CELEBRATING BRAD PITT: A BETTER WARRIOR THAN ACHILLES

By Tecola W. Hagos

Diana Sawyer�s presentation on ABC on the evening of June 7, 2005, a profile of Brad Pitt gave us a rare glimpse of a truly great warrior for human dignity and welfare.  I came to know of Brad Pitt from his electrifying performance as Achilles in �Troy,� the movie adaptation of Homer�s Iliad. The movie did not get great review, but that was politics at play and not poor performance on the part of Brad Pitt or the direction of the movie or the story line. Being a romantic-sucker all my life, I sided with the Trojans from the first time I read the superb Amharic translation of Homer�s Iliad when I was a little boy in the Fifth Grade at a local elementary school in Dessie. To this day, even after having read more about the great Greek commanders such as Agamemnon, Odysseus, et cetera my sympathy is still with the Trojans; I realize also that my sympathy for the Trojans was not far fetched, but in line with our ancient connection with the great warriors who fell at Troy�Memnon, the celebrated Ethiopian general fell fighting on the Trojan side.  

Brad Pitt is not just another �celebrity,� but also a man touched by the hand of God or providence, if you will. Most of us have heard about Brad Pitt�s visits to Ethiopia, but never really saw much in pictures or television the details of such visits. About a year ago, I heard from individuals that Brad Pitt was quite taken by the suffering he saw in Ethiopia, at times, I was told that he was moved to tears. Children are often times great judges of character without consciously judging. It comes from a great intuition that all human beings are born with to detect enemies or friends. By observing how children flock around Brad Pitt and how he responds to their presence, one can tell the sincerity and depth of his commitment to the poor. Brad�s visits to Ethiopian orphanages in the past and as presented in the ABC program clearly illustrated how deeply he was loved by the people whose lives he had touched with his kindness. There is no pretension in his relationships and in his kindness to the many destitute individuals he visited in their humble homes: he walked through open sewers to reach homes of his friends; he hugged individuals sick with AIDS; he held up little children in their tattered clothing, et cetera sharing in their humanity as dear as his own. I wonder how many of us living here in the West who are from Ethiopia would do what Brad Pitt is doing?

By comparison, Brad Pitt is a far superior warrior than Achilles. Brad Pitt is the champion of the poor and destitute. He battles not for his own fame and fortune, but for human dignity and prosperity. I am touched and humbled by Brad Pitt�s act of fellowship with the poorest of the poor of my fellow Ethiopians. He puts us all to shame in his unreserved love for the most vulnerable people on Earth. Poverty is ugly; it demeans anyone it scourged. Only great men and women could look beyond its ugliness to the human being under all that suffering. I have been critical of Western media intruding into the suffering of people in disregard to their privacy and humanity. One should always be careful not to destroy the little dignity poor and suffering people have in trying to help them by documenting their private lives. I do hope that Brad Pitt will not allow such media excess in his future visits to his friends in Ethiopia or elsewhere in Africa. In a media presentation such as the one under discussion, one also must remind the world that in Ethiopia there are normal living and breathing people leading normal lives too, and that all of Ethiopia is not crisscrossed by open sewer and shanty towns.

Tecola W. Hagos

June 8, 2005