Bono edited the May 16 edition of the London Independent. The purpose was to focus attention on Africa and Aids. But there wasn’t a mention of Make Poverty History.
MPH was wound up four months ago. It limped quietly out of existence, like millions of children whose plight it had used to enhance the image of politicians and celebrities.
The MPH high point came at Gleneagles last July when an insulting offer to the Third World was, to the joy of the rulers of the rich West but the chagrin of long-time anti-poverty campaigners, hailed by Bono and Bob Geldof as a breakthrough.
The Bono edition of the Indy was a repeat performance. It included a feature in which Big Oil war-monger Condoleezza Rice selected ten favourite records – Mozart, Brahms, Cream, etc., until she reached No. 7:
‘U2. Anything. Founded in 1976, U2 have regularly topped the record charts since the late 1980s. The band have sold 130 million albums and had six No 1 albums in the US and nine in the UK. One of the most successful groups of all time. Rice, a big fan, is happy to listen to any of their tunes...’
What a world of dizzy unreality Bono must live in, to print that and then fail to expire from embarrassment.
Stella McCartney interviewed Giorgio Armani about the RED sunglasses he has ‘specially designed’ which can be yours for £72, around £14 of which will go to a Good Cause. My mate Big Joe who has a stall on Saturdays near Magazine Gate can do you specs which NOBODY can tell from Giorgio’s for as little as a fiver and no questions asked. He says he’ll have ‘the red boyos’ in by next weekend. Buy from Big Joe, donate £28 to charity, he’ll make a few shillings, you’ll be quids in, and the charity will be twice as well off. It’s a win-win-win-win situation. Plus, cool people won’t be sniggering at you for paying £72 for shades which look exactly like Big Joe’s.
The centrepiece of the paper was a ‘conference call’ between Bono and Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in which they “discuss(ed) their shared vision for the prospects of the continent...” We may wonder in passing what, apart from an ego-trip, they were on when they conjured this vision.
Bono to Brown: “Chancellor, I’ve just got back from a trip to Washington, where your announcement of $15bn over 10 years for education for the poorest of the poor created a real reverberation. Are you worried that some of your other G8 partners and finance ministers are not coming up with new initiatives to match this...?”
Bono to Blair: “Prime Minister, I just want to take you to a more personal place in your trips to this terrible beauty that we call Africa, to an inspiring moment, a person you have met, or a moment of despair.”
Not a single African writer appeared in the publication.
What leapt from its pages were images by star snapper Sam Taylor-Wood of passive, patient suffering Africa, the same images as were presented in classrooms back in the days we brought in pennies for the Black Babies all waiting with winsome eyes for the white folks to come save them.
Bono didn’t include a mention of the arms trade or colonialism or the rape of the continent by multi-nationals or of anything which might besmirch the role or ruffle the reputation of the global corporations he’s embedded with.
Not a syllable about the millions of Africans struggling with incredible courage against poverty-makers enforcing the agenda of interests he’s attached to.
We should count ourselves lucky the end of MPH wasn’t marked by a photo-feature depicting himself and Sir Geldof before a flag proclaiming ‘Mission Accomplished.’ George Bush would surely have lent them the banner he had stretched across that aircraft carrier. After all, he doesn’t have much use for it any more.
As soon as the RED Indy hit the street, Bono was off on safari, accompanied by a troupe of journalists and a tangle of television camera crews. The coverage has been positively ecstatic.
In Nigeria, Bono was joined by Gordon Brown. Said Bono of Brown: “He is a source of hope.” Said Brown of Bono: “Bono inspires.”
Says I of the pair of them: “Ah, for fuck’s sake.”
On April 21st, Nigeria paid $6.4 billion in debt repayments to rich countries. The UK Treasury was the largest beneficiary, pocketing £900 million. That was in addition to £800 million paid by Nigeria to the UK in January.
Martin Powell of the World Development Movement commented: “This money should be returned immediately to Nigeria where it can save lives. This is hypocrisy on the grandest scale.”
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who was positive about MPH last year, has written to Brown asking him to return Britain’s portion of the Nigeria payment. “For rich creditors to be claiming such a vast amount of Nigeria’s savings at this time smacks of a meanness of spirit which stands in stark contrast with so many of the sentiments expressed in 2005.”
(The text of Tutu’s letter to Brown is at: www.wdm.org.uk/campaigns/debt/tutuletter.pdf)
The great Pom Boyd walked on stage one night in Dublin and began, “Mother Teresa? She’d ate ya.”
Now, it’s bite-back time.
Nashville baker Bob Bernstein arrived for work one recent morning to discover that a thief in the night had nicked his cinnamon bun.
Bob’s bun had mysteriously been removed from its place in the front window of the Bonga Java Coffee Shop, where, preserved in shellac, it had been on display since 1996 when a (Protestant) customer noticed an uncanny resemblance between the bun and Mother Teresa.
Bob has reverently recognised the pious significance of the pastry for potential customers. Bonga Java has met the demand for t-shirts, prayer-cards, dish-cloths, key-rings, mugs and numerous other products featuring images of the amazing bun.
“This wasn’t an opportunist break-in,” a grim-faced Bob told local reporters. “The raiders went straight for the bun.”
Local police held out little hope the bun would be recovered. Said a spokesman: “The people who did this would have been capable of eating the bun.”
Damien McDaid’s allegations to the Morris Tribunal havn’t hit the headlines.
Mr. Daid related that in April 2000 he had been visited in Limerick Prison by two officers from the Carty team, who offered to spring him if he’d give perjured confirming that Frank McBrearty had murdered Richie Barron four years earlier.
The Carty team was investigating how the original garda inquiry had arrived at the false conclusion that Mr. Barron had been murdered by Mr. McBrearty. Damien McDaid was suggesting that officers under Carty were doing exactly the opposite – not seeking to root out corruption but commissioning further perjury to cover the corruption up.
I would be more confident Morris will get to the bottom of this, were it not that some witnesses to Morris have gained the impression that tribunal officials were encouraging them to tell less than the full truth.
Anybody who thinks that this mess will be sorted out through the arrival of Kathleen O’Toole to oversee the gardai doesn’t understand the depth of the problem.