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Africa: Past Time for Bandaids
AfricaFocus Bulletin
November 19, 2014 (141119)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor's Note
Although the new BandAid30 single may raise millions, some
of which may actually aid in fighting Ebola, it is also
prompting an unusually high level of criticism for its
patronizing lyrics and paternalistic stance towards Africa.
Even more important, the Ebola epidemic is prompting not
only traditional charity but also questioning of the
fundamental global failure to invest in sustainable support
for health at all levels.
Such critiques also met the original "Do They Know It's
Christmas" fundraiser 30 years ago for famine in Ethiopia.
And the critical view of paternalistic aid appeals is
commonplace in Africa and among all those with close links
to the African continent. The fundamental stereotypes and
attitudes being criticized are still pervasive, of course.
But the opposing views now seem to be echoed much more
widely. With YouTube and FaceBook now in wide use in Africa
as well as worldwide, moreover, there can be no excuse for
failure to highlight African voices that are far more
eloquent than those of Western pop stars.
To give only two examples, check out, if you haven't
already, these songs, the first by Liberian musicians, the
second by Francophone West African musicians:
The Hope Song
Liberian Artists Together for Advancement (LATA)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ltwgh3Ijrh8
Africa Stop Ebola
Tiken Jah Fakoly, Amadou & Mariam, Salif Keita, Oumou
Sangare and others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruYQY6z3mV8
This AfricaFocus includes several short commentaries on the
new Bandaid fundraiser, one from the ironically named blog
"Africa is a Country," and two from the Guardian (UK). I've
also prefaced this with a mini-commentary of my own, focused
on the fundamental point of the need for investment in
health and its relationship to other central issues, such as capital flight versus
investment in development and global public goods.
Also of note, among many you can find online:
The Rusty Radiator Award Competition
http://www.rustyradiator.com/
Satirical website on aid "saviors"
Interview with Geldof cut short after question about tax
evasion, Independent, November 18, 2014
http://tinyurl.com/mrnyrk2
Emma Silvers, SF Weekly, November 17, 2014
"Do They Know It's Christmas" Is Still a Misguided,
Patronizing, Terrible Song
http://tinyurl.com/lthtv3o
"Saving Africa, yet again, with a song"
Al Jazeera, November 18, 2014
http://tinyurl.com/oqrxxev
For talking points and previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on
health issues, visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-health.php For previous
AfricaFocus Bulletins on aid-related issues, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/aidexp.php
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Ebola Perspectives
[AfricaFocus is regularly monitoring and posting links on
Ebola on social media. For additional links, see http://www.facebook.com/AfricaFocus]
++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++
Past Time for Bandaids
William Minter, AfricaFocus Bulletin
November 19, 2014
Although the new BandAid single may raise millions, some of
which may actually aid in fighting Ebola, it is also evoking
an extraordinarily high level of criticism for its
patronizing lyrics and paternalistic stance towards Africa.
Even more important, the Ebola epidemic is prompting not
only traditional charity but also questioning of the
fundamental global failure to invest in sustainable support
for health at all levels.
The stereotypes and attitudes being criticized are still
pervasive, of course. But many of the critical points now
seem to be echoed much more widely. These include, for
example, a widespread recognition that the epidemic has
exposed fundamental weaknesses in health systems not only in
the most-affected African countries, but also at the global
level and within rich countries such as the United States.
Those weaknesses are the direct result of budget decisions
which have reduced rather than increased health
expenditures, despite overwhelming evidence that such
expenditures are also beneficial to the economy. The
policies may have been labeled "structural adjustment,"
austerity, or fiscal restraint, as well as being the result of
disproportionate power of those pushing other priorities for
government spending. The context of these policies, in turn,
is the capacity of the rich to evade taxes by minimizing tax
rates and by capital flight into tax havens around the
world.
Faced with Ebola, fundraising is indeed needed, and should
be held to standards of accountability and respect for those
for whom the funds are being raised. But the world's
response to Ebola will be most meaningful if it leads to
reexamination of short-sighted policies which prioritize
profits for a few at the cost of long-term benefits for
society as a whole.
For a recent AfricaFocus Bulletin focused on health
financing in particular, see http://www.africafocus.org/docs14/hf1411.php
For a set of talking points stressing interconnections of
such issues as health and tax evasion, which are both global
and Africa-wide, visit http://www.africafocus.org/intro-gen.php
For a campaign by ActionAid specifically linking tax issues
to Ebola, visit http://taxpower.org/
Bob Geldof doesn't need to do a #BandAid30 for Ebola.
African musicians made a song already
Africa Is A Country | November 12, 2014
http://africasacountry.com / direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/kbmemna
Bob Geldof is going to put out another Band Aid single,
another rehash of the grotesque "Do They Know it's
Christmas?" with slightly altered lyrics. We've written
about the problematic politics of such songs in detail
before. Bim Adewunmi broke it down over at the Guardian
today [see below].
Disaster appeals are necessary but it also matters what
picture they give of crises and their structural causes.
People need to understand the long-term factors which have
made the Ebola crisis possible. This crisis is part of a
long colonial disengagement, and a consequence of the years
of structural adjustment tearing up local healthcare
infrastructure. Geldof, Bono et al are deeply complicit in
glossing neoliberal policies towards the continent with a
humanitarian/anti-poverty sheen of respectability. These
policies will continue to fail ordinary people and actively
prevent governments putting in place the quality public
services people require. (Nick Dearden makes a similar point
[see below])
Geldof is the one who always gets the international platform
on crises in Africa (he says he's responding to a request
from the UN this time), but he never talks about these
things. In his launch, he spoke about how "tragic" it was
that "modernity" has arrived in Africa at last and it has
brought Ebola with it. It's the kind of nonsense you end up
coming out with when you mean well but don't really know
what you're talking about.
Gary Younge got to the crux of the issue weeks ago:
It is an issue of public health to which no individual or
privatised response can make any substantial, meaningful
contribution. To fight an epidemic like Ebola you need a
well-resourced public sector, well-trained government
employees, central planning and coordination and a respect
for science [...] what really terrifies the right about
Ebola is that it shows -- albeit in a deadly, scary, tragic
way -- that we are all connected. It shows that no matter
how strong the gates around your community, how high the
wall on your border, how sophisticated the alarm on your
house; no matter how much you avoid state schools, public
transport and public libraries; no matter how much you pay
the premium to retreat from the public sphere -- you cannot
escape both your own humanity and the humanity of others,
and the fact that our fates are tied. If you want to feel
secure in Texas, regardless of your race, income or
religion, it's in your interests that people have healthcare
in Monrovia.
The desire to swoop in and be a saviour is an archetypal
desire. We understand the need, especially if one's own life
is full of tragedy that one does not want to resolve or
face. However, that leads to one taking actions that
actually do not help. Geldof may raise money, but who knows
if it will be actually "useful" or used in ways that are
necessary? Besides that, such aid efforts only erase the
effectiveness of local efforts, making it appear as though
"western" actions are what saved poor diseased hungry Africa
once again.
Sisonke Msimang has written on the ways in which the Ebola
crisis in Liberia has highlighted the failures of the Aid
industry to make good on its purported function:
"The Liberian Ebola situation can be summed up thusly: a
virus that is deadly but can be effectively contained with
good planning and logistics has managed to escape from a
country that has one of the largest concentrations of
'helpers' in the world."
Perhaps the most telling fact is that there's already a song
for Ebola by high profile Francophone West African
musicians. Why doesn't Geldof simply promote that song? Or
even acknowledge it at all? "Africa Stop Ebola" features a
number of major international stars: Tiken Jah Fakoly,
Amadou & Mariam, Salif Keita, Oumou Sangare, Kandia Kora,
Mory Kante, Sia Tolno, Barbara Kanam and rappers Didier
Awadi, Marcus and Mokobé. You can share the video and like
their Facebook page.
Here's the DEC Ebola appeal
(http://www.dec.org.uk/node/4446) and MSF
(https://donate.doctorswithoutborders.org/onetime.cfm).
Band Aid 30: clumsy, patronising and wrong in so many ways
Bim Adewunmi
11 November 2014
http://www.theguardian.com/ / direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/m28qhb4
The city of Jos in Nigeria has a bit of a reputation: it has
one of the coolest climates in the country. When I was
growing up, I was told it was one of the few places where we
could grow apples, and I even once read a newspaper report
that it snowed there. It was an anomaly, sure, but I bring
this up because it is a story that does not often get told.
That newspaper report came back to me this week when Sir Bob
Geldof announced that he is reviving Band Aid's Do They Know
It's Christmas? to raise money for countries afflicted with
the Ebola virus. The song's a classic, and not just because
the video features a big-haired George Michael emoting into
a microphone. But there were a few parts of the song that
always stuck in my craw. For example, the lyric that begins:
"And there won't be snow in Africa ..."
"It does snow in Africa!" I say under my breath every
December when shopping malls roll the track out. There is a
humourless danger in taking song lyrics too literally, but I
can't help it: yes, they do know it's Christmas time in
Africa because huge swaths of that vast continent are
Christian; the greatest gift anyone can have is life; and
actually, it is more likely to be water, not just "bitter
tears", flowing across Africa's 54 nations.
Ebola is a menace and the three west African countries
(Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia) where the disease is
wreaking havoc need financial help -- the type that multiple
sales of a 4 pound charity CD can bring. "It has nothing to
do with whether you like the record or not or whether you
approve of the artists," Geldof told BBC News, which is a
novel way of selling a charity record. "It's simply a way of
saying, this Christmas, yeah, let's stop this here." At the
launch event, he said: "[Band Aid 30] is focused on a small
part of Africa that potentially holds a vast danger to the
world." Everything Geldof is saying is completely true: the
spread of Ebola is terrifying, it must be stopped as quickly
as humanly possible, and we need to raise funds to combat
it. So why does Band Aid 30 feel so patronising and
uncomfortable?
There exists a paternalistic way of thinking about Africa,
likely exacerbated by the original (and the second, and the
third) Band Aid singles, in which it must be "saved", and
usually from itself. We say "Africa" in a way that we would
never say "Europe", or "Asia". It's easy to forget, for
example, that the virus made its way to Nigeria -- Africa's
most populous country and, for many, a potential Ebola
tinderbox -- and was stamped out only by the efforts of a
brave team of local healthcare workers. The popular
narrative always places those of us in the west in the
position of benevolent elders, helping out poor Africans,
mouths always needy and yawning, on their constantly
blighted continent, and leaves out harder to pin down
villains: local corruption, yes, but also global economic
policies that do little to pull some countries out of the
depths of entrenched poverty.
It is interesting that Geldof says he received a call from
the UN to say that Ebola was "getting out of control". Why
does the red emergency telephone go for charity, over
joined-up inter-govermental action? Thirty years after the
original, and lineups that include the great and the good as
well as a turning carousel of opportunists, how is it still
incumbent on pop stars to rise up to sing a song that
manages to also gently dehumanise the people it is helping?
Even the logo -- an outline of Africa (no Madagascar) with
BAND AID written across it, along with a hashtag "#E30LA" --
feels cheap and insulting.
Pop music, however well-intentioned (and no song was ever
more well-intentioned than this one), can be so incredibly
clumsy. I save my greatest ire for one line in particular,
the egregious lyric that haunts me every Christmas,
delivered on two separate versions by the same man, U2's
Bono: "Well, tonight thank God it's them instead of you".
Bono says he hated singing it, and had to be persuaded to do
so (twice); imagine how I feel.
To Geldof's credit, he has said some of the lyrics will be
tweaked slightly for this new version. Gone are the
references to Africa's "burning sun" as well as the
assertion that it is a place where "no rain nor rivers
flow". Less easy to excise is the lingering view of Africa
that has been cultivated over the last several decades.
Ebola crisis: three things Band Aid should really be singing
about
Instead of more tired stereotypes of poor Africans,
celebrities could highlight the geo-political problems that
allowed the disease to spread
Nick Dearden
11 November 2014
http://www.theguardian.com/ / direct URL:
http://tinyurl.com/qbr8ghh
This weekend celebrity musicians will come together to
record a new version of 1980s hit Do They Know It's
Christmas. Bob Geldof and Midge Ure have galvanised a new
generation of artists, including One Direction and Elbow, to
raise money for the Ebola crisis. The question is whether
this song will actually encourage an understanding of what's
happening in west Africa and build towards the political
solutions needed, or whether it will simply reinforce tired
and unhelpful stereotypes.
Thirty years ago, celebrities under the name Band Aid
released Do They Know It's Christmas in response to the
Ethiopian famine of 1984. A generation on, and many people
still associate Africa with starvation and poverty. The
song's absurd portrayal of the continent ("Where nothing
ever grows, No rain nor rivers flow") lingers on; an Africa
of helpless, starving children in desperate need of Europe's
generosity. In a report published in 2011 called Finding
Frames, researchers found that this framing of Africa --
what they describe as the Live Aid legacy -- remains
incredibly strong today. Swept away is the political context
of Africa -- the decades of empire and slavery through to
structural adjustment and debt crisis.
Band Aid's simple message erased all political complexity
from the Ethiopian famine -- not a natural disaster pure and
simple, but a catastrophe used and exacerbated by a brutal
government to destroy rebel fighters challenging its
authority. Today, Ebola also exists in a political context,
and while agencies dealing with the crisis do need funds,
Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea also need political
solutions to challenge the exploitation that bred Ebola.
Ebola has broken out in a region that has been torn apart by
conflicts in recent decades -- this much is true. But the
countries are not naturally poor. Neither can their
suffering be laid solely at the door of corruption. They are
also victims of economic policies pursued by western
countries and corporations.
As the People's Health Movement said recently, the reason
for the Ebola epidemic "lies not in the pathology of the
disease but in the pathology of our society and the global
political and economic architecture." A few million dollars
will not substitute for the wealth they lose each year.
If celebrities want to help west Africa, there are three
things Band Aid might want to say in their new lyrics about
the Ebola crisis.
First, Sierra Leone and Liberia are booming. They are
enjoying very high growth figures -- supposedly the symbol
of a country's "development". In fact Liberia has the
highest ratio of foreign direct investment to GDP in the
world and has been growing at above 10% for years. Sierra
Leone is now growing at above 20%. [both estimates preEbola]
The free-market dogma of our government would suggest that
everything is in place to make the poor richer. But through
the takeover of land, exploitation of minerals and
privatisation of resources, west Africa's wealth is leaving
in shiploads, just as it always has done.
In Sierra Leone, growth figures largely represent mining
activity, and mining corporations have been granted such
enormous tax incentives that the government is effectively
being fleeced of their wealth. Christian Aid reports that
this lost revenue came to nearly 14% of GDP in 2011, when
the government spent more on tax incentives than on its
development priorities. They predict the country will lose
more than $240m annually from tax incentives in coming
years, with the vast bulk made up from tax incentives
granted to a couple of British mining companies.
So first up, let west Africa keeps its wealth.
Second, healthcare in west Africa is in a desperate state
and left largely to the private sector. Sierra Leone has the
worst life expectancy in the world (just 45 years) and in
2010 had just 136 doctors (in World Bank "per 1,000 of the
population" terms, that's 0). Liberia had even fewer.
This is at least in part because west Africa, like so many
regions, has been beaten down by IMF policies over many
years. While the IMF has allowed a "break" from their normal
policies while Ebola rages, this is hardly a long-term
strategy for building up the public sector.
Neither is the mania for private sector healthcare and
education that our own government's development strategy
embraces. Though UK development funds have been made
available to support health systems, with some positive
results, the UK recently cut its aid to both countries as it
promotes greater private healthcare across Africa.
Ebola shouldn't have become a major epidemic. We need to
support the creation of decent public health systems, or at
least stop promoting private sector competition.
The final element of west Africa's crisis is the
intellectual property regime embedded in free trade
agreements, which supposedly act to encourage research and
development. Ebola proves that the system does no such thing
-- at least not when it comes to life-threatening diseases
affecting those without money. Ebola has been ignored by big
pharma, though public money is now beginning to oil the
wheels of research.
Essentially, Ebola is an unprofitable disease. This won't
change until the stranglehold of big pharma over global
medicines is broken, and we begin to fund and control
medical research publicly.
If celebrities want to deepen understanding of Africa's
problems, they can play a useful role. Even Band Aids can be
useful in the short-term. But perpetuating the idea that a
continent of helpless people need yet more money from Europe
will do far more harm than good.
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic
publication providing reposted commentary and analysis on
African issues, with a particular focus on U.S. and
international policies. AfricaFocus Bulletin is edited by
William Minter.
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