The UN should stop this business of celebrity "Good Will" ambassadors

This says it all.

The UN, or some brilliant minds working in the Department of Public Information, together with some media advisors placed within the Secretary-General’s office (not the present one, though he hasn’t done anything to change this disgraceful system), thought that the way to get “good” coverage of the work of the UN — in other words, good publicity — would be to enlist celebrities who would then endorse the world organization. In exchange, of course, these “Good Will” ambassadors would get their own good publicity, and a few expense-paid trips to interesting parts of the planet.

The real work of the UN, of course, is not always enough to get media attention — and of course, it is complicated, and things don’t always work the way one wants them to. So, the bureaucrats who run the place get scared, and their instinct is to ignore any embarassing problems. This is called a cover-up, in the real world.

These bureaucrats, all over-educated, are then left totally on their own to put out any fires that break out on their watch. (It would not be better, on the other hand, to spend years developing policies and panels to give guidelines etc., because this would simply provide a good excuse to freeze any initiative). The bureaucrats were solemnly told that the UN did not have any journalists working on its staff who could help …

So, let’s hype it up — a brilliant and fun idea, no? The press laps it up, too.

Now, there are well over a hundred of these celebrity types, speaking in the name of the UN, or of its myriad autonomous agencies who depend more directly on donations that spike when there is any news coverage at all…

Then what happens? Angelina Jolie goes to Davos, and the paparazzi can live for months on the proceeds. Mia Farrow was supposed to address the UN Security Council, to berate the members for not sending peacekeepers to Darfur! (This was called off, as cooler heads prevailed …)

And then, as Angry Arab reported on his blogspot, the celebrities think they can call the shots, and become policy makers.

Angry Arab wrote: “Nir Rosen sent me this, and insisted that I post: ‘when angelie jolie visited iraq as a representative of UNHCR in 2007 she also visited the al walid camp on the iraqi side of the border with syria. over one thousand palestinians who had lived in baghdad have fled there for protection from shiite militias. jolie received a call from american democratic senator kennedy telling her not to use the word ‘palestinian’ though. so she told UNHCR that they cant use it in their press about the subject. so the palestinians were referred to as iraqis instead. international officials were surprised that even the word ‘palestinian’ is taboo. UNHCR is very discouraged with her toting the american party line. in the 2007 trip she surprised the UNHCR officials, telling them that she wanted to visit the american soldiers. they were against this because she was there as an official UNHCR representative, and tried to explain to her how it would also endanger their staff in iraq by blurring the line between the UN and the american military. the international committee for the red cross was also upset, because as it is the line between humanitarian aid and the american occupation and military is blurred in iraq. her most recent trip to iraq was not even an official UNHCR trip. UNHCR was not aware that she was invited to baghdad and it was very embarrassing for them’.”