Who’s Working Hard for Peace? (Part 5)
Saturday, July 29th, 2006It’s standard practice to laugh at musicians, artists or writers who speak out on politics. “What the hell is Bono doing in Africa? Why don’t these rich rock stars leave the politics to the politicians?” Yeah, sure, the politicians are doing such a good job of it, right?
I applaud any celebrities who stand up for political causes, and I’m sick of hearing people put them down. I don’t particularly like Bono’s music, and I usually change the radio real quick as soon I start to hear “un … dos … tres … quatorce”. But I really respect the fact that he constantly risks embarrassment by working for causes that have nothing to do with music, and the fact that so many amateur comedians make fun of him (or Bob Geldof, or Bruce Springsteen, or Pearl Jam, or the Dixie Chicks, etc. etc.) for this only proves that these comedians don’t have the brains to come up with better material.
There’s a long tradition of writers covering the political field. Shakespeare’s history plays were firmly grounded in the partisan politics of his day. Rousseau, Voltaire, Locke and Hume created the intellectual environment that gave direction to the American Revolution and the French Revolution. Emile Zola famously stood up for Alfred Dreyfus in France, Harriet Beecher Stowe raised awareness of slavery with Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Joseph Conrad exposed the hypocrisy of Belgian exploitation of the Congo in Heart of Darkness. There are far too many examples of politically-engaged writers to even consider listing any subset of them.
Outspoken artists and musicians like Pablo Picasso, John Lennon, Bob Marley have also reached large audiences in the past, and famous musical events from Woodstock to Live Aid to Live 8 have succeeded in generating public awareness of global issues. It’d be hard to say the artists and writers and musicians of our time are doing enough to affect important global issues, because so much needs to be done. But many are doing everything they can do. In these cases, I think it’s pretty sad that the best most of us do in response is laugh their hard work off.
