And a Rock Star Shall Lead Them

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<img src="http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee136/anuransol/Bono2-sml-1.jpg" alt="" width="101" height="75" />

<strong>By Laurie Britt-Smith</strong>

<strong>September 1, 2008</strong>

Note: The editorial staff of Interference is pleased to present the second installment in an exclusive series of articles that examine Bono?s prophetic tendencies?lyrically, spiritually, musically, politically. Like the introductory excerpt posted last week, this comes from the May 2008 dissertation in Composition and Rhetoric of Dr. Laurie Britt-Smith, graduate of St. Louis University. Of interest to U2 fans, scholars, and activist Christians of all political persuasions, this writing continues the to give academic quality to the amazing quantity of serious prose devoted to studying the greatest rock band of the late 20th century. ?Ed.

Music has always been the key component to prophetic rhetoric: a new vision requires a new song, a new creative expression that unifies and energizes the community. As Walter Brueggemann discusses in <em>The Prophetic Imagination</em>, the doxology of Moses, a song of the liberation of Israel, was not only a tool that unified the community by providing it a common lyric, a common language and eventual common memory. It also electrified the language of the alternate vision, transforming it beyond the power of mere spoken word.

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Martin Luther King?s rhetoric often drew from the musicality of the African American tradition as he often incorporated phrases from old Spirituals into his speech. The memory of the civil rights movement is tied to its anthem, ?We Shall Overcome,? and the song is still invoked in contemporary moments of protest as a point of unification and community empowerment. The visual image that usually accompanies the memory of the song is that of the group, arms entwined, marching toward the goal. Once the song is begun, the physical force of the group may be stopped by circumstance, but the psychic and spiritual energy it possesses continues.

Harnessing the positive and transfigurative energy of music in his rhetoric of social justice is a specialty of singer and activist Bono (ne Paul Hewson, born 10 May 1960).? The U2 song ?Where the Streets Have No Name? from <em>The Joshua Tree</em> (1987) is one of the band?s biggest hits, and has been interpreted to mean many things, as good poetry should. Some claim it is about heaven; others hear it as a statement about Dublin, a city of neighborhoods where street names become secondary to the territorial boundaries they intersect; others hear it as homage to one of Bono?s heroes, Bob Dylan ? a verse and the bridge includes the line, ?we?re being blown by the wind.?? All of these interpretations have validity, but the song was written after singer Bono visited a refugee camp in Ethiopia in 1985.

Bono has stated that it is an odd, ?unfinished lyric,? but the idea it contains is very important and powerful: ?In the desert, we meet God. In parched times, in fire and flood, we discover who we are. . . You can call it ?soul? or ?imagination,? the place where you glimpse God, your potential, whatever.? Although it is not a conventional doxology, ?Where the Streets Have No Name? invites the audience to imagine a new reality, to embrace something new and different, even if the new thing is a bit ambiguous in the song itself. What was an unfinished vision when the lyric was created has been crystallized in the last five years. ?Streets? along with the song ?One? have been adopted as musical elements in the rhetoric of one of the most significant social justice movements in recent memory ? Debt, Aids, Trade, Africa or DATA and One: the Campaign to Make Poverty History.

Bono is one of those rare individuals able to cross social boundaries while discussing his vision of social justice, one of the vital characteristics of an effective prophet. He has been successful in persuading fans, celebrities, politicians, and religious leaders on both the right and left to join him in the campaign to stop the suffering caused by what he termed ?stupid poverty ? the kind where people starve when there is enough food? while making his mission first known to a national American audience via the Oprah Winfrey show in 2002, and to help end what he has often calls the ?monthly tsunami sized disaster? that is AIDS in Africa.

To date nearly 2.5 million people have signed the online One declaration, a grassroots social justice movement aimed at empowering people to put pressure on the government to vote for legislation and budget resolutions that will help ?make poverty history.? The online site, <a href="http://www.one.org">http://www.one.org</a>, declares itself ?powered by: you.? Bono has stated he expects that number to grow to 5 million by the next election, which will make the organization ?bigger than the NRA.?

<img src="http://i235.photobucket.com/albums/ee136/anuransol/Bono_and_fans-s.jpg" alt="" />
 
I think this essay by LBS is much more plausible than her first one published here. Still, it doesn't really state anything that we didn't already know or feel about tht B-man.


As an academic piece for those who need an introduction to Bono's life and his accomplishments, this essay works. As a piece directed to those who have followed him (and some who have met him), this piece is affirmation of what we already know.



Mulago Positive Women’s Network :cute:
 
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