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January 11, 2011Clooney and Sudan
It's always a bit of a question whether celebrity attention to a foreign policy issue is an asset or just a self-aggrandizing distraction. In the case of George Clooney's activities in Africa in support of a celebrity-funded satellite project, which have come under some criticism this week from Foreign Policy's Joshua Keating and other cynics:
George Clooney's "anti-genocide paparazzi" seems to be dominating nearly every transmission coming out of south Sudan this week. Clooney, along with the Enough Project, Harvard researchers, and some of his wealthier Hollywood friends, have hired satellites to monitor troop movements along the north-south border, particularly the oil-rich region of Abyei. Clooney, active for years in the Save Darfur movement, has also become something of a celebrity spokesperson for the independence referendum. Naturally, the international humanitarian blogosphere's snark brigade is out in force.Laurenist: "If you're anything like George Clooney, you lounge around on your yacht off the coast of Italy thinking up ways to save Africa."
Texas in Africa: "While John Prendergast, George Clooney, and other advocates who don't speak a word of Arabic have been raising fears about violence for months … the likelihood that a genocide or war will break out immediately seems to me to be slim to none."
Wronging Rights: "Clooney has described it as 'the best use of his celebrity.' Kinda just seems like he's trying to recruit a mercenary for Ocean's Fourteen."
I'm not one to overemphasize the impact of a celebrity or his wealthy friends, but in this case, I have a hard time seeing what Clooney's doing that's so wrong. The western-focused communications reality of today is that your cause needs an American face, a recognizable and likable one. As Mark Leon Goldberg of UN Dispatch points out, "does anyone really think that Sudan’s upcoming referendum would be covered on a National Sunday morning broadcast without George Clooney’s handsome face to greet viewers?"
For the opposing view, Elizabeth Blackney writes in Clooney's defense:
The anti-genocide paparazzi following Clooney are being subjected to nasty critiques. Some note he doesn’t speak Arabic–but neither do some of the Black Africans who are animists or Christians that are victims of their Islamic president who has demonstrated that their deaths please him... To those attacking Clooney’s policy credentials, gravitas defines John Prendergast and the Enough Project. When it comes to Africa, few have been as rational and inclusive as Prendergast. Prendergast served as Director for African Affairs on the National Security Council during the Clinton era, has been in-country more times than anyone could count, with his personal story beginning in 1984. Clooney is wise to befriend a man with that portfolio of experience.Perhaps what concerns some is the Satellite Sentinel project itself. If the project brings in high resolution images, infrared, or multi-spectre images, this is very different than other attempts in the past. If we have near-real time images, from Satellites and with corroborating evidence on the ground of human rights violations, governments will not be able to pretend the mass slaughter of Africans at the hand of an indicted genocidaire is not a possibility, or in process. They have combined innovation, passion and justice into a whole new animal. This isn’t your regular technology writ large. This isn’t just geeks and hippies from Silicon Valley. This is the privatization of Statecraft.
There's something interesting about this idea, and I'm curious about its potential lessons for others in the future who take these matters more seriously than just putting on dull-as-dishwater benefit concerts. The proper combination of public relations savvy and technology leveraging programs isn't an established recipe yet, and many groups - not just those with celebrity benefactors - are testing ways to respond to global situations which result in real political action.
Let's leave it at this: even if Clooney's satellite project efforts ultimately fall flat, his effort will still have been more relevant and more serious than nearly every other celebrity activity I've seen in recent years. It's a lot better than, say, getting people to turn their Twitter avatars a certain color in expressions of solidarity - and certainly a step further than the nadir of all celebrity efforts, Sean Penn's efforts in New Orleans. He's getting an award for that, by the way.
(AP Photo)
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