Sunday, July 03, 2005
"Pop stars prancing on a stage won't stop poverty"
The Independent started an item on "Live 8" with the above sentence, and proceeded to throw it's weight behind the initiative to pressure the G8 to do something about African poverty:
"Back in 1985 Geldof wanted your money. Yesterday Sir Bob, as he is now, put on an even bigger show ... to convince the G8 that an awful lot of people want to help Africa again, and this time in a way that lasts. By cancelling national debts, ensuring trade is fair and letting African countries compete in the market place without being crippled by unfair rules.
"That's how Bob sees it. And so does Bono, and Sting, and Madonna ... (and the people watching the rock show)"
That's not exactly how I see it, and I was one of the minions watching Sir Bob's show. I wonder: why can't African countries pay at least some of the debt? Why is the trading situation and it's associated rules inherently unfair?
I am glad the Live 8 show has drawn attention to the poverty issue and how it impacts on modern Africa.
The concert has sparked an international - well, pan-first world, at least - conversation on Africa. It has reminded, perhaps, people outside the wealthier countries that their brothers and sisters on the fortunate side of the economic gap are, for the most part, very uncomfortable about the unfair imbalances in this world.
But the conclusions of each individual regarding what to effectively do to tackle the problem may differ. All over the English-speaking world, and throughout continental Europe, interest has been sparked by Live 8 in information about what's going on in Africa, why there is such terrible poverty there.
Because of Live 8, editorials like the following one in Australia's Sydney Morning Herald are cropping up, and being read and thought about:
"Joseph Conrad found his African Heart of Darkness in the Congo, where he described "the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience". ... Congo's own took up where the colonialists left off, and proved just as brutal. ...
"Now ... (v)oter registration has finally begun for the first elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo in four decades.
"The country boasts immense natural wealth: forests, agricultural land, gold, diamonds and other minerals, as well as enough hydroelectric potential to power half the continent. With the G8 summit focusing on Africa this week it is worth remembering that the Congo is a very large piece in the region's jigsaw. Achieving stability in the heart of Africa would resonate way beyond the Congo's borders."
"Achieving stability" - therein lies the answer. Perhaps. From my comfortable armchair I infer that stability means a functioning, peaceful, democratic system underwritten with the rule of law.
Does the G8 have the power to implement said stability?
Not on it's own, I would think. Not any more than international powers were able to create successful reconstruction in Germany, Japan and China after the Second World War without the proactive initiative of the local populations in those places.
Not that that reality will quell the overt anger of the usual parade of protestors when the G8 Summit begins. But it will certainly be in the thinking of the people watching those protests, as it was in the thinking of many of the people watching Live 8.
