I spent most of my Saturday reading Vanity Fair’s special issue on Africa. This was not the plan for the day, nor am I a particularly loyal Vanity Fair reader. We have a sort of lending library in my apartment building and in addition to lots of paperback books (supplied mostly by the lovely voracious reader and shopper Miss Patty from the second floor) we trade magazines. So my Martha Stewart Living or Entertainment Weekly goes down on the table and if I see a Smithsonian or Real Simple or Vanity Fair that looks interesting I’ll snatch it up. I did that yesterday morning on my way out the door to Starbucks (I’m a creature of habit and Saturday mornings usually mean a caramel Americano and a pumpkin scone – it’s how I know the weekend has begun!)
Anyway, I sat down with VF and found a fascinating and multi-faceted set of stories about all aspects of life in Africa, from the genetic tests that can show each of us the route our ancestors took to travel from the cradle of civilization to wherever we think of them as “coming from” to the story of a family from India who have lived in Congo for 50 years and suffered through its many ups and downs to an account of Jeffrey Sachs’s Millenium Villages Project in eastern Africa. I am reminded again of the importance of recognizing and celebrating complexity and of the great good works being done for those most in need while always remembering (as my friend Carlos continually insists) that these people have agency, lives and plans and opinions of their own. In fact, looking now at the beginning of this paragraph Carlos would fuss at me for the stories I chose to list because each is about a non-African’s experience of Africa (if you want to insist that the Munshi family’s Indian ethnicity means that even after 50 years they are not Congolese).
On the most practical level, I was moved to think more about (and more highly of) the One Campaign and Project (Red). Working at a university, I’ve seen a lot of the white One Campaign bracelets – I thought the original Yellow “Live Strong” bracelets were a silly fashion statement and all of the imitators have just annoyed more. At least Live Strong was a new idea, which the others have just co-opted. It’s basically colored ribbons all over again, just diluting a great idea for AIDS awareness so you start to expect people to wear a rainbox all over themselves to cover their bases. What I liked about the explanation of both One and Project (Red) in VF was Bono’s understanding that yes it’s shallow consumerism and faddism (ok so the words shallow and faddism are mine but the jist is the same) but let’s take those facts of the rich world and instead of just bemoaning them, use them for good. The companies with Project (Red) products are making money with them and rather than apologize for it, Bono points out that it makes the project sustainable. “Sustainable” – I enjoy when someone uses a trendy word of concept with a slight twist like that – clearly, Bono knows from marketing. In fact, Bono wanted to call the issue Fair Vanity is acknowlegement of this concept, but Graydon Carter wouldn’t let him.
And speaking of Graydon Carter, if you read much VF you know it’s pretty unlikely you’d ever see Pres. Bush on the cover (Carter just despises him) but there’s a whole series of 20 covers for this issue and sure enough he’s on there. Apparently, Bono put in a call to Karl Rove to arrange it! That man knows everybody doing this kind of important work and he doesn’t really care about the rest of what they do. It’s like that sustainability model – whatever works in the world we really live in. that reminds me a lot of how I’ve explained my work as a fundraiser to some of our alumni who can’t get past the idea that a public university should be financed completely by the public. I tell them that simply isn’t going to happen in the current political climate and if they prefer they can think of what I do as a kind of rear-guard action filling in because the state won’t meet its obligations. I’m not entirely sure I see it that way myself anymore, though I certainly used to. Now I see the value of the interactions and discussions that occur as the result of having to go to the private sector for support. They ask important questions of us about accountability, goals, value-added, impact.
I had forgotten some of the meanings of the One Campaign’s title (if in fact I ever really know them). Clearly there’s a reference to the U2 song (it’s a love song, but lyrics like “we’ve got to carry each other” hooks right into another of the articles, an interview with Archbishop Tutu where he explains the concept of ubuntu – basically that it's our interconnectedness that makes us human). But the title’s also a goal – that rich countries should be putting 1% of their GNP (or budget? I’ll have to check) toward foreign aid to the developing world. Currently the most generous nations are doing about half of that. I’m going online later to research if there are organizations that help private donors give 1% to similar causes. There should be and I got caught up yesterday thinking about putting together a group with my bookclub to pool that kind of money and invest in something like microfinance.
I don’t feel like I’m explaining very well exactly how I got caught up in reading the magazine, or why I was so moved by it. But it reminded me again that there are causes I can be so passionate about and I need to be working in one of them.
Anyway, I sat down with VF and found a fascinating and multi-faceted set of stories about all aspects of life in Africa, from the genetic tests that can show each of us the route our ancestors took to travel from the cradle of civilization to wherever we think of them as “coming from” to the story of a family from India who have lived in Congo for 50 years and suffered through its many ups and downs to an account of Jeffrey Sachs’s Millenium Villages Project in eastern Africa. I am reminded again of the importance of recognizing and celebrating complexity and of the great good works being done for those most in need while always remembering (as my friend Carlos continually insists) that these people have agency, lives and plans and opinions of their own. In fact, looking now at the beginning of this paragraph Carlos would fuss at me for the stories I chose to list because each is about a non-African’s experience of Africa (if you want to insist that the Munshi family’s Indian ethnicity means that even after 50 years they are not Congolese).
On the most practical level, I was moved to think more about (and more highly of) the One Campaign and Project (Red). Working at a university, I’ve seen a lot of the white One Campaign bracelets – I thought the original Yellow “Live Strong” bracelets were a silly fashion statement and all of the imitators have just annoyed more. At least Live Strong was a new idea, which the others have just co-opted. It’s basically colored ribbons all over again, just diluting a great idea for AIDS awareness so you start to expect people to wear a rainbox all over themselves to cover their bases. What I liked about the explanation of both One and Project (Red) in VF was Bono’s understanding that yes it’s shallow consumerism and faddism (ok so the words shallow and faddism are mine but the jist is the same) but let’s take those facts of the rich world and instead of just bemoaning them, use them for good. The companies with Project (Red) products are making money with them and rather than apologize for it, Bono points out that it makes the project sustainable. “Sustainable” – I enjoy when someone uses a trendy word of concept with a slight twist like that – clearly, Bono knows from marketing. In fact, Bono wanted to call the issue Fair Vanity is acknowlegement of this concept, but Graydon Carter wouldn’t let him.
And speaking of Graydon Carter, if you read much VF you know it’s pretty unlikely you’d ever see Pres. Bush on the cover (Carter just despises him) but there’s a whole series of 20 covers for this issue and sure enough he’s on there. Apparently, Bono put in a call to Karl Rove to arrange it! That man knows everybody doing this kind of important work and he doesn’t really care about the rest of what they do. It’s like that sustainability model – whatever works in the world we really live in. that reminds me a lot of how I’ve explained my work as a fundraiser to some of our alumni who can’t get past the idea that a public university should be financed completely by the public. I tell them that simply isn’t going to happen in the current political climate and if they prefer they can think of what I do as a kind of rear-guard action filling in because the state won’t meet its obligations. I’m not entirely sure I see it that way myself anymore, though I certainly used to. Now I see the value of the interactions and discussions that occur as the result of having to go to the private sector for support. They ask important questions of us about accountability, goals, value-added, impact.
I had forgotten some of the meanings of the One Campaign’s title (if in fact I ever really know them). Clearly there’s a reference to the U2 song (it’s a love song, but lyrics like “we’ve got to carry each other” hooks right into another of the articles, an interview with Archbishop Tutu where he explains the concept of ubuntu – basically that it's our interconnectedness that makes us human). But the title’s also a goal – that rich countries should be putting 1% of their GNP (or budget? I’ll have to check) toward foreign aid to the developing world. Currently the most generous nations are doing about half of that. I’m going online later to research if there are organizations that help private donors give 1% to similar causes. There should be and I got caught up yesterday thinking about putting together a group with my bookclub to pool that kind of money and invest in something like microfinance.
I don’t feel like I’m explaining very well exactly how I got caught up in reading the magazine, or why I was so moved by it. But it reminded me again that there are causes I can be so passionate about and I need to be working in one of them.
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