loading...
Mia Farrow was in Kelowna at various speaking engagements Tuesday.
If gasps of disbelief and mutterings of disgust can be used as a measure of success, then Mia Farrow’s Kelowna appearance was a triumph.
Farrow, along with athlete Ray Zahab, kicked off yesterday’s series of speaking engagements with a group of women at at the Hotel Eldorado. As the actress-turned activist described her journey to bring attention to the world’s atrocities, the audience of women responded to her tale with hushed tones of disapproval and surprise.
It’s just the kind of response that Farrow looks for when she leaves her Connecticut home to speak on political issues, she explained at a press gathering following the event.
“It feels like a lot of head banging but I think my role is what is precisely what I am doing now,” she said. “There’s a camera rolling you’re asking me questions, presumably someone will be watching… and they will hearing of a place they’ve maybe never heard of.”
Farrow — one of the few celebrities whose storied and star studded personal life has taken a back-seat to their philanthropic activities — was soft spoken when she outlined how governments around the world are failing people in strife. But her tone was a stark contrast to content of the words she delivered. The mainstream media, Canadian and American governments as well as the Pope were among those she expressed anger toward for the apathy that has allowed genocides to pass largely unnoticed.
“I do know Canada was once known for its peacekeeping capacities, and many fine things, a lot has gone silent from Canada,” she said, when asked how this country should have responded to crises in Darfur or Rwanda . Lieutenant-General Roméo Antonius Dallaire, she noted, would be the better person to direct the question to, however. He was left to stand alone, she said, during the 1994 Rwandan genocide and that’s an example of the failure of the western world.
“My country, the United Nations and my church utterly failed,” she said. “In 1994 we were watching the O.J. Simpson murder trial, and we didn’t notice when one million people were killed.”
Particularly unsettling to Farrow, a “devout Catholic,” was the fact that the one person she believes could have made a difference was no where to be found when the killings took place. ”The Pope did nothing,” she said, adding he could have easily gone onto the radio and asked for the killings to stop.
More than a decade later, Farrow saw a need to draw attention to the war in Darfur, and she used her celebrity to do so.
She began a 21-day hunger strike April 27 of this year to protest the Sudanese president’s expulsion of 16 aid agencies in Darfur, causing a million people at risk of starvation. The endeavour fell nine days short of her initial goal because of health issues.
“The hunger strike was extreme…I know it seems presumptuous to think anyone would care that I went on a hunger strike, but Larry King would never have done a show on Darfur if I didn’t — I have been trying to get him to do that since 2004,” he said. “Yet he did all those shows on Darfur because I was starving to death.”
While Farrow’s focus is clear, she noted that not everyone has to resort to the measures she does.
“Ask your government: ‘Surely we’re better than this?’” she said. “That’s what I say to my government. Are we defining ourselves again by our failure to help the world’s most vulnerable populations?”
And above all else, however, she urges everyone to take an active role in the world around them.
“Even if it isn’t for Darfur…is there an elderly person no one visits? A child who nobody pays attention to?” she said. “We can all extend a hand.”
For more information on Farrow, go to www.miafarrow.org.
kathy@kelowna.com
250-575-0761
One Response to “Mia Farrow challenges Kelowna residents to get politically active”
Tags: mia farrow
loading...
Eye opening.
We in Canada we need to do more.
Please continue discussion on the forum: link