Bono and Geldof: Posterboys of the rich and powerful

DadaKopf

This in today's Guardian:

Bards of the powerful
Far from challenging the G8's role in Africa's poverty, Geldof and Bono are giving legitimacy to those responsible

George Monbiot
Tuesday June 21, 2005

Guardian

'Hackers bombard financial networks", the Financial Times reported on Thursday. Government departments and businesses "have been bombarded with a sophisticated electronic attack for several months". It is being organised by an Asian criminal network, and is "aimed at stealing commercially and economically sensitive information". By Thursday afternoon, the story had mutated. "G8 hackers target banks and ministries", said the headline in the Evening Standard. Their purpose was "to cripple the systems as a protest before the G8 summit." The Standard advanced no evidence to justify this metamorphosis.

This is just one instance of the reams of twaddle about the dark designs of the G8 protesters codded up by the corporate press. That the same stories have been told about almost every impending public protest planned in the past 30 years and that they have invariably fallen apart under examination appears to present no impediment to their repetition. The real danger at the G8 summit is not that the protests will turn violent - the appetite for that pretty well disappeared in September 2001 - but that they will be far too polite.

Let me be more precise. The danger is that we will follow the agenda set by Bono and Bob Geldof.

The two musicians are genuinely committed to the cause of poverty reduction. They have helped secure aid and debt-relief packages worth billions of dollars. They have helped to keep the issue of global poverty on the political agenda. They have mobilised people all over the world. These are astonishing achievements, and it would be stupid to disregard them.

The problem is that they have assumed the role of arbiters: of determining on our behalf whether the leaders of the G8 nations should be congratulated or condemned for the decisions they make. They are not qualified to do so, and I fear that they will sell us down the river.

Take their response to the debt-relief package for the world's poorest countries that the G7 finance ministers announced 10 days ago. Anyone with a grasp of development politics who had read and understood the ministers' statement could see that the conditions it contains - enforced liberalisation and privatisation - are as onerous as the debts it relieves. But Bob Geldof praised it as "a victory for the millions of people in the campaigns around the world" and Bono pronounced it "a little piece of history". Like many of those who have been trying to highlight the harm done by such conditions - especially the African campaigners I know - I feel betrayed by these statements. Bono and Geldof have made our job more difficult.

I understand the game they're playing. They believe that praising the world's most powerful men is more persuasive than criticising them. The problem is that in doing so they turn the political campaign developed by the global justice movement into a philanthropic one. They urge the G8 leaders to do more to help the poor. But they say nothing about ceasing to do harm.

It is true that Bono has criticised George Bush for failing to deliver the money he promised for Aids victims in Africa. But he has never, as far as I can discover, said a word about the capture of that funding by "faith-based groups": the code Bush uses for fundamentalist Christian missions that preach against the use of condoms. Indeed, Bono seems to be comfortable in the company of fundamentalists. Jesse Helms, the racist, homophobic former senator who helped engineer the switch to faith-based government, is, according to his aides, "very much a fan of Bono". This is testament to the singer's remarkable powers of persuasion. But if people like Helms are friends, who are the enemies? Is exploitation something that just happens? Does it have no perpetrators?

This, of course, is how George Bush and Tony Blair would like us to see it. Blair speaks about Africa as if its problems are the result of some inscrutable force of nature, compounded only by the corruption of its dictators. He laments that "it is the only continent in the world over the past few decades that has moved backwards". But he has never acknowledged that - as even the World Bank's studies show - it has moved backwards partly because of the neoliberal policies it has been forced to follow by the powerful nations: policies that have just been extended by the debt-relief package Bono and Geldof praised.

Listen to these men - Bush, Blair and their two bards - and you could forget that the rich nations had played any role in Africa's accumulation of debt, or accumulation of weapons, or loss of resources, or collapse in public services, or concentration of wealth and power by unaccountable leaders. Listen to them and you would imagine that the G8 was conceived as a project to help the world's poor.

I have yet to read a statement by either rock star that suggests a critique of power. They appear to believe that a consensus can be achieved between the powerful and the powerless, that they can assemble a great global chorus of rich and poor to sing from the same sheet. They do not seem to understand that, while the G8 maintains its grip on the instruments of global governance, a shared anthem of peace and love is about as meaningful as the old Coca-Cola ad.

The answer to the problem of power is to build political movements that deny the legitimacy of the powerful and seek to prise control from their hands: to do, in other words, what people are doing in Bolivia right now. But Bono and Geldof are doing the opposite: they are lending legitimacy to power. From the point of view of men like Bush and Blair, the deal is straightforward: we let these hairy people share a platform with us, we make a few cost-free gestures, and in return we receive their praise and capture their fans. The sanctity of our collaborators rubs off on us. If the trick works, the movements ranged against us will disperse, imagining that the world's problems have been solved. We will be publicly rehabilitated, after our little adventure in Iraq and our indiscretions at Bagram and Guantánamo Bay. The countries we wish to keep exploiting will see us as their friends rather than their enemies.

At what point do Bono and Geldof call time on the leaders of the G8? At what point does Bono stop pretending that George Bush is "passionate and sincere" about world poverty, and does Geldof stop claiming that he "has actually done more than any American president for Africa"? At what point does Bono revise his estimate of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown as "the John and Paul of the global-development stage" or as leaders in the tradition of Keir Hardie and Clement Attlee? How much damage do Bush and Blair have to do before the rock stars will acknowledge it?

Geldof and Bono's campaign for philanthropy portrays the enemies of the poor as their saviours. The good these two remarkable men have done is in danger of being outweighed by the harm.

I think Monbiot's bang on in this one, and it's something I've been thinking and shouting about a lot recently. I think they've got to stop flirting with power. I think they've got to stop being naive about the language they're using and understand what exactly what they're saying and the effect that their words have on the lives of the poor, not just in Africa but the whole of the global South.

Two examples not mentioned in Monbiot's article:

• The Debt deal: it's not 100% immediate debt cancellation. It's more like 10% debt cancellation for a select number of countries that have already qualified for multilateral debt relief, if they behave themselves. While the spin announced that it was an historic $40bn debt cancellation deal, its net value immediately is $17bn. That means it's a deal to wipe out $1bn per country over the next 10 years, even though indebted countries will continue to pay $10bn a year on debt repayments. A step forward? Kind of, but in order to qualify, developing countries have to carry out neoliberal economic reforms that contributed to the African crisis in the first place. Which gets me on to...
• Corruption and 'good governance': Bono and Geldof go on as if all of Africa's problems are down to corrupt leaders. What they don't say is that 'good governance' - World Bank/IMF-style - means broader and deeper neoliberal structural adjustment and more Western interference. It means across-the-board privatisation of public services - particularly water, education and health, services which the chronically poor can't afford unless it's provided by the state. These are services accepted as crucial for development, but the 'empowerment' part of the good governance agenda simply makes the poorest people in the world pay for things they can't afford, and because companies won't invest in places where there's no market, no one gets health care. Bono and Geldof, by constantly hitting us with this good governance stuff, are playing into the hands of the G8 tyrants. Poverty causes corruption, and good governance (as it stands) causes poverty. Like Monbiot says, playing the good governance card makes it possible for Western leaders - all of us really - to wring our hands of Africa's problems because it makes us think it's all their fault, not ours.

The effect of what they do and say is to keep things exactly as they are, or in Africa's case, make things worse.

IMHO.

axer

DadaKopf wrote:

This in today's Guardian:



I think Monbiot's bang on in this one, and it's something I've been thinking and shouting about a lot recently. I think they've got to stop flirting with power. I think they've got to stop being naive about the language they're using and understand what exactly what they're saying and the effect that their words have on the lives of the poor, not just in Africa but the whole of the global South.

Two examples not mentioned in Monbiot's article:

• The Debt deal: it's not 100% immediate debt cancellation. It's more like 10% debt cancellation for a select number of countries that have already qualified for multilateral debt relief, if they behave themselves. While the spin announced that it was an historic $40bn debt cancellation deal, its net value immediately is $17bn. That means it's a deal to wipe out $1bn per country over the next 10 years, even though indebted countries will continue to pay $10bn a year on debt repayments. A step forward? Kind of, but in order to qualify, developing countries have to carry out neoliberal economic reforms that contributed to the African crisis in the first place. Which gets me on to...
• Corruption and 'good governance': Bono and Geldof go on as if all of Africa's problems are down to corrupt leaders. What they don't say is that 'good governance' - World Bank/IMF-style - means broader and deeper neoliberal structural adjustment and more Western interference. It means across-the-board privatisation of public services - particularly water, education and health, services which the chronically poor can't afford unless it's provided by the state. These are services accepted as crucial for development, but the 'empowerment' part of the good governance agenda simply makes the poorest people in the world pay for things they can't afford, and because companies won't invest in places where there's no market, no one gets health care. Bono and Geldof, by constantly hitting us with this good governance stuff, are playing into the hands of the G8 tyrants. Poverty causes corruption, and good governance (as it stands) causes poverty. Like Monbiot says, playing the good governance card makes it possible for Western leaders - all of us really - to wring our hands of Africa's problems because it makes us think it's all their fault, not ours.
  
  The effect of what they do and say is to keep things exactly as they are, or in Africa's case, make things worse.
  
  IMHO.

They are not economists they are actually just regular people who are famous and are trying to help - maybe they are in over there heads - but they are trying. I dont know about Bono but I know Bob Geldof is in it for the right reasons.

Lemming

To be honset, i disagree with a lot of the sentiment of the article. It's easy to aportion blame when you don't get you want and to point the finger at almost anyone else.

Geldof made a very good point during the Genoa riots laset time round - sentiment to the effect that the likes of rioting totally undermines any legitimate and compelling arguments since those in power can then just turn around and say "oh look, just a bunch of mindless thugs. Why listen to them?"

There is a balance between polite & disobedience verging on the anarchist in terms of protest. My problem with so many of these networks is that they seem to be getting more and more radical and polarised. I swear to the heavens ... Bushism is becoming infectious. That bloody "If you're not with us you're against us" mantra is appearing everywhere.

Geldof and Bono perhaps think that getting the ear of those ni power will achieve a better, faster result. And there is a certain logic in that. Why should these people listen to you and me standing outside in the rain chanting? We're small-fry by comparison to someone standing face-to-face with them and trying to deliver our message without war-paint on. Added to the fact that both Bono & Geldof have track record of trying to genuinely help . Where would the world be without the likes of Bono & Geldof? Fair dues to them for trying to use their celebrity status for something other than self-agrandising and indulgence like most others do.

DadaKopf

Who said anything about rioting? The article is about whether Bono and Geldof are, despite their most honourable intentions, inadvertently building a constituency for the G8 governments who are largely responsible for the level of poverty in the Africa.

A simple example: G8 leaders bankrolled African dictators during the Cold War, who embezzled billions and murdered millions. In the 1990s, Africans kick out their corrupt leaders, establish democracies and try to achieve development. But for the service of ridding the world of dictators and democratising much of Sub-Saharan Africa, the G8 leaders demand African people pay back the loans that were given by G8 governments to their corrupt, murderous strategic allies. But now we're supposed to believe Africans owe us the money and it's their problem entirely. All this despite the $30bn of Iraqi debt written off at a pen-stroke last year because America said so.

We should never legtimise this kind of behaviour by our own leaders.

Geldof and Bono, despite their best intentions, feed the story that G8 governments want to tell: it's not our fault, it's all theirs. This provides cover for a new scramble for Africa, which in the past has caused nothing but poverty and death for nearly everyone and will no doubt do the same again.

Like I said, great that ending poverty is on the agenda. The effort is mostly due to campaigners and NGOs in every country in the world. Bono and Geldof should stop saying the wrong things because words make the world, too.

Lemming

DadaKopf wrote:

Who said anything about rioting?

No-one. I was making the point that often, the actions of the masses in this area of debate seem to undermine their arguments where one person in the right place can do much more.

The article is about whether Bono and Geldof are, despite their most honourable intentions, inadvertently building a constituency for the G8 governments who are largely responsible for the level of poverty in the Africa.

I don't think they are. As I mentioned before, it's so very easy to point the finger and scream "J'accuse" when you don't get the results that you want. And that's whatI think is happening. Certain groups are getting frustrated that things aren't happening all their way. The G8 leaders have their own agendas so they aren't going to just simply roll over and do our bidding as much as we might want them to, so it comes down to compromise. At the end of the day, they have to actually agree to what Bono or Geldof implore them to do. The ball is firmly in their court once we (the masses + Bono + Geldof + whoever else) speak our minds on the matter. They can't be "forced" to do what we want them to do. Well not easily anyway. So to blame Bono & Geldof for the lack of movement is both unfair and utterly, laughably naeive.

A simple example: G8 leaders bankrolled African dictators during the Cold War, who embezzled billions and murdered millions. In the 1990s, Africans kick out their corrupt leaders, establish democracies and try to achieve development. But for the service of ridding the world of dictators and democratising much of Sub-Saharan Africa, the G8 leaders demand African people pay back the loans that were given by G8 governments to their corrupt, murderous strategic allies. But now we're supposed to believe Africans owe us the money and it's their problem entirely. All this despite the $30bn of Iraqi debt written off at a pen-stroke last year because America said so.

We should never legtimise this kind of behaviour by our own leaders.

We're not legitimising their actions. We're asking them to do something about the state of affairs now. As I mentioned before, they have their own agendas, which probably include trying to get a return on the "investments" they made during the Cold War, so a compromise has to be struck in order to get anywhere. We want it our way. They want it their way. Polarity never works well.

Geldof and Bono, despite their best intentions, feed the story that G8 governments want to tell: it's not our fault, it's all theirs. This provides cover for a new scramble for Africa, which in the past has caused nothing but poverty and death for nearly everyone and will no doubt do the same again.

They feed the story that G8 governments want to tell .... hmmm ... ever heard the term "reasoned" debate? Howabout conveying what one side is saying to the other. When the two of them started, I'm sure it was teh G8 saying the above, not the masses. We can't have it both ways. How can it work if one side wont listen to the other?

Fine, they say its not their fault. Lets go ask them why and what they plan to do about it instead of picking our arses and pointing fingers.

As I said, I disagree with the sentiments of that article.

KnowItAll

I'd love to know how much Bono gives to Africa from his own wealth. He does not have to but who needs hundreds of millions.

He is constantly on about the wealthy nations not giving some of their vast wealth to the poor of Africa (Which is correct) but why doesn't he?

oscarBravo

KnowItAll wrote:

I'd love to know how much Bono gives to Africa from his own wealth.

In other words, you don't know how much he gives.

KnowItAll wrote:

...why doesn't he?

And now you're assuming he doesn't give any.

'nuff said, tbh.

KnowItAll

oscarBravo wrote:

In other words, you don't know how much he gives. And now you're assuming he doesn't give any.

'nuff said, tbh.

Well I know that he has hundreds of millions. I know that he is constantly campaigning for the poor, starving people of Africa. He wants the west to give more which it is to greedy to do but since he is such a great campaigner, why dosen't he give a little more?

How did I assume he doesn't give any? I like to know your reason for saying that.

Do you think it's OK to have hundreds of millions and act like a saint?

I'm also assuming you couldn't care less about the third world!

KnowItAll

KnowItAll wrote:

I'm also assuming you couldn't care less about the third world!

Attack the post-not the poster
1 week ban

mike65

George Monbiot, it would be would'nt it? Whats he done to help the starving millions lately?

Bono and Geldof are doing the opposite: they are lending legitimacy to power. From the point of view of men like Bush and Blair, the deal is straightforward: we let these hairy people share a platform with us, we make a few cost-free gestures, and in return we receive their praise and capture their fans. The sanctity of our collaborators rubs off on us. If the trick works, the movements ranged against us will disperse, imagining that the world's problems have been solved. We will be publicly rehabilitated, after our little adventure in Iraq and our indiscretions at Bagram and Guantánamo Bay. The countries we wish to keep exploiting will see us as their friends rather than their enemies.

I could be wrong here, but I don't get the feeling that anyone who's hostile towards US involvment in Iraq has changed thier tune in the light of debt write off.

Also whats this bleating about "lending legitimacy to power", how else does "big stuff" get done except when the powerful let it/make it happen?

Mike.

DublinWriter

KnowItAll wrote:

I'd love to know how much Bono gives to Africa from his own wealth. He does not have to but who needs hundreds of millions

Whinge. Whinge. Whinge. How much of your wealth do you give to Africa by the way?

I'm sick of all the begrudgers coming out of the woodwork. At least Bono and Geldolf basically give a sh*t about those in the world more unfortunate than us.

I really don't care how much money the give, they are generous with their time.

Sure, you mightn't like them personally, just ignore the messenger and concentrate on the message.

Tomohawk

Monbiot's father, Raymond, is the deputy chairman of the UK Conservative Party and Chairman of the National Convention.

mike65

Interesting! Maybe George is a classic case of 'Vicars Daughter Becomes Porn Star' syndrome.

Mike.

AmenToThat

DublinWriter wrote:

Whinge. Whinge. Whinge. How much of your wealth do you give to Africa by the way?

I'm sick of all the begrudgers coming out of the woodwork. At least Bono and Geldolf basically give a sh*t about those in the world more unfortunate than us.

This is something Iv thought about quiet alot recently
I for one have absolutely no doubts that both Bono and Geldofs hearts are in the right place.
Its their methods I object to for the simple reason I think they may end up doing more harm than good long term.

When you now see MacDonalds you see them saying that they provide nutritional food, that they run community programs, that they care about their employees, but at the end of the day they are still MacDonalds and still committed to the same goal, maximizing revenue while cutting costs.

I see the world superpowers and global corporations as using Bono and Geldof to do the same thing, that is putting a more human caring face on their activities.
In my view this only makes them more dangerous as when anyone questions their activities they can now point to Bono and Geldof and say 'look we are helping'.

Lemming

But this is also a point of my argument AmenToThat. No matter WHO it is that take the time and effort to actually stand up against these corporations is going to find themselves in exactly the same boat. The corporate PR dept going into overdrive. They have deep pockets. Those going against them generally don't. The fact that the corporate world takes these people seriously shows that they are having an effect and the corps. are exercising damage limitation.

Orion

Another good article in today's Irish Times - not quite as strongly critisising Bono and Geldof but they do get an honourable mention.

Irish Times wrote:

We must block the G8 summit
William Hederman

So, the wealthy nations' club has written off the debts of the poor countries. Blair and Brown, with a little prodding from Bob and Bono, have brought out the hidden generosity of the Group of Eight (G8) countries. Why then are so many of us still planning to go to Scotland to protest at the G8 summit on July 6th?

For a start, the offer of debt cancellation to 18 of the world's poorest countries is conditional on those countries restructuring their economies in a way that "eliminates impediments to private investment". These "conditionalities" will cause greater poverty, malnutrition, disease, illiteracy and a widening gap between rich and poor.

Let's take the example of Bolivia. Jubilee South, a network of Southern Hemisphere debt campaigns, said last week the debt cancellation for Bolivia would have "minimal impact in comparison with the ongoing multi-million dollar losses and social-political impact provoked by the policies of water, gas and other natural resource privatisations that were imposed as pre-conditions for debt 'relief'."

The granting of loans and the allocation of aid by the World Bank and IMF (whose policies are formulated by the G8 governments) are invariably conditional on the recipient country "restructuring" its economy to provide the G8 countries' corporations with unrestricted access to its markets, resources and services.

Bolivia possesses South America's second-largest gas reserves, but remains the poorest country on the continent. Its gas reserves were privatised in the mid-1990s, so the revenue accrues to multinational oil companies rather than funding basic services.

Groups such as Jubilee argue that in terms of exploited resources, exploited labour and ecological damage, the rich countries owe the poor countries, more than vice versa. To impose conditions to the debt cancellation constitutes a colonial arrogance reminiscent of the British Empire at its height.

It's analogous to a burglar agreeing to give you back the possessions he stole on the condition that you restructure your home to allow him easier access in future.The rich countries knew their "debtors" could never pay the money (and that it was an unfair debt anyway), so announcing a cancellation of the debt was merely an enormous PR coup, with Bono and Bob Geldof playing the part of the glamour models.

Bodies such as the G8, World Bank and IMF only change when not to change would threaten their existence. Gestures such as the debt cancellation and Gordon Brown's support for the Live 8 concert obscure the fact that the G8's policies are largely to blame for increasing poverty and potentially catastrophic climate change.

Even if the unconditional cancellation of all debts was announced, many of us would still see good reason to protest at - and even blockade - the G8 summit. For these protests are about more than debt relief. They are about resisting neoliberalism, an ideology more globally pervasive than communism or fascism ever were; one which dictates that the market must take precedence over human needs and the environment. Corporate-driven neoliberalism has its claws firmly embedded in the Irish economy, too. If the controversial Shell pipeline in north Mayo ever becomes operational, 100 per cent of the gas flowing through it from Ireland's Corrib gas field will belong to Shell, which can sell it to Bord Gáis at market prices. Not to mention our Government's determination to hand over our public services to private companies.

The G8 is not the solution to poverty and climate change; the G8 is the problem.Bono and Bob Geldof do not go far enough. Asking the G8 leaders to throw the poor their crumbs is not enough. We must obstruct the G8 summit, seek to shut it down, as an act of solidarity with the thousands of Bolivians who blockaded cities this month in an attempt to recover their gas, and with numerous other direct-action campaigns across the developing world. These protests are also about democracy. The G8 constitutes the very antithesis of participatory democracy: eight rich country leaders making decisions for the world's six billion people.

Some doubt the efficacy of street protest, but had someone written in these pages 20 years ago that within a few years Communism in Eastern Europe would fall, largely as a result of mass street protests, few would have believed it.

There is cause for optimism. G8 and other summits have been attracting an ever-bigger response from the world's social movements. Awareness has increased; more people know what neoliberalism is, how damaging it is to the world's poor and to the environment and, crucially, that there are alternatives.

The poor of the world need more than charity and more than debt relief. They need justice. The G8 is an imperialists' club that creates massive injustice in pursuit of corporate profit. The first step in making poverty history is to make the G8 history.

William Hederman is a journalist at Village magazine. He will be protesting in Scotland as part of the Dissent! protest network

bonkey

I still don't get why all these articles seem to decide that conditionality is wrong, as opposed to that the chosen set of conditions is wrong.

As for Bono and Geldof....my take on it is that they're actually smart enough to realise that you can't simply reverse international policy overnight. In less than the past decade, we've seen the international community start admitting all wasn't rosy with globalisation, then admitting there were serious problems, then talk about "fixing" it, and so on and so forth. At each step of the way, they've been applauded by the ilkes of Bono and Geldof, who've come in for criticism for more-or-less whats being said here - that they're praising actions which aren't good enough.

Sure they are praising them. Why? Because they're moving the G8 and friends closer and closer to making a real difference each time they get a concession, and managing to still stay buddies with the major players so as to allow them to pressure for another step as soon as possible.

Small moves, Ellie. Small moves.

jc