(06-1-2007) Celebrities join anti-poverty protests*

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Celebrities join anti-poverty protests



By Caroline Bock

Berlin - Bono, the Irish singer who will sing at an anti-poverty concert next week to protest at the policies of the richest nations, certainly gets around.
Last year he was photographed shaking hands with US President George W. Bush.

Hardline protesters were scandalized, but the U2 star says he would sup with the Devil himself to help the cause.
The June 7 'Raise Your Voice Against Poverty' concert in the German city of Rostock has been dubbed the P8, or Poverty Eight, a joke on the G8 or Group of Eight summit.

Like another Irish star, Bob Geldof, Bono is dedicated to relieving poverty in Africa and fears the G8 nations offer too little help or may wriggle out of existing promises.

The stars, and anyone who visits the multilingual P8 website www.deinestimmegegenarmut.de, can send German Chancellor Angela Merkel an e-postcard warning her to 'keep her word' at the June 6-8 summit in Heiligendamm.

Celebrity protest is something new to serious-minded Germany, where protest movements often come with a complete world-view and are suspicious of elites.

Two quite different sorts of singer perform against globalization.
One category is the voice of the German hard left, which objects to the existence of the G8, accusing the seven western nations and Russia of oppressing the world.

A Berlin festival in April, the Move against G8, and gigs by Hamburg musicians Jan Delay and Bernadette La Hengst appeal to radicals who aim to disrupt the summit.

Stars like Bono and Geldof belong to a category that could be described as pragmatist rather than leftist: they stress that world leaders need a push to save the world.

Many in the protest movement appreciate the star presence, because it diverts the attention of the media away from preening politicians towards the anti-poverty message.

'We call it the redistribution of the cameras,' quips Tobias Kahler of DATA, an anti-poverty campaign group that welcomes star backing, in a play on the phrase 'redistribution of wealth.'
Geldof is set to win huge attention in Germany as guest editor-in-chief of Bild, Germany's biggest-circulation newspaper, giving it a temporary makeover which will include a series of stories about Africa.

The German-language Vanity Fair has done a glossy cover with Claudia Schiffer, Orlando Bloom, George Clooney, Heidi Klum, Salma Hayek, Penelope Cruz und P. Diddy wearing white 'Raise Your Voice Against Poverty' armbands.

In an interview with the German weekly Die Zeit, Bono said, 'What does it matter what their motivations are if the ideas are right?' That is a point of view that dismays some deeply serious German activists.

'I find the whole thing ambivalent,' said Peter Wahl, coordinator of the European anti-globalization network Attac, recalling the Live 8 concerts at the time of the 2005 Gleneagles G8 summit, when Geldof said the battle on poverty had been almost won. That proved premature.

On the other hand, it was a good thing to have as much influence as possible on the side of those who view globalization critically, said Wahl, whose group has also benefited from a celebrity or two in its ranks.

Simon Teune, an academic who studies protest at the Berlin Studies Centre, says a survey of several campaigns shows that 'the original objectives of civic movements get watered down whenever celebrities come on board.'
The faces tend to package their social criticism in a generalized way and to drop the radical edge.

'They say they are against poverty. So what? Do you know anyone who is in favour of poverty?' he said.

The celebrities focus on phenomena that can readily be portrayed as scandalous, but do not point any finger at the political and social causes of the crises, he said.

'That is why a majority of the critics of the G8 are not too rapt about all the celebrities jumping in to lend their support,' Teune explained.

© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
http://people.monstersandcritics.co...8.php/Celebrities_join_anti-poverty_protests
 
I hope that a lot of people turn up for the protests and for the concert, and I most of all hope that everything stays peaceful.
I'd rather have "celebrities" campaigning against poverty and using their voice and fame to do constructive work, than seing protestors who are more than willing to use violence. That is so wrong.
I will be in Rostock and at the concert next week and I really hope that there are not again only promises given, but that the promises are followed by deeds.
 
"Geldof is set to win huge attention in Germany as guest editor-in-chief of Bild, Germany's biggest-circulation newspaper"

Geldof is to pair with the devil.

Of course Attac isn't happy about it, because Live8 and the celebrities show people that you are achieving so much more if you refuse to throw stones and all. Attac has been around for more than 15 years now, and they didn't help anybody.

Many of the protesters from the alternative scene are utopists who dream of a world where everybody has a perfect live, but they don't know how to achieve it and don't come up with solutions. All they are doing is going to protests like this and demanding the G8 to disappear, capitalism to somehow extinct and so on.
The more radical way they are going isn't helping anybody.

last unicorn, maybe we could meet at the concert. I will be in Rostock from the 5th to the 9th, and together with some other U2 fans we wanted to get in line at about 6am on the 7th.
 
Right. Attac is a synonym for violence these days.
I'd rather stay away from them. They almost always mean trouble. I think it's a shame, because some violent protesters always shed a bad light on all the other ones who are peaceful.

VV, I don't have a place to stay in Rostock, so I will be arriving on the morning of June 7 and going to the venue straight away, I don't know what time I will arrive but I will try to get myself a good spot anyway. Just to be part of this event will be so great.
 
OK. If you see someone with a Music Rising shirt, glasses, a cd case, a picture, and maybe you've seen pictures of me in the Lemonade Stand thread, just come over. :)
 
OK yes!!!!
VV, you're going to Rostock earlier than me. I am officially on a family visit in Hamburg which I had planned longer, so I decided to combine it with the concert.
I will keep looking for you. I wish you luck with the CD!
 
:wink: to both Vincent and last uni I will be praying for both of you thru this G8 and the concert! I was wondering Vincent why Anyone would protest this!....so silly esp. with Violence! :yes: :pray:
 
Oh yes, it's stupid. And they don't furthur their cause because most people just think of throwing stones and escalation with police forces, but not of what they are protesting for. And no one really know what they are protesting for, and doesn't really care.

For the protesters the G8 is a bunch of neo-liberals from the powerful countries who are murderers, tyrans and enemies of the third world.

They expected 100,000 protesters this weekend, but so far it's only about a quarter of that. I think the reason is that most of the people who might have thought of going there are afraid to be viewed as another bunch of violent radicals and thus staying away. The more moderate people might not want to get into any trouble. And as you could see today, the first escalation has already happened.

Another reason could also be our Minister for the Interior, Wolfgang Schaeuble, who is a bit crazy with terrorism and trying to get through laws that are far beyond reasoning, and are about equal to things happened during the Nazi time and in Eastern Germany.
 
Yes, I think it's generally hyped too much in the media. I mean the media is going crazy these days. I cannot remember anything like this with any other G8 summit.
I think many people are worried because many media reports are just hyping the whole protest issue, because the media is always painting a negative picture of the situation.
And of course, the politicians are paranoid. What's going on in Heiligendamm is simply ridiculous. Next time, they should have the G8 summit on some far away island that cannot be reached by protesters. The situation is crazy, only because of these upcoming 3-day-summit. And of course the atmosphere gets heated and the tension is growing by all of this. The police is over-sensitive and the possibility of violent acts becomes much more possible under such circumstances, especially with all these hysteria taking place in the last weeks.
And the costs for all of this are also ridiculously high.
 
The costs of the summit and everything that goes with it are estimated to be about 100 million Euros.

The summit in Genua wasn't that much better, and in Denver they cancelled it as far as I know.
But the media really is focussing on the violent protests and the fence too much.
 
Vincent and last unicorn - I hope that both of you know just how much I appreciate your viewpoints on the events surrounding the upcoming G8 summit, including the unfortunate turn that the protests took earlier today.


I wish you both well this week as you attend the concert in Rostock on 7 June. :wink:


Please STAY SAFE and make sure to report back here to us as soon as possible! :rockon:
 
PLEASE STANDBY FOR TRANSMISSION:The world leader's involved in the G8 Summit should stay home and have their conferance via vidieo tele conferance link's.Do to the violent protest's and the cost of the security involved.Then some of the money saved from not having to provide security could be donated to various charitie's for food etc.They then can re-name the summit ,"GEE,SOMEBODY ATE!" conferance.
 
:eyebrow: Yeah? but why This G8 summit? RM why didn't they protest the others?? I think Vincent and Uni are right.....! i will add that isn't a strange thing that people in These countries..are protesting helping Poor-er countries? They have so much, yet feel they are losing something..? Hmmmh!:|
 
I think a number of celebrities jump on bandwagons such as these Bono is involved in to be seen, for PR and they don't really have their hearts in the cause. This is sad.
 
If anything I think musicians should do more than they do already - Bono has definitely helped rasie a lot of issues and increased profile of a variety of causes - but the danger is that politicians feed off this publicity to make it look like they are doing something, when in reality nothing gets done.

THe last G* summit is a perfect example - GEldof gave them "10 out of 10", when in reality things got no better - infact some countries now give less aid to AFrica than they did before the summit.

I would like Bono and others to be a little less dimplomatic and a bit more critical of politicians.
 
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