A debate is currently taking place on the BBC website questioning whether or not 14 famous peace ambassadors appointed by the African Union can make a difference for Africa.
Do celebrities have the capacity to be agents of change ?
if so, can they truly represent the issues that are being faced in Africa ?
Celebrities are a tiny part of the society just like a speck of pollen falling on running water, not easily fished out; not accessible. I mean that most celebrities are out of touch with the normal population. This makes it really hard for them to make personal of things that really bother the society.
However, with proper grassroots outreach, they could easily gather information and present them to possible groups ready to help specific societies. Their power is the ability to get the ear of other celebrities or people in the higher places. Taking a local example, it might take years for a farmer at Kiwira to meet the Permanent Secretary for Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources just to explain problems many other people in his village due to the refuse from the coal mine that contaminates their fields thus decreased harvests. From this vantage point, some celebrities would help in getting information about specific issues to reach the helms of power. However, that fact does not always guarantee that help will reach the needy. The word can reach but the scientific expertise would take ages to reach the targeted population. Maybe a little too late?
VR, I understand what you are saying and I agree that celebrities are not always in touch with the local population and for this reason they may not properly represent the issues that face the local communities. However, celebrities do bring attention and for this reason they can bring awareness of the issues. They may not be able to resolve them but if they have the ability to bring forth the main concerns of a particular community then I would say that awareness is half the battle.
I don’t think it’s ever too late to make a difference; the good thing about this initiative is that these celebrities are local celebrities so I’m hoping that they have some understanding of the political, economical and social issues that are being faced.
VR and AM: Excellent comments, all valid.
Two questions/concerns arise from what you have said, relative to this article, that I feel should be brought up to those in the business of making celebrities ambassadors for such causes:
1. On what basis are celebrities selected to become ambassadors?
2. When celebrities become ambassadors, are they given the “understanding of the political, economic, and social issues” as AM put it?
3. By “get the ear of other celebrities or people in the higher places” as VR put it, how can we be sure that the transfer of knowledge concerning these political, economic, and social issues is taking place?
In sum, assimilating people – whether they are celebrities or professional foreign aid workers – to a particular case is not only important, it’s necessary. You can’t expect someone who can fix A to come and help fix B. Sure, the people who can fix A can make noise and try to attract C, D and E fixers, but where is the direct change taking place for B?
Anon, great questions and comments.
To address your first question, in the article they don’t explain how they have selected these 14 ambassadors however, my guess is that they must be famous enough to make a difference and make some kind of impact. If we think of the west we see celebrities like Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, and Bon Jovi who have used their fame to address various issues. On a side note, some celebrities have tried to use their fame to create charities but the problem with western celebrities is that they try to change other communities and not the ones that they know and live in which then becomes problematic.
As for your second question, I think that they may not have a complete and holistic understanding of the overall political, social and economical issues however, they were born and raised in Africa (don’t know in which countries). I’m also assuming that they will only address areas in which they themselves grew up in, giving more weight to what they address.
As for your last comment, sometimes we don’t get attention on A and I believe that the African Union is trying to get that attention because other means have not been effective. So perhaps celebrities can’t accomplish task B but it may create enough attention to attract the “right” people to get B done. We need a team of people to work together and we need different qualifications so if the celebrities can get the attention then we can hopefully get the resources for completing task B and if we can get the proper resources then we can go further in acquiring proper funding and solutions and working with the local community to best address their concerns. At the end of the day, there is no one size fits all solution and every community will have to be evaluated differently. Personally, I believe that what matters most in this process is that local communities are involved every step of the way and have enough clout over the decisions that are made. My concern is that celebrities might take this initiative and use this to increase their own fame while ignoring the real issues that face the locals just to get ahead in their careers .
Any thoughts on this?
One thing I learnt in life is that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. And as Sir Isaac Newton concluded, ‘To every action there’s always an equal and opposite reaction.’ In short, a favor repays a favor. Now, any kind of help we receive from a group of individuals be it celebrities or donors come with strings attached; that’s just selfish human nature. Rarely, do people do things with a pure heart. They might seem helpful but that could only be a way of clearing acts of some unpleasant circumstances they had previously created.
For instance if someone (no name calling) had trouble with fangs of law or had said a racist rant, they will try to adopt kids or help some causes that solve social-economic concerns of specific areas of the world, to appear calm, collected, tolerant, thoughtful and maybe cool. Moreover, these awareness campaigns are so loud it’s hard to miss the news from the social media. You’d see one of the celebrities posing for photos with the targeted community or its representatives to boost their social standing.
I recently attended a concert by two of my favorite musicians who were on a world tour with both an aim of promoting their duo album and using some of the tour proceeds to build schools in Africa. Sadly, more than 70% of the earnings will be used to cater for the band of almost 50 people and other administrative costs. The fact that nothing has been clearly put on paper underscores the wordy promise given by these artists. They have and will surely attract thousands of people to their concert and alleged cause. However, even if they manage to build one school, it might only run independently for a short time and collapse due lack of resources. The musicians will have benefited more because of the publicity received and subsequently drop another album which will ride on the spillover effect of the said world tour. If these celebrities had decided to dedicate a percentage of their yearly earnings for building and maintaining the said school then everybody would be sure of their ‘purely humane’ intent.
So far I can only say the celebrity culture has caught the African continent by storm. It might be very difficult for some societies to think and stand on their feet as they will be waiting for these celebrities to come up and make heard of their afflictions. What we ought to know is that there are so many problems faced by our societies but we’ve very few celebrities that can make them public as we expect. If we need the celebrities then we all should be celebrities to help ourselves. If this is the case then there won’t be any need of celebrities. Thus we do not really need celebrities but ourselves; local activities solving local problems. The celebrity culture will cripple our societies.
The question, it seems, is will these celebrities help make change, or simply help advertise it?
It becomes dangerous when someone who is in an area to advertise change mistakes their presence for making change, thus the charities that don’t stand up for themselves in the long run.
AM and VR: I think we’re essentially breaking down what “being an ambassador” means… my take on it is essentially advertising the change, that is, “being an ambassador” = “being a spokesperson”. And herein lies my problem with all of this: To be a spokesperson, you need to know the things you are talking about.
Advertising change does not necessary mean making change, but knowing about the change is applicable and is perhaps necessary to both.
Anon, I think you make some very valid points and I agree that we are trying to define what it means to be an ambassador.
I think I’ve debated this question for awhile and I’ve given celebrities the benefit of the doubt hoping that they are doing this with good intentions. One thing I’ve realized through this discussion however, is that whether the intention of the celebrity is good or not does not matter as much because in my opinion an ambassador is someone who can bring awareness and even if that’s the only thing a celebrity can do , I believe the act of bringing awareness is already making change.
“In my opinion an ambassador is someone who can bring awareness and even if that’s the only thing a celebrity can do, I believe the act of bringing awareness is already making change.”
Well said, AM.
Word…
VR, of course, when somebody says s/he wants to contribute a certain percentage of the income to some charity or school project (like the example you gave..), it doesn’t necessarily mean the recording/promoting companies are willing to do the same.
So, kudos to the celebrities who are willing to give something back to the communities! Remember the Malaria Zinduka Campaign in TZ? Apparently, some of the celebrities and entrepreneurs viewed it as an opportunity to make money.