LiveAid - the kind of help that ultimately harms
23 July, 2010 | The Daily Maverick
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As LiveAid marks 25 years comes news that a movie will be made
about Sir Bob Geldof, the man who made “kwashiorkor kid” the
poster child for Africa, reducing a diverse continent into a
terrifyingly simple cliché. It’s touted as a film about a man who
could “think the unthinkable and achieve the seemingly
impossible".
Bob came home to find girlfriend Paula Yates sobbing over Buerk’s
piece on feeding camps in Eritrea and decided to rescue Africa, or
Ethiopia to begin with. Buerk would later say his report was "one of the
most influential pieces of television ever broadcast”. It was influential
enough to transform Buerk into a celebrity journalist and to rescue
Geldof from what would later become a miserable solo career. What
LiveAid did for Africa though is another story.
The BBC movie of Geldof’s life will undoubtedly set the man up as
some sort of messianic saviour battling unspeakable odds to deliver
charitable redemption to skeletal children with flies in the corner of their
eyes. The film makers describe the television movie as "humorous,
warm, tension-filled and ultimately deeply moving." Called “When
Harvey met Bob” it will tell of how Geldof and music promoter Harvey
Goldsmith gathered 70 of the world’s top acts to perform
simultaneously at the John F Kennedy stadium in Philadelphia and
Wembley Stadium in London. Watched by 2 billion people in 60
countries, the broadcasts would help raise £150 million for Ethiopian
famine relief. (And don't forget Phil Collins's Concorde flight across the
pond so he could perform at both concerts.)
Geldof is still deeply sentimental about the event. Writing for UK tabloid
The Sun Geldof told the people of England to be proud because they
had led the fight to help the world’s poorest for more than 25 years. In
the piece Geldof says the UK can claim credit for cancelling the debt
borne by the “poorest of the poor”; for sending 42 million children to
school for the first time and for ensuring 3.8 million “of the poorest,
most ill people in the world get free medicine”.
“This country's word is its bond. See, we can change things if we put
our mind to it. At least for some people. At least for the most vulnerable
and hurt in our world. We can do that. We proved it. Well done us,” he
opined. Geldof obviously didn’t read CIA documents or see a BBC
investigation that showed LiveAid money had been channelled to buy
arms for anti-government rebel forces and that this further fuelled the
very humanitarian crisis the charity was supposed to stem.
While Sir Bob was slapping himself and everyone in the UK on the back
for fighting the good fight, Simon Anholt, a leading expert on national
identity and nations’ brands spoke out about the damage Geldof had
done to Africa. Creator of the Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index
said Geldof’s relentless depiction of Africa as a single, hopeless basket
case had harmed the long-term development prospects of the entire
continent.
“I have often commented about the unintended damage done to the
international standing and, consequently, the long-term prospects of
poorer countries by well-intentioned charity promotion, and in particular
the negative ‘branding’ of Africa by aid celebrities like Geldof and
Bono,” said Anholt. “In order to continue to assist poorer countries,
donors feel it necessary to paint as distressed a picture as they can of
the recipient: Donor governments need to maintain the support of
domestic taxpayers by persuading them the cause is worthy, while
charities and other NGOs need to keep up the level of voluntary
donations. The more desperate they make the country appear, the more
successful their programmes will become.”
Anholt believes that in this way rich countries have exacted a high price
for charitable support that is often manifest in the hijacking and
degrading of a recipient country’s international image. “Using their vast
credibility, resources and media influence, donors project onto the
public imagination an unbroken stream of corrosively negative
information, images and emotions about the recipient country and its
population, to prove that no cause is more heart-rending, more urgent,
and more (nearly) hopeless. By the time their programme has moved on
to the next deserving cause, the country’s image may have been
blighted for generations, leaving a powerful psychological and emotional
disincentive to trade, investment, tourism and growth.”
Anholt maintains that foreign aid mechanisms corrode the economies of
recipient countries making it impossible for local producers to compete
equally and fairly against a steady stream of free food, goods and
money. “What we have failed to notice is how it also makes pariahs of
those countries in international public opinion, stealing their dignity as
proper states with history, culture, nature, wisdom, language, learning
and human endeavour by branding them as nothing more than victims
and beggars for decades to come. Instead of images of natural and
human beauty and variety, the ‘outside world’ is fed an unvarying diet
of conflict, starvation, disease and despair; a world of dust and misery.
Nothing could be more unhelpful for a country that needs to build an
economy through the stimulation of trade, tourism, investment and
productive cultural and political relations with other states.”
Geldof has played the Pied Piper in popularising this image of pathetic
Africa with begging bowl in hand. Hopefully at some stage he’ll pause
long enough to heed the call to stop hurting Africa. Maybe then he
would wake up one morning and do what needs to be done: work on
making Africa a partner of the world.
By Mandy de Waal
Read “Free trade - not aid - is path to prosperity for developing world”
in the Mail Online, “The Failure of the Live Aid Model” in the Wall
Street Journal and “Live Aid donations were diverted to arm Ethiopian
rebels”in The Times.
Courtesy
23 July, 2010 | The Daily Maverick
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As LiveAid marks 25 years comes news that a movie will be made
about Sir Bob Geldof, the man who made “kwashiorkor kid” the
poster child for Africa, reducing a diverse continent into a
terrifyingly simple cliché. It’s touted as a film about a man who
could “think the unthinkable and achieve the seemingly
impossible".
- “Dawn. And as the sun
breaks through the piercing
chill of night on the plain
outside Korem it lights up a
biblical famine, now in the
20th century. This place, say
workers here, is the closest
thing to hell on earth.” It was
this television news report by
BBC journalist Michael Buerk
that galvanised Bob Geldof
into saving Africa.
Bob came home to find girlfriend Paula Yates sobbing over Buerk’s
piece on feeding camps in Eritrea and decided to rescue Africa, or
Ethiopia to begin with. Buerk would later say his report was "one of the
most influential pieces of television ever broadcast”. It was influential
enough to transform Buerk into a celebrity journalist and to rescue
Geldof from what would later become a miserable solo career. What
LiveAid did for Africa though is another story.
The BBC movie of Geldof’s life will undoubtedly set the man up as
some sort of messianic saviour battling unspeakable odds to deliver
charitable redemption to skeletal children with flies in the corner of their
eyes. The film makers describe the television movie as "humorous,
warm, tension-filled and ultimately deeply moving." Called “When
Harvey met Bob” it will tell of how Geldof and music promoter Harvey
Goldsmith gathered 70 of the world’s top acts to perform
simultaneously at the John F Kennedy stadium in Philadelphia and
Wembley Stadium in London. Watched by 2 billion people in 60
countries, the broadcasts would help raise £150 million for Ethiopian
famine relief. (And don't forget Phil Collins's Concorde flight across the
pond so he could perform at both concerts.)
Geldof is still deeply sentimental about the event. Writing for UK tabloid
The Sun Geldof told the people of England to be proud because they
had led the fight to help the world’s poorest for more than 25 years. In
the piece Geldof says the UK can claim credit for cancelling the debt
borne by the “poorest of the poor”; for sending 42 million children to
school for the first time and for ensuring 3.8 million “of the poorest,
most ill people in the world get free medicine”.
“This country's word is its bond. See, we can change things if we put
our mind to it. At least for some people. At least for the most vulnerable
and hurt in our world. We can do that. We proved it. Well done us,” he
opined. Geldof obviously didn’t read CIA documents or see a BBC
investigation that showed LiveAid money had been channelled to buy
arms for anti-government rebel forces and that this further fuelled the
very humanitarian crisis the charity was supposed to stem.
While Sir Bob was slapping himself and everyone in the UK on the back
for fighting the good fight, Simon Anholt, a leading expert on national
identity and nations’ brands spoke out about the damage Geldof had
done to Africa. Creator of the Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index
said Geldof’s relentless depiction of Africa as a single, hopeless basket
case had harmed the long-term development prospects of the entire
continent.
“I have often commented about the unintended damage done to the
international standing and, consequently, the long-term prospects of
poorer countries by well-intentioned charity promotion, and in particular
the negative ‘branding’ of Africa by aid celebrities like Geldof and
Bono,” said Anholt. “In order to continue to assist poorer countries,
donors feel it necessary to paint as distressed a picture as they can of
the recipient: Donor governments need to maintain the support of
domestic taxpayers by persuading them the cause is worthy, while
charities and other NGOs need to keep up the level of voluntary
donations. The more desperate they make the country appear, the more
successful their programmes will become.”
Anholt believes that in this way rich countries have exacted a high price
for charitable support that is often manifest in the hijacking and
degrading of a recipient country’s international image. “Using their vast
credibility, resources and media influence, donors project onto the
public imagination an unbroken stream of corrosively negative
information, images and emotions about the recipient country and its
population, to prove that no cause is more heart-rending, more urgent,
and more (nearly) hopeless. By the time their programme has moved on
to the next deserving cause, the country’s image may have been
blighted for generations, leaving a powerful psychological and emotional
disincentive to trade, investment, tourism and growth.”
Anholt maintains that foreign aid mechanisms corrode the economies of
recipient countries making it impossible for local producers to compete
equally and fairly against a steady stream of free food, goods and
money. “What we have failed to notice is how it also makes pariahs of
those countries in international public opinion, stealing their dignity as
proper states with history, culture, nature, wisdom, language, learning
and human endeavour by branding them as nothing more than victims
and beggars for decades to come. Instead of images of natural and
human beauty and variety, the ‘outside world’ is fed an unvarying diet
of conflict, starvation, disease and despair; a world of dust and misery.
Nothing could be more unhelpful for a country that needs to build an
economy through the stimulation of trade, tourism, investment and
productive cultural and political relations with other states.”
Geldof has played the Pied Piper in popularising this image of pathetic
Africa with begging bowl in hand. Hopefully at some stage he’ll pause
long enough to heed the call to stop hurting Africa. Maybe then he
would wake up one morning and do what needs to be done: work on
making Africa a partner of the world.
By Mandy de Waal
Read “Free trade - not aid - is path to prosperity for developing world”
in the Mail Online, “The Failure of the Live Aid Model” in the Wall
Street Journal and “Live Aid donations were diverted to arm Ethiopian
rebels”in The Times.
Courtesy
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Watch: Michael Buerk's original report on famine in Ethiopia
Watch: Bob Geldof about his war on poverty
Watch: Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo about what's wrong with aid