biff
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
I wasn't sure where to post this, but this is probably as good a place as any. (Move this elsewhere if there's a better place.)Here's an essay by Bono that appears in the book Mandela: The Authorized Biography:
One of the first times I met Madiba was when my friend Naomi Campbell put together a concert in Barcelona for one of his charities. It was called Frock and Roll, can you believe it! A lot of top names in fashion and a lot of people in music had agreed to do it but it was beset with all kinds of problems and the event had gone sour in Barcelona's local press. There had been rumours the concert was off, then it was on again. When we arrived the organisers explained that there hadn't really been that many tickets sold. And I said, 'Like how many?' 'A thousand.' A thousand! In a stadium for twenty thousand! I said, 'Don't worry. There'll be a big walk up. That happens sometimes in Spain.'
So we went to the concert and Madiba was to walk on with myself and Naomi at 7.30, but there were only one thousand people there. So we waited till 8.30: two thousand. At nine, there were about five thousand which in a stadium for twenty thousand was not a pretty sight. So there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth backstage. Who was going to tell the great man? Nobody seemed to want to, so they just turned the lights off and hoped he wouldn't notice! So we walk out on the stage and I'm just staring at my shoes. So's Naomi. Madiba comes to the microphone and says, 'It is a dangerous thing to have high expectations. And I want you people to know in Barcelona that I had high expectations of this event.' I'm staring harder at my shoes! 'What can I tell you? You people have given me a reception I could never deserve. Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for turning up and turning out for the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund.' And I look out. Same amount of people but I swear it looked full. It was one of those moments. It was a real lesson for me because it's the way he sees the world. It wasn't an act, he genuinely was thrilled that so many people had turned up. If you've spent all those years in prison, the glass doesn't look half empty. I'm one of these people who have to constantly remind myself of such things, but he turned the event completely around. With your words you make things true sometimes. And I guess he's been doing that all his life: speaking the words, describing South Africa before it existed, bringing it into existence by speaking about it as if it was.
If rock and roll has anything at the core, if it's about anything at all it's surely about liberation. Whether it's sexual liberation or spiritual liberation, just getting free of yourself and your limitations seems to be part of the theme of rock and roll. So it's natural that people in that music would be in awe of him. And he's cooler than any rock star or any hiphop star you are ever going to meet. Cool is not something I generally look up to but he actually has it.
And I think he finds these occasions very funny. There's playfulness and mischief - there's mischief in the eyes too. I think he likes to be around carnival a little bit. It lifts his spirits. He'll be there holding Naomi's hand and smiling and laughing and he's just living all the life he missed. I think that's it, he enjoys the carnival.
I look to Madiba for inspiration in many ways. When I go to meet him it's quite clear who is the rock star - and yet he's consistently trying to shrink himself. 'Why would you come to see an old man like me!' He's always turning everything on its head. He's so very playful. I've always thought that laughter is the evidence of freedom and there's comedy in those eyes. They're evidence of life and liberty and I'm sure they were when they were behind bars.
I heard recently he had an operation on his eyes to fix his tear ducts. The sun bouncing off the quarry had damaged his eyes and apparently the salt had got into his tear ducts and he had not been able to cry properly and I just thought: there it is, right there. I thought about all those years Madiba wasn't able to cry. There's such poetry in that physical condition. When did he weep? And on what occasions did he weep for his country? I would be surprised if he hadn't. The man who couldn't cry.
For sure Mandela has a lot of bravery - but also strategy! I knew someone who actively opposed the anti-apartheid movement and I would try to avoid him. Then one day I was in a restaurant in New York and bumped into a very good friend of mine, an African American, sitting with this person. He introduced me and I sat down and we talked. Afterwards I pulled my friend aside and said, 'What's going on here? You of all people must know what this person has been up to!' And my friend said, 'Come on! Madiba was only out of prison six weeks before he called this guy. Now he's one of the biggest contributors to the ANC.' I felt like one of those Japanese soldiers who came out of the jungle in 1957 still fighting the Second World War. Mandela is extraordinary, to use the force that was coming at you to defend yourself. You could call it judo.
He told me himself that when Margaret Thatcher, who had not supported the antiapartheid movement, came to visit him, he asked for money, as he always does. With a big smile. Tourism is very expensive around Madiba. No sooner was Mrs Thatcher in the door he asked her for some cash and to her credit she wrote there and then a cheque for £100,000. That's an enormous amount of money if you have spent your life in politics. And he was very moved she should do that. Anyway, he took the cheque and somebody said, 'How can you take this, Madiba, from this woman who fought against our movement?' He said, 'If we sit and we break bread with de Klerk who squashed our people like flies, I can take the money from Margaret Thatcher.' That's strategy, making unexpected alliances. I've tried to follow in those footsteps, always reaching out for people who you least expect to be your friend. Don't look in the obvious places. Always believe that people can surprise you and themselves with a change of heart. I don't know if he has faith in God but he certainly has more faith in mankind than anyone else.
Madiba has the kind of nobility that just cannot be denied. The only way one race or people can keep another down is if deep down we believe the other race is not equal to us, not as capable as us. With Mandela it was very clear that he wasn't equal: he was way above everyone else. He completely turned it around again, like judo, using the language of the colonising force better than they could, taking the words out of their mouths and arranging them in such a way that it was inconceivable that black and white should be kept apart, that it was always a ridiculous notion.
Frantz Fanon talks about the crushing of the human spirit which comes with colonisation. One of the things he describes is emasculation, how some countries have found it very hard to find their own identity and how myth becomes really important to people coming out from under the jackboot of colonisation. Think of the way Ireland's writers, poets and playwrights created a mythology for the Irish. The Irish came out believing that we were noble, that we had this rich past with mythic figures in it. Nobility is usually the first thing that you lose in oppression and men particularly usually then exaggerate their masculinity to make up for it. You get a lot of brutality to women, for instance. You see it in African American culture - guns and very male things. That's what is so bewildering about Mandela: he hung on to that nobility even seeing degradation all around. He's a gentleman and the white South Africans - of British and Dutch origin - could just not deny his gentility.
The power of words and the way Madiba puts them together cannot be underestimated and as it turned out, language was the ANC's most lethal weapon. The world discovered the potential of South Africa through the poetry of Madiba's speeches and his communiqués. His speech at the Rivonia Trial in which he said 'I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination' even then implied a future. He'd already jumped ahead in his own mind and was saying 'in the new nation we will do things differently.' It's imagination: it's not seen to be believed, it's believe it to be seen.
Even in his twilight, Madiba is still as adept, as quick on his feet to know how hard to push and when not to. Zaki Ahmed was someone who was HIV positive who refused antiviral drugs until it was clear everyone would have the same right. He took the South African government to court and it led to a huge spat with the SA government, but Madiba went to see him and stood by him. That's him. As diplomatic as ever, doesn't want to interfere but knowing he had a moral obligation. He's still there.
One of the first times I met Madiba was when my friend Naomi Campbell put together a concert in Barcelona for one of his charities. It was called Frock and Roll, can you believe it! A lot of top names in fashion and a lot of people in music had agreed to do it but it was beset with all kinds of problems and the event had gone sour in Barcelona's local press. There had been rumours the concert was off, then it was on again. When we arrived the organisers explained that there hadn't really been that many tickets sold. And I said, 'Like how many?' 'A thousand.' A thousand! In a stadium for twenty thousand! I said, 'Don't worry. There'll be a big walk up. That happens sometimes in Spain.'
So we went to the concert and Madiba was to walk on with myself and Naomi at 7.30, but there were only one thousand people there. So we waited till 8.30: two thousand. At nine, there were about five thousand which in a stadium for twenty thousand was not a pretty sight. So there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth backstage. Who was going to tell the great man? Nobody seemed to want to, so they just turned the lights off and hoped he wouldn't notice! So we walk out on the stage and I'm just staring at my shoes. So's Naomi. Madiba comes to the microphone and says, 'It is a dangerous thing to have high expectations. And I want you people to know in Barcelona that I had high expectations of this event.' I'm staring harder at my shoes! 'What can I tell you? You people have given me a reception I could never deserve. Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for turning up and turning out for the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund.' And I look out. Same amount of people but I swear it looked full. It was one of those moments. It was a real lesson for me because it's the way he sees the world. It wasn't an act, he genuinely was thrilled that so many people had turned up. If you've spent all those years in prison, the glass doesn't look half empty. I'm one of these people who have to constantly remind myself of such things, but he turned the event completely around. With your words you make things true sometimes. And I guess he's been doing that all his life: speaking the words, describing South Africa before it existed, bringing it into existence by speaking about it as if it was.
If rock and roll has anything at the core, if it's about anything at all it's surely about liberation. Whether it's sexual liberation or spiritual liberation, just getting free of yourself and your limitations seems to be part of the theme of rock and roll. So it's natural that people in that music would be in awe of him. And he's cooler than any rock star or any hiphop star you are ever going to meet. Cool is not something I generally look up to but he actually has it.
And I think he finds these occasions very funny. There's playfulness and mischief - there's mischief in the eyes too. I think he likes to be around carnival a little bit. It lifts his spirits. He'll be there holding Naomi's hand and smiling and laughing and he's just living all the life he missed. I think that's it, he enjoys the carnival.
I look to Madiba for inspiration in many ways. When I go to meet him it's quite clear who is the rock star - and yet he's consistently trying to shrink himself. 'Why would you come to see an old man like me!' He's always turning everything on its head. He's so very playful. I've always thought that laughter is the evidence of freedom and there's comedy in those eyes. They're evidence of life and liberty and I'm sure they were when they were behind bars.
I heard recently he had an operation on his eyes to fix his tear ducts. The sun bouncing off the quarry had damaged his eyes and apparently the salt had got into his tear ducts and he had not been able to cry properly and I just thought: there it is, right there. I thought about all those years Madiba wasn't able to cry. There's such poetry in that physical condition. When did he weep? And on what occasions did he weep for his country? I would be surprised if he hadn't. The man who couldn't cry.
For sure Mandela has a lot of bravery - but also strategy! I knew someone who actively opposed the anti-apartheid movement and I would try to avoid him. Then one day I was in a restaurant in New York and bumped into a very good friend of mine, an African American, sitting with this person. He introduced me and I sat down and we talked. Afterwards I pulled my friend aside and said, 'What's going on here? You of all people must know what this person has been up to!' And my friend said, 'Come on! Madiba was only out of prison six weeks before he called this guy. Now he's one of the biggest contributors to the ANC.' I felt like one of those Japanese soldiers who came out of the jungle in 1957 still fighting the Second World War. Mandela is extraordinary, to use the force that was coming at you to defend yourself. You could call it judo.
He told me himself that when Margaret Thatcher, who had not supported the antiapartheid movement, came to visit him, he asked for money, as he always does. With a big smile. Tourism is very expensive around Madiba. No sooner was Mrs Thatcher in the door he asked her for some cash and to her credit she wrote there and then a cheque for £100,000. That's an enormous amount of money if you have spent your life in politics. And he was very moved she should do that. Anyway, he took the cheque and somebody said, 'How can you take this, Madiba, from this woman who fought against our movement?' He said, 'If we sit and we break bread with de Klerk who squashed our people like flies, I can take the money from Margaret Thatcher.' That's strategy, making unexpected alliances. I've tried to follow in those footsteps, always reaching out for people who you least expect to be your friend. Don't look in the obvious places. Always believe that people can surprise you and themselves with a change of heart. I don't know if he has faith in God but he certainly has more faith in mankind than anyone else.
Madiba has the kind of nobility that just cannot be denied. The only way one race or people can keep another down is if deep down we believe the other race is not equal to us, not as capable as us. With Mandela it was very clear that he wasn't equal: he was way above everyone else. He completely turned it around again, like judo, using the language of the colonising force better than they could, taking the words out of their mouths and arranging them in such a way that it was inconceivable that black and white should be kept apart, that it was always a ridiculous notion.
Frantz Fanon talks about the crushing of the human spirit which comes with colonisation. One of the things he describes is emasculation, how some countries have found it very hard to find their own identity and how myth becomes really important to people coming out from under the jackboot of colonisation. Think of the way Ireland's writers, poets and playwrights created a mythology for the Irish. The Irish came out believing that we were noble, that we had this rich past with mythic figures in it. Nobility is usually the first thing that you lose in oppression and men particularly usually then exaggerate their masculinity to make up for it. You get a lot of brutality to women, for instance. You see it in African American culture - guns and very male things. That's what is so bewildering about Mandela: he hung on to that nobility even seeing degradation all around. He's a gentleman and the white South Africans - of British and Dutch origin - could just not deny his gentility.
The power of words and the way Madiba puts them together cannot be underestimated and as it turned out, language was the ANC's most lethal weapon. The world discovered the potential of South Africa through the poetry of Madiba's speeches and his communiqués. His speech at the Rivonia Trial in which he said 'I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination' even then implied a future. He'd already jumped ahead in his own mind and was saying 'in the new nation we will do things differently.' It's imagination: it's not seen to be believed, it's believe it to be seen.
Even in his twilight, Madiba is still as adept, as quick on his feet to know how hard to push and when not to. Zaki Ahmed was someone who was HIV positive who refused antiviral drugs until it was clear everyone would have the same right. He took the South African government to court and it led to a huge spat with the SA government, but Madiba went to see him and stood by him. That's him. As diplomatic as ever, doesn't want to interfere but knowing he had a moral obligation. He's still there.
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