More Wow. With a Little "You've Gotta Be Fucking Kidding Me" Thrown In

The WSJ is a never-ending source of flabbergasting "Zuh?" to me today. Just in case you're a nasty, cynical person who thinks CEOs couldn't care less about anyone not making seven figures a year, you couldn't be more wrong. Why, they're even willing to dress up like refugees! For a whole hour! (Bolds mine)

DAVOS, Switzerland -- Gucci Group Chief Executive Robert Polet switched off his BlackBerry, wrapped his head in a bandage and became Mustafa, a 40-year-old refugee in desperate search of his six lost children. As a war raged outside his barbed-wire-encased refugee camp, Mustafa slept on the muddy floor of a canvas tent and drank water out of a tin bowl.

"Please, please, help me find my children," he begged as an armed guard pinned him down to the ground, a rifle to his neck.

The simulation of a refugee camp -- a one-hour exercise co-sponsored by the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees -- is one of the more earnest manifestations of the please-forgive-me spirit at Davos this year.

Yeah, how could you not believe their earnestness? The guy gave up his fucking blackberry, people! I'm surprised he didn't have to be hospitalized the instant the hour was up and he was taken back to his hotel for canapés and a sloe gin fizz.

"What a humbling experience to feel so defenseless," said Mr. Polet, who runs one of the world's biggest luxury-goods companies, as he brushed off the dirt from his corduroys and stepped out of his role at the end of the simulation in a concrete basement near the main conference center. This conference of global highfliers has long been known for excess of glitz, parties and private planes. This year, there is some regret, too.

Some regret. But not too much. Hey, the guy had to put on corduroys. Isn't that enough? What, should he have to crawl through broken glass, too? God. He's so humbled, after all.

The idea behind the refugee simulation is to give people a taste of the life led by 32.9 million displaced people around the world who live in refugee camps for weeks, months or even more than a decade, says David Begbie, who together with his parents works for the Hong Kong-based Crossroads Foundation Ltd., which staged the simulations. Refugee camps are often set up spontaneously by displaced people and have little oversight. Even camps run by the United Nations are often beset by corrupt guards or checkpoint officials surrounding the area, Mr. Begbie says.

So they put on a costume, playacted for an hour, and went home. But don't think it was all peaches and cream.

Many here have flown in on private jets. But the conference's organizers are now urging everyone not to take public transportation and to walk the icy streets of tiny Davos instead: All participants have been given a pedometer to count their steps.

Good heavens; how did they manage to survive?

On Thursday, he became Mustafa -- a farmer who had been caught in the middle of a war and, in fleeing, had lost track of his wife and six children. Before the session started, Mr. Polet was told to leave his phone and BlackBerry behind. He was given an identity card, a little bit of money -- represented by a yellow piece of paper in a Ziploc bag -- and a bandage for his head.

As he and other refugees walked to the camp -- a structure of concrete floor, hay, barbed wire and canvas tents strung on ropes -- armed militia ambushed them, ordering everyone to lie flat on their stomachs amid the sound of exploding bombs. Mustafa, in his brown corduroys and tweed jacket, lay with his head in hay for several minutes as a soldier pointed a gun to his back. Then, during the journey to the camp, one of the refugees -- a Crossroads actress -- stepped on a make-believe land mine and was carried away, artificial blood streaming down her leg.

Nighttime fell (the lights were switched off) and Mustafa was ordered into a canvas tent, where he curled up on the ground and closed his eyes. Sounds of children wailing and women screaming filled the air.

At one point, Mustafa got up and began pleading with the soldiers to find his children. When he refused to get back in the tent, the soldiers pushed him onto the ground, holding rifles to his head. "You said you would find my children. I'm not going anywhere until you do," insisted Mustafa.

Okay, enough sarcasm. This is fucking ridiculous. They may as well have tried to understand the experience of immigrants by putting on huge sombreros and ponchos and running across an artificial border yelling "Arriba! Arriba!" while actors in trucks pretend to chase them. And what's worse, the fucking article refers to the participant by his fake name as if this "character" was really alive. They give this ridiculous, racist, classist, hatefully privileged behavior a nod of approval while giving the plight of real refugees the barest of nods. They've reduced being a refugee to an improv class. Oh, and by the way:

Not all the glitz is gone, of course. Google Inc. is planning to host its annual dancing and booze party on Friday night and another evening of revelry has been scheduled by Bollywood actors and directors. Still, the economic crisis is looming large here, prompting some to switch venue -- at least for a couple of hours.

Oh, of course. We couldn't expect anyone to have to put up with acting like the poverty-stricken for more than an hour or two, could we? After all, they all feel just terrible about everything, really.

Insert your own comment about "The Onion" going out of business here.

Tip of the Energy Dome to Shaker Siobhan The Not Very Evil, who states "Next we'll see Senators in blackface." The horrible thing is, I suppose at this point it's actually possible.