To Jolie and Pitt – a child is born…to save Namibia!?

Celebrities are fascinating because they live in a parallel universe…one that makes our lives seem woefully dull by comparison. The teary chat with Diane [Sawyer of ABC] quickly turns to the subject of a recent $10 million film fee and honorary United Nations ambassadorship. The magazines…feature Cameron Diaz wrapped in a $15,000 couture gown and glowing with youth, money and star power. We’re left hanging—and we want more. [Carlin Flora, Psychology Today Magazine]

But, with all of the privileges and prerogatives accorded celebrities, does anyone think that the government of any developed country would genuflect to Jolie and Pitt as the Namibian government appears to have done? Or, to put it more precisely, does anyone think that Jolie and Pitt would even attempt to exploit their celebrity this way in any developed country? (It’s instructive to note that Tom Cruise and Kate Holmes – who are in the same celebrity firmament as Jolie and Pitt – recently had their baby without undue intrusion in a city with the highest density of paparazzi on planet earth, Los Angeles.)

Meanwhile, anyone who thinks my allusion to the messiah is farfetched should consider that there’s serious talk in Namibia about creating a national holiday in honor baby Shiloh; which appears egregiously unwarranted considering that scarcely a thought seems to have been given to creating a holiday in honor of the native son who put Namibia on the map many years ago – Olympian and World Champion Frank Fredericks.

Nonetheless, where I couldn’t care any less about the way people worship celebrities or the way celebrities orchestrate their symbiotic relationship with the paparazzi, I am profoundly dismayed by the way Namibian authorities have allowed themselves to be played by Jolie and Pitt. Because selling-out their national sovereignty for charitable gifts totaling $315,000 from this Hollywood couple – to say nothing of compromising their national heritage by acting as if the birth of the Jolie-Pitt child is the best thing that has ever happened in Namibia – seems naïve, misguided and celebrity-obsessed to an almost unconscionable degree.

NOTE: I feel constrained to add that no one is more acutely aware that a few celebrities put the public’s obsession with their lives to good use. (Eg. click here and here) And where rock star Bono looms larger than life in this respect, Jolie is worthy of commendation in her own right (as goodwill ambassador for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees). But none of her acts of charity – including, some might suggest, not only adopting an African child but now giving birth to one as well – entitles her to prey on the ingenuousness of Namibians who seem starved of everything from national revenues to international celebrities.

(Incidentally, apropos Namibian expectations that the birth of Shiloh will boost national revenues, perhaps they ought to consult the Cambodians and Ethiopians who are still waiting for such benefits after Jolie adopted a boy, Maddox, and a girl, Zahara, from their countries, respectively….)

Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Shilou Nouvel, Namibia, Africa