Most anyone who follows what is happening with Twitter has undoubtedly heard about the whole stunt wherein Ashton Kutcher was vying to get one million followers before CNN. In the end, he won and in winning he vowed to donate 10,000 mosquito nets to Malaria No More, an NGO that shows no shame in using the helpless African child model for its revenue model. I'm not joking, look at the site, there are five of them on the front page alone.
For Kutcher's part, it's a cheap shot, but at the same time, it's an ingenious shot because in this mad, mad race towards this ultimate pointless goal, he has made everyone feel like they've been part of this. The phrase, "it's for a good cause" has come up on many a website as a reason to support Kutcher in this. Americans love this phrase as it's so much easier to contribute funds to somewhere else in order to help people rather than to actually do it yourself. Does this make Kutcher a "social media expert" (see # 4)? No, not at all. He's just a celebrity riding a wave of popularity for his perceived generosity. The donation of mosquito nets along with his new accessibility on Twitter only give him more "real cred" in the eyes of his fans. And who knows, maybe this will lead to his acting in a movie that doesn't go straight to video someday.
I'm saying little new here and it's obvious that I'm not a fan of this stunt, just as I'm not a fan of any of these celebrity stunts. The main reason I bring it up was because of this article on TechCrunch where they were under the impression that Kutcher's Twitter stunt would improve knowledge of malaria. The net result remains to be seen in that, but even on this site, where there are in theory, intelligent people in technology, the comments were littered with the "it's for a good cause" and people are now "armed with information" crap.
Thankfully, TMS Ruge, whose name I don't know how to say right, but can be followed on Twitter in all his shirtless glory, chimed in. Thankfully, being that he is an African from Africa, people actually listened to him and don't immediately write off his comments with the, "Oh yeah, what are you doing?!!" idiocy. I happen to like what TMS writes a good deal and most of what he says here is part of a quite excellent, larger article that addresses not only the Kutcher stunt, but also celebrity charity stunts in general. While I think it's a great read overall, one particular paragraph really stands out:
The solution to malaria, much like varied solutions to ending our addiction to aid, can be found within Africa. My problem with the strategy of dealing with malaria employed by Malaria No More, Nothing but Nets, et al is that it erodes the ability of local capacity to deal with this problem. It is also not infinitely sustainable, and dare I say it, smacks of paternalistic ethos. It’s a band-aid on a gashing wound. It’s the “fly-to-Africa-and-adopt-a-brown-baby-instead-of-investing-in-a-sustainable-business-that-can-help-the-entire-family” syndrome.
It really is a shame that celebrities have decided that they need to invest themselves in new forms of technology to spread their supposed giving to Africa. Hugh Jackman has done this as well although it was leagues less annoying probably just because it's Hugh Jackman. Obviously, this move was inevitable given that newspapers are dying off and that was the main place a celeb could flash their "amazingness" to the world. I'm sure that iPhone apps are next and I'm already cringing that one with Beyonce patting the head of a poor African child will soon be available for download; with all the proceeds from purchases going to charity of her choosing of course (charity: water get on that now!) This app won't do anything I might add other than show that picture with Single Ladies playing in the background. It will just loop constantly so that you can be warmed by Beyonce's giving all through your otherwise dreary workday.
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.
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.
Being that I am neither metrosexual nor gay, I read Men's Journal about as often as I get my nails done; ie never. But, apparently in an attempt to get "edgy", in this month's issue, there between Ask Dr. Bob and an article on T. Boone Pickens on Page 60 is an Emile Hirsch's account of traveling to Congo on the protected wings of Oxfam.
Obviously, this is another case of "Celebrity Goes To Africa to Raise Awareness and/or Save African Babies". I don't like these cases. They're a flash in the pan and then they're gone. People forget about what whomever it was, was talking about when they did that thing that was... you know, somewhere over there.
But to just blindly say that Hirsch is an ass would be arrogant and childish. In his account, he is very honest about what he saw, what he knew going in, and what he got coming out. He was only there for five days, but he saw a lot. Of course, given such a short amount of time and such vast ground that he was covering around the Kivus, one could say that it was all pointless. But, what good does that do? Sure, it doesn't really help anyone and I don't really support celebrities doing this, but on some level he is trying do something, although like Ben Afflecks out there, the energy is largely misdirected. For better or worse, I can say that I've read the whole article and here are a few of the things that stuck out.
And I'm reading these pages and thinking about the $600 in 20s and 50s I was told to carry for "security reasons"...
Someone really told him wrong on this front. First of all, it's a cash economy and one that runs on external cash (dollars or euros) at that. Your day to day needs are going to have to be met solely with the cash that you bring in. $600 would probably be more than enough to cover his five days there given that his stay was taken care of by Oxfam. But the "security reasons" part was laughable. First, there was no way anything was going to happen to Hirsch and secondly, if it did, $600 was going to do little to make things better.
As we wait on the runway, Lyndsay points to a demolished plane nearby. Two months ago it crashed as it tried to take off, catching fire and killing 21 people. Gulp.
Why "gulp"? That was a pathetic sub-contractor airline of the slightly less, yet still completely, abysmal Hewa Bora airline. Again, there was no way Oxfam was going to toss Hirsch on anything close to resembling a Hewa Bora flight. Also, that flight crashed in the market nearby (which was the reason for all the ground casualties.) Maybe that was another plane they were referring to as it would seem it wouldn't be where the girl thought it was?
I can't believe it, but he's wearing a Marilyn Manson T-shirt.
Apparently no one filled him on on the whole t-shirt thing in Africa. Might have been a nice thing for him to know as he could have brought extra clothes to give someone to sell at the local market.
For a boy such as Prince, the support from NGO's represent a chance to take his destiny into his own hands. And for a rape victim such as Kimanizani, donations to Oxfam go toward her medical costs and food and give her a chance to rejoin the world.
I was sorta okay with Hirsch's whole account up to this point. This chunk makes me cringe as it feels like it was written by the marketing people at Oxfam. It cheapens the whole account by him as it makes it suddenly one big sales pitch for throwing more money in to the NGO's that in all truth really aren't making much progress. They're just bandaid solutions to the much bigger issue that the government of Congo and all those in MONUC actually need to actively work for change, which they aren't. Throwing money at Oxfam is not the answer, although I'm sure that readers of this article will see it that way.
The real solution is to educate yourself and not listen to some actor who is being used as a pawn. If you actually know what is going on in Africa (and know much more than Hirsch, whose soundbite history lesson left out France's involvement in the start of the Rwandan Genocide as well as other crucial facts) you are going to understand a lot better what needs to be done. Informed people can actually do something. Otherwise you're just a very obedient sheep foolishly giving your wool to an all too eager recipient who just waits for your next wool to grow in.
