To the mainstream media the big news of the week was the two big boys -- Bush and Blair -- meeting for their quarterly Lowering of the Bar. It was a gloomy affair -- obvious that both of them could barely muster the energy to spin their disastrous adventure in Iraq. And it was depressing watching the two most ostensibly powerful leaders in the world essentially throw up their hands and cross their fingers.
But that wasn't the only story with global implications this week. There's another one that shows that big-time leadership and change don't always have to begin and end with politicians.
U2's Bono has just come back from Africa, where he's been devoting his considerable energy to the fights against AIDS, crushing poverty and debt, and the simple need for clean water.
What an inspiration he is. Instead of living the clichéd rock-star life -- trashing hotel rooms and putting notches on his groupie belt -- he's unabashedly trying to change the world.
Here's how he put it in a fascinating interview with NBC's Brian Williams, who joined Bono on his most recent trek to Africa:
"I genuinely see myself as a traveling salesman. I think that's what I do. I sell songs door-to-door on tour. I sell ideas like debt relief, and like all salesmen, I'm a bit of an opportunist and I see Africa as great opportunity. And I don't just mean this in terms of doing business with Africa for America or Europe, which I do. I mean it's an opportunity for us in the West to show our values, because a lot people are not sure we have any -- to show what we are made of, to see a continent in crisis and demonstrate what we can do. I see it as an opportunity for me to put this ridiculous thing called celebrity to some use. Celebrity is ridiculous and silly and it's mad that people like me are listened to -- you know, rap stars and movie stars. You know, rather than nurses and farmhands and others. But it is currency. Celebrity is currency, so I wanted to use mine effectively." (Read the whole interview here.)
And that he is. In fact, during a happier Bush-Blair press conference last year, the two announced a plan to entirely eliminate the debt burden on African nations working toward political reform. It's hard to imagine this happening without Bono's dedication, which Bush himself has acknowledged. "Bono has come to see me," he said last June. "I admire him. He is a man of depth and a great heart who cares deeply about the impoverished folks on the continent of Africa."
Of course, you don't have to be a Grammy-winning superstar to change the world. But you do have to learn how to conquer your fears and believe in the power of one to make a difference. This is the subject of the latest chapter in my book. Here are some excerpts:
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Following the voice not of fear but of our fourth instinct and fighting to make the world a better place are as present in our DNA as fighting to improve our own lives. That's why fearlessness -- refusing to be controlled by threats, guilt, blame, even praise and blandishments -- is the only answer.
The rewards of great courage, of being a pioneer, are proportionate to the risks we take. If not for Alice Paul and the suffragette movement, women might still not have the right to vote. If not for Lois Gibbs, hundreds of families might not have been relocated to healthier communities in the '70s - and thousands of others would not now have the Center she founded to assist in cleaning up their own communities. There are few things as empowering as being in the presence of women who risk everything to change the world.
Naomi Wolf, author of The Beauty Myth, discovered this truth when she started to travel in the developing world. She encountered women who had lived through rape, slavery, mutilations, and other atrocities and had stood up to oppression and injustice. "To young women in our culture," she told me, "approval is like oxygen -- we are afraid that without it we will perish. But when I returned to New York after meeting these amazing women, the scale of my own fears seemed very small. Our ego-based fears -- being derided or criticized or devalued -- seemed suddenly very trivial. If it's not going to send me to a gulag or get me tortured, I now feel that, on behalf of other women who face real terror, every day, I had best simply get on with it."
Every year since 1997, I have been exposed to fearless women leaders in the field of journalism. They are the women from around the world who have won the International Women's Media Foundation's Courage in Journalism Award. They have risked their lives to report the truth about corruption and oppression in some of the world's most dangerous hotspots.
No one handed them their power, no one elected them, no one expected them to act as leaders. But each in her own way broke from the pack, compelled to seek out the truth and tell it. And each in her own way has changed our world.
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Even if the stakes do not involve standing up to oppression and corruption, and improving lives for millions, it's much easier to go fearlessly on your own life's journey when the destination you've chosen includes something larger than yourself.
In a study on the roots of altruism, Dr. Erving Staub analyzed men and women who had risked their lives during World War II to protect Jews hiding from the Nazis. What turns an ordinary bystander into a fearless defender? "Goodness, like evil, often begins in small steps," Dr. Staub said. "Heroes evolve: They aren't born. Very often the rescuers made only a small commitment at the start -- to hide someone for a day or two, but once they had taken that step they began to see themselves differently as someone who helps. What starts as mere willingness becomes intense involvement."
Indeed, heroes evolve, but they could not evolve if the seed for fearlessness, for goodness, for transcending our self-interest had not been planted a long time ago. This potential to move beyond our daily concerns and personal ambitions is our common heritage, waiting just like a seed to be watered by any drops of courage and compassion.