As part of Vogue’s Hope issue, Cate Blanchett describes the hope she has seen on her travels as a UN Goodwill Ambassador for refugees.
By Cate Blanchett
August 21, 2020
Hopefully we can find a way to coexist .
It’s very easy to get angry when you know you’re right… and sometimes, that delicious satisfaction I savor in the echo chamber of my righteousness becomes an end in itself.
I’ve been thinking a lot about anger . About the kind of rage and frustration that takes hold of you in the bubble of your car, where you can vent, rant, and be ‘right,’ regardless of reality or the tedious, comforting complications of other people, other opinions, and other anger. And I’ve been wondering if the internet isn’t the same: a kind of car bubble, a space that has allowed us all to sink ever deeper into our personal anger and frustrations. Where all our amateurish solutions—let’s face it—to the world’s problems make perfect sense, with no veto power or censorship. A place where what I say is the truth. A sanctuary of autocracy and posturing.
Oscar winner Cate Blanchett visits the UNHCR temporary refugee center in Bangladesh.
© UNHCR / Hector Perez
When you are exiled and broken, at the mercy of forces beyond your control, all you still have are other people…
I hope we can break out of this bubble, see each other face to face again, and learn to live together again . I hope we can remember not only how to speak, but how to listen to each other.
Because when I think about the times I’m absolutely certain of my righteousness, I have to remember the hardships refugees have endured throughout history : people displaced by disasters like famines, wars, and persecution. Disasters created, most of the time, by the whim, instinct, or rage of an autocrat or a belligerent state; evil ideas that drove young people to kill and loot, to believe that the madness and chaos they unleashed was making the world a better place…
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And when those autocrats withered away (as they always do), along with their promises, posturing, and certainty of being right, the refugees who had wandered in search of peace and protection could finally return home or put down roots in new places, with new families, friends, homes, and communities. And for a while, they could live free from the anger and backbiting of those who are always right .
I reflect on refugees throughout history because when you’re exiled and broken, at the mercy of forces beyond your control, all you still have is each other. For the sake of my four children, I have to hold onto the hope that we can join forces , because there can’t be seven billion ‘number ones’.
No matter how hopeless a situation may seem, the answer is to act realistically…
In a refugee camp in Jordan, which I visited during my travels as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, I met a young man named Shadi. Shadi had planted a tree in the harsh desert soil and watered it every day. He had planted it so that it would grow big and strong and that his daughter could enjoy it for years to come; but he watered it so that he could feel and affirm his own humanity and agency each day … and also his hope in the face of hardship and overwhelming chaos .
I share Shadi’s hope, and I emphasize ‘hope’ rather than a Pollyanna-style optimism , because no matter how hopeless a situation may seem, the answer is to act realistically, to have the desire to face the undeniable challenges, and to accept and undertake the task before us. Right now, there are almost 80 million displaced people worldwide, ordinary people forced to flee their homes due to conflict, violence, persecution, and human rights violations. We can help them by joining forces, listening to each other, and finding collective solutions . By bursting the bubble and freeing ourselves from anger and the self-righteous responses.
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For more information on UNHCR’s work with refugees and how to help them, visit the UNHCR website.