Kieran McConville
ONE love, blood, life
things often seem to come back to politics in the end.
In light of the name-calling that goes on at times about who stands where, the following might offer an interesting perspective (not to prove any points, just a perspective):
____________________________________________
(From Joshua Tree-era interview with U2 in Hot Press magazine, 1987)
BONO: You know, Bill(Graham, interviewer), there's a question I'd be interested in asking you. People expect that if you don't come through with a very strong point of view that you're therefore a liberal and personally I share with everyone - it seems everyone else in my generation - an apathy with regard to Irish party politics. The questions I ask are deeper than that. But why are there only these three choices in Ireland, left and right and middle?
Or middle, middle, and middle.
Bono: Yeah in this country, it's middle, middle and middle or right, right and right, depending on your point of view. I ask myself why I have to make a choice, left and right. I wonder how ideologies born at the turn of the century can ever be hoped to apply to the 1980s. Reaganomics or Thatcher's England - they reflect old, old ideologies. Old ideologies on the left, old ideologies on the right and if you don't like either of them, you're supposed to be a liberal. And I don't like the liberal point of view - least of all... I just picked up your review, Bill, this idea of U2 enjoying the middle ground.
Hold on, I didn't write "enjoying"?
Bono: Well, we might sit on the fence politically at times, and because, for instance, there's a picture of myself and Garret Fitzgerald in the paper, people think maybe my politics are the same as his party. But I've stressed that my interest in him is much more as a man than in his party or their politics. What's the alternative? I don't know what the alternative is in Ireland. Ireland seems politically so absurd, that the main parties have all the same policies and the Labour Party which is my own background - my Dad voted Labour most of the time and I would generally vote Labour - yet if we go by the elections, the Labour party doesn't mean anything at this point. I just look around and I see grey.
The term "liberalism" isn't necessarily a word of rebuke. It's more a word of description.
Bono: It is to me... I don't feel liberal at all and I don't think anyone who knows me would call me liberal.
Obviously, there's a question of what one means by liberal.
Bono: I know. It's just that I'm more interested in the man as opposed to men, one man as opposed to a crowd of men. And that explains the spiritual side of my writing because I think in a funny way the country almost gets the party it deserves, that it has choices... I know I had a row with Paul Weller about that at Band Aid - about the old argument that it's the system. I just don't go: "It's the system." I think men choose the system they live under in our age...
But if the choice is so absurd, where do you turn?
Bono: It's just that I suppose I'm more interested in what you might call a revolution of love. I believe that if you want to start a revolution you better start a revolution in your own home and your own way of thinking and of relating to the men and women around you. I'm trying to come to terms with global ideas like Live Aid, Artists Against Apartheid, Amnesty International and the "Conspiracy Of Hope" tour. These ideas are great ideas. We believe in and belong to them yet, for me, the future lies in small scale activity. For instance, commitment to a community, like U2 are committed to Dublin, commitment to the people in your place of work, commitment to relationships and the ones you love. I find that the people often with the big ideas and the big mouths, you know - it's like the old story that Lennon beat his wife...
In light of the name-calling that goes on at times about who stands where, the following might offer an interesting perspective (not to prove any points, just a perspective):
____________________________________________
(From Joshua Tree-era interview with U2 in Hot Press magazine, 1987)
BONO: You know, Bill(Graham, interviewer), there's a question I'd be interested in asking you. People expect that if you don't come through with a very strong point of view that you're therefore a liberal and personally I share with everyone - it seems everyone else in my generation - an apathy with regard to Irish party politics. The questions I ask are deeper than that. But why are there only these three choices in Ireland, left and right and middle?
Or middle, middle, and middle.
Bono: Yeah in this country, it's middle, middle and middle or right, right and right, depending on your point of view. I ask myself why I have to make a choice, left and right. I wonder how ideologies born at the turn of the century can ever be hoped to apply to the 1980s. Reaganomics or Thatcher's England - they reflect old, old ideologies. Old ideologies on the left, old ideologies on the right and if you don't like either of them, you're supposed to be a liberal. And I don't like the liberal point of view - least of all... I just picked up your review, Bill, this idea of U2 enjoying the middle ground.
Hold on, I didn't write "enjoying"?
Bono: Well, we might sit on the fence politically at times, and because, for instance, there's a picture of myself and Garret Fitzgerald in the paper, people think maybe my politics are the same as his party. But I've stressed that my interest in him is much more as a man than in his party or their politics. What's the alternative? I don't know what the alternative is in Ireland. Ireland seems politically so absurd, that the main parties have all the same policies and the Labour Party which is my own background - my Dad voted Labour most of the time and I would generally vote Labour - yet if we go by the elections, the Labour party doesn't mean anything at this point. I just look around and I see grey.
The term "liberalism" isn't necessarily a word of rebuke. It's more a word of description.
Bono: It is to me... I don't feel liberal at all and I don't think anyone who knows me would call me liberal.
Obviously, there's a question of what one means by liberal.
Bono: I know. It's just that I'm more interested in the man as opposed to men, one man as opposed to a crowd of men. And that explains the spiritual side of my writing because I think in a funny way the country almost gets the party it deserves, that it has choices... I know I had a row with Paul Weller about that at Band Aid - about the old argument that it's the system. I just don't go: "It's the system." I think men choose the system they live under in our age...
But if the choice is so absurd, where do you turn?
Bono: It's just that I suppose I'm more interested in what you might call a revolution of love. I believe that if you want to start a revolution you better start a revolution in your own home and your own way of thinking and of relating to the men and women around you. I'm trying to come to terms with global ideas like Live Aid, Artists Against Apartheid, Amnesty International and the "Conspiracy Of Hope" tour. These ideas are great ideas. We believe in and belong to them yet, for me, the future lies in small scale activity. For instance, commitment to a community, like U2 are committed to Dublin, commitment to the people in your place of work, commitment to relationships and the ones you love. I find that the people often with the big ideas and the big mouths, you know - it's like the old story that Lennon beat his wife...
