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Unit 3: Relationships
Text 1 Discusion
Reading
THE POWER OF SAYING SORRY
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Vocabulary
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Analysis Fashion Compassion Margarette Driscoll on the stars of the compassion industry
HOTEL ROOMS were at a premium in town 10 days ago, but that proved no impediment to Bianca Jagger as she sailed into the middle of the war zone. "Dark eyes sparkling with fury" (Mail on Sunday), "not afraid to get her hands dirty" (Daily Express), Bianca unleashed a major Latin charm offensive on the assembled officers of the UN, commandeering satellite phones, helicopters, armoured cars and a room at the hotel, which had been so overcrowded that seasoned relief workers and journalists were sleeping in corridors and, more dangerously, in their cars.
In between giving world‐wide news networks snappy sound bites of her views from the hotel roof ("the most evil and cruel war I have ever seen"), Bianca Jagger toured a hospital, comforting child victims, acquired a top‐security pass from the UN to enable her to meet the city's mayor and delivered 38 tons of aid. After 36 hours, she flew out.
Not so long ago, we were treated to the sight of Iman, the dark, glittering model, in Africa ‐ swathed in peasant robes for one photograph, sporting jeans and casual shirt for another. The catwalk's "Angel of Africa" wandered around a dusty town looking soulfully at the destitute, spending eight days making a documentary for the BBC.
Nobody can doubt the sincerity of both these women; Bianca Jagger, for example, has, through years of work, more than proved her commitment to human rights. So why is it so oddly disturbing to see such women ‐ and they are legion ‐ carrying out their charitable work? Are we guilty of cynicism? Or is it something about them?
"They" are the Ladies Bountiful of the global village ‐ beautiful, monied, internationally mobile, photogenically caring. There's glamorous Cher, just off to distribute supplies. There's the lovely Marie Helvin, who sponsors "foster children". Cindy Crawford worries her gorgeous head about political oppression. Yasmin Le Bon is concerned about the rain forests.
In parts of South America, you can barely move for beautiful people chipping their nail polish on endangered hardwoods, and, in Africa, cuddling up to wild animals. Tracy Ward, the actress and now Marchioness of Worcester, started trying to save the tropical rain forest after a stint on a detective TV series. As she tellingly explained, "I had never really had the time or the knowledge, and suddenly when I had no work I realised there was a problem."
But the women, to give them their due, appear to have more staying power than men. Sting, it was reported last week, was suffering from disillusion ‐ fed up with trying to save the rain forest. (The story was quickly and firmly denied in a statement from Sting's office.)
It was another man, Bob Geldof, who, after the heroic efforts of Live Aid, coined the phrase "compassion fatigue". As far as the more stoical female celebrities are concerned, designer fatigues are much more to the point ...
All this might sound like carping; it is impossible to deny that celebrity involvement does draw public attention to terrible situations. Charities large and small have been quick to perceive the importance of television and newspapers in getting the funds rolling in, and therefore of snapping up the most influential faces. Models and actresses, usually seen stepping out of San Lorenzo or Mortimer's in Manhattan, translate perfectly‐suitably togged up in battlefield chic‐ on to the pages of the tabloids.
But there is a fine line between helping the aid agencies which are already up and running ‐ and simply getting in the way. "Very often, when celebrities go into the field, they focus the attention on one area, maybe at the expense of others which are just as needy but don't get the publicity," said David Grubb, executive director of Feed the Children.
Two hundred years ago, all these women might have been trudging down the lane from the major house bearing a basket of goodies for the poor. These days, they can jet to their particular good cause and ‐ who would deny them this? ‐ pick up more than a little caring cachet en route.
By all accounts, professional aid workers often have to bite their lips. I know how it feels. Two years ago, reporting on a refugee crisis, I stood paralyzed with embarrassment as the aid operation was temporarily suspended to allow a minister for overseas development to fly on to a mountain for a photo‐call, armed with a carrier bag full of chocolate bars. Day after day, minor league ministers from other countries were also helicoptered to and fro. They did have an important job to do in supervising government aid. But did they have to have their photos taken?
Fashion compassion has its place, and perhaps it is no bad thing that some of the ladies who lunch have become the ladies who learn. Perhaps if we were more sure ‐ go on, call me a cynic ‐ that their concern was entirely for the cause, and in no way for the cameras, that oddly disturbing feeling would just fade away.
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