On July 2nd, a group of musicians and celebrities organized the Live 8 converts around the banner of “making poverty history.” Yet these concerts may have set the global justice movement back more than they helped by convincing the public that simply by attending a free rock concert, donning a white wristband, and perhaps donating some money to charity, they had a hand in ending poverty in Africa.

Bad Education: Insufficient outreach in the US

In the US, sufficient education and outreach was not undertaken. Concert-goers did not seem to have an understanding of the issues of debt cancellation and poverty in Africa. Thus, the majority of the people attending the concerts seemed to be there to support their favorite musical act, rather than to “make poverty history.” This allowed for concert-goers to go home, watch the media coverage, and think that they had helped end poverty in Africa.

Thus, potential grassroots supporters of the movement for economic justice have been led to believe that by attending a free concert, wearing a white band, and spending the money they didn’t spend on the concert instead on Live 8 CDs, will help to eradicate global poverty.

Many concert-goers at the Philadelphia Live 8 who were being asked to sign up for the One Campaign or take other groups' educational materials on the day of the concert, were wholly uninterested in doing so. Yet many of them were wearing the free necklaces with cards displaying AOL Music's Live 8 website distributed by AOL. No one even questioned the right of a food vendor to display the advertisement that read: “Ending world hunger, one grilled cheese at a time”!

Public education is not easy. But it requires a deeper sustained effort of outreach. It is not clear that the One Campaign along with the Live 8 concerts and such celebrity-led efforts are really willing to implement that kind of substantive work plan. Already, there are signs that the One Campaign coalition is weakening.

Corporate Ties

The Live 8 concerts were in large part set up and run by large multinational corporations contracted by the organizers. Live 8 organizers chose to ignore the reality that these corporations are complicit and have an interest in the creation and perpetuation of poverty in Africa. Campaigners often work on IMF and World Bank issues because they recognize that these institutions are making countries’ economies more amenable to foreign corporate control at the expense of local expertise and local labor, which generates unemployment and reduces the local tax base. The choice to contract to such corporations for a concert whose stated purpose is to make history the very conditions that they create in countries around the world is ignorant at best; hypocritical
at worst.

One Campaign's decision in Philadelphia to contract its vendor services to Clear Channel is one example of the many corporate ties of Live 8. EMI was given exclusive rights to selling Live 8 CDs, and recently McKinsey & Company was hired by the One Campaign as the consultants for improving their decision-making process. Establishing such corporate ties without a discussion about what role corporations play in impoverishing global South populations is irresponsible, egiven the particularly egregious nature of the corporations they chose to enter into relations with.

Clear Channel, for example, is a monopolistic radio conglomerate that owns more than 1200 radio stations across the US, and was discovered to be organizing pro-Iraq war rallies around the country in 2003. McKinsey is a company that was effectively voted out of office in central India in 2004, when the voters in the state of Andhra Pradesh voted out their Chief Minister due to his role in allowing McKinsey to formulate a plan to overhaul the state’s economy. Their advice included privatization of essential services, repeal of laws protecting small business so as to usher in foreign multinationals, and the displacement of small-scale farmers. This advice echoed that of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank and led to considerable civil unrest, especially among the rural poor.

In addition, an investigation in the UK revealed that the white “Make Poverty History” bracelets being distributed around the world and sold at Live 8 were made in Chinese sweatshops. By not being responsible in choosing their business relationships, it sends the message to Live 8 supporters that questioning corporate practices in particular or their power in general is not necessary to end poverty.

Failure to Reject the Neoliberal Model

The Live 8 concerts shared a common message with the Make Poverty History (MPH) campaign in the UK, but had no formal connection with the MPH campaign. Unfortunately, Bono and Bob Geldof's messaging was much more watered down than the demands of the MPH campaign and the broader Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP). For instance, Bono and Geldof both praised the G8's actions on debt and aid in the media, pushing only for more aid, without any discussion about the drawbacks of the harmful economic conditions that usually accompany aid. The link between these harmful economic conditions and the trade policy which the MPH campaign critiques is often not made by the Live 8 celebrity spokespeople.

In addition, creditor responsibility for the debt crisis and G8 responsibility for creating poverty in Africa and elsewhere is ignored. Without a clear critique of the flawed economic model being pushed upon the global South, global poverty cannot be eradicated. For this reason most progressive groups and networks are working to challenge harmful economic conditions that come along with debt cancellation and aid increases.

Live 8 celebrity organizers did not put themselves in a position to speak truth to power. The main Live 8 organizer, Bob Geldof, sat on the Labour Government’s Commission for Africa, which betrays a close relationship between himself and the U.K. government. This can be problematic if the purpose of Live 8 was to challenge the G8 to take bold action.

This also causes a blurring of the line between civil society and government.

Looking Ahead: Where are Bono and Bob?

Fundamentally, the economic model under which the current institutions of globalization operate is flawed. Any successful campaigning or organizing must recognize this, otherwise we have no hope of making poverty history.

Recently the One Campaign circulated an action alert to its members regarding the need for US Congress to vote for increased funding to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, which did generate tens of thousands of phone calls. This is no small feat. Whether the One Campaign will continue to channel its supporters towards those kinds of strategic actions is an open question.

This question is particularly salient right now, as the G8 debt agreement quietly unravels at the hands of the IMF and World Bank. These challenges have not been met with the same kind of media activism that Live 8 organizers and celebrity supporters were displaying in June and July. A critical analysis of that G-8 agreement shows that much more needs to be done to end the debt crisis in impoverished countries, but certainly the G-8 agreement was a start for the first 18 countries that are eligible.

In light of this, one might hope that the activism of these groups would at least include a call for the deal to be expanded to the over 60 countries in desperate need of debt cancellation, but as the September IMF/ World Bank meetings approach, this seems unlikely, and the movement for economic justice should ask, where are Bono and Bob now?