Back to Index

The myths behind the magic of Sir Bob
Gillian Bowditch
June 07, 2005

http://news.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=623022005

IT WOULD be nice to think of myself as cleverly contra-cyclical, but I suspect the truth is that I am simply permanently out of step with the rest of the human race. While friends are cooing over Bob Geldof, I find myself keeping quiet.

Yet two decades ago, when Geldof's name was a joke to anyone with a modicum of musical taste, I was jigging around to Up All Night. I am the only person I know who has been to a Boomtown Rats gig and is prepared to admit it.

Liking Geldof's music but not his activism is hard to explain. It's like having six toes; it's just easier to keep your socks on. Geldof is up there with Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama and Homer Simpson as one of the heroes of our age. Failing to acknowledge his tireless philanthropy would be like saying unkind things about Mother Teresa; you'd have to be mad, or Donald Findlay, to contemplate it.

It is not as if you can accuse Geldof of short-termism. His belligerence on behalf of Africa has been going strong for 20 years. Nor do I doubt his sincerity. I do, however, find his competitive shock tactics tasteless. "I have seen things no human should ever see," is his mantra, while recounting the horrors in stomach-churning detail. It is as if he has a monopoly on moral outrage and the rest of us are just amoral half-wits, sitting around watching Big Brother and eating chips while Africa starves.

Part of my unease comes from the imperialism which underpins a lot of what Geldof and his supporters say. They speak of the West "allowing" Africa to starve. There is much talk of "saving Africa".

We don't hear much about the West "allowing" North Koreans to starve. There is no acknowledgement that Africa is a continent of 53 countries, with varying levels of prosperity, resources and political stability.

This portrayal of "Africa" as a single entity - a homogenous mass of suffering and starvation- is a patronising myth with heart-of-darkness overtones.

The second myth is the idea that the West is able to fix it, whatever "it" is. The West has, indeed, been part of the problem - but only part. We can all think of African nations which have managed to wreck their economies very effectively without any help from outsiders.

But, as Sudan and Zimbabwe demonstrate only too well, the West is impotent in the face of mass injustice and wide-scale corruption. When the West does intervene in the form of the United Nations, it is invariably ineffective. It is not in our gift to "fix Africa", and it is arrogant and stupid to think it is.

Then there is the illogicality of people who marched against western intervention in Iraq, marching for western intervention in Africa.

What the situation needs is rationality and knowledge. What it is getting is sentimentality and ignorance. You may not be able to find Chad on a map, you may think the IMF sells fitted kitchens; it doesn't matter. As Geldof famously said: "Just give us the f****** money." He could have added: and don't ask any awkward questions such as why, despite Nigeria's oil bonanza, the average Nigerian is poorer now than he was in 1970.

The last time I felt this out of step was in the aftermath of the death of Diana, and there are similarities in the manipulation of public sentiment. It is no longer enough to feel; you have to be seen to feel. Going on the Make Poverty History march, which Geldof seems to have completely hijacked, is a cipher for showing you care. The corollary being that if you don't go, you can't care.

Then there is the biggest myth of all; the myth that our affluence results in other people's poverty. There is an assumption by many of the genuinely good and altruistic members of the Make Poverty History brigade that economics is a zero sum game and that wealth is in some way finite.

It's not. The only way to make poverty history is through the creation of wealth, and the only people who can do it are those needing to pull themselves out of poverty. Wealth is based on productivity, and productivity is endlessly expandable.

Take the example of JK Rowling. Her vast fortune has not been acquired at the expense of anyone else. It has been generated from nothing more than an idea. Nobody suffered while Rowling amassed her riches but many people have been helped by her doing so.

Capitalism - wealth creation - is the answer to developing countries' problems, not the cause of them. The refusal to believe this forms the basis of much muddle-headed thinking. It's why we end up with well-meaning, cheap western food aid depressing the price of locally-grown produce in developing countries and forcing farmers on a borderline subsistence economy into poverty.

Famine has little to do with natural disaster, acts of God, rich people in the West eating too many burgers or even lack of food. Famine is nearly always the result of political decisions. The biggest famine on earth, when 30 million starved in China between 1958 and 1961, was caused by the imposition of Marxist theory on peasant agriculture.

THE final myth which is perpetrated by the Make Poverty History brigade is that nothing is getting better; that while the West continues to focus on the generation of wealth, the rest of the world will inevitably starve.

But according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, almost a quarter of the world's population went hungry in 1950; today, only 10 per cent do. That is 10 per cent too many, but it is proof of how wealth generation helps to feed the world's poorest.

I am not averse to a bit of celebrity altruism, and Geldof certainly deserves credit for raising awareness. But his approach lacks the focus of Jamie Oliver's excellent and effective school-dinners campaign.

Interestingly, Oliver used the internet as a safe and effective way of drumming up support for what he was doing. In an era of global communication, mobilising bodies on the streets seems anachronistic.

If you base a campaign around the internet, as opposed to Princes Street, at least people in African nations can get involved and African involvement in this scheme is crucial if it is to be about more than woolly western idealism. Besides, you wouldn't have to worry about the lack of Portaloos.

I would have more sympathy with Geldof's initiative if his schemes were less grandiose, if he focused on smaller, specific problems which could make a tangible difference in the short term - a free press in nations where the media is muzzled; a programme to support universities in African countries or a concerted effort to get HIV medication to those who need it.

Where Geldof is right is that doing nothing is not an option. But marching is the easy answer; finding a way of making a more meaningful contribution is harder.

On 2 July, I will read Martin Meredith's book, The State of Africa: 50 Years of Independence, plan a holiday in an African country and find a project in Zambia, where my African nieces live, to which I can give long-term support. Alternative constructive suggestions would be gratefully received.

More importantly, I will stay out of the centre of Edinburgh and let the workers get to their offices.

They, after all, are playing the most vital role in keeping poverty at bay - creating wealth.

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP