Live 8
With the exception of a short-sighted slap at the RCC, here’s a great commentary about Live 8. Link. Excerpts:
“Wearing badges is not enough,” Billy Bragg used to sing, “in days like these”, but judging by the events of the weekend, a lot of people appear to believe that wearing wristbands just might do the trick.
Did they know what they were protesting about? Well, yes, it appears they did. Those who had not simply turned up to massage the egos of a bunch of millionaire musicians assuaging their own consciences appeared to have a clear belief in the need for action with regard to Africa.
They were protesting about trade injustice, a crippling debt burden and they were protesting, at the most basic level, because they believed it to be wrong that millions should die in abject poverty.
But how would they achieve these goals? More aid, lots more aid, some said. Cancel the debts, said others. Abolish trade barriers. And who should do these things? The leaders of the G8, they chorused. As if they alone have a magic wand that can somehow right centuries of wrong.
“Something must be done, even if it doesn’t work,” Geldof said in one recent interview, and in that one moment he came closest to capturing the collective middle-class angst of those who turned out this weekend. . .
Cancelling the debts of 14 nations is a worthy gesture, but it will only be effective if linked to strict anti-corruption measures. Geldof says that Africa is not mired in corruption, but the evidence is against him. Doubling aid sounds good, but there is no evidence that it works. Hundreds of billions of pounds have been poured into Africa and it is poorer now than it has ever been. The money is mopped up by leaders who use it to place more distance between themselves and their own people. If they know they can rely on western cash to prop themselves up, why worry about making themselves accountable to the people?
But some people do not want to hear such arguments. When Ousmane Sembene – known as “the father of African cinema” – branded Make Poverty History and Live 8 as “fake”, it went virtually unreported. “African heads of state who buy into that idea of aid are all liars,” Sembene said. “The only way for us to come out of poverty is to work hard.”
Yeah, these people will solve Africa’s problems:
