On Rockers, Movie Stars, and Politics

Boycott Sun City! Many did during the 1980s in response to the campaign to isolate South Africa and its noxious apartheid regime. It is easy to engage in selective memory about the role of pop culture and the end of apartheid, or in alleviating African famine, or what have you. With the recent release of the Live Aid DVD set, there has been a lot of reminiscence about those heady days when musicians were trying to change the world. And of course with DVDs and the internet and other modern technology (is this the “new media”?) artists can now get their work out quicker and disseminate it to more people than ever, and as Jeff Leven argued more than a year ago on his blog at Harvard Law School, this has ramifications for artist activism.

And who can condemn that? It is too easy to criticize entertainers and musicians who get themselves involved in political matters. Last year’s movie “Team America: World Police” was a ruthless (and hilarious) pillorying of the sophistry of Hollywood liberals who get up and mix moral outrage with vacuous platitudes about their platform du jour. On the other hand, there are artists who have every bit as much passion for and knowledge about the causes that push them toward activism as historians or journalists or lawyers. While we ought not to assume that actors and rock stars have any credibility on issues of the day (most of the time they don’t) that does not mean that we should assume that they cannot have credibility. Little Steven Van Zandt has tirelessly crusaded for issues of justice, particularly when he headed up Artists Against Apartheid in the 1980s. His credibility on this issue far surpasses that of even the most prominent columnists, for example, whose understanding of Africa usually is dubious and fleeting if it even exists at all. And by most accounts, Bono was a lot more clued into the important issues related to the facts on the ground than Paul O’Neil was when the two of them traveled through Africa last year. And while many (yours truly included) may disagree with him, few would argue that on the issue of guns, Charlton Heston is ignorant. In other words, just because a majority of the Hollywood bimboes and bimbettes who try to speak about something seem to have sprung a silicone leak into their tiny little brains does not mean that all of the sunglasses-and-red-carpets brigades should be condemned. After all, in the end the guys from South Park/Team America are themselves entertainers first and foremost.

But there is also ample room for criticism when the musicians and actors engage in the most rank hypocrisy. John Harris of the Mail and Guardian’s online entertainment section, “ZA at Play,” reminds us that Queen, who may have had the most memorable set at Live Aid, had just months before played at Sun City, Sol Kerzner’s garish but opulent casino-cum-entertainment center in Bophuthatswana, one of the “homelands” or “bantustans” at the heart of South Africa’s indefensible apartheid policies. This was in explicit violation of the UN boycott of South Africa. Queen was not alone in breaking the cultural boycott, and then claiming that they were not interested in political issues. But surely they were the most crassly hypocritical about it. The surviving members of Queen have long since apologized, and some South African activists have forgiven them, but it remains that regret after the fact, and even forgiveness from those who may have been hurt, does not change that they did it.

UPDATE: As if to validate some of my assertions, Bono is right now on C-Span as part of a panel at the World Economic Forum that includes President Clinton, Tony Blair, Thabo Mbeki, Bill Gates, and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria (and chairman of the African Union), and he is the most lucid and intelligent on the matter of the linkages between a number of issues related to Africa. Indeed, he is the founder of DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa) and his passion, his insight, his acumen and his engagement ring out loud and clear. The others are fine, and are saying good and important things, including Thabo Mbeki, whose intelligence has never been in question, and Bill Clinton who despite his many personal failings is undoubtedly masterful in these sorts of settings (it frustrates me to know his brilliance, his engagement, his unmatched political savvy and to think how he squandered so much of it through tepidness and randiness when he was President. It depresses me to think about it -- let's just move on, except to note that Clinton is equally confident among heads of state and rock stars. Given that George W. Bush and, say, John Kerry both seem uncomfortable in the presence of either, that seems worth something.). And yet Bono is as impressive as any of them. He was given the last word, and he hit an absolute home run. he praised American politicians who are doing the right thing, praising Republicans (Frist) and Democrats (Lantos) by name. When referring to both the US and the West, he used words like"we" and"us." And he said something I have been trying to place front and center in my pieces on Africa for public consumption for the last two years -- that if we are not careful, African states are ripe for the picking for terrorists. Bono does not need my seal of approval, and I do not want to get all Andrew Sullivan here and start writing checks that I am not good for, but Bono gets it. It brings to mind Homer Simpson's great line:"Rock stars. Is there anything they don't know?"