Pop and Politics
Reflections on Live 8
Dave Crofts, 16th October 2005
"The greatest thing that's ever been organised, probably in the history of the world."
So Chris Martin, lead singer of Coldplay, described Live 8. Perhaps we can forgive him a little exaggeration given the pressure to come out with an appropriate soundbite, but now, some three months later, how does Live 8 look? Was it great? And if so, for whom? Great for the millions who watched the concerts? Great for the profile of the participants and organisers? Great for democracy and peaceful protest? Great for Africa? Great for the impoverished millions whose plight Live 8 sought to highlight? All - or even none - of the above?
The Greatest Protest?
There's no question that Live 8 was a monumental occasion. The sheer scale of the event is jaw-dropping enough - nine concerts across eight countries, a million attendees, a TV audience of a reputed two billion - Live 8's website was perhaps justified in calling it "the greatest act of mass advocacy in political history".
And the statistics aren't limited to the day itself. As the G8 summit in Edinburgh announced its measures to address the issue of global poverty, the Live 8 website proclaimed the following:
"Last Saturday Live 8 asked for $25bn per annum for Africa to attack the structures of poverty. And today Africa got it...Live 8 was wonderful and devastatingly effective. The figures announced today are not simply cold numbers. They mean 10m people alive because you danced for life. They mean 20m children in school because we played our guitars. 5m orphans taken care of because we sang for joy. 600,000 people every year will not now die of malaria. The list of excellence goes on. The list of lives stretches to the future."
Having said all this, we must remember that the stated aim of Live 8 was not to raise money for Africa; it was to raise awareness - awareness of the imminent G8 summit and of poverty, specifically in Africa. As Bono (U2) put it when he kicked off the London concert, "We're not looking for charity - we are looking for justice."
With extensive media coverage and a massive publicity machine that was unceasingly at work in the days leading up to the concerts, awareness of Live 8's message and goals was rapidly and successfully spread. Even in a culture becoming anaesthetised to the impact of images of poverty and suffering, Live 8 struck a chord with the public and got people talking about the scandal of African poverty in numbers not seen since the original Live Aid back in 1985. The desire for justice filtered down from the organisers to the public at large, and, whilst we might not have had a solution to the problem, we at least knew that a problem existed.
The Greatest Plug?
It was, perhaps, inevitable, but impoverished Africans and G8 leaders weren't the only groups of people who had their profile raised by Live 8. The artists and performers involved didn't do too badly out of the event either.
Sales of Pink Floyd albums, for instance, increased by over 1000% in the week following Live 8. An extreme example, but many bands experienced some sort of a sales boost.
This, of course, tends to throw up questions about the pop stars' motivations for being involved. Were some of the participants just jumping on a bandwagon and doing it for their own personal advancement? To what extent were they mindful that to not get involved - for however noble a reason - would have blackened their name? How concerned were they for the issues at the heart of Live 8? The same questions could be asked of the media - particularly with the BBC's reluctance to broadcast the clips about poverty in favour of a return to Jonathan Ross in the studio!
Moreover, the lavish lifestyle of many of the celebrities does not sit easily with Live 8's message. Even if the pop stars gave all of their money away, it wouldn't solve world poverty - but their lifestyles are often extreme examples of the way people in the West accumulate things that they don't need at the expense of poorer people.
But let's not get too heavily entrenched in the moral high ground. We cannot and should not second-guess the motivation of people whom we simply do not know. For many of the key celebrities (Bob Geldof, Midge Ure and others), Live 8 was simply a high-profile event in a life peppered with charity work and anti-poverty campaigning. And we are by no means innocent ourselves - our £1 wrist bands are all too easily just a fashion accessory and a token nod in the direction of poverty relief.
Mixed motives - from the pop stars and the public - are inevitable, and Live 8's organisers recognised as much:
"Deep down there will be some artists who are less politically motivated and are thinking they will sell more albums as a result of appearing," admits Live 8 spokesman and music industry veteran, Bernard Doherty. "But Bob [Geldof] knows that and he doesn't give a monkey's. It's a win-win situation: we are abusing them and they are abusing us."
Dominic White: The Greatest Marketing Show on Earth
Telegraph Money, 02/07/2005
The role of pop stars in politics is one of the major issues raised by Live 8. Even though levels of political involvement and awareness varied hugely amongst those concerned, their fame gives pop stars a platform from which to speak, and some seem determined to use it.
With many young people feeling entirely disenfranchised from the political process, Live 8 brought political issues to the forefront of the public attention through involving people to whom, it seems, we are more inclined to listen. Tony Blair would have us believe that politics is the new rock and roll, but is it now that rock and roll is the new politics - or at least that it gives us the new politicians? If this is the case, we need more of our celebrities to recognise their responsibility and their potential as role models, particularly in terms of their social conscience.
The Greatest Therapy?
The Live 8 publicity deliberately - and justifiably - targeted our consciences. Horrifying statistics such the fact that 30,000 children die every day as a result of preventable poverty (Make Poverty History, 2005) - that's one every three seconds - quite rightly shocked the public into action.
However, the genius of Live 8 was that it did not give us an easy course of action to take. Because its aim was to raise awareness rather than money, our reflex response - to pledge money - was not available. By keeping our wallets closed, our brains had to remain open - and our conscience was less easily assuaged, which has to be a good thing.
That isn't to say the event wasn't geared to make us feel good about ourselves. Take this example from the Live 8 website:
We invited you on a long walk and you went all the way. You are a great peaceful army of three billion who walked for those who could barely crawl. And you won. Thank you so very much. Millions live because of you.
The rhetoric of the event was designed to give us an opportunity to feel like we had made a difference, that we were heroes, that we were the generation that acted decisively to end world poverty. In short, it appealed to our sense of pride. And very effectively, too...
Will Smith, speaking at the Philadelphia concert, called the event "a Declaration of Interdependence" - a phrase brimming with positivity. This was more than just a chance to express our views on poverty. Thanks in large part to the unifying power of music, this was a chance to express global human solidarity, to forget mankind's desire to rip one another apart, to feel good about ourselves.
The Greatest Remedy?
But Live 8's main aim wasn't to make affluent Westerners feel good about their ability to make a difference. It was to actually make that difference. So, did it achieve its aim?
Well, Live 8 will not have catalysed all the changes necessary to alleviate poverty, but it has made a start. If even a few people now have more understanding about Africa's problems, then the concerts and the surrounding media attention were a success. Naturally, the event won't cancel all of Africa's debts, nor solve its political problems, nor rid the continent of corruption, nor encourage politicians to scrap all unfair trading laws and farm subsidies. However, failure to achieve all of one's objectives does is not failure - true failure is failure to even try. Live 8 was not a perfect event, but it was a well-organised and passionate attempt to address issues that are a disgrace in our world.
Live 8's primary focus was on the necessity of dropping debt - an important attribute of the poverty crisis, but by no means the whole picture. Perhaps it would have been a more rounded event if it had considered issues of the appropriateness of aid and, in particular trade justice.
In the long term, free trade is the only way that the development gap can be effectively countered - liberating and empowering all people in less economically developed countries to compete on a level playing field. Moreover, debt relief will not solve the problem of corruption rife in parts of impoverished Africa. Indeed, some have argued that wholesale cancellation of third-world debt will mean losing significant leverage to apply moral pressure to Africa's leaders...
The issues are complex and the debate - whilst it has faded from our TV screens - will run and run. Live 8 was great, but it was at best a partial remedy.
What, then, should be the Christian response? Broadly speaking, it is threefold: expect poverty, help the poor, and hope for heaven.
Expect poverty
Jesus told his followers: "The poor you always have with you" (John 12:8, ESV). This sits rather uneasily with the 'Make Poverty History' strapline, which in light of Jesus' words seems to be aiming for the impossible. Poverty will never be made history in a world that is rebelling against God. It is tragically inevitable. We need, as Christians, to be realistic and expect poverty to continue to be a reality in our world.
Help the poor
That isn't to say we should just resign ourselves to a world characterised by poverty and injustice. Throughout history, Christians have been at the forefront of aid work and campaigns for justice - and for good reason. There are countless injunctions in the Bible to help the poor. (See, for instance, Isaiah 58:6-7, Micah 6:8, Matthew 25:37-40, Mark 12:31, John 13:35, James 2:15-17).
We, as Christians, shouldn't have to wait for Bob Geldof or anyone else to encourage us to act. We are driven by our relationship with God and a desire to see justice brought in his world.
Hope for heaven
Christians, non-Christians, pop stars, politicians - none of us are going to solve the problem of poverty. But that doesn't mean God doesn't care or hasn't provided a solution.
Indeed, Jesus himself gives us the clue to that solution in John's gospel. After saying "The poor you always have with you," he continues, "but you do not always have me" (John 12:8, ESV). It isn't that poverty isn't an important issue, but rather that Jesus himself is a far more important issue to consider, as he holds the key to eternal life, to a world not in rebellion against God, where poverty therefore has been made history.
It seems insensitive to suggest that the starving and the dying need the gospel more than anything else, but it is true. They need it as much as non-Christians in the developing world. Because only the gospel can offer this:
"Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away."
Revelation 21:3-4, ESV
However great Live 8 was, however great the utopia it envisaged, it all pales in comparison.