Skye Fitzgerald on Hunger, War, and the Failure of International Law in Yemen and Beyond

The podcast features documentary filmmaker Skye Fitzgerald discussing the global hunger crisis, particularly focusing on the war in Yemen and the intentional use of starvation as a weapon of war. Fitzgerald highlights that the food and resources to feed the hungry exist, but political decisions, often by authoritarian leaders, lead to manufactured famines. He emphasizes the US's complicity in the Saudi blockade over Yemen, which has resulted in widespread suffering and child starvation. The core argument is that international humanitarian law, designed to prevent such atrocities (like those seen in WWII and the Holodomor), is not being enforced by global bodies and nation-states, leading to immense human suffering.

Fitzgerald distinguishes between the Saudi narrative (proxy war with Iran) and the reality of an asymmetrical conflict driven by MBS, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. He notes that while the world is complex and not black and white, there are "bad actors" whose actions cause unimaginable misery. He also differentiates between the overwhelming scale of suffering (e.g., a child dying every 75 seconds in Yemen) and the necessity for individuals, including himself as a filmmaker and the caregivers he documents, to focus on one person at a time to avoid "psychic numbing." The discussion also touches on the difference between voluntary fasting and the terror of involuntary hunger coupled with hopelessness.

The podcast implicitly and explicitly calls for aggressive humanitarian intervention and holding political players accountable for their actions. Fitzgerald's filmmaking itself is presented as an attempt to intervene and change the political status quo by bringing awareness to Western audiences. He highlights the inspirational work of caregivers like Makia Maji and Dr. Aida Al-Sadiq, who devote their lives to saving children, demonstrating profound compassion even in dire circumstances. The story of Omama, a starving child who learned compassion from her caregivers and then offered water to another child, serves as a powerful example of the human capacity for good.

The conversation underscores the tragic failure of international law to prevent starvation as a weapon of war, despite its clear prohibition in the Geneva Conventions. It draws parallels to historical famines like the Holodomor, emphasizing that many famines are man-made. The discussion explores the psychological challenges of witnessing extreme suffering, including survivor's guilt and the need for mindfulness. Ultimately, it suggests that generating immediate empathy on a global scale is crucial for marshalling the international community to solve these crises, and that visual storytelling can be a powerful tool to achieve this by distilling universal human emotions and experiences.

I think the thing that disturbs me most about those figures is that many of those who are starving today or going hungry today are the net result of war and intentional acts by leaders to starve entire populations.

deeply embedded in the geneva conventions post world war ii the intent of one of those articles was to ban the use of starvation as a weapon of war because of what hitler did during world war ii.

she didn't have to die she she you know she was not starving she her mother was being starved right because of the blockade over the country now who instituted that blockade mbs in saudi arabia with the reinforcement and sort of tacit approval of the united states our own government here.

so few people in the west know anything about the conflict in yemen nor the us's complicity in it and so my intent with the project was try to bring it to a larger western audience as an attempt to intervene and change the political status quo which allows the use of starvation in yemen to continue.

there are three human beings that i think the world would be better off without do you mind before i ask other questions mentioning the three oh yeah assad is one in syria and that comes out of an earlier project that i did in syria and turkey um and and what i saw assad as a as a ruler do to his own people um and putin would be the third.

to overcome sort of i think that danger of psychic numbing which can happen when you think about suffering on such a large scale as a filmmaker as a human being i have to focus in on the individuals on those those human beings in front of me.

to see omama this child who's starving giving sustenance to a younger more vulnerable child who is also starving me deeply right so i saw her learn from the caregivers around her right and as a human being as a filmmaker i was incredibly inspired by omama that capacity for compassion is there even within a ten-year-old girl who's starving.

famine doesn't have to exist or the bulk of fandoms famines on this planet i believe don't have to exist and and most of them or at least a good number of them are manufactured by the leaders that choose to use famine as a weapon right.

it's there to prevent what's happening in ukraine right now it's there to prevent what's been happening in yemen for seven years and yet there hasn't been any teeth behind it and that's what disturbs me.