Lot is said, few get fed
By Tom Wright
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 6/16/07 — “This is pure evil” said Michael Mendelsohn, an executive producer of “Sand and Sorrow” with George Clooney. “As the son of a Nazi holocaust survivor, my Dad would say common sense is not common. Why allow the slaughter and suffering of any people because they are different from you or me?”
”The world needs to stand up and be counted to put a stop to the slaughter of an entire race. We will be dammed if we do nothing “shame on us” said Simon Crowe, Managing Director of UK film distributor Velvet Octopus.
“Not on Our Watch” demands Clooney, taken from the title of the book written by John Prendergast who is a leading American human rights activist focused on bringing international attention to the genocide in Sudan and the atrocities of the Lord’s Resistance in Northern Uganda.
With a war chest of $9 million and with the blessings of Hollywood’s A-list actors, directors and writers. “They are using their power, taking the lead to question their authority, to stop this war.”
Having just returned from a two-week trip to Chad and the Central African Republic, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow described the population there as “extremely traumatized”, “utterly neglected” and in dire need of humanitarian assistance, during a press conference at Headquarters this afternoon.
Ms. Farrow started a campaign last month to label the Games in Beijing the “Genocide Olympics” and calling on corporate sponsors and even Spielberg, artistic adviser to China for the Games, to publicly exhort China to do something about Darfur she spoke to the media.
Steven Spielberg recently released the text of a private letter he had sent to the President of China, Hu Jintao, condemning the genocide in Darfur and asking the Chinese government to use its influence in the region to bring an end to the suffering there. Additionally, he is asking for a meeting in Beijing with the Chinese President within the next 30 days.
Among my proudest achievements has been the establishment of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education. The Institute has recorded the video testimonies of 52,000 survivors of the Holocaust from 56 countries in 32 languages
“We are doing that now in many countries around the world, and I hope that China will someday be one of them. I regard the creation of the Shoah Foundation Institute as the most important professional accomplishment of my life.”
Is Hollywood influencing Chinese foreign policy? Can it be true that even though Washington has had very little diplomatic success in this policy matter with one of the most powerful nations in the world, a little savvy pressure made the difference? The bottom line is that the Beijing Olympics is incredibly important to China and their mission to be a respected international superpower.
The motto of the Beijing Olympics is “One World, One Dream.” It seems as though with this recent move, that China is increasingly dedicated to living up to this motto.