In a few days Vanity Fair magazine will debut its first Africa issue — an extravaganza of generous glitterati and anguished Africans. Celebrities are the latest generation of Western philanthropists to take up the “White Man’s Burden.” Their activism, although well-intentioned, reinforces the image of Africans as helpless victims while overshadowing the significant efforts Africans are making to stem the tide of poverty and disease on the continent.
Christian missionaries, who came to Africa in the 19th Century bearing the ideology of “Christianity, civilization and commerce,” strategically packaged and disseminated images of Africans suffering. Ethnographic showcases, where Africans were displayed as freaks and circus attractions, were closely tied to the evangelical enterprise. The publicity material for these exhibits often made reference to famous missionaries and, likewise, missionaries counted on ethnographic showcases to further interest in their missionary work. Because publicity was so strongly linked to fundraising, sensationalism was the hallmark of evangelical charitable appeals.
In ways that hearken back to the 19th Century, current knowledge about Africa is being produced and disseminated via celebrity-fueled spectacles. When viewers see “Brangelina” — actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie — and their brood in Namibia, or George Clooney being featured in People speaking about Darfur, the Africans in question become, essentially, a colorful backdrop; their only function is to look miserable, as the intensity of their suffering bears a direct correlation to their utility in helping a celebrity build his or her brand.
Christian missionaries depicted Africans as primitives who could only be lifted out of their misery by the charitable actions of benevolent Europeans. Contemporary celebrities, if they are to capture attention and enhance their reputation as philanthropists, must also present themselves as pioneers, bringing ideas about peace, health and prosperity to unenlightened Africans. As a result, they not only traffic in stereotypes of Africans as hopelessly mired in poverty and disease, they also ignore the successful initiatives pioneered by Africans, on the continent and abroad.
Contemporary media coverage would lead a person to believe that celebrity fundraising and foreign aid are the only source of income for Africa’s poor. Actually, remittances from Africans living and working in the U.S. and Europe provide one of the largest sources of African “foreign aid.” Ghana’s diaspora, for example, remitted $3 billion in 2004, more than 40 percent of its gross domestic product.
While it is commendable that many celebrities realize that having paparazzi flashbulbs capture them in refugee camps, rather than in rehab centers, can play a critical role in raising public awareness, nevertheless one has to wonder why celebrities are rarely photographed interacting with African aid workers, doctors, lawyers, social workers peacekeepers or workers from non-governmental organizations. Watching the coverage of celebrities visiting Darfur, for example, one would never guess that of the 14,000 aid workers in Darfur, nearly 13,000 are Sudanese. Anyone watching concerts like Live 8, and seeing the red-carpet coverage of “Ocean’s Thirteen”, would be hard-pressed to imagine that Africa is host to thousands of talented musicians, actors, playwrights, novelists, fashion designers and models.
Celebrities bring attention to issues that might otherwise be ignored. They would be of even more help, however, if they showcased the efforts of, and worked with, Africans. An old adage holds that if you give a man a fish he eats for a day, if you teach him to fish he eats for a lifetime. Africans know how to fish — if only Angelina and Brad would show Africans helping themselves.
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Zine Magubane is a professor of sociology and African studies at Boston College.
