Just the other day I was thinking (actually, no, I wasn't, but go along with it), you know with Ben Affleck all up in Congo's aid business, where on earth is his best buddy Matt Damon? I mean, he's done soooo much for Darfur, but has otherwise been kinda quiet lately. Ah, that's why... while Ben has been saving Congo, Matt has been saving Zimbabwe. Man, what a duo. My awareness is so raised right now, that I probably shouldn't get out of my chair for bit.
Of course, the big thing with Matt is that he skipped that whole fact finding thing that Affleck was trying to do (and for which I initially admired Ben until he went to ABSS). Yeah, Matt is completely in to the "Won't somebody please think of the children?!!" phase of it all. And hey, don't get me wrong there are some serious problems in Sub-Saharan Africa which remained unsolved after decades of ill-constructed aid programs. It's just that when reading...
action has to be taken
...right next to a headline about how Rachel Ray would do her FHM shoot again tomorrow, it makes me ask the questions, "Um yeah, okay, what 'action'?" Why does the news even cover these soundbites anymore? They're useless and while I have don't the solutions (I don't think any one person does), I'm not sitting there, trying to use my "celebrity capital" to bring attention to issues that have already been brought-ed. Of course, I actually don't really have any "celebrity capital" to use, but still, ergh.
As a side note, Morgan Freeman is playing Nelson Mandela? I guess with Don Cheadle typecast as Rwandan and Forest Whitaker typecast as Ugandan, that just left Freeman or Denzel Washington to play Mandela. Way. To. Stretch. Yourselves. Hollywood.
It's true, I have become quite fixated on Ben Affleck's adventures in the DRC. For a long time, I've been giving him the benefit of the doubt. He seemed pretty genuine about just going there and learning what he could; hoping a way to help would fall in to place. I've been over this before, here, here, and here. All seemed reasonable well and good as these celebrity things go.
It was at the corner of Altruism Way and Hubris Boulevard where the Ben made a wrong turn and the time has come for me to pass judgment on Affleck's African travels. He drifted from newbie, interested in the affairs to the dreaded ABSS (African Baby Saving Syndrome). Everything about the guy has gone awry with a recent article that he wrote in Time [Mutha-Uckin'] Magazine. What the...? Time doesn't really need this and to be honest, if Affleck were just trying to "do good" he wouldn't feel the need to write an article on what so many professional journalists have already covered.
For those used to hyperbole when it comes to Sub-Saharan Africa, the title alone says it all, "A Glimmer of Hope in Africa" Christ, did he really go there? Oh yes he did. And of course, you can't just stop there because you really need to have some stats to go along with this:
The most vulnerable suffer the worst. One in five children in Congo will die before reaching the age of 5 — and will do so out of sight of the world, in places that camera crews cannot reach, deep in a vast landscape and concealed under a canopy of bucolic jungle.
Great. That does little to really help out the four that make it and yes, I have Paul Theroux's reoccurring commentary in Dark Star Safari in my head right now of, "...and these were the lucky ones..." But, it seems that Affleck might just pull the article out of a nosedive when he says:
It is common in the West to read about African lives in grim statistical terms, so we've become inured to these huge numbers of deaths. Making matters worse, the conflict in Congo is often seen as a hopelessly byzantine African tribal war, encouraging the damning notion that nothing will ever change.
Well okay, that seems good. It seems that Affleck does get it. He baited you with a grim stat to then flip it around and go, "Aha! I gotcha! I'm about hope in this here article thang." But no, he goes on to sum up the recent history of conflict in the Kivus and tosses in bits such as:
The FDLR subjugates people either by rape (often performed in groups — and on people of either gender) or with the AK-47, a weapon so ubiquitous that it has picked up a tragic moniker: the Congolese credit card.
Man... what gives? That's just sucky news and yeah, it's everyday life for a lot of people there. I know since I saw how people live around Bukavu in my scant initial trip and it's freakin' rough. But really, if you toss in the savage crap, people just think of them as savages and are able to dismiss all of this as an primitive African problem, which is a load of crap and doesn't do anyone any good. Oh yeah... he apparently also met with now-captured rebel general Laurent Nkunda. You know, I was still going to even try and be nice to Ben until I saw that. That's just glamor crap. There is absolutely, positively no reason on the face of the earth, moon, Mars, or some undiscovered other planet made of jamón, that Ben Affleck, winner of an Academy Award for screenwriting should ever, ever, ever have met with Laurent Nkunda. What was to come of that?
Ben: "Laurent, I know how the burdens of notoriety really weigh down on you over time. I mean, I dated Gwenneth Paltrow for an entire year. So, you know, maybe you guys should disarm and go home."
Laurent: "Ben, you seem like a really nice guy coming to Congo all these times and well... yeah, okay. Boys, get your bags, we're checkin' out! Rebel times are over!"
Yeah, that didn't happen obviously. Nothing happened other than Ben being able to say he met a dangerous rebel general and possibly his pet goat. In the end, Ben is just trying to point out that the solution so far seems to be coming out of Africa. Despite everything that foreign governments have tried to do, they never succeeded in ending the fighting, but out of the countries who are involved in this, they found a solution; for now.
That's the problem. Ben's article should have focused so much more on that that and so much less on the grim elements. Because there's a good chance that there will be more rebel groups in the future while there are all the minerals in the region and everyone inside and outside Congo needs to know that there are those who can stop them. I mean dammit, some part of me still wants to encourage Ben probably out of a sense of brotherhood between two tall guys with big foreheads, but if you're going to focus on the positive, focus on the freakin' positive. Stop tempering it will all the bad. There are and will be plenty of folks doing that, probably with a lot smaller foreheads. Oh and stop feeling like you have to meet with rebel generals too. The rebel goats are still okay though.
I went to a session by NetSquared last night which talked about fund raising for non-profits through "social media". For those who most likely aren't familiar, NetSquared is an organization that (among other things) puts together a meeting each month that deals with social change through the web. Sometimes the talks are insightful, sometimes they're a bit dull, but the topics tend to usually always be new. Such is not the case with social media media and non-profits separately. Both have been around for years but just in the last two years or so, they've been merging together with relatively good success.
The talks were pretty dry overall, but a couple of points stuck out for me, the biggest one being the fact that when you're a non-profit, you rely on donations and grants for funding, which is an onerous task. Toss on to that the fact that your biggest donors are likely to be above the age of 50 with the biggest givers past the age of 70. Now, this is tough because when it comes to using the web and email to get donations, this group isn't the most web-savvy. Of course on the other hand, the group that is the most savvy (those under 50 and specifically under 40) are going to give the least amount of donations. So, if you're an aid or development non-profit/NGO working in Africa, you're probably going to have to first focus on this over 50 group by reaching out to them digitally (as this has been proven to be the best tool to receive donations) and then secondly explaining what Africa is.
It's the 50-70 year-old group that I posit is the most difficult group when it comes to Africa. The big issue is that this group is made up of all the aging hippies. Those people who were out to change the world and believe in free-thinking are now one of the most potent forces from a non-profit vantage and if you're going to be doing any kind of work in Africa, you will absolute run in to these people and end up having to basically "explain Africa" to them. There are so many aspects to this, I just have to start at the beginning.
I grew up with hippie, back-to-the-lander, artists for parents. They were and have been loving, wonderful people, but my whole life, I've been surrounded by people who were much like them, still living the 1960's dream long in to the end of the 20th century. I watched the course of the hippies through the 80's and 90's to the point where they're all starting to retire today. It's been in the last two years as my interest in Africa has grown that I've found myself trying to have conversations about various regions of the continent often to find myself reaching the point of wanting to scream or shutting down and agreeing with whatever they said just to be finished with an otherwise dead conversation.
Whenever talking to people who lived through the 60's and early 70's, it is essential to keep in mind that they have a tremendous sense of empowerment. Their parents were a generation that was conformist, while they broke free of this. I'll definitely admit that they initially accomplished a lot, but at the cost of imbuing a permanent short-sightedness.
Ultimately, the popular movements born of the 60's pulled people in to a new version of conformity and a number of things they accomplished were ultimately self-defeating. I point to People's Park in Berkeley as a prime example of this wherein they protested to get a university owned lot that was for student housing turned in to city park despite the fact that this housing was very much needed and there were already a vast wealth of city parks at the time. Somebody actually died in the violent confrontations that ensued and the park was eventually created only to become a massive drug and crime haven today.
While the 60's were a time of social upheaval in the US, they were also a time of massive change for the African continent. During this time, the European powers were extricating themselves from the African colonies and new countries were forming in the world. Many hippies I've talked to will often identify with what the Africans were going through in overthrowing "the man" to establish a better society for them and their children. Except that they were nothing the same. Americans were working towards tweaking their societies and trying to get something better in a country that was already quite well off. Africans on the other hand were forming new societies and governments, overthrowing massively corrupt (in the case of DRC) regimes that exploited them. There is nothing the same in this except that these were both movements of the people. But given this identification with the African struggle, hippies will often be of the opinion that they know everything about Africa yet can't answer the question, "What is the meaning of Boulevard 30 du Juin in Kinshasa?"
How can someone who is say, in their 30's have a discourse with someone in their late 50's or 60's about Africa? It's not easy, but I've found a number of common arguments or opinions that keep popping up in all of this and have realized *some* workarounds.
"They're just savages there."
This is for all purposes, racism. It shows that the person is someone who reads/watches popular media as this is the common perception if you only take that as gospel about Africa.
This is hard to approach as when someone is the age that I'm talking about, they might already be set in their ways as a hardcore racist; racism is more strongly worded in the US. Typically though, if they make this statement, it's more due to ignorance. You can ask questions in a very normal, non-confrontational tone such as, "Oh really? Why do you say that?" or "No kidding. Who was saying that?" If they make statements along the lines of the fact that Africans are of lesser intelligence or they need to be shown the "light" (whatever the hell this light is), then yes, they're racist and you're probably not going to make it anywhere with them. If they say that they saw it on a report on CNN or god forbid, FOX News, then you stand a chance. You can try bringing up things a little bit deeper such as the fact that Eastern Congo in an incredibly rich area for minerals that produce modern electronics and it's in the interest of foreigners (such as Americans and Europeans) to keep the conflict going there in order to scare off others and be able to rape the earth at lower prices. If they ask how to stop this, tell them to tell others, so that people know it's not "savagery" but neo-colonial great and exploitation. They might or might not be intrigued to learn more. Maybe they just don't care, in which case flash them a photo of a starving child (jk, please don't).
"My heart is with the Tibetans"
Hippies love all things Asian. For some reason they grabbed ahold of Asian spirituality (Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, etc. yet not Islam) and didn't let go. Unless you brought it up first, I have no idea how you'd get in to a conversation with someone like this about Africa, but if you do, it's pretty hopeless. They will undoubtedly have a "Free Tibet" bumper sticker on their Subaru wagon next to one that say, "Dog is my co-pilot". A small splinter group of these types of hippies have attached themselves to the whole Save Darfur thing, but this campaign is quite sketchy to get in to. If when talking them, they get all riled up about the Darfurian crisis and how arresting the current President of Sudan is a good thing (he's not a good guy, but we can't do this) as opposed to continuing the precedent set by the well-run Ghanian elections, then you might want to just encourage them to stick with Tibet.
As you can see, they are susceptible to propaganda campaigns, so you can try to help clear up things like telling them that yes, there was post-electoral violence in Nairobi, but it was quite focused in certain areas. Judging Kenya as being hopeless because of that is just judging the US as hopeless based upon what the news showed about People's Park in the 60's. Tell all your friends.
"You just weren't there, so you don't know how it was."
This, along with "I used to know everything about X years ago, but have since forgotten it" are two of my most hated misuses of time. Hippies will often invoke these "arguments" when they feel threatened and secretly admit that you do indeed know more about something than they do. They do this because of three reasons: they are older than you so they really think they know more, their generation has an aforementioned overdeveloped sense of empowerment, and there is no way you can argue against this because yes, you weren't there.
I have often found myself getting quiet and giving up when I get this response. You can try some things to not have the discussion shut down though, such as capitulating to their undeniable wisdom and saying, "Yes, you're right. I was getting a good deal of my information about DRC from Leopold's Ghost and In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz. I don't know if you've read them, but you might like them since you lived through this." Short of that, there is little else I've found that I can do.
In no way do I mean to say that all hippies fall in to the above categories. For instance, I have no idea whether or not Paul Theroux was a hippie, but he is 67 and if he started telling me about Africa, I would sit with rapt attention and listen to every word the man had to say. There are other people as well, like my father who would have been initially combative with me on the subject of Africa, yet he would then go, read any books I suggested, find more, and then come back at me to tell me new information.
It's just that in dealing with so many people from the "Age of Aquarius" generation, I find that it's often an uphill battle in regards for them to understand more about Africa. As was point out in Larry Devlin's memoirs about DRC, Africa wasn't even on American radar until the very end 1960's. Culturally, it really wasn't mainstream until the 1980's. Just keep in mind that despite MTV coming two decades after the hippie's formative years, keep anything you say short and to the point in a nice, chewy soundbite. Try to paint Africa as a place where people do indeed lead normal lives, that aren't full of rape and horror (you're not helping Eve Ensler and Lisa Jackson) and you'll be helping a group to better understand a continent which has mostly been in their peripheral vision.
Panzi Hospital is probably the most well-known hospital in all of DR Congo. It's gained a great deal of attention due to the fact that they have a section which is devoted to treating cases of sexual violence.
Attention was really thrust upon the hospital by a special report on CNN in 2006, then Eve Ensler of "The Vagina Monologues" fame, and then Oprah. What has thusly ensued and is fueled by seemingly good intentions has been a media blitz the likes of which is preposterous. The issue of sexual violence is currently one of the "sexy" issues in the eastern regions of Congo. It's sexiness is due to its brutality and the fact that it makes for news story that leave western mouths agape.
To back up a bit, the regions of eastern DR Congo have been in the midst of a multi-national war that has scarred the Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu regions for the past decade starting in 1998 and officially ending in 2003, although a great number of skirmishes still flare up and there are large numbers of rebels still in the jungles. Rather than attempting to sum up (and probably quote incorrectly), those who are interested should read more about what has been termed, the African World War.
Most of the results of the war were typical and quickly glossed over by western media once western interest waned. Land mines? Sure, they exist, but that's so WWII. Death? Sure, about 5.4 million people they estimate, but hey, that's just war. Displacement? Of course, but that can happen anywhere and without war as was seen in New Orleans, so that's super boring. Rape? Well, now we're starting to get somewhere, since rape isn't something we like to think happens in the western world and can be easily juxtaposed on Africa as a problem inherent to the "Dark Continent". Sexual violence? Ah yes, pay dirt. The more brutally and horrendous the violence done to women and girls, the better. That is sordid news and it makes for the kind of print runs that leave the rest of the world shaking their heads in disbelief. A disbelief I might add, that is prejudicial. Yes, these events occurred. No one would ever want to belittle what has happened to the people in this area, but to posit the reporting in such a way as to paint the Africans in the countries involved as being anymore brutal than any other humans in the history of warfare is just pathetic, lazy journalism. For a brilliant take on this point and the excessive abuse of hyperbole, Michela Wrong (whose writing is simply some of the finest there is) wrote an article about her frustrations in how journalists are dealing with the situation in eastern Congo.
While all these media coverage has generated a good deal of funding directed to the hospital, much of the money doesn't get there, as it is tied up in bureaucracy like the UNFPA which seems to only exist to fund staff and offices who then disseminate money to organizations that actually are hands-on. But as far as hospitals go in Congo, this is one of the better ones with people receiving treatment and getting help. Obviously there is more demand that there is space, but this will hopefully improve with time. Something that would help to improve it is journalists covering other hospitals in the regions, which while not the media darlings that Panzi is, are doing much the same work, yet without the recognition. And this is a big problem. Western people don't understand what's happening in Congo and so they figure that just throwing money at the issue will make it better. While it may make them feel good about themselves and less guilty about the good lives we lead in the US and Europe it isn't fixing the problems.
We need journalist that actually go out and do their jobs instead of just nuzzling the easy headlines. I mean, there was a German journalist from Focus magazine there the day we were. When asked if they had an angle or if was just a reportage, the photographer told me it was just a reportage and he actually felt good about this. Panzi is flooded with people reporting on a story that has been done to death, so why does it keep happening? We talked with Dr. Denis Mukwege and the man is tired of journalists coming day in, day out for reports that interrupt his work and then don't translate in to action. It's what I like to call the "Israel Syndrome" wherein journalists get their hooks in to a place that's easy to cover and gets a lot of attention from their viewers/readers. Thusly they keep going back there time and again whenever a "tough" piece is needed.
As citizens in our respective countries, we need to have awareness to start with and then effective action to follow. Sensationalist blather like Lisa Jackson's The Greatest Silence get all kinds of media attention, while films that actually tell the stories of the victims, such as Lumo (which wasn't shot at Panzi) get overlooked. And while I would suggest that direct aid is the best place to put your money, I wouldn't suggest that Westerners should head to Bukavu or Goma and attempt to save the helpless, no matter how grand their delusions. People need to be aware of where their money is going. Just blindly donating to the Red Cross or agencies such as UNFPA does little good as you don't really know where your money is going. For god's sake, read up and learn about the agencies that operate in places like Congo. The information is out there. Make use off all the benefits of the web and be an educated donor, not one of Oprah's blind followers. That is of more help to Panzi and the other hospitals at the moment than anything else, because the source of the suffering and sexual violence comes from the foreign policies of our governments and if we really and truly want to end it, we need to pressure the people in charge not just slap a bandage on bad politics.
