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Speaking solo, Bono delivers a call for action in AIDS fight
Irish rock star Bono told a Portland audience Wednesday night that America and Europe can and should help fix the AIDS crisis in Africa, which he compared to genocide.
While Africa "is burning" in an AIDS pandemic that kills 6,500 people a day and cripples its economy, the world's richest nations have their own crises, Bono said. They keep large, old debts over the heads of African countries that worked to topple the dictators who initially received those loans, he said.
They allow people to die because of a disease that education could prevent and drugs could treat, he said.
"The fact that we in America and Europe aren't treating it like an emergency -- that's our crisis," he said.
The lead singer of U2 was the first speaker in the World Affairs Council of Oregon's 2004-05 International Speaker Series. It was a massive opening event at the Rose Garden for the series that, with major corporate backing, has built a reputation for attracting luminaries.
Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in years past spoke to the council at the 2,776-seat Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.
But Bono drew a near-capacity crowd of 4,300, many of whom paid $35 to $125, plus service charges, to hear a singer who wasn't expected to sing a note.
Bono began the night with a surprise announcement that could make music news across the world. Two local women returned notes and lyrics that were stolen from him 23 years ago, he said, when U2 played a Portland club called The Foghorn.
The lyrics were for U2's second album -- "October" -- which came out belatedly because of the theft. Bono called the returned notes "an act of grace."
"You will never how much that means to me," Bono said.
World Affairs Council leaders wanted to use the event as a way to reach younger people, and, judging by the audience, they succeeded. Teenage girls in fashionably faded jeans milled about before the show. Boys in gray hoodies strode through the Rose Garden concourses near gray-haired men in coats and ties.
Adults seemed to know Bono instantly, from years of buying U2 records dating to 1980s hits such as "War" and "The Joshua Tree."
But many teens who came to the show said they learned only recently about Bono. Kyla Ellis, 17, of Vancouver said she "vaguely" knew of Bono before preparing for the event. She works with Cascade AIDS Project's programs of youths educating other youths about AIDS issues.
Fiona Garriott, 39, said her attendance was a birthday gift from her family. But she said she wanted her son, Sam Welch, 11, to learn from Bono's activism and what she called wise use of his celebrity.
"I think he's very down to earth," she said. "He's an excellent human being."
The singer's activism has produced results. The Jubilee 2000 Drop the Debt Campaign is credited with persuading some of the world's richest countries to commit to writing off $110 billion in poorer nations' debts. Talks with White House officials and President Bush led the administration to pledge $5 billion in foreign aid to fight AIDS.
For a discussion of some of the most complicated international issues, Bono's talk was unusually direct. He said he was inspired to get into politics by punk rock songs by The Clash, which he called "a public service announcement with guitars." He made self-deprecating jokes about being a rock star.
And he mentioned some of the arguments he has used to win over the Bush administration and European powers to do more for Africa.
"The war against terror is bound up in the war against poverty," he said. "Isn't it cheaper to make friends of potential enemies than to fight them later?"
--DYLAN RIVERA
© 2004 The Oregonian. All rights reserved.
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/109836000111900.xml
Irish rock star Bono told a Portland audience Wednesday night that America and Europe can and should help fix the AIDS crisis in Africa, which he compared to genocide.
While Africa "is burning" in an AIDS pandemic that kills 6,500 people a day and cripples its economy, the world's richest nations have their own crises, Bono said. They keep large, old debts over the heads of African countries that worked to topple the dictators who initially received those loans, he said.
They allow people to die because of a disease that education could prevent and drugs could treat, he said.
"The fact that we in America and Europe aren't treating it like an emergency -- that's our crisis," he said.
The lead singer of U2 was the first speaker in the World Affairs Council of Oregon's 2004-05 International Speaker Series. It was a massive opening event at the Rose Garden for the series that, with major corporate backing, has built a reputation for attracting luminaries.
Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in years past spoke to the council at the 2,776-seat Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.
But Bono drew a near-capacity crowd of 4,300, many of whom paid $35 to $125, plus service charges, to hear a singer who wasn't expected to sing a note.
Bono began the night with a surprise announcement that could make music news across the world. Two local women returned notes and lyrics that were stolen from him 23 years ago, he said, when U2 played a Portland club called The Foghorn.
The lyrics were for U2's second album -- "October" -- which came out belatedly because of the theft. Bono called the returned notes "an act of grace."
"You will never how much that means to me," Bono said.
World Affairs Council leaders wanted to use the event as a way to reach younger people, and, judging by the audience, they succeeded. Teenage girls in fashionably faded jeans milled about before the show. Boys in gray hoodies strode through the Rose Garden concourses near gray-haired men in coats and ties.
Adults seemed to know Bono instantly, from years of buying U2 records dating to 1980s hits such as "War" and "The Joshua Tree."
But many teens who came to the show said they learned only recently about Bono. Kyla Ellis, 17, of Vancouver said she "vaguely" knew of Bono before preparing for the event. She works with Cascade AIDS Project's programs of youths educating other youths about AIDS issues.
Fiona Garriott, 39, said her attendance was a birthday gift from her family. But she said she wanted her son, Sam Welch, 11, to learn from Bono's activism and what she called wise use of his celebrity.
"I think he's very down to earth," she said. "He's an excellent human being."
The singer's activism has produced results. The Jubilee 2000 Drop the Debt Campaign is credited with persuading some of the world's richest countries to commit to writing off $110 billion in poorer nations' debts. Talks with White House officials and President Bush led the administration to pledge $5 billion in foreign aid to fight AIDS.
For a discussion of some of the most complicated international issues, Bono's talk was unusually direct. He said he was inspired to get into politics by punk rock songs by The Clash, which he called "a public service announcement with guitars." He made self-deprecating jokes about being a rock star.
And he mentioned some of the arguments he has used to win over the Bush administration and European powers to do more for Africa.
"The war against terror is bound up in the war against poverty," he said. "Isn't it cheaper to make friends of potential enemies than to fight them later?"
--DYLAN RIVERA
© 2004 The Oregonian. All rights reserved.
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/109836000111900.xml
I hope someday Bono makes those lyrics available to the public! That would be awesome! 
) - I'd have to say that was a stellar night all the way around. 
