Guilt, like any other product, is peddled much better when focused on a niche market. But seeing that guilt can only be sold profitably in the West, the guilt mongers of our time should take great care not to dilute the appeal of their specific wares by stretching their brands to include fashionable market segments newly created.
Al Carbon Killer Gore wants us to feel guilty about 'man-made' global warming, Brangelina wants us to feel guilty about poverty in Africa and Paris Hilton wants us to feel guilty about some drunk elephants in North-East India. Why we, as Westerners, are eternally obligated to pay penance for the abovementioned global moral problems is not yet really clear…but pay we do, and handsomely so! Maybe we are still suffering from an Auswitsch/Oediphus Complex that constantly reminds us of the inglorious end of the Enlightenment and the even less successful secular-humanist attempt to replace the Father (God) with the UN (the 'Brother Clan').
Be that as it may; guilt for all the world's woes is ours to carry. And we should really be grateful for the consistent branding the abovementioned guilt mongers have subjected us to. Because with such a lucrative niche market to exploit, one really needs business savy to sell your guilt so effectively to thoroughly confused customers willing to give money richly at the drop of a tear. And we should even be more grateful that the guilt reps of our time (actors, celebrities and singers) have given the moral universe their precious time and are so intimately knowledgeable about what it is we must feel sorry about. As the rapper Jay-Zee told a packed audience in the U.N Trusteeship Council chamber; "I was looking for a cause to attach myself to…so I decided on water because it is a basic need."
Maybe if we give Jay-Zee's UN water to Paris' drunk Indian elephants we can at least have one night's peaceful sleep. But that will not happen because penance paid can, at the hands of a professional peddler, be rebranded, repackaged and resold to the gullible in Oprahverse. It's very much like putting the latest bling-bling on your dad's rusty old Cadillac. Pimp my Penance Ride….so to speak.
And chief among the guilt-rebranding specialists of our time Desmond Tutu of the Apartheid brand surely must be. Having made his fame & fortune by selling lop-sided multi-culti guilt to Westerners, Tutu is still the industry guru forty years on. He has somehow managed to stretch his specific brand of guilt to nearly include all the moral problems on the planet….. a remarkable feat indeed! Even his most inclusive and expansive marketing campaign to date; "Israel is like Hitler and Apartheid", has hardly dented the global appeal of his original penance product, Apartheid….even though approximately 3 998 000 less people were killed by the white Apartheid security forces than were killed in Hitler's concentration camps. But then; guilt can only be sold profitably in the West - so why, for example, try and peddle guilt to his African brothers in Rwanda who killed approximately 998 000 more people in 3 months than the white Apartheid regime did in 42 years? Even less guilt-worthy (profitable) for Tutu; why should he retail his wares after the First and Second Congo War where approximately 3 298 000 more people were killed than during Apartheid South Africa. In short; forget to sell guilt if no pale male is/was involved.
Therefore forget about Tutu telling the world that Mandelatopia (South Africa) has slipped 40 places on the UN's Human Development Index, or that poverty has doubled since his Noble Savage brothers took over power, or that, according to statistics by Interpol, close to 400 000 people have died due to crime in the Rainbow Nation. Just forget it; there's no fame and fortune to be claimed here…by our esteemed cassocked court clown.
Be that as it may; a brilliant guilt rep Tutu is indeed. His comparison of homophobia to Apartheid is already a textbook example of successful brand stretching, but his linking of Apartheid to Global Warming will surely be the benchmark according to which all future sobbing (in the West) will be measured. "Leaving the world's poor to sink or swim with their own meager resources in the face of the threat posed by global warming is morally wrong….This is precisely what is happening. We are drifting into a world of adaption Apartheid!"
Mama Mia! Everything that is wrong in this world is 'like Apartheid'. Now if we can just get those bloody boozing behemoths in India to avoid 'Beverage Apartheid', we in the West can all live guilt-free ever after in AlGoria!
"White wine Sir?" "No, make it Tutu Juice…the world has been traumatized enough!"