The only African’s that people are going to pay any attention to on this are Black Africans. Sad, but true.
I expect to get flamed for it, but it’s the same thing that got a (forget the state) High School student suspended for trying to get his South African (Caucasian) friend nominated for “African-American Student of the Month” in February of 04.
Most American’s think of Africa as a continent peopled by “blacks”.
I’m feeling your pain seeing a collection of fatuous imbeciles giving it chapter and verse on third world debt at a concert. That said, I think you’re way off in your dismissal of the role the Live8 events will play in getting people to think about global poverty. Futile Gesture has it right, if it gets third world debt on the political agenda then what does it matter that we have to listen to pompous fucktards like Bob Geldof and Bono offering their “analysis” of the situation? Most people are probably quite happy to hear Bono’s thoughts on the matter, come to think of it. I’m really struggling to see how this can be criticised.
Well yeah. But not having a lot of African acts makes the whole thing more of a “we’re doing it for them” dealie than a “we’re doing it for us”. The latter is much less patronizing than the former.
Plus, Africa has some slamming artists.
Thanks for the clarification.
One of the problems I have with Live * is that is perpetuates the idea that somehow the West is responsible for the dire condition of many of these African countries. Debt relief will not solve their problems, their problems are generally of their own making, or more accurately their governments making.
If you interpret “you can help” as equivalent to “it’s your fault,” then sure. I won’t get into the question of how much responsibility the West does bear for the shape Africa is in; it’s not like slavery, propping up dictatorships, and so on helped matters, but debating that wouldn’t do anything to help the current situation.
Getting back to the OP, West’s remarks are stupid embarrassing. It’s too bad Pete Townshend wasn’t there to hit him with a guitar. 
I thought it was remarkably good for that sort of slickly-produced rap, definitely a step up from the pack in terms of clever lyrics and thematic diversity.
Of course, that doesn’t mean he’s not batshit insane.
So they were free concerts, right? Why not make them $20 admission concerts, and raise a bit of money as well as “raising awareness”?
Presumably the concerts did raise some money, though. They were broadcast, live and delayed, around the world, often in primetime. Presumably, then, they raised many millions in advertising revenue etc. So where is all this money going? Is it being donated to African causes?
I think there’s a Live8 Foundation. If I’m right, I presume the money will be used for publicity to continue raising awareness and such. I’ve got mixed feelings on that idea, but since everybody from Dopers up through Geldof himself have said just raising money wouldn’t help - it’d just be snapped up by corrupt govenments and do little for the people - it makes some sense at least.
… that no one’s heard of and won’t therefore go to a concert to see.
What a fuckwit
Hey, sending big bucketloads of cash to Africa isn’t a good idea, of course. But there are charities / foundations / programs that really make a difference that could do with some money. And presumably you can donate many millions of dollars to a good cause while also raising awareness etc. Just reabsorbing all this cash back into the organization strikes me as corrupt at worst, ultimately pointless at best.
I don’t know for a fact that’s what’s happening. I mean, I don’t know how much money the shows ultimately made when you take out the money needed to put on a set of concerts that huge and pay all the big (and little) names and such, yada yada. That’s just my guess. I don’t think corrupt is a good word for it if it’s being spent as part of continuing work for their cause. They went out of their way to say they weren’t collecting money for charity, and if the people running it actually realize that a one-shot event won’t solve the problem, so much the better. I don’t see a clear answer to “where’d the money go?” on the Live8 site.
Goddamn, was that fucking ignorant. I don’t think anybody would disagree that many (if not most) African nations have governements and leaders that are doing much to fuck up their respective countries. But if you knew jack shit about the West’s policies in Africa - hell, the West’s policies just within the past hundred, or 50, or 25 years - you’d have to be some kind of pathetic ideologue not to recognize the role we’ve played in ensuring they remain fucked. But what am I saying? You’ve obviously done enough rigorous studies on the problem to conclude that debt relief would be a waste of time, right? I’m sure you’ve got a much better solution. Dick.
You have evidence of African governments creating malaria and AIDS I take it?
You’ve done a study of West/African trade agreements over the last 50 years?
You’ve analysed the effect of colonial policies prior to that?
You’ve measured military selling to Africa by Western companies?
Or are you just speaking as an ignorant arse?
There was no money – they didn’t want any. It was even in their slogan.
In the UK at least, ticket allocation was done by a text-message lottery, with each message costing the sender £1.50. In the UK there were about 2 million entries, and I know that the UK network operators waived their fees, which makes the rough cost of the 150,000 tickets lotteried about £20 each. There were also 26.4 million “messages of support” sent worldwide, but I have no idea if they cost the same amount. So it’s not true to say that there was no revenue generated by the gigs; it just mostly went on costs, as far as I’m aware.
Ignorance speaks.
I’ve seen both Ali Farka Toure and Habib Koite, both of whom can fill concert halls with ease. Toure won a Grammy for best album a few years ago for “Talking Timbuktu” with Ry Cooder. Then there is Slalif Keita, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba, just to name a few more “unknown” African artists.
You’re talking out your ass.
Bono is nothing if not pompous, but I actually have a good deal of respect for his own contribution to these causes - he’s devoted a lot of time and energy to increasing awareness and he’s managed to get politicians to at least make a show of listening. I also have no doubt that he’s informed in the matter.
But like I said in my previous post - I fail to see how this will make any difference in getting debt relief on the agenda any more than it already is.
Well, as the OP demonstrates, it’s providing a forum for uninformed idiots to spread lies about AIDS. I’m plenty happy to criticize that. That’s my point - it can be actively harmful to encourage people to listen to morons’ opinions on matters they don’t understand. If this encourages paranoia and distracts people from the actual AIDS crisis in Africa, then it’s done harm. Lying to people is harmful; providing a forum that legitimizes lies among people who don’t know much about the issues is harmful.
Thank you, you expressed that better than I could.
Wow, what an amazingly either/or mentality you seem to have. It wouldn’t be possible to have a program of both popular western artists and little known African musicians? Wouldn’t some international attention to African music (and dollars spent on CDs) have at least some small positive effect on the program?
Yeah, it had nothing to do with the systematic exploitation of their people and resources for hundreds of years by Europe, or the deliberate fomenting of ethnic hatred by colonial powers, or the way the continent was randomly sliced and diced when the colonizers left, or the fact that people were left to try to craft a government without the resources to build basic infrastructure, or the post-colonialist pattern of propping up dictators, or the diamond trade, or tremendously destructive austerity programs that prohibit these countries from spending money on things like education and AIDS prevention.
Nope. It’s 'cause black folk can’t govern themselves!
Lack of perspective and proportion speaks.
How many stadiums have these guys ever filled? There are orders of magnitude here you are ignoring. I’m not knocking African musicians, I’ve been to concerts put on by some of them. In 3/4 filled halls holding a few thousand. Not stadiums with TV audiences of millions.
Excalibre, as I said, my point basically is that in principle I don’t see anything wrong with putting on a charity event that strives to achieve maximum exposure and fundraising capacity, and if that means not necessarily including acts just because they have a connection to the subject of the charity even though they don’t have massive pulling power, well that is a defensible decision.
There are limited slots at a concert. Every Pink Floyd you exclude so you can fit in a Slalif Keita means throwing away pulling power measured in the 10’s of thousands.
I can see how including some African acts might have been good. But it’s a judgment decision. What I don’t agree with is the suggestion that Geldof’s decision to go for pure pulling power is obviously indefensible.