Quote:
Originally Posted by Deckard
What you say about too many cameras might at first seem odd (ie. surely we need more exposure of this?) but on reflection, I wonder if there's some truth in it - that we've become so accustomed to just accepting that this is what Africa looks like, that it leads to a certain fatigue, a detachment from it all?
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yes.
exposure is a double edged sword, and i really think celebs and the like should be more careful about it.
this is a murky road im heading down and i'm not saying "lets all give up now" but instead relating to the idea of exposure and effect, so bear with me.
but what else are we supposed to think when you have huge organized events and benefits plugged by the likes of 'superstars' and famous people, only to have it do fuck all in the long term? what we see as a result of different cause celebres are small communities briefly staved from recurring misery just long enough to make a photo shoot out of it, its benefits seem surface-depth at best, and meanwhile 95% of africa gets ignored because they cant possibly cover a significant chunk let alone everyone. this happens again and again. every group, organization, and bono hve a story about helping africa, yet the grand picture hasnt changed.
so we watch the exposés and read the details with a morbid fascination of its extremities, but if people who are almost incontinently wealthy and resourceful cant do anything without looking like self-satisfied prats, then what the hell are we expected to do? keep shopping at the gap and their (red) line so we can steamroll that crawling guilt at the backburner?
the impression left on most of us is that this is obviously a much larger problem that doesnt simply need an accumulation of chump change to fix. it's an infrastructural problem that we would have to, in a surreal turn of events, drop what we're doing and immerse ourselves in the thick of it in the remote possibility that the foundations of how a country is run could be altered so that whats given could be used to produce more.
and since none of us are expected to do that, it no longer feels as if it's our responsibility. and after that happens, the matter is quite quickly dropped. it gets revived by the occasional photographer to pull at the strings and remind us that yes, it's still happening, but at this point the cameras are like anthropologists: they come in for the material, get what they need, but the hope that they'd publish anything to help who they're making their name off of is distant at best, so what we have is mostly self-serving accomplishments that leave those inflicted in the same situation as before, only whoever deigned to go there gets a prize for it.
on the other hand, if you ignore it it's basically sticking your head in the sand and trying to get away with being a self-centric prick (aka: republicans... ooooh
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in conclusion: the world is too big.