Live8
Aid concerts are usually about raising money and using that money to benefit a specific charity or charities. Live 8 doesn't seem to be about that.
Let's review the facts so far: On July 2, there will be huge rock concerts in London, Berlin, Johannesburg, Tokyo, Paris, Philadelphia, Rome and Barrie, Ont., in advance of the G8 summit in Edinburgh.
The aim: To force G8 leaders to do something significant about African poverty.
Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people will attend with free tickets. Madonna, Paul McCartney, U2, and a mob of other big names will perform.
The aim: To force G8 leaders to do something significant about African poverty.
Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people will attend with free tickets. Madonna, Paul McCartney, U2, and a mob of other big names will perform.
Okay, so free tickets doesn't seem to translate into a lot of money raised. TV, advertising, memorabilia sales? Maybe that'll cover the cost...
So it's not about raising money for aid. Okay. So what are it's stated goals?
From the BBC:
The aim will be to raise awareness of Make Poverty History, a campaign to get the richest nations to cancel debt and increase aid to developing countries, and to promote fair trade.
Okay, this is a POLITICAL concert, now I get it.
Geldof said the event was "not for charity but political justice", adding that organisers had "scrambled like crazy" to stage the concerts to highlight the plight of Africa.
"This is to finally, as much as we can, put a stop to that," said the political campaigner and musician.
"There is more than a chance that the boys and girls with guitars finally get to tilt the world on its axis," he added.
"This is to finally, as much as we can, put a stop to that," said the political campaigner and musician.
"There is more than a chance that the boys and girls with guitars finally get to tilt the world on its axis," he added.
Damn, I must be getting old, because I have had enough of the bloated self-importance that rock stars ooze from every pore when they tell us how relevant they are and how they are going to show us the way to solve all our problems because the profession of "rock star" allows one special, unique insight into geopolitics and international economics without requiring more education than the vaunted level of "high school graduate", but somehow impedes appropriate personal grooming and hygiene.
Can't any of them just shut up and play good music anymore?
Time to turn to the boring economists to figure out why this is all wrong-headed:
Kendra Okonski, of the International Policy Network, said debt relief, aid and trade justice had been a "demonstrable failure" for decades.
"Aid has tended to reward failing governments and undermine democracy," she said.
"In the case of Uganda, they're waging an illegal war with aid money that's given by the United States.
"Debt per se is not a bad thing. Lots of us have mortgages.
"If you say all debts are forgiven it actually punishes countries which are doing a good job paying back their debt."
"Aid has tended to reward failing governments and undermine democracy," she said.
"In the case of Uganda, they're waging an illegal war with aid money that's given by the United States.
"Debt per se is not a bad thing. Lots of us have mortgages.
"If you say all debts are forgiven it actually punishes countries which are doing a good job paying back their debt."
...and provides an incentive for those countries to renege on their debts. "You forgave country X. Why not us? We can be just as incompetent at spending this money as they were."
I'll just add, have you ever met anyone with staggering credit card debt? If they ever managed to get out from underneath that mountain, through negotiations with creditors etc. without actually paying what they owed, what's the first thing that they'll do with their hard-begged financial freedom?
Set a budget?
Live within their means?
Never do it again?
Or get more credit cards and rack those babies back up to the limit again?
Debt is a drug, and it's highly addictive.
So we forgive African debt without tying that forgiveness to any true democratic reform of those countries, because of course doing something like that would be talking down to them, wouldn't it? How dare we arrogant Westerners actually require some kind of permanent attempt to fix the problem? No, it's all our fault in the greedy west, isn't it?
What happens after debt-forgiveness when tin-pot African dictators come knocking on the doors of Western banks looking for loans for the latest "economic development" scheme (ie. the Army needs bullets to put down dissidents)? Do we loan them the money again?
"We're debt-free!" they'll say. "How can you not help us?"
If we don't loan them the money we in the West will be labeled cruel and unfair.
If we do, we'll be fools.
If we give them the money without political changes in Africa we're back to square one, and some future Geldof will be lecturing my kids about how it's their fault that Africa can't do anything economically right -- how starving children are the West's fault exclusively, and not how constant war, oppression, racial genocide, corruption, incompetence, mismanagement, absence of human rights and enabling-Western guilt-money (ie. foreign aid) had anything to do with it.
We'll be back here in this position again in twenty years, with septuagenarian baby boomers - who'll still have their bootheels on the necks of popular culture I might add - yelling at us about how the Africa of 2025 will need yet another round of debt-forgiveness.
Don't get me wrong. I think that third world debt should be forgiven somehow - but not without actual, real democratic and political reform attached, or it's all pointless.
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The Crue, dude!
Live Aid didn't change much and Live 8 won't change much, either. Geldof's intentions may be sincere but I don't think there's a rock star alive who understands how irrelevent their political opinions are.
People are going to hear free, live music. That the concert happens to be about debt relief for Africa is ultimately of very little concern to them.
How's that for cynicism?
Linda aka Marzi
Hmm.. then again that would actually cost some votes (especially in France and the US) rather than forgiving something that wasn't being repaid in the first place.