Several months ago, Ben Affleck traveled to the Democratic Republic of Congo to bear witness to the tremendous humanitarian catastrophe unfolding. The United Nations has some resources on the ground, but nowhere near enough to take in the millions of refugees displaced by “civil” war.
While there, Affleck shot footage for a very short documentary titled Gimme Shelter that he premiered at the United Nations’ New York headquarters on Wednesday. The event was sponsered by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR), for which Angelina Jolie has been a special goodwill ambassador since 2001. After Gimme Shelter was screened, Affleck took questions.
Affleck, 36, says he made the short [documentary] “in order to focus attention on the humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) at a time when too much of the world is indifferent or looking the other way.”
“We step up when these terrible crises occur,” said Affleck, who has visited the DRC four times in the last year and held discussions with leaders on all sides of the conflict including warlords, peacemakers, activists and government officials.
“I’ve had to be really judicious,” he said. “I got exposed to really smart people. [I’ve had] to give myself a kind of great post-graduate education.”
Affleck noted that organizations like the UNHCR need more funding in light of the financial crisis, and also urged increased diplomacy in the region. “Diplomacy won’t cost us anything,” he said.
He also joked about the UN Refugee Agency’s most visible spokesperson, Angelina Jolie: “UNHCR needs to find a Goodwill Ambassador who can get some sort of press attention,” Affleck said to laughs from the audience.
According to the U.N., more than 5.4 million people have died in the conflict, with millions more displaced from their homes.
[From People]
The Congolese genocide/civil war was picked as one of the top-ten most under-reported stories of the year by Time Magazine. But you could say that about nearly every story coming out of Africa – the Sudanese genocide, the civil unrest in Kenya, the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe, the hyperinflation of Zimbabwe, the plague of war crimes, the failed state of Somalia, the environmental disasters, and on and on. All are under-reported, and I applaud Affleck for doing his part to bring more attention to a situation that too often gets crowded out of the headlines. And I really do think he meant his Jolie joke in a nice way.
Ben Affleck is shown on 12/17/08 premiering Gimme Shelter and picking up Violet from school with his wife, Jennifer Garner. Credit: WENN
The stories go unreported because everyone has given up on Africa. It’s sad to watch so many countries in Africa flourish and then others completely dissolve into chaos. The worst part of it is that most of these conflicts have come about because outsiders came in, took resources or are taking resources, have turned different tribes against each other, have stolen land, are handing guns out…it’s just a whole bizarre mess. I just wish that people would stop seeing Africa as this hell hole full of people who don’t know how to govern themselves and see it for what it is: a vast and culturally diverse continent that was ruined by colonization.
I look forward to seeing this – well, not exactly look forward, but you know what I mean. Africa has just been encouraged to become a tinderbox since the various declarations of independence. Such a shame – the original cradle of life reduced to having seemingly no value on it at all.
And that was a very sweet joke definitely meant in an affectionate way.
Good for Ben. Giving your time is very important with a terrible crisis such as this. It brings much needed public awareness when a celeb backs it up.
Mairead:
December 19th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
And that was a very sweet joke definitely meant in an affectionate way.
I agree. I don’t detect any nastiness in there at all, just having a laugh.
May I kindly ask what brought up the Angelina Jolie reference in the fist place?
Would this tiny detail otherwise have gone unnoticed? While it was such an important part of Affleck’s speech?
This is wonderful.
I think he has taken the serious approach and is really studying this one country and focusing.
It comes accross as real and serious, as opposed to just going about from one crisis to another, without actually learning and giving it the appropriate attention.
I wish more actors, singers and athletes would “adopt” a country in Africa and help keep the attention and educate people as to the massive despair.
KatyAlia, the reference wasn’t an important part of his speech. He simply said they need an ambassador who can get them some press attention. Which is funny because Angelina is their ambassador and there is no shortage of attention surrounding her. Nothing major just a cute throw away joke.
MT, I agree with much of your post, but I would like to just comment on one thing. I’m not sure how UNHCR runs it’s goodwill ambassador campaign, but I do have a tiny bit of experience with a completely unrelated part of the UN, and everything in there is very strategically done.
I would hazard a guess that they sit down with each celeb at the start and work out which campaigns and approaches would work best for all parties. Since Ben seems to be a fairly recent addition and UN peacekeeing troops went into DRC in the recent past, everyone possibly agreed that that was the cause he would concentrate on. Again, it’s just a guess.
I know that with the charity Goal, John O’Shea CEO, goes one step further where he decides which “celeb” will do what and how they’ll do it, and he doesn’t take no for an answer.
Mairead, I think it’s a wise approach. I think people should know what is going on, and especially since Congo is hardly covered by the main media outlets.
I thought it was Ben who chose the specific focus, but I don’t really know how these things are done, so I would take your word.
I think he should continue to focus (and study and talk about) DRC.
That way he would seem more serious and genuine and it would serve an important cause.
Thank you, cmoody.