The consensus of global public opinion demanding an end to rampant exploitation of the Third World reached a crescendo this year arguably greater than that inspired in 1985 by the Ethiopian famine.
Of course, the repetitious nature of the problem – as well as its apparent insolubility – ensures that the subject bores many people senseless. Still, the facts are heartbreakingly stark, and certainly worthy of contemplation as you sit down to your Christmas turkey. 30,000 children die every day as a result of hunger and malnutrition – real children, like yours or mine, everything that they are or could become wiped off the face of the earth as needlessly and senselessly as if they’d been run over by a truck.
No-one would suggest that this is the way the world is meant to be ordered. But it’s not inevitable, and if enough people make a racket about it, sometimes it gets heard. 2005 was one of those years when Joe Average could no longer rein in his anger: Drop The Debt, Make Poverty History and Live 8 were the results. The latter, co-ordinated by Bono and Bob Geldof, was a conscious attempt to re-enact the phenomenally huge ‘Live Aid’ extravaganza of 1985, and pretty enjoyable it was too. Sir Paul McCartney jammed with U2, Pete Doherty’s brief and shambolic appearance was as compelling as a train wreck, and the sight of Pink Floyd reuniting was profoundly touching.
Eamonn McCann has eloquently pursued the point in hotpress before that charitable endeavours like Live Aid serve only to deflect public anger, deluding us into the erroneous belief that something significant has been done. His thesis is very valid, insofar as the terms of debt repayment ensure that, overall, the Third World gives more money to the West on any given day than it receives from an endeavour such as Live 8. But anything which results in young kids asking their parents why Africans starve to keep Western bankers in caviar and champagne has to be a positive development. As was the G8's consequent announcement of a debt relief package worth $40million: it may have been forced on them, it may be begrudging and it certainly isn't enough, but it's a start.
It might have something to do with a US administration so openly hostile to the world outside its borders that they can no longer be arsed even pretending to care, but whatever the reason, these issues are preoccupying people more than ever before. Anti-Bush, anti-WTO, anti-G8 sentiment now seems to be more or less automatic among young people generally, in a way that has no recent parallel. These are tiny footsteps in the right direction, but the road has to start somewhere. In the face of the suffering and sighing and dying of our world, apathy is not an option. It doesn’t do to issue orders, but the Make Poverty History campaign deserves mass support. Yes, that means you. There's a card in our Xmas issue. Take care.