the world where I'm from, we have to fight not just for reproductive rights, we have to fight against forced marriage, child
marriage, female genital mutilation, women's ability to drive, so we have to basically fight for those things through a social and a sexual
revolution that recognizes that the regime, the street, the home oppress us and that we will never as a collective culture or society be free, truly
free, unless women are truly free.
Since the revolutions began in the Middle East and North Africa, we've just replaced one man with another, whether it's military rule or Islamist rule,
they are patriarchal, they are paternalistic and authoritarian. It's time for women to be free in order for all societies to be free.
AMANPOUR: And are they also hypocrites? Do they respect the hijab? Do they leave you alone and treat you like a paragon of virtue that they tell
us you are?
ELTAHAWY: Well, of course not. And you know, my biggest example is what happened to Egyptian women revolutionaries in March of 2011, when the
military stripped them of their headscarves and sexually assaulted them in the form of so-called virginity tests. So once again, you know, this
paradigm of the headscarf and the hymen. So if the headscarf is so vital to our society and women are upheld as these paragons of moral virtue and
yet the military can strip them of their headscarves and go in search of their hymens through sexual assault, surely it's time to call out that
hypocrisy and say we need a social and sexual revolution. We need to call out these hypocrites, whether they're from military rule and, at the time,
the military intelligence was headed by Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who's the current Egyptian president. So whether it's Sisi or Morsi or Mubarak, I'm
calling them all out and I'm saying we deserve to be free.
AMANPOUR: Let's move across to Saudi Arabia, where you spent part of your childhood and you write in your book, on Saudi Arabia, where you moved in
1982, "It felt as though we'd moved to another planet whose inhabitants fervently wished women did not exist."
[14:25:10] ELTAHAWY: In Saudi Arabia, Christiane, women are essentially treated like children for their entire lives. They need a male guardian
signature to do the most basic of things, whether it's to travel, to get surgical procedures, anything. And as you know, women are not allowed to
drive. Now this idea of women not driving is fundamental because it touches the issue of mobility and freedom. And another point that I make
in the book is that these revolutions are essentially revolutions of agency and consent.
So whether we're talking about child marriage, which also is practiced in Saudi Arabia, or the ability to get into a car and leave the country
without a man's permission, this is about consent and agency.
You can't have a revolution about freedom and dignity without consent and agency for half of society.
AMANPOUR: And do you feel, finally, do you feel that your book is coming at the right time or that you're going to be pushing a huge boulder up a
hill, like Sisyphus?
Is there the appetite in that part of the world to actually have a sexual revolution?
ELTAHAWY: Well, I absolutely think that we are ready. Very, very ready for a social and sexual revolution because of all the women that I've
spoken to who have told me, since they took part in the protests or even just watching the protests, if they're from a country where they didn't
have an uprising or a revolution, what they got from that atmosphere was the ability to say no and to demand respect and to say you will not be free
unless I'm free.
So women are taking the revolution home, which is where it belongs. And another major point that I make is women removed Mubarak from the
presidential palace. But unless we remove Mubarak from the bedroom and, more importantly, from our minds, we will never be free.
AMANPOUR: What about when people say, hang on, you've never been free and it's going to take even longer than you wish?
Has the Arab world, has your country of your birth, Egypt, had powerful female role models?
Who is there for the young women to look to?
ELTAHAWY: Absolutely, I'm so glad you asked me this, because very few people outside the region -- and, sadly, within the region -- recognize
that the modern feminist movement in the Middle East and North Africa have leaders like in the 1920s feminist icon Huda Shaarawi, who very famously
removed her veil. This was in the 1920s.
Egyptian woman in 1950s who stormed the Egyptian parliament and other women throughout the region who I named. We have had feminism. This is not a
Western --
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AMANPOUR: All right, all right. All right, well said, Mona Eltahawy, thank you very much indeed.
And just before we go tonight, a programming note, the U.K., as we say, is gearing up for one of the closest elections in decades. And on Friday,
please join me and my colleague, Max Foster, as we host a panel of politicians and an interactive studio audience to debate the big issues.
That's Friday at 7:00 pm in London, 8:00 pm Central European Time.
And just earlier in the day, I'll be answering your questions about the key issues and the players. Just log onto facebook.com/cnni to join the
conversation and that's it for our program tonight. Remember you can always see the whole show online at amanpour.com, and follow me on Facebook
and Twitter. Thanks for watching and goodbye from London.
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