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Bono Interview from Dazed & Confused Magazine
By Jefferson Hack
Ed note: Below is an excerpt from the interview
Bono has a huge international reach, and unlike many of today?s superstars, he doesn?t take the enormous social responsibility that comes with it lightly. Along with the rest of U2, Bono has a long history of campaigning for human rights and in the battle against global poverty and suffering. From the rallying cry of ?Sunday Bloody Sunday? to the moment he phoned Bill Clinton live on stage as images of a besieged Sarajevo flashed across giant screens ? politics and rock?n?roll have rarely been fused so effectively. It?s a policy he took one step further with the Jubilee 2000 ?Drop the Debt? campaign, lobbying G8 leaders to reduce and ultimately cancel the crippling debt repayments that burden third world countries. Famous for having his sunglasses snatched by the Pope, Bono is rarely side-tracked from being a rock solid fighter for Africa?s escape from poverty.
Dazed & Confused: You have been to South Africa on several occasions and witnessed how Aids affects people?s lives, which African stories have left the biggest impression on you...
Bono: Two of the most inspiring stories of the last 50 years to have come out of South Africa, one has been well recorded, that?s Nelson Mandela. But the second story is the Truth and Reconciliation campaign. Archbishop Tutu has created a model that you could apply to the Middle East, to Northern Island, to Bosnia. It?s the most extraordinary thing to see relatives of murdered protestors standing in front of the people who shot their wife and ask them questions like: ?Do you remember a woman wearing a green dress, she was waving at the time when you shot her.? And then with tears rolling down their face, both of them often, the victims and the perpetrators, and talking. Just to get to the truth, not to get to a result that puts people behind bars. I think that it is the most extraordinary jump in human consciousness that I?ve heard about in a very long time. We visited the headquarters of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and we met with Desmond Tutu. So we all walked into the room, just completely honoured to meet him. We were exchanging pleasantries and then he just turned around and said, ?Can we bow our heads now please?? We all had to bow our heads and he made this prayer, which just changed the molecular structure of the room and everyone in it, and suddenly we weren?t tourists any more; suddenly he was reminding us of what was really going on here. I asked him a rather stupid question afterwards. I said, ?Do you get time with all this work for prayer and meditation yourself?? And he just looked at me, threw a scowl at me, a real rebuke. He just stopped in his tracks and said, ?How do you think we would do this if we didn?t take time out for prayer?? I was scolded by the great man! And of course he?s all laughs normally. Then afterwards he brought us upstairs and said, ?Look, I have a few people who would like to meet the band,? and we said okay, great. So we went upstairs. There were six hundred people sitting there. He brought us out and said, ?Ladies and Gentlemen, I have for you, to sing a song, U2!?, and we had no instruments, nothing! We just looked at each other, just like rabbits in the headlights. The only thing I could think of singing was ?Amazing Grace?, which turns out was appropriate; it is a story of grace interrupting karma. If Nelson Mandela?s story is the most inspirational for their liberty, this is for our liberty.
D&C: People have to put the issues from the past behind them, but the issues from the past have to be dealt with...
B: This is probably the best compromise I can imagine. I don?t know I?d have the grace to accept it myself if I had suffered such mistreatment. But when it happens it?s remarkable.
To read the entire interview, please visit:
http://www.fabrica.it/futurepositive/bono.htm
Many thanks to Debbie K!
By Jefferson Hack
Ed note: Below is an excerpt from the interview
Bono has a huge international reach, and unlike many of today?s superstars, he doesn?t take the enormous social responsibility that comes with it lightly. Along with the rest of U2, Bono has a long history of campaigning for human rights and in the battle against global poverty and suffering. From the rallying cry of ?Sunday Bloody Sunday? to the moment he phoned Bill Clinton live on stage as images of a besieged Sarajevo flashed across giant screens ? politics and rock?n?roll have rarely been fused so effectively. It?s a policy he took one step further with the Jubilee 2000 ?Drop the Debt? campaign, lobbying G8 leaders to reduce and ultimately cancel the crippling debt repayments that burden third world countries. Famous for having his sunglasses snatched by the Pope, Bono is rarely side-tracked from being a rock solid fighter for Africa?s escape from poverty.
Dazed & Confused: You have been to South Africa on several occasions and witnessed how Aids affects people?s lives, which African stories have left the biggest impression on you...
Bono: Two of the most inspiring stories of the last 50 years to have come out of South Africa, one has been well recorded, that?s Nelson Mandela. But the second story is the Truth and Reconciliation campaign. Archbishop Tutu has created a model that you could apply to the Middle East, to Northern Island, to Bosnia. It?s the most extraordinary thing to see relatives of murdered protestors standing in front of the people who shot their wife and ask them questions like: ?Do you remember a woman wearing a green dress, she was waving at the time when you shot her.? And then with tears rolling down their face, both of them often, the victims and the perpetrators, and talking. Just to get to the truth, not to get to a result that puts people behind bars. I think that it is the most extraordinary jump in human consciousness that I?ve heard about in a very long time. We visited the headquarters of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and we met with Desmond Tutu. So we all walked into the room, just completely honoured to meet him. We were exchanging pleasantries and then he just turned around and said, ?Can we bow our heads now please?? We all had to bow our heads and he made this prayer, which just changed the molecular structure of the room and everyone in it, and suddenly we weren?t tourists any more; suddenly he was reminding us of what was really going on here. I asked him a rather stupid question afterwards. I said, ?Do you get time with all this work for prayer and meditation yourself?? And he just looked at me, threw a scowl at me, a real rebuke. He just stopped in his tracks and said, ?How do you think we would do this if we didn?t take time out for prayer?? I was scolded by the great man! And of course he?s all laughs normally. Then afterwards he brought us upstairs and said, ?Look, I have a few people who would like to meet the band,? and we said okay, great. So we went upstairs. There were six hundred people sitting there. He brought us out and said, ?Ladies and Gentlemen, I have for you, to sing a song, U2!?, and we had no instruments, nothing! We just looked at each other, just like rabbits in the headlights. The only thing I could think of singing was ?Amazing Grace?, which turns out was appropriate; it is a story of grace interrupting karma. If Nelson Mandela?s story is the most inspirational for their liberty, this is for our liberty.
D&C: People have to put the issues from the past behind them, but the issues from the past have to be dealt with...
B: This is probably the best compromise I can imagine. I don?t know I?d have the grace to accept it myself if I had suffered such mistreatment. But when it happens it?s remarkable.
To read the entire interview, please visit:
http://www.fabrica.it/futurepositive/bono.htm
Many thanks to Debbie K!
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