I received a mail this week from Amnesty International, asking if I wanted to help out with petitions on a U2 concert that is taking place in Brussels at the 22nd of September. Should I Say Yes?
Amnesty’s “Demand Dignity-Campaign” could use my (very limited) help, and it sure can use Bono’s (which is not so limited). Moreover, the concert will take place at exactly the same day as the Millennium Development Goals summit in New York.
Enough reason, right?
(Not to mention the fact that I can attend the concert for free).
Not so sure, though. I have my questions with Bono’s commitments concerning NGOs, government lobbying and charity works. Oh, I’m not doubting he means well or anything. And I definitely don’t want to be someone who criticizes celebrities just because they have more money than me. It’s just: do they do with their money what they ask us to do with ours?
In 2005, U2 made about 255 million dollars. Divide it over the four band members and you’ll find that Bono has earned $63.750.000 that year. Okay, so, he asks his fans regularly to donate money to those charitable causes he’s the famous face of, but nobody knows whether he himself gives any money and how much that might be. I don’t need to know the exact amount of dollars he gives, but I would like to know whether he gives. What I do know is that U2’s front man has a few giant villas around the world, a fleet of luxury cars and a personal jet plane. Of course you can come up with the argument that other celebrities have all that and more, but they are not speaking for Greenpeace at the same time, are they?
Is this hypocrisy?
And if so, is hypocrisy better than doing nothing at all?
After all, Bono mainly is a spokesman; he promotes Amnesty International, the Burma Campaign UK, DATA, Greenpeace and ONE. And he is successful – he played a leading role in persuading the US to write off a $30 billion debt owed by the poorest countries, he contributed to the US decision to triple foreign assistance to Africa, and much more. His value lies mostly in his talent for lobbying and not in being a donor. As the ONE Campaign said: “We don’t want his money, we want his voice”.
But his voice asks us to donate. And he’s got millions and millions. When he gives up his money, I will do mine.
Am I being a hypocrite now?
Then again, I’m not the one who asks the Irish government to spend more on foreign aid and at the same time relocate my music-publishing business to Amsterdam in order to shelter my royalties from higher taxation – taxes that are used to increase that very aid money I asked for. And my tour this year (maybe just because I don’t have one, but hey…) will not emit a carbon output that equals that of 90.000 people flying from Dublin to London. Is U2 going to plant the 20.000 trees needed to offset their tour’s carbon emission?
What this is all about in the end, is the question whether or not raising awareness on the scale that Bono does it, is important enough to forget about the hypocrisy that might be going along with it.
I read about a U2 concert in Glasgow where Bono started clapping his hands and said: “Every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies”. To which someone in the public shouted “Well, stop clapping then… you evil bastard!” But the children die anyway, whether Bono claps or not. Only, he is the one who raises awareness by doing so.
So what I might conclude out of this is that even though Bono speaks for them, he is not the brain behind the campaigns, and it’s not about him. In this case it’s about the people that are helped with Amnesty’s action and if Bono raises awareness and gives the opportunity to reach 60.000 people on just one evening, than why not?
I know I haven’t answered my question with this conclusion, but I thought maybe you guys could help me out with that.
And in the end, what would you do? U2-diehards, Bono-sceptics?
Wow Hanna, apart from all the seriousness of the issue, a very entertaining post indeed!
I think you raise all the right questions. If Bono is so rich, why is he asking us for money? Well, because apparently he alone cannot solve the world’s problems. But he could solve a lot if he wished so. Only that he decided to use his face and voice, not his pocket (maybe that too, I don’t know). And his face ehem, his voice has helped big time. But yes, I guess it comes down to hypocrisy: you ask the taxpayer to pay the bill while you yourself are taking off somewhere else to avoid that same tax you are asking others to pay. Plant those trees and then embark on your plane to talk about how we’re losing them, right?
I’ll go listen to “One” and think about it
Hanna, you ask all the right and precise questions…The part with paying taxes at a more convenient place and encouraging other people to donate at the same is the grossest to me
Well, let skip Bono for a second and focus on the very large group of people out there that swim in cash. Very few of them have gone the same length as Bill Gates or Warren Buffet… and this is surprising.
Why haven’t more folks like Bill Gates stood up? Why do they remain silent in spite of earning (b)(m)illions? This is intriguing to me. If you have so much money that can you cannot even spend it, than why not do good with it?
Thanks for the comments, Giedre and Larisa! I tried not to be too sceptic, just critical. I guess it paid off. And yes, it probably is hypocrisy, but I think somehow we are all guilty of that - maybe to a lesser extent but still. We are here, blogging about development, feeling better because we at least talk about it, but in the end that’s all we do. Raising awareness, just like Bono. I could donate more - to more charity works, NGOs or whatever. I could skip my holidays in far-away places and leave my plane seat to someone else. Or at least plant a tree every time I can’t resist.
It’s much more visible with Bono, because it’s on a larger scale and it happens more in the spotlights, but everyone should look at him/herself first. We are all to be blamed for a little bit of hypocrisy.
O and Bart, I don’t know why millionairs do not spend their millions. I don’t get it either. Maybe the possibility of actually realising something good with it doesn’t even pop up in their heads? Because they are living in such a different world than the one of poverty?
I share most of your points, Hanna: we’re all partly guilty. However, it’s not “just raising awareness”, it’s spreading the message. And there are also different things that different individuals can do after they are informed. Some prefer to give money and forget about it, some do nothing, some start living for saving the world, and we, maybe apart from campaigning, marching, donating and loaning, well, we spread the message. As long as we don’t sit numbly believing the world is oh so nice and bad things only happen to bad people, as long as we do something, whatever that is, about it, we’re fine. Well, kind of fine. You get my point.
I do get your point, Giedre. That’s the reason why I want to become a journalist; informing people so that maybe they will act. I shouldn’t have been so negative. You’re absolutely right.
very interesting.. i didn’t know all these data! Thx for sharing and pls let us know what u will decided at the end