I didn't watch the Live8 on the grounds that I knew that it would just wind me up. I fail to see that x million people turning up for a free gig represents anything other than the fact that if you give something away people will take it. If people had to pay £50 a head for the tickets, cash would have been raised and the attendence would have been substantially lower. I wonder how many of them were wearing their £100 pair of trainers made in an African sweatshops by children? The performers and artists and celebrities have all given a day or two of their time and can feel good about themselves (yes I think that there are a few who really do care but I suspect that most of them couldn't name the G8 either.)
It won't put any pressure on the G8 leaders because they are only too well aware that 50% of the crowd don't know who the G8 and 95% will not give a f*ck in three months time. There are 60,000 homeless and 1 million people living below the poverty line in this country - so just how much do we really care? Or is it that Gordon Brown just wanted to pretend to be Prime Minister and so goes all the way out there to give away several billion pounds of charity, when there are pensioners in the UK who paid that tax money over the years and are now struggling to make ends meet.
Africa's problems are manyfold and a simplistic view of debt relief really doesn't go anywhere near them. By far the worst is the hypocracy and two facedness of the western world, which holds out platitudes in the one hand and self interest in the other. Zimbabwe was a prosperous country that exported food 5 years ago, now it only survives on aid because of the criminal activities of its leadership. Still, that didn't stop Mugabe being invited to the funeral of the old Pope and the enthrowning of the new one - and this is supposedly a moral organisation! Tony Blair wants to be responsible for bringing the Olympics to the UK and so his government refused to tell the English cricket team not to go to Zimbabwe even though it wouldn't have cost them a penny to do so, it would have just cost Olympic votes.
Then of course there is trade. Africa is unable to export agricultural products to the Western world because the Common Agricultural policy and US farm subsidies price them out of the market. Neither of these are going to dissappear and so land in Africa is turned over to cash crops that will not feed anyone.
An international ban on arms sales to Africa would be great. Two years ago Ethopia waged a war against Eritrea for 90 days, at the cost of around 1 million pounds a day. And at the same time told the world that it needed 30 million to stave off a famine. Yes they could, in time, develop their own arms manufacturing but that would take a great deal of time and without external expertise it would be extremely difficult. However given that both France and Russia signed deals with one Saddam Hussain to come into force the moment the sactions were lifted, I have limited hope that such an embargo would ever come into effect.
Then of course we have the HIV and aids problem. More thanks here to the Catholic church and its stance on birth control, but we should also remember some special praise for President Mbecki of South Africa who declares it to be a social problem and not a disease, and his Home Secretary whose name escapes me but she has publically declared that the drugs are expensive cons and that traditional remedies of root ginger and garlic are just as effective.
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A Voice of Cynicism Part 1
Date: 2005-07-04 04:00 pm (UTC)I didn't watch the Live8 on the grounds that I knew that it would just wind me up. I fail to see that x million people turning up for a free gig represents anything other than the fact that if you give something away people will take it. If people had to pay £50 a head for the tickets, cash would have been raised and the attendence would have been substantially lower. I wonder how many of them were wearing their £100 pair of trainers made in an African sweatshops by children? The performers and artists and celebrities have all given a day or two of their time and can feel good about themselves (yes I think that there are a few who really do care but I suspect that most of them couldn't name the G8 either.)
It won't put any pressure on the G8 leaders because they are only too well aware that 50% of the crowd don't know who the G8 and 95% will not give a f*ck in three months time. There are 60,000 homeless and 1 million people living below the poverty line in this country - so just how much do we really care? Or is it that Gordon Brown just wanted to pretend to be Prime Minister and so goes all the way out there to give away several billion pounds of charity, when there are pensioners in the UK who paid that tax money over the years and are now struggling to make ends meet.
Africa's problems are manyfold and a simplistic view of debt relief really doesn't go anywhere near them. By far the worst is the hypocracy and two facedness of the western world, which holds out platitudes in the one hand and self interest in the other. Zimbabwe was a prosperous country that exported food 5 years ago, now it only survives on aid because of the criminal activities of its leadership. Still, that didn't stop Mugabe being invited to the funeral of the old Pope and the enthrowning of the new one - and this is supposedly a moral organisation! Tony Blair wants to be responsible for bringing the Olympics to the UK and so his government refused to tell the English cricket team not to go to Zimbabwe even though it wouldn't have cost them a penny to do so, it would have just cost Olympic votes.
Then of course there is trade. Africa is unable to export agricultural products to the Western world because the Common Agricultural policy and US farm subsidies price them out of the market. Neither of these are going to dissappear and so land in Africa is turned over to cash crops that will not feed anyone.
An international ban on arms sales to Africa would be great. Two years ago Ethopia waged a war against Eritrea for 90 days, at the cost of around 1 million pounds a day. And at the same time told the world that it needed 30 million to stave off a famine. Yes they could, in time, develop their own arms manufacturing but that would take a great deal of time and without external expertise it would be extremely difficult. However given that both France and Russia signed deals with one Saddam Hussain to come into force the moment the sactions were lifted, I have limited hope that such an embargo would ever come into effect.
Then of course we have the HIV and aids problem. More thanks here to the Catholic church and its stance on birth control, but we should also remember some special praise for President Mbecki of South Africa who declares it to be a social problem and not a disease, and his Home Secretary whose name escapes me but she has publically declared that the drugs are expensive cons and that traditional remedies of root ginger and garlic are just as effective.