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.
Well, it appears that all the Congo travelin' Mr. Affleck has been doing has resulted in the video I've embedded below. I agree with what Wronging Rights wrote. It's like Affleck was scanning the blogosphere just a bit after his whole Nightline thing and saw that people were really annoyed by him popping his mug in to the camera frame so often. In this video, he instead pimps the UNHCR of all things. I'll get to that a bit later though.
As with his previous attempts, I have to say that Affleck is working to be one of the least annoying celebrities prancing around Congo these days. That being said, he is still a celebrity and still an American. I'm guessing that Ben doesn't speak French. If he does and I'm wrong, je lui rends hommage. But, I would put money down that he doesn't. Why you might ask? Because instead of having a single word spoken by the subjects being filmed (despite this shot, Affleck was not the DP) he runs the Stones' "Gimme Shelter" as a soundtrack. Now, that's a great song and it would seem to be more than fitting given that the UNHCR does indeed give shelter (as well as food, water, basic medical care, and varied degrees of security), but again, it strays in to the gaping void that is Western objectification of a downtrodden people.
America is a damned fine country in that when we set our minds on doing something, we make it happen. I mean, we defeated Nazis, split the atom, went to the moon, outlasted most of Communism, and elected a (sorta) black president. That's a pretty impressive record despite all the backfires (Great Depression, Nixon, the 80's). But the reason this worked was because it was "us" doing it. We made it personal. The reason that the problems persist in Congo and we're still fighting a war in Iraq is because this strife is remote and/or with people we really don't care about. Affleck's video unfortunately falls prey to this and while it gives a boost to the UNHCR, it does absolutely nothing for the Congolese in the long term. Why were there no interviews? No personal stories? No perspectives of the actual people? You see how people are looking disdainfully at the cameras in so many of the shots? That's because they're freakin' tired of being zoo animals for the Western media to take pity shots off. I'd be tired of that crap too and I wouldn't give a damn if Oscar Winner (for screenwriting let's remember), Ben Affleck was making a five minute pity video about my life, which isn't really going to net me anything but (hopefully) another cup of rice.
I was wondering when Affleck would get on board and start directing his efforts at a specific agency. With this latest move, he has, but why oh freakin' why the UNHCR? I mean, I recognize that the UNHCR does a massive job that is so incredibly difficult most folks can't even comprehend it. Building an emergency city for a fleet of thousands of refugees is absolutely not like building Burning Man. The people coming a refugee camp have nothing and are often sick as opposed to Burners who come in their own cars funded by daddy's Amex.
The UNHCR has also done an atrocious job at times. In the Yugoslavian Wars, they helped the Serbs (unknowingly) in ethnically cleansing the Bosniaks out of Bosnia. While the collective, "Oh, seriously, our bad on that one" doesn't hold water, you'd think that would have learned and just a scant few three years later, they wouldn't set up a refugee camp that ended up (unknowingly) becoming the base of the Hutu genociders, from which they were able to emerge a regrouped and more powerful force. The "unknowingly" aspect to what the UNHCR does is pretty typical. They just plunk down in an area and don't really spend the resources needed to know what is really happening on the group. They claim that this is because they have to remain neutral and provide aid to all who need it, but in reality it makes them often guilty of helping the wrong side. These things happen I suppose.
The issue in the Afflecks and Jolies doing all this "work" for the UNHCR is that for better or worse, it's an agency that's going to stay with us forever. No matter how much positive or negative light is shined its way, nothing will really change it. They only move in to an area when the shit builds up so much you don't even know that there was fan under that pile to start with. And when they do move in, there will always be the money from foreign governments to take care of these issues. You see, it's the least they could do, since they don't work to actually stop the refugee problems before they start. In not even a perfect and more poignant world, the UNHCR would be completely unneeded.
So, the real problem in all of this is that Affleck's energy is still massively misdirected. I feel bad, since I can see he's really and truly making an effort to help and as opposed to what Jolie does, there is no glitterati element to this. He's out on the ground trying something, although because obviously no one close enough to him is educated enough in the issues, his shots aren't long enough on the subjects to reveal what a delightful people the Congolese are and how these constant stories of suffering only work to boost short term aid projects and not long term development work.
Ben Affleck is in Congo again. He was already there a few months ago and ended up creating a short piece that was aired on American primetime television. Affleck is definitely one of the least annoying celebrities to hit Africa this year, especially when compared to that jaunty Rankin fellow as he keeps going back. But even still, what is he doing there? He claims to be trying to draw attention to the region; a region that if anything, is not lacking for attention, as opposed to clean drinking water which they could use just a dash more of. So what is it? Simply put, Affleck is obviously embarking on Celebrity Humanitarian Fashion Education.
While not the best acronym, CHFE is incredibly crucial to all celebrities that want to journey to a crisis-stricken region and have it be known that they do indeed care as you can see in the way they dress that they're ready for anything. It is critical not to make a fashion faux pas like she did. Those sunglasses may block the equatorial sun that is indeed strong (I got knocked down for three days with sunstroke after being an idiot) but they're just too fancy and out of touch. They're not a classic Ray Ban or other "rugged" travel sunglasses. No, Affleck is on to something here and he's going to get a lot of recognition for it. All the Paris Hiltons will never be caught offguard again and for that, the celebrity world will be ever so thankful. The actual people living in Africa? Well, there is so much hope and they're such survivors, that they'll probably just manage.
It's not a lie that DR Congo is a fashionable tragedy story as of late. Celebrities and others have latched on to it as a way to get their name out as doing good in the world by bringing light to the issues there. Well, add to that list one Ben Affleck whose reportage appeared on ABC last month.
In all fairness, Ben's work is pretty good when taken from the perspective that an American was responsible for it. If you want to judge for yourself before reading more, you can watch Part 1 and Part 2.
Finished watching? Okay, good because I wanted to say that there is something of an honesty to this piece that he spearheaded. You get the feeling that he is a person with the means to do pretty much whatever he wants and he was curious about DR Congo, so he went there to actually try to understand, which is something most people don't do. He covers the country (mostly the east) from the viewpoint of what he sees. He even tries to put a positive message at the end by saying that there is hope, which of course there is, because there is always hope.
That being said, this report says nothing new. Much like the flood of redundant coverage of Panzi Hospital, Affleck is treading on a path worn deeply by those who have come before him. Maybe this reaches out to Americans somehow as Ben is a big name and he might appeal to the everyday person more than someone from academic or NGO circles. But the one really big point in all of this and why it is so unabashedly American is that the subjects of the video are not allowed to speak in their own voices. Ben becomes a mouthpiece for them, guiding we the viewers. Much like Lisa F. Jackson, no matter what good intentions he may have had when starting the project it comes across as Ben Affleck wanting to show what Ben Affleck can do and what place Ben Affleck went to. At one point, he even seems to me to come across as falling prey to the, "I'm here to save African babies!" syndrome that many who visit the region do.
I do respect what Ben is trying to do, but it's a shame that some of these things happened. I don't know if he watched work like Lumo or Darwin's Nightmare before going, but there is a lot to be learned from films like these. They allow the narration and story to happen from the subjects of the film and thus, it's much more engrossing and powerful work.
There are other little bits that I didn't like in how this story was presented, but they are quite subjective, so I won't get in to them unless people feel like commenting. I just really wish that people could get Bernard Kalume's job title correct though. Bernard is the fellow helping Ben with translations out in the bush. He is not a "contractor with the UN". He is a fulltime employee with the UN who friends of mine know well and I would have met had he still been in Bukavu and not up in Goma. I'm told that he's a great and extremely capable guy who speaks English, French, Swahili, and Kinyar Rwanda. In short, he's very smart and does his job well. Yet, he never gets credited as being a fulltime employee. The only reason that this must be the case is because it would paint the UN in a light that was less than negative and we just couldn't have that now, could we?
