Documentary maker Greg Constantine interviewed Ruben, who visits Belgian detention center Caricole every week. “I feel like I bring some humanity to the centers.”
“I go from Brussels on a train, then to a small village center, and then into those fields and all that’s left are these concrete walls and chain link fences. “I do the walk every week. There are a huge amount of emotions that go through me. I feel like I’m physically detaching myself from civilization in almost a literal sense.”
“As soon as I press the doorbell at the front gate, you have to expect the unexpected. You have to turn on all your senses and really pay as much attention as you can to everything, because it is all about these very small details in what people share with me.”
“What we do is come and listen without the prejudices”
“I feel like I bring some humanity to the centers. I feel that’s the primary reason for me to be there. I try to challenge some of the cruelty inside that system in giving them back a name, giving them back a full story, rather than seeing them as people who don’t have documents. That gets connected to all these kinds of prejudices. What we do is come and listen without the prejudices.”
“Sometimes I wish like I could just scream out all the injustices. But you are also realizing that maybe it wouldn’t make a difference. Maybe once I start screaming out these stories, the world will just not listen or care. I think that is a very different realization. You can’t add more stories and expect a moral outrage about these things. The system will just continue because it is just so ingrained.”
“Nobody knows about this and nobody seems to care”
“And that makes it difficult to realize that I’m not doing this to necessarily be the one that changes everything. I’m doing this because I feel it’s necessary that there is someone doing it, and I want to be that person.”
“I find this an evil system but I don’t find Belgium an evil country. So, I wonder at what stage do you develop a system that becomes evil? What is the motivation behind upholding that system? What goal does it serve? Nobody knows about this and nobody seems to care.”