February 1998
Pop legends U2 join hands in campaign for `the soul of the country'
By SUE CANT
U2's lead singer, Bono, may not have wanted to find himself discussing the finer points of land rights, but found he could not ignore a crowd's call yesterday.
"The struggle to me isn't about the law or land rights, it's about the soul of the country," he said to fans and native title campaigners.
Bono and fellow band members - The Edge, Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton yesterday raised their hands in defence of native title during their nationwide tour.
The Irish pop stars joined 100,000 hands already raised in support of Aboriginal reconciliation and native title as part of the Sea of Hands campaign in the Treasury Gardens.
Although Bono declared Australia to be the "most extraordinary place on Earth", he did not claim to understand the complexities of the land rights debate. "It's a big deal but we don't want to make a big deal of it because we are Irish and we are pop stars.
"We come from a naive point of view," he said.
Bono said although the Irish only knew " a little bit about the struggle for land title", it was obvious that people deserved land rights.
"If you want to have a future that the people all feel part of, sometimes you have to deal with the past," he said.
The band joined the campaign at the request of the Australians for Native Title Group, who first displayed the colorful cardboard hands at a protest outside Parliament House in Canberra last year. They will be displayed at the Adelaide Festival next month.
After Bono's impromptu speech, the band rushed off to Brisbane for the next leg of their tour.
Other causes used the band's Melbourne concert at Waverley Park on Saturday. Both Amnesty International and Greenpeace set up stalls, while Bono made a passing reference about East Timor.
I was searching PLEBA for that photo. I will save it this time.
