Ep.21: HRH Princess Esméralda of Belgium | Activist & Author | Courage to Heal
This week, host Mungi Ngomane is joined by Esméralda de Belgique, journalist, documentary-maker, keynote speaker, and author. Princess Esméralda is a member of the Belgian Royal family and the aunt of the current monarch, King Philippe. Throughout her career, she has co-produced documentaries and written several books about her family, environmental issues, and women Nobel Peace Prize winners. In this episode, HRH speaks to Mungi about the rewarding experience and learnings she got both writing about her family and making documentaries on their history.
Esméralda is an advocate for women's and Indigenous rights, and supporting communities in the Amazon. In October 2019, Esméralda took part in the Extinction Rebellion protests in London where she was arrested and released later without charges. In this conversation, she explains how her father got her involved with Indigenous rights, her environmental work, and the interconnectedness of environmental advocacy and women's rights. Esméralda is very honest about Europe's plundering of resources and exploitation of people on the African continent. She has called for European nations, Belgium included, to confront their colonial past.
To learn more about the two organizations Esméralda spoke about visits www.friendship.ngo and www.herowomenrising.org
Full Episode Transcript
Mungi Ngomane: Esmerelda, welcome to Everyday Ubuntu, I'm so excited to be speaking with you
HRH Princess Esméralda: today. Hello. So excited
Mungi Ngomane: and I have a lot of questions for you. So I'm going to jump right in. My first one is about how our resumes are not a full explanation of who we are as a person. And so I'm wondering what is on, what is missing from your resume that you think is important for people to know about you.
HRH Princess Esméralda: I have thought about that. But maybe that I'm still very curious. I really want to learn. I want to learn from all sorts of different people, especially young people, I have children who are 20 and 23, and I can guarantee you I'm learning every day with him, with the enthusiasm, with the desire, wishes, and struggles sometimes.
So I think, yes, I'm curious. Also, I like having fun, I always remember something that a good friend of mine who is actually South African and I'm sure you know him, it's Kumi Naidoo he always told me if you do activism, you also have to have. Because this gives you the energy to continue. We are in a difficult situation for the moment and we have to fight, but let's have fun also.
And that's something I always remember, and I like to do it. It's not all work, or even if it's work, it can work with.
Mungi Ngomane: Yeah, you have to have some joy in your life, otherwise you wouldn't be able to continue on. Yeah, I like that. I also think I'm curious. I always say that I, if I could be a forever student, I would do it, but we all, have to make some money at some point.
HRH Princess Esméralda: So what did you study?
Mungi Ngomane: I, so in my undergrad, I studied international studies and then in my master's I did international studies and diplomacy.
HRH Princess Esméralda: Impressive.
Mungi Ngomane: Yeah. So I would go back and do it again. Maybe do a Ph.D. who knows. And I want to ask you what do you see as your purpose?
HRH Princess Esméralda: I want to fight for a better society.
It looks very grand, but everybody can do a contribution as little as it can be. So what I do is I try to amplify the voices of the people to who we don't listen. So sometimes it's young people, very often it's women because we still have this problem. Actually, it's terrible that in 2021, we have still to fight for women's rights.
Anyway, it's also indigenous people, it's people of the global south. And yes, it's all about the environment, human rights, women's rights. Everything is so connected for them.
Mungi Ngomane: It is. And, speaking about it being connected, I, you're an activist. And as you said, you're passionate about women's rights.
I know that you're also passionate about indigenous people's rights and also the environment. And so I wonder if you could talk about the interconnectedness of these three things in your activism and maybe also how people in positions of power respond to you when you reach out to them to get them involved.
HRH Princess Esméralda: Yeah. So let me tell you a little bit about how it started for me. I have always been very interested in the environment and nature, and all biodiversity, in fact, this comes from my father. So my father was really a pioneer in the field. And he used to spend months, whether it was in the Amazon, in Brazil, really living with the indigenous people, learning their cultural knowledge.
And so he was the first one who said to me, first of all, our biodiversity. Is really threatened by all that we do, by all the extraction and all that's what is happening in the world in our industrial world. But also he was the one who told me indigenous communities are really the ones that know how to live in nature in harmony.
And we have to really defend them, protect their work. So that came like this for me, I was raised in this in all this philosophy, I would say, and then came of the seed, the climate crisis and then because it's so much link biodiversity loss and climate crisis. I worked on the two fronts, but always bringing the local communities, indigenous communities’ rights together with that.
And then we mentioned women's rights in all those communities. I noticed that the women play an incredible role. And sometimes it's difficult because they don't have the same rights as the men, but they are at the forefront. They know nature. They have a lot of course of working to get the food, to get the water.
So they are the first victims, but also the first agents of change, I would say. So that's how I see. It's all interconnected.
Mungi Ngomane: Yeah, absolutely. And I know that I've, read some of your work and some of your speaking and was wondering how you think we can save ourselves and save our world.
I think that you said something about the need for us to confront our past. So I wonder if you could talk about that a bit.
HRH Princess Esméralda: Yeah, absolutely. People started to make the link between colonialism and. The climate crisis and the environmental destruction. And once you start looking at it, it's very clear.
It all started when the European powers went to Africa, to Latin America, to Asia, with the idea of taking resources and not for the good of the country where they were in but for their own country back. And I'm in Belgium right now. I am Belgian and I see all around the city, the Capitol Brussels, beautiful buildings that.
builds constructed at the time of our colony, which was the actual DRC now. And why? Because we got all the precious things from GRC like the rubber, like the gold, like the diamonds and all that built an incredible wealth for us and very little for the country. And not only that, not only did we plan the resources.
And the French did the same and the Spanish did the same and the Dutch are the same, it's all European powers and the British.
And we built really a period of glory with that. But as I said, not only plundering the resources but obviously exploiting people. Because the natives were used as tools to get the resources and also obviously mistreated and killed. We know that the only thing we don't know is how many millions of people died.
So this, we can say that the effects are still felt today. One on one side because of the environment, because we continue to the resources and now it's will with multinationals, but also for the people, because. The descendant of the colonized had for a long time, a terrible complex of inferiority, which was really built on this narrative of the white supremacist saying we are the people that matter and all that.
They were marginalized, the saviors and. I'm sad to say that it's still the case today in many countries and the multi-national take advantage of that and they pushed away from the local community and the indigenous people and because they are poor and because they are marginalized still going back to the colony, that can happen.
And you see it's better than me the situation in Africa, such a rich continent and still, it's Europe and other powers that are profiting the most. China.
Mungi Ngomane: Yeah.
HRH Princess Esméralda: So yes I think it's very important to confirm the past for us European and to see that we have a big responsibility and to try to change the system.
Mungi Ngomane: And, you're speaking of Belgium and you're there now. And I know that you have said that sort of. Belgium needs to apologize for what they did in the Congo. And I think I read that the parliament last year did launch a truth and reconciliation and reparations commission. I'm wondering where that has gone and how we can encourage other nations to do the same, but also why you think an apology is so important.
I do as well, but I'd love for you to explain why you think it's so important.
HRH Princess Esméralda: Yes. First, on the commission. Yes, it is working for the moment. They are doing a lot of work with all the documents, the archives and trying to make sense of all that we have. And I think it will take probably many years, but it's important that it is starting and that all the communities can have their word and dialogue can start.
You will tell me how it was in South Africa. Was it a success?
Mungi Ngomane: See, that difficult thing is as a student of international relations. I know that there are like, there's the controversy around it and the different views as the granddaughter of the chair. I think they did their best, but, as a pragmatist, I know that.
Not everyone feels like their sort of pain was acknowledged and that not everyone had told the truth and it was blanket amnesty instead of any sort of reparations. And, I can't imagine if I had lived through that and then had to have been forced to forgive all in one, go, I think it would take time.
We all forgive in our own way. And I think it was a success for where South Africa needed to go as a nation as one. But then for the individuals, of course, there's still pain there that I think will always lie.
HRH Princess Esméralda: Yeah. And it's different because it was inside the country here. Of course, it will be in Belgium
and towards a former colony. So it's a bit different, but I think even if there are shortcomings, it's never perfect, obviously. And how can you
Mungi Ngomane: But the effort is
HRH Princess Esméralda: important. Yeah. I think it's important now concerning the apologies. Yes. I think it's very important. It's like between two people, two individuals, or in a couple, if something
bad happens I think you have to start with apologies and then you can have the dialogue and you can make bridges and you can make peace really, but it has to come with an apology. So yes, I really think that.
Mungi Ngomane: Yeah. And how can we get other nations to do the same? I know that when I'm in the UK, People there are surprised to hear that, they stopped paying reparations to slave owners in 2015 only.
And so it's okay, they're clear. They're clearly not even near where Belgium is with the commission because people don't even know the history. And so how do we get people?
HRH Princess Esméralda: Yeah, the worst is that with slavery? It's the slave owners that received the money, not the family, or the slaves themselves. Unbelievable.
But yeah, it will be very difficult in the UK because and People are afraid in Europe that if they start apologizing, they will have to pay. That's the big thing. It's the money or reparation that frightens every government. But more than reparation, which I don't know how you can quantify, because how do you quantify all the horrors and pain and suffering that was brought upon the colonized people?
So I think. There are lots of different ways. There are, for example, all the artifacts that could be sent back and that's starting, for example, in Belgium, there is a really a movement to send back some very precious objects that were stolen from the DRC. So that's one thing there's also fair trade.
I always say that would be the best thing to start with is to really have fair trade. But again, I say the conversation has to start, so anything will be beneficial before
Mungi Ngomane: everything starts with a conversation. Yeah. Yeah. And, I'm in the US where you, last year we had all the protests around, not necessarily just the death of George Floyd, but black lives matter.
And, the constant refrain from like Southern governments is that we can't get rid of statues because they teach history. What do you say to people who think we should keep these colonial statues around the world that supposedly teach our past.
HRH Princess Esméralda: I think it's not right.
It's not right because our public space is full of those statues of people that really were sometimes murderers or sometimes just doing bad things. About trafficking and there's no explanation. So the young people of my country or European country, they see those statues. They believe that's probably very important people and very good people that we have to celebrate and they don't know.
There is not even a description of the statue, to tell what they were doing. So I think they should be in a museum with a full explanation of their life. Sometimes they did some good as well, but they did good, a lot of evil things. So I think they should be like in a history book but in a museum.
Absolutely our public space should really benefit from having other statues, especially from the colonized countries. And heroes and more women, also there are so few statues
Mungi Ngomane: let's get some more women statues.
HRH Princess Esméralda: Yes. The only ones that get the statue are sometimes Queens, but not many women, really not.
Mungi Ngomane: No, not like women pioneers and like science or education or anything like that. Yeah, absolutely. And in addition to your activism, I know that you're also an author and a documentary filmmaker and that you've done some writing about your family and made films about them. And I'm wondering what that is.
I speak about my mom and my grandfather and my book. But it's not really a book about them. And I've never done a documentary on my family. And so I just wonder what that process is like and what you've learned from it.
HRH Princess Esméralda: First of all, you should do it because
Mungi Ngomane: I don't know if I could,
HRH Princess Esméralda: It's it's something.
Personally is very rewarding because you learn a lot about your own family and your roots. And I did a documentary on my grandparents whom I didn't know, my grandfather died many years before I was born. And my grandmother died when I was eight. Very little memories of her. So I had to really research and go to the place where they had lived and meet historians and do a lot of research, like a proper journalist or historian.
And it was so interesting because I discovered many things and I got really close to them without even having known them properly. Yeah, it's very emotional. Yes, you should. You should.
Mungi Ngomane: I was like, oh wow. I didn't realize that was in my sort of lineage or, yeah, that's really interesting. Then who are the people who have inspired?
HRH Princess Esméralda: So many to start with your grandfather. Amazing. No, I don't have to say that, but it's true. It's true. It's always admired his spirit and his fighting spirits and also his great love in general. But also many women and many women who are not famous that I had the chance to meet when I was doing interviews or stories.
And they're so resilient, they are so incredible. And they do a lot for communities in general. I always say why don't we have more women at the table after, a conflict, because. When the war is finished. They built the community back and all the family society, the society, but then never the table of negotiation of very few, at least.
So that's one thing,
Mungi Ngomane: the table that the negotiations or the sort of peace agreements are longer lasting and sustainable when women are,
HRH Princess Esméralda: and it's the same with the climate there, they have a sense. I think of what the climate crisis is about. They want to care about mother earth and also the family and society.
So they have so much to add to. To the vision. And frankly, if we are in such a mess, I don't think it's the people who created the mess. So the same old people, all the white men and some men of color too. I think there too, a new vision and young people also.
Mungi Ngomane: Yeah. I'm so impressed by the young people today.
Like I'm like, wow, you guys are really smart. Thank God we need this. Yes.
HRH Princess Esméralda: Smart. And with a new way of seeing things. Really. Yeah.
Mungi Ngomane: Yeah, absolutely. And what sort of. Sustained you in difficult moments, COVID was a tough time and it's not over. But we all have difficult times and difficult moments.
And so I wonder what sort of keeps you going.
HRH Princess Esméralda: COVID was obviously very difficult, but I absolutely can not protest because I have the chance to have a nice house in London. So I do a lot of my work online and virtually like we are doing now. So it was not difficult for me. And I could take my bike and go for even when it was restricted for one.
Now I could go one. Out and have fresh air. So many people had terrible conditions all over the world in one single room with seven members of the family, women experiencing domestic violence. So many difficult cases or just the people. Didn't have the luxury to stay home, who had to go out because otherwise, they wouldn't have food on the table.
No, I really cannot complain, but I know that for young people and even young people that I know, and my children and their friends, it was tough, very tough. And there's a lot of depression because it's the. 20 18 20, where you need all those social contacts. And that was stuff that is very tough.
The mental burden of this COVID is also very big but yes, yeah. What sustains me is, like I said, going outside, I like being in nature and And my family, of course, that's very important too.
Mungi Ngomane: And you mentioned, a lot of your work is online. I wonder if there's an organization or two that you are a supporter of or working with at the moment that you think more people should know about that you could share with me.
HRH Princess Esméralda: Oh yes. The organization is led by women. You see again? There is a very fantastic one in Bangladesh, which is called friendship, a nice name. It was founded by a woman who is again, one of those. She, and it's very holistic. So it's about health, about the climate crisis about women empowerment about dignity, really that because Bangladesh is suffering.
Tremendously from the climate crisis is one of the most vulnerable countries. I think it's number seven in the world because of the flooding or the cyclones and all that. And because they have an enormous population and are very poor. So she did fantastic work, but I could also mention to you another organization called Hero women rising, which was created by a Congolese, woman, a dear friend,
who is doing incredible work in the south Kivu in DRC, where the situation is very difficult for women. It's a very patriarchal society. There's a lot of violence because of mining, because of all that. And she's really changing. The paradigm she's trying anyway, and really keep girls at school, fighting prejudice fighting violence against women.
So yeah, I could say many,
Mungi Ngomane: many more and I'm going to look those both up. Yeah, of course. I will. Look, I will look both of those up though. Thank you for sharing that.
HRH Princess Esméralda: I would say that what gives you courage?
Mungi Ngomane: Me? I think knowing, I think it starts with knowing yourself. So if you know yourself, it's easier to then know what's right.
And I think the courage then stems from there. Does that make sense?
HRH Princess Esméralda: Very true.
Mungi Ngomane: I think that's what it is. And I know a lot of people say you have to be strong and rely on yourself and all of this. And I think it's actually if you have people in your life who you can rely on, who know you and can remind you of who you are in difficult moments, that is what you need.
Because yes, we all want to be, strong and individuals, but sometimes you just, you have tough moments and I think. You need those people around you who know you and know your worth to remind you of that.
HRH Princess Esméralda: Yeah.
Mungi Ngomane: And so I know that, or this is my opinion. You were one of the only people of I think your privilege and background that I've heard about and read about who has spoken out as much as you have. And I wonder if you have a piece of advice for the youth right now that is overwhelmed with the brokenness of our world, of something to keep them going and to sustain them at this moment.
HRH Princess Esméralda: It's very difficult for young people. I just read that there was a survey made internationally and about 80% of the young people are very worried about the climate crisis. Very worried about the economical crisis and the other thing. They have no trust in our leaders. The numbers were incredible.
How do you motivate them? I think showing them that they have the power that we all have the power, but the young people are full of energy and strength. And you have seen them all over the world in the streets, protesting. And just to remember that all the big changes in history have been made mainly by young people and by citizens anyway, citizens of the country, when it was too much whether it was for to end slavery or to end apartheid in your country or to have women's vote.
It was a citizen who made the change and who went against it. The state was against the laws that were not good. You know, many times I hear people saying because I'm an adapter of civil disobedience non-violent and many people said, how can you be against the law? It's terrible. And I said, no, it's not terrible, so many laws in the past have been completely wrong and evil slavery.
For example, it was in the low. So you have to fight that. And now the fact is that the government is not doing what it should do for the citizen in terms of the climate crisis in terms of inequality, which has a tremendous level. So we have to go and say, we, we don't agree. We want change.
The system is not working or it's working only for so few people.
Mungi Ngomane: For a few, which COVID obviously showed us that. Yeah. It was working for a few people and all of a sudden,
HRH Princess Esméralda: yeah. So I think that's what we have to tell the young people. And in general, everybody, you have the power, you have been led to believe that no, you don't have power and the system is this one and there's no other one, which is not true.
We have to change our system. It's broken. It shows. So my advice is that to say to the people you are, you can make the change and we will all be with you. My generation. We will all be with you protesting and working for something better.
I know it's difficult because many said, how can I change something? No, if we are millions wanting to push leaders, they will have to change because we elect them. But we need many more
Mungi Ngomane: people forgetting that they work for us. So
HRH Princess Esméralda: I think they have forgotten
Many more lobbies and then the people. So we have to establish that again. It's us, we're like,
Mungi Ngomane: yeah. Lobbies and multi-nationals, as you said earlier,
And what would you say is your greatest fear for humanity?
HRH Princess Esméralda: Oh, definitely the climate crisis, because I really think that if we don't. Act now, like the scientists have told us that we had this little window of opportunity. I think that what we have seen this year in Europe, in us, in Africa, whether it is a famine in Madagascar or the terrible fires and flooding, that will happen all the time.
And. Much more, and we will have so many catastrophic events to the point that it will be really too late. Not for nature because nature always recovers after a while. But for us, it will be so many fatalities. That is my biggest fear. And I see that people are changing. I see that people are understanding even, all the companies know that they have to change, but it's so slow and it's so much talk and not really active.
Mungi Ngomane: Yeah. And it's also sad that as humans, we seem to need something to affect us for it to matter. I'm thinking with climate change, it was obviously affecting, Sort of countries in the global south and the global north, we were like, okay, it is bad, but it's not really hit us.
And then all of a sudden there were floods in Germany. And I think there was a German person who was like, I never thought it would happen. And we're like but the scientists have been telling you, and you insist on doing your own research, but these are scientists that have years of education and science under their belt.
So let's stop saying oh, let me do my own research before I believe them it's just maddening.
HRH Princess Esméralda: Yeah. It's very sad also, because as you say it was happening for decades in the global south. How many images have we seen of all the catastrophes the floods and devastation but it was not touching the north.
So that's my only hope that's since we have had it so bad this summer in Europe, maybe some leaders over here will decide to.
Mungi Ngomane: I was going to say, what is your greatest hope for humanity? So is that your hope?
HRH Princess Esméralda: My hope is, as I said before, it's not so much in the leaders, although ultimately they have obviously to make the shift, my hope is in the people uniting because there is no other way.
Mungi Ngomane: Yeah. And the
HRH Princess Esméralda: same hope. And at the same time, it's not fighting. The climate crisis only is, like we said, in the beginning, it's fighting all those crises together because they are all linked. Obviously, you cannot fight the climate.
Mungi Ngomane: And were all linked.
HRH Princess Esméralda: Yeah. So that's my hope that the people will really unite.
And, when there was COVID there were so many leaders who didn't do a good job, but they were so many acts of solidarity between the people that was lovely to see. Wonderful.
Mungi Ngomane: Yeah. You saw a sort of our capacity for solidarity and at that moment, yeah. Yeah okay. I have the same hope as you, so let's make sure that it happens.
Oh
HRH Princess Esméralda: goodness.
Mungi Ngomane: And everyone, I want to thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It is literally been such a treat to speak with you.
HRH Princess Esméralda: Thank you so much for inviting me.
Mungi Ngomane: Thank you. And I hope that we will stay in touch because we have lots more to discuss.