[Indymedia-jakarta] Critics Of Live 8

[amalia pulungan]

Subject: [jubileesouth] critics of live 8
>Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2005 08:21:12 +0100 (BST)
>
>http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jul2005/live-j11.shtml
>
>Live 8: Who organised the PR campaign for Blair and Bush?By Ann Talbot
>11 July 2005
>In what was dubbed "the final push," the last Live 8 concert took place in 
>Edinburgh on July 6 as heads of state assembled at Gleneagles for the G8 
>conference. A rain-soaked crowd of 50,000 heard Nelson Mandela say via 
>video link, "In this new century millions of people in the world's poorest 
>countries remain imprisoned and enslaved in chains. They are in the prison 
>of poverty. It's time to set them free."
>
>The Edinburgh concert marked the end of a truly massive media event. Five 
>million people are said to have logged on to AOL's live video stream of the 
>Saturday, July 2, concerts. Upward of a million people are said to have 
>attended the Live 8 events. Hundreds of millions are reported to have 
>watched the concerts on TV. A quarter of a million people marched through 
>the streets of Edinburgh.
>
>The scale of the Live 8 event was spectacular. But its essential aim was of 
>a far more politically sinister character than its altruistic pose would 
>suggest. It was organised and backed by individuals and organisations with 
>close ties to the Labour government of Tony Blair, and had the official 
>backing of the government itself. By boosting the pitiful debt relief 
>package agreed on by the G8 and hailing the proposals of Blair's own 
>Commission for Africa for aid and relief tied to free-market initiatives, 
>it set out to provide a much-needed mask of humanitarian concern to both 
>Blair and US President George W. Bush.
>
>The organisers of the event and its leading spokesmen-Bob Geldof and 
>Bono-both harked back to the legacy of Live Aid, Live 8's 1985 predecessor. 
>But whereas Live Aid raised millions of pounds to combat famine in 
>Ethiopia, they stressed that this time they did not want "your money." 
>Echoing Lord Kitchener's 1914 call for army recruits, they wanted "You!"
>
>However, this is not to say that no money changed hands. The 10 concerts 
>cost £25 million to stage. £1.6 million was paid to the Prince's Trust to 
>persuade that organisation to cancel its Party in the Park. Performers were 
>not paid, though those at the Philadelphia concert reportedly got gifts 
>worth £1,700. Perhaps the greatest payoff will be in the boost the concerts 
>give to record sales. Sir Paul McCartney's performance of "Sergeant 
>Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was on sale within hours. London record 
>shops reported a 1,000 percent increase in sales for Pink Floyd CDs the 
>next day. David Gilmour, Floyd's lead guitarist, immediately announced that 
>his share would go to charity, and some other artists followed suit. But 
>the royalties paid to artists are just a small proportion of the profits 
>made from sales by the record companies. And there have been no magnanimous 
>gestures from this quarter.
>
>Moreover, in a digital world, CD sales represent a declining section of the 
>market compared to sponsorship, broadcast rights and merchandising. Most of 
>the costs of the event will be recouped in this way, and it is here that 
>much of the profit and relatively cheap and phenomenally lucrative 
>publicity will be sought. Naked commercialism was evident in even the most 
>ostensibly charitable aspects of the operation. White "Make Poverty 
>History" wristbands have been one of the most visible emblems of the 
>campaign. From the start, they have been surrounded by controversy. It has 
>been reported that some of these wristbands were made in Chinese 
>sweatshops.
>
>Journalist Stuart Hodkinson revealed in Red Pepper magazine that some of 
>the wristbands were being sold with the logos of companies that are accused 
>of violating workers' rights. This included fashion company Tommy Hilfiger, 
>accused by Stephen Coats, Executive Director of the US/Labor Education in 
>the Americas Project of being "at the bottom of the list in demonstrating 
>refusal to accept responsibility for the way workers are treated." The 
>offending wristbands were being sold at shops owned by Scottish millionaire 
>Tom Hunter, who has pledged £1 million to the Make Poverty History 
>campaign.
>
>However, Hunter is a relatively small player compared to some of the 
>corporate enterprises that have been signed up. The backing that Live 8 has 
>won from media mogul Rupert Murdoch is just one indication that a massive 
>business machine has been set in motion. Murdoch's British tabloid the Sun 
>gave the event enthusiastic support, although it is not a paper noted for 
>its interest in Africa or liberal causes. It is, however, a key supporter 
>of Blair.
>
>The Murdoch and Live 8 connections are close. Elisabeth Murdoch, Rupert 
>Murdoch's daughter, is married to Matthew Freud, one of the organisers. 
>Freud runs a leading public relations company that is, according to the 
>Financial Times, one of the most influential in the UK. It has the largest 
>media and entertainment client list in the country, with clients including 
>famous actors and major companies such as AOL-of which more later. He and 
>his wife also have connections to the Blair government. They sit on various 
>government committees, and his company, Freud Communications, has organised 
>events for both the government and the Labour Party.
>
>Freud's sister, Emma, is married to Richard Curtis, the 
>writer/director/producer responsible for Love Actually, the Bridget Jones 
>movies, Notting Hill, Mr Bean and Four Weddings and a Funeral. His latest 
>film, The Girl in the Café, is a love story set at a fictional G8 
>conference, and is supposed to show how ordinary people of conscience can 
>persuade the political establishment to do good. He is among those who 
>founded the charity Comic Relief in the wake of Live Aid. Curtis has been 
>one of the main organisers of Live 8. He is said to be particularly close 
>to Chancellor Gordon Brown, who featured sympathetically as a barely 
>disguised character in his latest movie.
>
>Geldof's production company, Ten Alps, which provided the two big screens 
>in Hyde Park, is also closely associated with the government. It owns 70 
>percent of Teachers TV, which makes programmes for the Department for 
>Education and Skills. Last year, it enjoyed a 400 percent increase in 
>profits. Ten Alps is positioning itself to become one of the key 
>independent television companies in Britain. The high profile that Live 8 
>has given it can only enhance the company's international exposure.
>
>Live 8 offered an unprecedented marketing opportunity. Nokia and Volvo were 
>among the major corporate sponsors. Volvo spokesman Soren Johansson said 
>the event "fits with the DNA of the company" and "appeals to people's 
>emotions."
>
>AOL ran live video streaming, billing Live 8 as "the day music changed the 
>world." The general opinion was that video streaming had proved its 
>commercial value. Live 8 may indeed have changed the world or at least that 
>part of it that comes under the heading of advertising.
>
>ABC in the US was disappointed that its coverage netted only 2.9 million 
>viewers because the lineup had been aimed at "boomers," who would likely be 
>at home on a Saturday night. But as one media expert said, the advertising 
>was already paid for.
>
>Although some of the charities affiliated to Make Poverty History had 
>expressed their alarm over the scandal surrounding the wristbands, the 
>commercial orientation of the campaign was no secret. The Live 8 web site 
>still offers a link to AOL's music download service.
>
>Despite its appearance, Live 8 was not a protest. It was a pro-government 
>rally. Both Blair and his Chancellor Gordon Brown closely associated 
>themselves with Live 8. Brown spoke on a charity platform in Edinburgh the 
>evening before the Make Poverty History rally that was supposed to be 
>putting pressure on him! As part of the buildup to the concerts, Blair gave 
>an hour-long interview on MTV sitting alongside Geldof and fielding 
>questions from Destiny's Child.
>
>The Notting Hill glitterati "did good" for Blair if no one else. As an 
>effusive Observer journalist said, "By first light today, a world majority 
>will have offered Tony Blair a significant mandate for change."
>
>We are now being asked to believe that attending a concert, or merely 
>watching it on television, confers a democratic mandate. The Blair 
>government was elected by only 20 percent of UK voters. It has the lowest 
>mandate of any British government in history. The slogan of the campaign 
>might as well have been "Make Elections History."
>
>Even the arrangements for the concerts, with their separate enclosures for 
>celebrities, spoke of the essentially elitist conception of Live 8. This 
>was an elitism based not on the traditional values of the British ruling 
>class, but on the new global super-rich who are close to the Labour 
>government, and who have made their base in London with its sympathetic tax 
>laws. Black African musicians of considerable talent were relegated to a 
>side event in Cornwall, because they do not have the same commercial weight 
>as the acts booked for the Hyde Park event.
>
>http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jul2005/live-j01.shtml
>  ''Live 8"-a political fraud on behalf of imperialismStatement by the 
>Socialist Equality Party (Britain)
>1 July 2005
>Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author
>
>The following leaflet is being distributed by supporters of the Socialist 
>Equality Party at the "Make Poverty History" rally in Edinburgh on July 2, 
>which precedes the Live 8 concert in the city.
>
>Live 8 is staging concerts in London, Edinburgh, Paris, Berlin, Rome, 
>Philadelphia, Barrie, Tokyo, Johannesburg and Moscow as part of a series of 
>events preceding the G8 summit of major industrial nations, which will take 
>place July 6-8 in Scotland. Live 8 is focusing on the problem of poverty in 
>Africa.
>
>The Live 8 events, which are the focus of the "Make Poverty History" 
>campaign, are perpetrating a political fraud against all those genuinely 
>seeking to overcome the terrible hardship facing the poor of Africa. The 
>organizers and spokesmen seek not only to provide a mask of humanitarian 
>concern to British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W. 
>Bush, but to legitimize the designs of the imperialist powers on Africa.
>
>Live 8 amounts to a multimillion-dollar propaganda campaign on behalf of 
>Blair and Bush at a time when both are anxious to put political distance 
>between themselves and an occupation of Iraq that is proving to be a 
>political disaster. All the leaders of the major powers will be happy that 
>the hostile protests that have greeted previous G8 summits have been 
>replaced by such a humble petition.
>
>Some of those backing the appeal to the supposed largesse of the leaders of 
>the major powers gathering in Edinburgh on July 6-8 claim that whereas Iraq 
>was an example of power and wealth being used for reactionary ends, public 
>pressure can force world leaders to act in the cause of progress. This is 
>sophistry. Imperialism's plans for Africa are not in contradiction to its 
>offensive in the Middle East, but rather part of the same geopolitical 
>strategy.
>
>Blair and Bush have rightly earned the hatred of many millions for their 
>warmongering in the Middle East and attacks on social and democratic rights 
>at home. But Bob Geldof, U2 frontman Bono and the coalition of 
>non-governmental organisations and church groups that comprise "Make 
>Poverty History" now ask us to believe that they can be won over to the 
>cause of the poor and oppressed.
>
>They are seeking to exclude any hint of genuine protest at the Live 8 
>events. A manager of one of the bands performing in the concert in London 
>told the Telegraph newspaper that artists were being instructed by Geldof 
>not to criticise Bush. This is because the concerts have been organized 
>with the express aim of winning popular support for the Commission for 
>Africa proposals drawn up by Blair and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon 
>Brown, in which Geldof participated. For the same reason, Brown is being 
>given pride of place at the "Make Poverty History" rally in Edinburgh on 
>July 2.
>
>Returning the favour, Geldof and Bono have been invited to attend the G8 
>summit. Almost every utterance made by the pair portrays Blair and Bush as 
>the potential saviours of Africa, whilst keeping silent on their war 
>against Iraq. Bono described Blair and Brown as "the John [Lennon] and Paul 
>[McCartney] of the global development stage," and has said that if Bush "in 
>his second term is as bold in his commitments to Africa as he was in the 
>first term, he indeed deserves a place in history in turning the fate of 
>that continent around."
>
>Geldof hailed the pre-summit announcement that there would be a debt 
>forgiveness package for some countries in sub-Saharan Africa as a "victory 
>for millions," claiming, "Tomorrow 280 million Africans will wake up for 
>the first time in their lives without owing you or me a penny."
>
>What nonsense! In the first instance, Africa's poor do not owe "you and me" 
>anything. Their debts are to major corporations, financial institutions, 
>imperialist governments and multilateral organisations such as the World 
>Bank and the International Monetary Fund. None of these contemplate any 
>measures to seriously alleviate Africa's plight because they are intent on 
>perpetuating the exploitation of the continent.
>
>The June 11 G8 agreement covers just 18 countries that have fulfilled the 
>pro-market criteria set down under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries 
>Initiative (HIPC), and accounts for at most $1.5 billion per annum in 
>repayments, and possibly only half that amount. The move is largely aimed 
>at staving off criticisms of the major nations' failure to honour other 
>commitments on aid.
>
>Whatever is given must be offset by a corresponding cut in aid to the poor 
>countries, meaning that, in reality, they will get nothing extra. And to 
>qualify, they must continue to "boost private sector development" and 
>eliminate all "impediments to private investment, both domestic and 
>foreign."
>
>Compared with the announced sum of $40 billion in debt forgiveness over 10 
>years, sub-Saharan Africa alone has $230 billion in external debt, and the 
>so-called "developing" countries owe a combined total of $2.4 trillion. For 
>every $1 of aid officially provided to Africa, $3 are extracted by the 
>Western banks, institutions and governments. And far more is plundered by 
>the transnational corporations who operate there.
>
>The political leaders in Washington, London, Berlin, Paris, Rome, Ottawa, 
>Tokyo and Moscow can no more be persuaded to act altruistically towards 
>Africa than they can jump out of their own skins. They are the 
>representatives of financial elites whose interests are diametrically 
>opposed to those of working people everywhere.
>
>The massive levels of debt that afflict the world's poorest countries have 
>the same essential cause as their economic backwardness. The countries in 
>which capitalism first emerged in Europe, America and Japan were able to 
>use their economic and military might to exploit the markets and resources 
>of the entire world. These imperialist powers still look on Africa, Asia 
>and South America as a source of valuable raw materials and markets for 
>finished products. They cannot tolerate the development of domestic 
>competition in these regions, or any genuine expression of democracy for 
>the oppressed masses.
>
>The ruling elites in the economically backward countries depend on their 
>relations with the major powers and giant corporations for their privileged 
>position. In return, they are charged with imposing the dictates of the 
>World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on the working class and 
>peasantry to ensure that oil, minerals, agricultural produce and other 
>essential raw materials find their way to the advanced countries or to 
>production facilities set up by the transnational corporations.
>
>The forms in which imperialism has exercised its dominance over the 
>underdeveloped countries have undergone certain changes, but the 
>fundamental economic and social relationship between oppressor and 
>oppressed nations remains the same.
>
>In the nineteenth century, the subjugation and exploitation of Africa were 
>achieved through colonialism and occupation, as the world was carved up 
>between the rival imperialist states. The mass anti-colonial movements that 
>developed in the aftermath of the Second World War, together with the Cold 
>War between the United States and the Soviet Union, forced the major powers 
>to retreat from direct colonial forms of rule, as the "winds of change" 
>swept Africa.
>
>But the regimes established under the leadership of the national 
>bourgeoisie remained subordinate to the great powers both economically and 
>politically. Not only did they require access to a global market for their 
>goods, rendering their nationalist policies of import substitution 
>impotent, they were hostile to any development of an independent movement 
>in the working class that could threaten their own rule.
>
>The collapse of the USSR has led to a resurgence of neo-colonialism. The 
>Bush administration has spearheaded this turn, seeking to impose America's 
>unchallenged hegemony by force-as epitomised by the bloody conquest of 
>Iraq.
>
>What is now taking place is a renewed scramble for Africa. At stake is the 
>struggle for control of vital mineral and oil reserves, as well as other 
>raw materials and markets, as a component part of a global struggle for 
>hegemony between the major powers. That is why all aid and debt relief is 
>tied in with demands for free access to domestic markets by the global 
>corporations.
>
>As in Iraq, access to oil is a primary concern of Bush, Blair, et al. 
>Africa contains 7.2 percent of the world's proven reserves of oil, more 
>than the proven reserves of North America or the former Soviet Union.
>
>Sub-Saharan Africa's crude oil production exceeded 4 million barrels a day 
>in 2000 and accounts for 16 percent of US oil imports. The importance of 
>Africa's oil in Washington's strategic planning was the subject of a 
>January 2002 seminar entitled, "African Oil-A Priority for US National 
>Security and African Development."
>
>In the Victorian era, there was no shortage of supposedly enlightened 
>people who justified colonialism as taking up the "white man's burden" to 
>civilise the "dark continent." Their modern-day equivalents are the 
>liberals and celebrities who glorify paltry aid initiatives based on 
>pro-market "conditionalities" and the demand that governments pursue 
>pro-Western policies in the name of "transparency" and "democracy."
>
>The real allies of the workers and peasants of Africa are not to be found 
>in the opulent environs of the G8 summit in Gleneagles, but amongst the 
>working class in Britain, Europe, Asia and the Americas. Hope for the 
>future of Africa and all the oppressed peoples of the world will not come 
>through aid packages, or even forlorn appeals for "fair trade." It depends 
>on the building of an anti-imperialist, internationalist and socialist 
>movement, dedicated to replacing the profit system that is the source of 
>class oppression and want with planned production to meet the needs of all. 
>This is the alternative fought for by the Socialist Equality Party and the 
>World Socialist Web Site.
>
>


		
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