G8 SUMMIT: Live 8 Emotion Imperfect but an Impetus

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Analysis - by Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Jul 3 2005 (IPS) - The film clip played at the Live 8 concert at Hyde Park in London was meant, of course, only briefly to look like more of the same: the malnourished African child trying to feed off a more malnourished mother; the predictable end to the clip with a close-up of what appeared like a dying child.

Rock star Bob Geldof, who had put together the Live 8 concerts in London and several G8 countries, had for a moment the predictable thing to say. It was "grotesque that in this world of plenty anyone should die of want," he came on stage to declare just after the clip ended. And he rolled out some of the horrifying statistics that Africa generates. "Most children in Africa will go to bed hungry tonight, like every night."

But not, it turned out, like the last suffering child in that film clip. That child was saved, and wrote an agricultural exam in Ethiopia last week. And in a supreme moment of triumph for Bob Geldof, the girl appeared, radiant and smiling, to be given a big hug on stage by the singer Madonna.

People must have read the cynical remarks in the media about concerts like these, and how little they achieve, Geldof said. But people who had provided for Ethiopia after all those appeals during its famine 20 years ago had saved that girl, he said. The presentation of the Ethiopian girl was his answer to critics. "Don’t let them tell you this doesn’t work," Geldof said.

And yet, the appearance of the girl at the Hyde Park Live 8 was a picture also of changed aid concerts. Unlike previous events, the Live 8 concerts were not out to raise money, but to raise consciousness. The new consciousness, it was argued, could in turn pressure governments into giving more aid for Africa.

This marked a triumph of emotion over economic arguments, because given starvation scenarios in several parts of Africa, people and nations need to continue to give. And no doubt the concerts were getting hundreds of millions of people living in the world of plenty at least to think Africa, something few of them might have done otherwise. Estimates of the numbers watching on television ranged from two to five billion people.

When Madonna hugged the girl from Ethiopia, it might have appeared a symbolic embrace of the African potential by a new West. And the hug could have been a demonstration of the failure of dour governmental and financial arguments; how many economists have ever embraced Africa? But there was enough even in these emotive moments to suggest that they could go that far, and no further.

"Are you ready, London?" Madonna announced. "Are you ready to start a revolution? Are you ready to change history?" Brave words, but made a little hollow by others she followed up with. Would she do concerts in Africa? Does she like Africa? She knew about Africa, she said, from Bill Clinton and others. And, "I do have friends who go there."

Madonna admitted she had not immediately said yes to appearing at the concert. But she did finally see that "it is a bigger issue than my personal problems".

And former Beatle Paul McCartney, coaxed by the BBC to talk Africa, said that the statistic that hit him hardest was that 50,000 children die every day in Africa. "If that happened in England we’d do something about it," he said. It would, he added, be like everyone who had come to the concert dying in four days flat. And he went on to talk about other singers and the new music.

When a pop star is shocked, millions of fans could follow into that state of shock, for a few moments anyhow. But only by way of painting yet more pictures of Africa as a sorry and struggling place that the West in conscience must do more for; this time as taxpayers wanting to influence where their money goes, rather than opening purse strings separately.

By the end of the concert Africa did appear a more sorry place, and if that was the aim, the Live8 events did succeed.. The largest likely shift in perception could be a dubious one: from ignorance of Africa to pity for it.

The juxtaposition of rock music and Africa brought a popular way of conveying a political and humanitarian message. On the other hand there were moments – many of them – when it seemed also that suffering and deprivation were being trivialised by rock music. The very film clip on starving Ethiopians played out to the accompaniment of rock music was hardly made more harmonious by the presentation of an individual’s success story out of Ethiopia.

It meant that you could be tapping your feet while watching people starve. Rock music and images of emaciated humanity were always going to make for an uneasy medley. In no time at all Madonna, who had embraced Ethiopia, was introduced by Geldof as "the queen bee of rock music", and a couple of hundred thousand people at Hyde Park had switched back from a tearful scene to swinging rock music fans.

The rock music had ensured the fans were there, the Africa scenes on stage that they were getting a message. And if they were getting the message, so would their leaders. So that they would not do something for Africa because they should, but for the sake of their own people.

How many people remain touched is uncertain. How long the concern lasts is doubtful. That evoking feelings of pity and charity towards Africa is the best way to assist the continent is dubious.

But there is no doubt the concerts placed Africa a little more on the minds of hundreds of millions, if not a billion or two people. And there can be no doubt that that is immeasurably better than doing nothing.