By Sean Penn

Sean Penn paid his dues in Haiti

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 8/25/10 — As Wyclef Jean announces his regrettable turn-about to contest Haiti’s electoral rule of law (a law he has no previous record of dissension toward), his PR team is mobilizing. See Ms. Marian Salzman’s recent blog on the Huffington Post (August 23, 2010). In it, Ms. Salzman, hired to frame perception of Mr. Jean, claims that I “lambasted” Mr. Jean’s candidacy on CNN. Furthermore, she reduced the political dialogue that took place that day by calling the discussion a “celebrity feud”. In fact, a sensationalized celebrity feud, is and was, as far from my mind as the alleged “lambasting.” Though he and his camp came back with many disparaging comments in my direction, I felt that ignoring my initial impulse to react and respond allowed the attention to refocus on the real issues facing Haitians.

One can YouTube the segment of the August 8 Larry King Live in question. In the clip, Wolf Blitzer interviews Wyclef Jean upon his announcing his candidacy. The viewer will also see a response from someone (myself) who runs an NGO in Haiti, someone who has spent most of the last six months following the devastating earthquake, side by side in that country, with so many others, doing whatever we could to lend a hand. I have never met Wyclef Jean, and all I really know of him on any personal level has come through the fond comments of a few mutual friends. Hence, nothing I might say, was in ANY way personal, or intended to be lambasting to anyone. My comments were critical observations of a political candidate and a leader of an organization in Haiti.

Ms. Salzman also works to make the case that Wyclef Jean gave indispensable world attention to Haiti’s incredible misfortune. I was there for those 6 months after the earthquake and so many of us on the ground wondered where he was when that kind of attention was so necessary and absent, and why he was NOT helping to keep this desperate situation in the news. None among us felt or expressed anger toward it, but rather a universal sadness for his silence, as he is America’s most admired cultural link to Haiti. As the six-month Anniversary approached, it triggered the return of the world media, and of Wyclef Jean to Haiti. He’d referred to himself as “His Excellency Wyclef Jean” and “The most famous man in Haiti” on a self-generated flier in the lead up to his troubling announcement.

On the Larry King Show, I was an invited guest answering questions and expressing concerns about Wyclef Jean’s place in Haiti’s election. In particular, I voiced the responsibility of Americans and the American media to ask critical questions before jumping to support a candidate simply because they are familiar with him. I asked specifically for those Americans, or American companies, to dig deeper in assessing their own agendas, who might contribute any financial support to a candidate running for office in a country not our own. It’s clear that Mr. Jean can have an important place in drawing attention to Haiti’s needs. However, when New York press agents circle wagons of ignorance and sell as deep insight the advertisement of that which charms them about a client, the lives and needs of the Haitian people are sidelined. The very notion of a celebrity feud is one driven by a culture un-Haitian. And, in this reckless self-interest, Ms. Salzman’s is an obscene input. This said, it is neither my place nor Ms. Salzman’s to cast a vote. My support is with the Haitian people, and whomever they lawfully select as their next President. It is, it seems, folly for we Americans to assume “our Haitian” is their answer, simply because we enjoy the sense of identification we may feel, or are paid to espouse.

It should be said that laws that put limitation on the contribution by Haitians returning to their own country following an education abroad are worthy of review. And it would have been a valuable contribution had Wyclef Jean drawn attention to it in another moment, or in a less divisive ambition. However, the only attention that Haiti seems to be getting today is on a presidential campaign of personality that threatens to create a new swell of social unrest in a plagued country. I would caution Mr. Jean against research, or prospective policy, by sound bite.

When he chose to attempt to discredit me, claiming on the Gayle King Show on August 9 that my time in Haiti had been restricted to “one particular area”, that area he was referring to is the 55,000 person IDP Camp that I and my organization were tasked to manage by the International Office of Migration. Indeed it is at that camp where we are based, but in fact, I and those I work with have operated 24-7 throughout the city of Port Au Prince and the country at large for all these months, distributing thousands of water filters, food, medicine, medical supplies and volunteers throughout the days and nights from the back of pick-up trucks and helicopters. We have directly been responsible for hiring and supervising rubble removal crews, heavy equipment, and coordinating multiple NGO actions from Cash for Work and food/water distribution.

On Gayle King’s program Jean said the following: “I would like to tell Sean Penn I do not react on emotions when it comes to the Haitian people. I do not have to sacrifice my life and live inside of a tent to prove that I am for the Haitian people.” No, he doesn’t have to live in a tent. But it would be nice if he visited once and awhile. On the same program he said, that “had it not been for him,” my organization would never have been able to enter Haiti due to historic security problems, (referring to his self-proclaimed one man peacemaking position) he must have missed the fact that, unlike him, I travel without the benefit of a security corps. I have traveled alone in the Iraqi war zone, and security had not ever been a deciding factor in any such humanitarian or journalistic action for me.

Lastly, I would like, again, to invite the reader to view CNN’s Larry King segment in full (below). Watch carefully for Mr. Jean’s responses to two questions. First, the one about his consecutive residential status where he states, “I have residency for over five years in Haiti.” Then see his response regarding his fluency in either French or Creole. I’ll let the reader decide if his answers are as forthcoming as his uninformed disparagement of one who was simply there to help.

So, yes, we still must ask questions. Yes I still support those Haitians who believe in him. But, I recommend that Mr. Jean and his advisers keep their future musings on more important topics than discrediting someone involved with a really good NGO. The real and devastating human issues in Haiti must be handled and led by a qualified president’s deft hand. These elections are crucial, and I have no part in them. Neither should Mr. Jean.

NOTE: Thus ends Mr. Penn’s article. Mr. Spike Lee had something to say about Penn’s credibility as an authority as an Haiti observer as both men spent time in tents after the country’s devastating earthquakes.

Hollywood Today’s senior editor Gayl Murphy spoke with Mr. Lee at a recent HBO event.

QUESTION: And to follow that up, you mentioned
shooting in Haiti or visiting with Sean Penn. I’m
wondering — Sean Penn was on CNN the other night
talking about Wyclef Jean’s bid for the presidency of
Haiti.
SPIKE LEE: I only know Wyclef as a musician, so I can
only speak about his musicianship. Whether he’s a
politician or not, that’s something else. I have not
read or heard what Sean Penn said, but I’m going to
call him up and ask him about it.
(Laughter.)
QUESTION: Well, it wasn’t considered very kind. It
was more along the lines of Haiti needs a lot of
things right now, and one of the things that it
doesn’t need is a cult of personality.
SPIKE LEE: Well, number one, I respect — a lot of
people — Sean Penn is doing his — I’m telling you,
he has moved — he doesn’t live in the United States
anymore. He lives in Port-au-Prince. That is his
life now, trying to get this country back off its
feet. And I gotta commend him for that. He’s left
everything here and just moved to Haiti. And he’s not
living in the palace. He’s living in a tent, because
I slept three nights there.
(Laughter.)
So it’s not like he’s living high on the hog. This is
like tent, tent, tent. So I respect his opinion because
he’s — he’s been down there. He’s not Haitian.
Wyclef is. But for me, Sean Penn has put in his dues,
has put in his time to speak about Haiti, because a
lot of people could talk about stuff from afar. He’s
been down there from the get-go. He was there three
days afterwards.
QUESTION: Spike, as journalists, we all get asked
about whether or not celebrities belong in the middle
of disasters, helping, getting attention, whether it’s
Brad Pitt or Sean Penn, who get celebrated and
criticized at the same time. How do you answer that?
Because it is a very controversial subject. You know,
do high-profile people help, or do they somehow
divert?
SPIKE LEE: Well, it depends who you’re talking about.
For me, I don’t see any negativity with what Brad Pitt
is doing with his Make It Right foundation in the
Lower Ninth Ward and what Sean Penn is trying to do to
help that republic. When we went to Haiti, the bodies
had been cleared, but the rubble hasn’t. The
rubble — there’s been no removal of rubble. And I
want to commend President Clinton because he’s really
been in it too. And until we went back for the
16th — excuse me — for the six-month anniversary, it
kind of like — you know, “Haiti, Haiti, Haiti,
Haiti.” Then it’s like, “Whoa, that’s it.” Then it
just drops off the face of the Earth. There’s no more
attention to it. But people are still there
struggling, and I felt it was important that we
include Haiti in this piece.

Gayl Murphy contributed to this report