this is alive. news world news. frank sinatra originally performed in 2003, 2017. the on august preformed together on america. i don't want you to see virtual avatar, so i think in 2012 a holographic version of wrap up to 5, chicago done in 2 surround will be dead for 16 years to drive by shooting. not your thing, but how about 40 holy through the plane crash, and how it is brain, or deceased, or pasta? maria digital versions of the you very much alive. alba will go around the world into 2026. who knows, it may soon be possible to load your own hologram at home. go to a big better for helping the music industry is not really used to the public piracy of life streaming. we can pick profit from like, the bought out is europe. ah,

main stories are following this out for you now, and greece is accused iran of piracy after it sees 2 great oil tankers that iran is saying they were captured for violations. last month. greek authorities seized a vessel carrying iranian crude off the great coast, saying the ships, owners had rush and lynx, but oil was then confiscated by the united states to ron, wants the oil to be returned. america's biggest gun lobby is going ahead with a major convention just 3 days after 19 children and 2 teachers were shot dead in an elementary school and evolved a texas protest as it gathering outside the convention center. in the state's largest city, houston inside form a u. s president donald trump is expected to speak later on. ok, so the stream is the program coming out next step,

but we're going to leave you now with memories of our colleague, sharina black clay who was known in the region as the voice of palestine. i'll see you later. ah, no, not a from with and also a view to what he said or to well be held that the put to be with all the wonderful guys. i'm a little different from the obama. those awful booking for this thing. yeah. i know you're the one i don't deposit in. i will see bobby house. i

don't want a shooting abuto to have a high for me. okay, to day on the street, we are looking at stall paola ad deputy activism. i know you have seen them high profile, global ambassadors, representing charities and yos around the world,

global smokes people who also happen to be very famous, raising awareness on important causes. who are they really helping and what impact are they having? those are 2 questions to start you off in argue chit chat, a comment section open. do join in and be part of today's discussion. let me introduce you to our panel. it's a good one, lisa, to me. i shall i know welcome to the stream. i'll come back to the stream for some of the really good to have you, lisa introduce yourself to our global audience and tell them what you're bringing to the table to day. i thank you very much and my name is lisa and richie. i am a professor of globalization at the copenhagen business school. and i'm here today because i work on commodified compassion. and i'm the co author of a book which has just been published by university of minnesota, chris and i, together with alexandra booted the n called batman saves the congo. how celebrities

disrupting the politics of development. it's a heavy lee, so we're gonna take a little bit into some of your findings later on in the show cou may welcome back to the stream. introduce yourself, remind our audience, who you are, what you do. thank you, hear me. i'm currently the global ambassador or african sizing for just the speech and dignity, the pan african social movement. i'm a visiting fellow at the bush academy in berlin at the moment. i get to have you can remember a just to be clear on the spend agenda balance. i thank here. thank you for bringing your social justice activism to us and also providing gender balance. and finally, i shall welcome to the stream. tell what who you are, what you do. hi everyone. so i'm i, shan august. any american who's been spending the last 20 years fighting for the right and dignity of the women who make our clothes mostly happen to be women of color? i currently service. see, we me, we are an advocacy organization based in california,

lily to handle guess i'm going to start with something that caught my eye just recently. i was watching global citizen life, which is a huge global cult set that went from one city to another city around the world, raising awareness, raising money activism that was very accessible. and i notice at the end of the new york leg, the ceo and co found of global citizen was all state his name is hugh evans. and then you see him in central park and just listen to what the audience begins to shout out as he presents his message of we need to take action. have a listen, have a look. ah, in 2005. when nelson mandela launched the campaign to make poverty history, he said that overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. but it's an act of justice. he said,

poverty is not natural. it is man made and can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. charity alone as important as it is and it is important will never be sufficient to end extreme poverty or tackle climate change the crowd a yelling out, cold play co play. they want the next act to come on state. they don't really care that much about taking action. who said, wow lisa, you start yeah, yeah. wow. i think that this is one of those really good moments which explains why it is that maybe this isn't the best way about getting audiences engaged in global justice movements. because when nelson mandela was talking about why we really shouldn't have poverty, he was also talking about that the human beings create poverty with their choices.

and it's really hard for us to actually, except that it's hard to get people sort of to get on to that message. and so probably they just wanted to do something fun and listen to call play. i think that's where it's really challenging to try to mit club, celebrity activism and entertainment. you know, i would say it really depends on who the celebrity is and whether or not they are really using that platform for good. you know, we all remember the queens where the candle, general pepsi commercial right, where she was attending the pepsi to the protest there from the protesters to the lease. in order to you know, this is a way for us to come together. and we all just lost their say, you know, here you are, modify the black live matter movement. this is terrible. and so that's an example of a phase, right. but we're just coming off of victory. the government work of protection act here in california, which assured government workers make a minimum wage. and we had some incredibly thoughtful celebrities,

supermodel amber of a leather actress. robin wright, who led her support to our campaign. and i have to tell you that was critical in our when it helped us galvanized more citizen, it helped us reach policy makers. so i would say it really depends. you know, there's blanket statements of celebrity should never get involved. frankly, for us, we sometimes need the star power of liberties change, cultural narratives. yeah. can i just jump in? it's amazing that robin wright was doing that work for you because, you know, some of the interviews that i did with humanitarian and development workers, can shop the democratic republic of congo. actually some of them pointed to her in particular because she has this organization where she sells like $200.00 us dollar pajamas for, for women in eastern congo called per list him. and what one of the mentoring workers actually said, we have a quote in our books. basically, you know, that robin wright made a big deal out of something. she knows absolutely nothing about. actually if she

came here to the congo, she'd probably get stowed, coming way in. ready well, i was moved by the example because i was the chair of that global make poverty to campaign which is called the global called action against poverty. and i, together with nelson mandela last launched that campaign in london in chicago square nearly genuity. and let me just tell you our perspective in engaging with celebrities. it was based on what i shall basically said, which is that we have a media environment that is stacked against us. it is so difficult for us to get our narratives into the mainstream media. however, they are, as lisa points out, civil lists involved. and i think it's a question of finding the right balance between how we actually engage in what kind of sort of parameters we put to it. because the term that we used, by the way,

in 2005 because we had challenges in the way that celebrities engage with us. and in fact, at that time, we would say we need to be gaudy against a problem up seller brock to see and set up to see the domination of public space by celebrities. on the other hand though, let's be clear, we got a method communication challenge. how do we get our message across to the largest number of people, the shortest space of time, and whether we like it or not, celebrities, ab access to public opinion, and are able to shift people. but been, we don't want situations where for example, a company is supporting l g b t i to issues was like, i'm so glad you said that to me. but i'm not sure that you read our mind here on the screen yet to finish up when we got him didn't finish, but then ah, producing those are sort of her clothing and the blending and so on. right now.

washing where algae, beauty i q people are murdered and killed for their choice of sexual orientation. so while we can't be black and white about this, i think we need to put some clear. busy guidelines that, that you lead to or guide how celebrities engage. just if i may just intervene just just one moment i should because i'm, i'm just going to bring in a point that that to me race. and i wanna introduced into the conversation david bishop. and he talks about rainbow washing in june. the month of june is as pride month around the well and how companies leave on it and say, yes, we celebrate pride. we support pride but gang that actual policies do not. this is what they had to say about that. i'm a very fortunate person. i've been lucky and blessed enough to be very successful in ways that i've always wanted as an actor writer, director,

it's on when i got to a point where i felt like winning a idea or some goal or i didn't know what i was contributing to while i was reading with the miles in washington and he said to some 300000 das and there are dwarfed only by the 5000000, which was i guess that's an unimaginable. how could this, how do i know? what is it where we do it? as you can tell, that was no david bishop, that was that animation of ben affleck. we'll get to him in just a moment. here as promise is david bishop. i think that there's a lot of people that are not interested in the rainbow watching in the corporate appropriation. i'll to be to you people, you know, because they will, europe,

rambo, and june. and then you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars or $1000000.00 to organizations that you know want to distribute right away. so. 3 i think a lot of people are over that. so where we find ourselves right now is in a place where celebrities look for cool is, is not all of them where they can be connected together. so they use their platform and then they can help amplify a cause. is there anything wrong with that lisa? yeah, what i think it's really important that we understand that it's not that celebrities just look for causes like that, that there is an entire industry that's developed in terms of celebrity liaison officers. the work of my colleague done rocking to and actually includes a lot of interviews with these, these folks who work in the industry, whose entire job is to match large corporate in cios together with celebrities. and to get the right fit. and it's extreme,

it's extremely scientific. you don't just go out and support a cause. you happen to like ben affleck, great example, but i know we'll get to it later. this is, this is a strategy, it's a business strategy, friends. and it's about, you know, mixing up the kinds of things where people really want to do good in managing to modify their compassion, managing to profit or met without giving any of the profits that you make from that to the rightful shareholders. who are actually, you know, the supposed beneficiaries and the people who are supposed to be helped a couple of thoughts. hey, on twitter, then i shall go to you of the back of, of these tweets h t for a says, what's happening right now with celebrity activism. it's gentrifying the issue then commercializing it. the impact is an issue. publicity is relative to its profitability. so they're going to be some cause is down. i say that a sexier than others that get a lot of attention and in others that do not. this is 10 die 10, i says that n, as in bob, we and social justice activists. i view this new trend as the meaning and trivializing,

general genuine causes. i should go ahead you know, i think at the end of the day if celebrity activism is focused on selling more staff, it's essentially doing more harm than good. and so there anything like the conflict, right? when you think about a q i as so much of the commodification as our own brands, wanted to just pump out product. and so celebrities to lend a name to, to make more money. and that's where i think it becomes very dangerous, right? it's a big yaks, i think. similarly, we all remember when nike announced that captain ache was going to be the spokesperson and america split into camps. right. that was, those were like, oh my god, because of this, we never going to buy nike and then folks were like, now we're going to buy nike in a share started soaring. the thing maggie has a history of praying on black and round communities. not just to sell their product, but also how their product is made. and so similar to cultural appropriation. when

you've got celebrities endorsing or giving their message to a big brand, that's clearly appropriating a social movement for clever advertising. that's very problematic. i think that sort of shallow marketing and modification of social movements is what we need to stay away from. but the earlier example that i gave you, which was a worker, lead piece of legislation where the frontline work of communities are the ones that demanded, the living wait. and then you had celebrities, with fact check data using the platforms to manage a poor. that sort of similarity is really critical. and so i think that the win win here is when influencers and celebrities are allies to campaigns that are really rooted in solutions for the community. the professor help to me go ahead. well, i think the biggest problem, the biggest disease we have in the world right now is not covered, but a disease that we could call affluenza, affluenza pathological illness where people have been led to believe that

a good decent life comes from more and more material acquisition so let me just be very clear. i believe celebrities are human beings. they are citizens, died of the work they have rights to participate in public life as anybody else s. however, when they use that relationship to cow products to make profit and to abuse that relationship, that's when in fact the violation of that. right? so that's happening. so i have no illusions in my mind that like now things are packed against us in terms of us being able to get our message to the largest number of people in the short space of time when the faintest fellow that we've got listen to me is to get emissions to peak and stop coming down and way. in fact, this decade that we live in, which is i would argue the most consequential decade in humanities history. and

what we achieve in the next 10 years will determine what kind of future we have, or whether we'll have a future at all when we, when the stakes are that high. but i think it is appropriate plus, the recognized that we are never going to be able to pass in the politics. that is going to be perfect and idealistic, we're going to have to make some sort of i don't want to use a word compromise with the some sort of adjustments in i was strategy. compromise. compromise is the right word. yeah, yeah, that's right. provis compromise is a difficult would for activism. let me just say why, because you cannot compromise on values. you cannot compromise on the life that people have to choose the own sexual orientation of women to have equality and so on, right? so, so what i'm saying is that when provided we are not sacrificing principles, but if we look sacrificing principles,

technical adjustments that we need to make from time to time. i think given the realities that we are dealing with, what many call a white stream media, i'm talking here from the global out perspective and, and we in fact quite often the media and vitamin is not talking about the issues. i mean, think about the climate stuff, call me back between tick tock and it's so hard for us to come to the noise and gotten their attention. and so we, what we, you know, we're here to influence the multi trillion dollar industry, the company, not billions of dollars, products. and for young girls look at celebrities and influence are perpetually by stuff. so we can get married and get some thought about our cause. why not? well, absolutely, but, but i, it, i completely agree with, with what you're saying. but i also think we should remember celebrities or the oligarchy of the attention economy. ok. they, as you've both pointed out,

really take it all, but the politics that they bring forth is this politics of authenticity of oh, how much we? well, meaning often white people in the western parts of the world care about a particular cause and not about another law, lisa cannot cut and i can, i would say, i think you're, i want to push in a particular field. i want to push in a particular does i, which because we, we saw ben affleck explaining how he wanted to be involved in the east and congo because he read something and he had the money and he wanted to do something, leases, i'm just gonna push you in that direction, because now that i've shown everybody the animation, i want it to ring us full circle and explain what the challenge is when a celebrity says, i care about this. i've read about a, his, my money and, and i'm super famous. what they do. yeah. but yeah, absolutely, and that kind of genesis story about how much we care is exactly the politics i was talking to you about these politics of authenticity not accountability. ok. what we

actually know from the research that we've done over years on the organization and ben affleck's involvement in the democratic republic, congo is he didn't wake up one morning and read the newspaper and find out how terrible things were in the democratic republic of congo. okay. in 2006, he hired one of the world's best and most successful strategic consultants. he farms, he interviewed a number of experts, including people that we also interviewed to try to find him a good cause. and of course, he couldn't have sal sudan because george clooney had already taken that oprah already had south africa completely. you know, under wraps. i mean, basically he would cause shopping as celebrities do at that level. and he hired, you know, an extremely successful firm. it was about a business model, and then they wrote a really important story which is very compelling. and i have no reason to believe that ben affleck doesn't hear about eastern congo. why would we think he's not a human being like the rest of us who's also moved by, by the tragedies and difficulties and in the world?

yet to convince ourselves that just because he carries that, makes her for tickler authority to speak on behalf of the congolese people is something that's a real problem. there were already plenty of organizations working for the eastern congo, including those shred by congo lease. and we have statistics to show that unless those organizations had guerrillas, or very horrific stories of sexual violence or a celebrity, they got almost no funding. and looking at the looking at the budget differences over a 5 year period is incredible. yes, i want to play to videos for you and to get your instant reaction. catherine clay higgins spoke to us a little bit earlier. she's a ph. d candidate at atlanta school of economics and political science. he was wrestling with this whole concept of celebrity activism. are they helping all hurting his? yes, the celebrity can bring to the table of social justice movement is disability because it's important not to miss. recognize that there's ability as actual social change

at the same time. however, i think it's also important not to be to automatically dismissive of celebrities to speak about social justice courses. not because celebrity should be the front of our social justice movements. they shouldn't. i think it's obvious to most people they shouldn't. but because the way that we tend to dismiss celebrities by accusing them of that, she said, moreno cloud, chasing, or being otherwise self interested. these are the exact same allegations that we then see far, right, groups and other regressive political projects, re purposing against people involved. and social justice, well, they're celebrities or not. so guess skepticism is essential, but we can be skeptical and wave. it doesn't contribute to our rhetoric that tries to break progresses already or so it's such a gray area until you really is the address that in the last 25 minutes. and i sure, and lisa, let me show you everybody, guests and, and also our audience could read night on twitter. this is him active, a speaking truth to power, continuing to reflect right at the justice. all right,

that's can me a real life proper activist from when he was a teenager. and then we have the activists, the c b that special i show is holding. i had, she's, i face puffing, is a terrible idea. according to my, to population, the i day was that you voted on the activists of your choice. it was game of flying activism. it got such a horrific reaction that they've now turned into a documentary about activism, or give us a leaning end to see how that's going to turn out. but when we spoke to adam a little bit earlier, he said, well, this is just the natural progression of how a combo defying celebrity and activism here is adam. and then can me and me to react on the back of just a briefly as far as a show like the active best. i was not particularly offended by it. in fact, that was actually weirdly excited for it because i thought it actually demystified

the essential nature of what activism is in a late capital estate. it was showing us very clearly that activism interest, another form of branding, of marketing. it poses no threat to the existing relations of a capital estate, and at this point in cap in the development of our economy, i don't even think activism can overcome short term contradictions or even really achieve policy goals. well, danger lies the clarity that if you are going to be using your visible etc, to continue to advance an unjust economic system but, and push over consumption, then you've lost the clock. right, oliver? i am persuaded by this reality that if we need to be yeah, in terms of how many people we mobilized, how much of consciousness there is,

how many people understand that we are losing, but the planet be losing the right of humanity to exist on this plan. as a result of climate, then we have to embrace a range of energies that can help us communicate. so i would make an appeal to people who are celebrities. you have a role to play as human beings as citizens like any one of us. you cannot imagine that having not been involved at all, suddenly you are the leader of some social movement. can you to use it to support people, ensure that you are not over exercising your influence and presence and take a leadership from movement is a problem would appear amount of celebrities getting ahead of me to say that i thought yeah, well of african refugees. thank you. to me, i thank you, kimmy. thank you lisa. thank you. i sure we can obviously talk about celebrities and activism all day long,

but i don't have all day long. thank you so much for your tweets and your youtube thoughts as well. i'm gonna leave you with a song that was running a name 1985. by michael jackson, a non richie. it was the biggest charity record ever. it has gone at a $163000000.00 more than that. the charity i will leave you with. we are the well, that's a watching everything with a bmw with

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significant collections in columbia, recent history. oh, maybe dear longer if you are saying that gives up mostly conservative role. well columbia leg through less toward a 1st time in its history of the story of the great, but also theera talk to al jazeera. we also, what is the time table in your mind? when do you think that you are, can be off russian gas? we listen or, and i have seen and plate for always these refugees. i look at them and they're happy. they smile in we meet with global news makers. i'm talk about the store restock matter on al jazeera. ah, hello, i'm marianne noisy and long with a look at the main stories we're following now. greece has accused iran of pi.