“The difficulty to speak about the West‘s guilt”

Waseem Ahmad Siddiqui: Hello everyone, I'm Waseem Ahmad Siddiqui. I've just returned from the Bozcaada International Festival of Ecological Documentary, and I've come back with so many emotions. If you ask me how the festival went, I might struggle to put it into words.

BIFED is a festival that reveals the full complexity of the times we live in. Interestingly, this complexity creates a space not for us to lose our way, but to reposition ourselves in the world, offering us a powerful point of reference. It is a shared point of reference for protecting the life we share; a commitment to protecting this life together, without dividing ourselves into “you,” “me,” and “them.”

The Bozcaada International Festival of Ecological Documentary is a meeting place. A place where people come together around human rights and ecological documentaries to ask questions and reflect together.

On this occasion, over the next two weeks, I'll be sharing with you the interviews I conducted at BIFED. These four interviews feature filmmakers from India, Switzerland, Brazil, and Spain.

I'd like to begin with an interview I conducted with Swiss filmmaker Edgar Hagen about his film The Root of Madness. This interview coincides with the 25th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan, and I found it particularly significant because the film also connects with this historical timeline. I hope our listeners will find it equally meaningful. The interview was recorded in Bozcaada on October 11, 2026, at 9:00 a.m.

I hope you enjoy listening.

W.A.S.: This week marks 25 years since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, the beginning of what would become the longest war in U.S. history. Less than a month after the September 11th World Trade Center attacks, the United States launched airstrikes against Afghanistan. The Taliban government was ousted within months, but the US-led war and occupation would continue for nearly 2 decades, during which more than 100,000 Afghan civilians were killed, according to the UN. More than 2,300 US service members died. The US spent trillions of dollars on the war and effort to build an Afghan government and military that ultimately collapsed with, with stunning speed in August 2021. Today, Afghanistan is facing a deepening humanitarian crisis. Women and girls have been shut out of higher education and face sweeping restrictions on their work, movement, and participation in public life. Our guest is Edgar Hagen, the director of The Roots of Madness. Edgar, thank you for being with us. Can you first introduce yourself and where are you coming from?

Edgar Hagen: Thank you for your interest in this movie. My name is Edgar Hagen. I'm a Swiss citizen. I made my studies in Berlin. I studied philosophy and started filmmaking during the time when in Berlin the wall was falling, when the— in a way, the Western or the European world changed. But this was not only a change in Europe, it was also a change in the Middle Eastern part of the world.

W.A.S.: So from this point of our talk, I think we can talk about your movie. Why don't you lay out about the documentary which you made on the question of why are so many people forced to become refugees? And also, if you could comment on the US-bombed Afghanistan when the Taliban were in power. And the Taliban are back a quarter of a century later. Because I believe the movie which you made and the time which we are in is coming together.

E.H.: Yes, I started to work with this film in 2000— on this film in 2015, seeing in Europe that hundreds of thousands of people coming to Europe, but the people didn't understand why they are coming. It was something very basic. And I had the impression we have— we are missing pictures, talking people, talking who are living in these countries about the reasons why they are leaving it. And I had this in 2015, I had the impulse, we have to go there, we have to talk to the people, just talk to them and really understand what is going on. And so I met this journalist, Ulrich Tilgner, a famous German journalist by accident in a way. We had been discussing about his work, my ideas, and I realized with this man I could do this movie because he has a longstanding experience in the Middle East. He went the first time in 1968 to Iran, and he stayed attached to the region since then. He has almost 50 years' experience in the Middle East.

But I didn't want to take him to comment on that. I thought we have to go together with him as an old man, looking back to what he was reporting, but let the people talk what came out of that. What is the result of this invasion of 2001 in Afghanistan? How feel the people today? Why they still want to leave their country? What is the reason of that? Did this invasion bring something good?

W.A.S.: Yes.

E.G.: And that was what we did. We did it in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Syria. And we realized there are patterns, political patterns behind that create a tremendous mess that we as Western citizens have to face. And that's, in a way, the film is an inconvenient truth that we have to face. We have to think about this kind of politics when people 20 years after this invasion are sitting in, as you can see it, in tents in Kabul.

And they have no work, no food, nothing. and no future, no perspective. I mean, that's not the— every person wants to get a development in his life and to have a dignity. And that's about human rights also. And everybody has a right to work, to be, to eat, to house. And And this Western invasion, what, what did it bring for the people? That is in a way the question of the film.

W.A.S.: Yes. and— when we look at the film, we see that there are almost, wait a second, 4 different places: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Niger, and you are trying to explore here the impact of wars, arms trade, political alliances, and Western interventions on forced migration over the years. How would you articulate on this complexity of these alliances which you are actually writing it here also in your synopsis? 

E.G.: I mean, the interesting thing with this journalist, Ulrich Tilgner, who is in a way the protagonist of the film, he went always to the countries and he never— he didn't go there with an ideology. He tried to understand the motivation of the Americans in 2003 going to Iraq or 2001 going to Afghanistan.

He didn't say they are evil. He really tried to understand. But he makes a kind of summary through his reporting. The question of the film is, what is the summary of all what he reported, what happened through these years. And in Iraq—

W.A.S.: And it's 40 years of work, no?

E.G.: Yes, more or less. And it's the people in the countries who are talking in the film. It's in a way, okay, the Americans always said, we bring democracy to these countries, freedom and democracy. And okay, let's see if it's true. I mean, if that really happened, it's a good idea. But why then these refugees coming? And so we have to go to the the bottom of this, how do you say, of this pretension.

W.A.S.: Exactly.

E.H.: We have to understand what happens here. And for us, for me as a Western citizen, in a way this happens in the name of me. So I have an obligation to, to go and see if it's true what they are pretending.

And this film makes something very simple. We, we, we, we, we have a pretension we bring democracy and freedom. Okay, that's fine if, if it, if it is like this, wonderful. But does it work? Did it really work? And what have these refugees coming here? Because that's also One woman in Syria says it, we don't want to leave our country. We want to stay here. We want to build something up. We want to create, to build a society, a good environment. And I think people are not so— I think people like traveling as the Westerners also do, but migrating is something different. It's much, much more. You leave everything behind.

That's a completely different thing if I come here and buy a house and spend my holidays here. That's not a— that's another— and I think people don't understand that. And the film is about this very basic thing.

W.A.S.: Yes, and it resonates a lot when you say The governments or authorities are doing it on our name, but it is not in our name. You might know that right now in Palestine and in Gaza particularly, the ongoing genocide, there are few Jewish namesly as Jewish Voice of Peace. They have this statement that, this genocide is “not in our name.” They have this slogan. And from here, I feel that there is a responsibility which you felt.

E.H.: Yes.

W.A.S.: And you wanted to understand by going there. I wonder, do you have any memory from the place where you went, from Afghanistan, from Iraq, or from Syria, which you cannot forget? Is there any memory you have while you were traveling there, or is there any— anything which you heard from the person, which you are still carrying? I believe there might be many, but would you like to share any testimony from the person, direct person?

E.H.: Yes, I mean, the film does it, but my overall perception was, or is, what I took with me I met wonderful people everywhere. I mean, it was this openness to testimony, to talk, to exchange. And also, I met— also in the desert, in the Sahara, we had been filming also in the Sahara for this film.

I met young people who had been for years migrating. trying to find a better life. These had been educated people. You could discuss with them about— they knew about what life is about, that they can— I think these are very important people for me. And the situation they are in, it's difficult to support that.

W.A.S.: Yes,. and so overall, the, the question which you ask in the movie, which I have also mentioned, in my first introduction, that “why are so many people forced to make become refugees.” It seems that the plays a very vital role of US and in, in Europe, in unending cycle of violence. And there are also roots of colonization. And I believe, those roots, those, traumatic past, traumatic, memory, I believe that's also another, reason that people's travel, people's, people want to migrate to another country. Your thoughts?

E.H.: Yes, I think the, the real problem that the film shows, that the Western— I say that the Americans and Western partners invaded these countries. We have also a colonialistic history. But what happens today is something incredible in a way that the film starts in 2022. We go to Afghanistan after the Americans left in 2021, in August 2021. And the first scene is, maybe you remember, we open a door and go to the country that is in a way closed. It's under the rule of Taliban. And And we go there, but the Americans and their Western partners not only left the country, but they cut it also down, the help for the people.

And what happens now in the refugee camps, and I know it from Jalalabad, where I have people I'm exchanging often, monthly or something like that, we talk. I know people who work there for the UN in the camp. These people all lost their job because the Americans cut it down, the budget. And this is also going on in the European countries. Also in my country, in Switzerland, they cut it down, the development aid budget. And so you go, you leave after 20 years, You close the door and you cut down the help. So, and then you wonder that these people are coming here. Okay, these people we see in the film, they often even can't afford to come here because they need a lot of money to go on this journey to come here. But I mean, what we see in the film is in Iraq, in Afghanistan, the whole community, a village or a part of a city, that they all want to leave their country. If you would bring a plane there, they all would come with you.

And this we can't accept. I think it needs some— the wars had been a bad thing, but it didn't work. They didn't bring this, what they pretended to bring, democracy and freedom. But I mean, in Afghanistan, Taliban came back and it's worse than it was before. And But that there is no help, I think that's the really worst thing. And I showed this film, for example, in Switzerland. I showed this film to the Foreign Ministry, to the Department of Foreign— yes, the Foreign Department for Foreign Policy. Foreign Policy, I see. And they liked the film. And next day I got the email and they said, we are ready to discuss this film, but you are not allowed to talk with us about the guilt of the West, the Western responsibility. I had to think some. a couple of days. It's really, I mean, that's tough, eh? It's very overwhelming. So I talked with the man responsible for media at the department, and he's completely aware about what is going on. He's an open-minded person personally, but the policy is going in that direction. So I said to him, we can discuss the film, but we are not able to discuss about this film. We can talk about the film. And I think that is the— this is a very good description of what is going on also in Western countries. We are— we live in— we have the impression we live in a free society, but We are at this point that we are not allowed to talk about basic things.

W.A.S.: So I want to end this conversation with the last sentence which you said, “they are not ready to talk about the Western guilt,” or better to say “they don't want to talk about the Western guilt.” Of course, when we say “they,” it's in the quotation, the they means it's the white supremacists.

E.H.: Exacty, I mean, we have Frontex in Europe, we have these institutions, and I think that has not to do with human rights. Human rights would mean we have to to consider what is going on and then adapt our policy to the needs of the people. And that would help us to solve the migration problem if we really help the people to become educated in their countries and build up families. And I think that would be in the interest of our Western countries. But I think finally it's, if you build up people in their country, you give them a chance to make their income and to— and that's not in the interest of capitalism.

W.A.S.: Indeed, indeed. Edgar Hagen, the director of The Roots of Madness, it was really very nice talking to you. It was great talking to you, Edgar. Thank you so much.

E.H.: Thank you, Waseem. It was great meeting you.