Live 8
This brother was too young to remember "Live Aid" in 1985, lakini I have had good things about the concert that brought a number of international musciians together to raise awarness and money for famine relief in Ethiopia. According to figures I have seen kedo like $254.4 million was raised through the Live Aid concerts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Aid Well the organizer of Live Aid has organized a similar musical extravaganza, to be held simulatanously in 5 countries, to bring attention to the "Make Poverty History" campaign. The concerts are free and will be held on July 2 2005, about 6 days before the G8 countries meet in Scotland, for more info:
http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/media/index.shtml
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4594865.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4596885.stm
According to organizer Bob Geldof, the events shall be free and will aim to raise awareness and not money: "We don't want your money, we want you, because every few seconds a child dies needlessly of extreme poverty,Eight world leaders in one room in Scotland on the 8th of July can save millions and millions of lives, but they'll only do it if enough people tell them to."
If these concerts attract as much attention as the organizers hope (something like 2 million attending and 2 billion watching) it could serve to bring attention to very important issues affecting the world and Africa in particular, with speacial attention to the debt crisis. However, my greatest concern is that folks will simply ignore the calls for action, suffering from what some call: "Donor fatigue". But I wish them all the best, it is a worthy cause.
http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/media/index.shtml
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4594865.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4596885.stm
According to organizer Bob Geldof, the events shall be free and will aim to raise awareness and not money: "We don't want your money, we want you, because every few seconds a child dies needlessly of extreme poverty,Eight world leaders in one room in Scotland on the 8th of July can save millions and millions of lives, but they'll only do it if enough people tell them to."
If these concerts attract as much attention as the organizers hope (something like 2 million attending and 2 billion watching) it could serve to bring attention to very important issues affecting the world and Africa in particular, with speacial attention to the debt crisis. However, my greatest concern is that folks will simply ignore the calls for action, suffering from what some call: "Donor fatigue". But I wish them all the best, it is a worthy cause.
posted by Githush at
7:20 PM
6 Comments:
I'm all for raising awareness as well as money, but who decides what? I just have a fairly reflexive reaction to being "helped"...it often turns out to have strings that were previously unseen. Not that I have anything against Geldorf--this is a just a generalised cautionary statement.
I'm with WM above on this one. Don't you think it's about time Africans started putting their world in order by themselves, instead of relying on random musicians and politicians of the West ?
And, wouldn't have been nice if at least one African band or musicians was involved in this ?
And isn't it time we realised that aid will get Africa precisely nowhere ?
And lastly, why should we always be pitied and done things for
I'm going round in circles now so I'll stop.
NB: I like your blog
WM & Chep
I thank yall for the comments, sorry it took so long to reply,
I understand what both yall are saying, Africans do need to take matters into their own hands and demand change in the world and I totally agree with u on this.
However, we need all the help we can get, if we can bring African issues into the mainstream and foster critical debate of our issues on the media (especially in the US etc) we can move one step closer to bring the critical mass behind our issues, in order for concrete action to be taken by the G8.
We need all the help we can get.
I think it's a great thing, it gets people talking about the imbalance of wealth & oppertunity that we have in the world. If making Africa the "poster child" & focus of the whole discussion makes the people in power start caring, then so be it, their ignorance can be corrected once they're interested. I've grown up being bombarded with all this crap about caring about poverty and injustice and fuck all happening about it. If enough people think it's wrong, and we can fix it we need to make it happen. If the people in those countries don't love us for it, I don't give a shit, it's not a popularity contest.
The people in poor countries might frown on relying on "random rockstars", how do they think we feel having to rely on them instead of politicians in a so-called democracy ? It might be questionable how many people really care about the issue, but this is the 2nd major (Iraq war was the 1st) international protest in just over 2 years. I hope there's more & I hope they get bigger.
Hello friends from Africa!
I am from Argentina, and we have the same problems that yours...poverty, hungry, no jobs, no hopes...and here ( I don't know if in Africa too) we have corrupted politicians that works for the richest countries...
I think the concerts were good idea...but I think they won't make a difference. After all, it will just charity and no justice as they are asking for.
The other think that it made me feel hopeless is the fact the the concert was supported by people like the Finance minister of England (England!!) and Bill Gates, a businessman who built his fortune thanks to this capitalist systema that makes us so so poor.
I don't understand that.
Greetings from the south
María Laura
Why are you so surprised someone from Britian (not England) is in support of Live8? Are we really that cynical now? If no help is given, there's not enough help. Millions of people throw themselves behind this, clearly an attempt to help, and that just annoys people too. You can be as cynical as you like, but divisions based on political borders are just a flimsy construct of our feeble human minds. There are bad people everywhere, but equally, in every country, there really are good people who will genuinely support things such as this because it's genuinely the right thing to do.
I'm getting increasingly fed up with a world in which any sort of good will is immediately and cynically shot down as being somehow in the self interest of one or two politicians. If you think the hundreds of thousands of people who turned up to these concerts were there to help political careers and genuinely not because they feel something should be done, then fair enough, please do continue to live in what I can only assume is a very depressing mind set.
Otherwise, I hope everyone else can see through the usual tide of political motivations to see that all that's really happening here is people recognising other people need their help.
The day political borders stop influencing our perspective of humanity is the day....er...the day I hold a big party I guess.
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