(06-4-2007) Bono versus Mwenda*

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Anu

Editor
Staff member
Joined
Jan 31, 2005
Messages
1,700
Location
There ain't no place I'd rather be, baby won't you
Bono versus Mwenda


By Ethan Zuckerman (www.ethanzuckerman.com)



The second session opens with a remarkable piece of film, an excerpt from a stop-motion animation titled, “Only the Hand that Erases Can Write the True Thing”. It’s a haunting and moving piece, but i’s a bit jarring before we move into the rest of the session, which opens as a rebuttal of the first session.

Bono is the first speaker for the second session and he comes bringing greetings from Chancellor Angela Merkel, a video greeing that connects the G8’s meeting with TED’s meeting. She’s meeting with leaders of NEPAD and with President John Kufuor. She acknowledges dramatic African developments - the reduction in armed conflict, a 5% growth rate in several nations, an increase in the number of democracies on the continent. Yet, there’s still dreadful poverty, irregularities in Nigeria’s elections, and the ongoing situations in Zimbabwe and Darfur.

Bono takes the stage afterwards and says, “Try telling Chancellor Merkel that the Marshal plan was a load of crap.” He notes that Germany has been spending 4% of its economy to enable reunification. “Germans know better than anyone in the world how aid can work.” And he argues that the Marshall plan is “the best example of America intervening in a strategic way.”

Bono’s talk is a response to the “Mwenda plan” - a reference to Andrew Mwenda’s critique of foreign aid. He says he’s not sure there is a plan, and accuses Mwenda, in a swipe, of being a comedian - getting a laugh by pointing to the thing in the room no one will talk about. He argues that the money Mwenda complains about - $600 billion in the past 30-40 years - is really a very small amount of money, about $14 dollars per African over the past 50 years. (That doesn’t sound right to me - with $600 billion given and a current continental population of 900 million points to $600-700 per living African… but I don’t have historical population figures…)

The cold war was fought in Africa, Bono reminds us, and that we bear responsibility for supporting kleptocracies like Mobutu’s regime - “I don’t think its charity to not ask Mobutu’s grandchildren to pay it back.” He talks about his work on DATA - “Debt, AIDS and Trade Africa”, which he tells us can also be read as “Democracy and Transparency for Africa.”

He explains that this came about through his attempts to get a meeting with George W. Bush. Meeting with Paul O’Neill, he confronted an ALCOA alum who’d done business in Africa, a realist who told him, “You’re crazy if you are asking for money so African leaders can decorate presidential palaces.”

The resulting conversations led to the Millenium Challenge Account, which has helped turn US aid from a historic low of 0.1%, half of which had gone to Israel and Egypt… and Bono argues that MCA is all about starting businesses.

Investment in Ireland has led to a very poor country becoming one of the wealthiest in the world. The key factor is a highly educated population. “I was educated by the state - there are some public goods worth spending for today.” He congratulates the US for writing a big check - $30 billion - and for enabling debt cancellation, which is letting 20 million people go to school.”I don’t want to be a defender of Museveni, but there are three times as many children going to school because of debt cancellation.”

Bono fields a couple of questions, two of them quite hostile.

One notes, “a certain portrayal as Africans as unable to think, empty,” an accusation that clearly stings. Bono responds that he’s clearly done a poor job of showing his esteem for the continent, and notes, “I don’t think about Africans in any other way than I think about irish people.”

A question from Derrick Ashong about how Africa can leverage its cultural patrimony gets a happier response: he notes that Irish culture isn’t a northern European culture, and that many traditional Irish melodies can be traced directly to Morocco - he illustrates with a short piece of song. “There’s a definite African heritage, a connection between Celtic and Coptic culture.” He leaves the stage to a standing ovation.
http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=1456
 
"A question from Derrick Ashong about how Africa can leverage its cultural patrimony gets a happier response: he notes that Irish culture isn’t a northern European culture, and that many traditional Irish melodies can be traced directly to Morocco - he illustrates with a short piece of song. "

So he's an expert on anthropology now along with everything else. :rolleyes:
 
You know it could be that Bono is right on targe with what he is saying. The man reads consistantly and is forever educating himself through books.
 
In case this news item doesn't make it clear (and I don't think it does), Bono is in Tanzania at the moment, attending the TED conference there. This conference was created as a direct result of one of the three wishes he was granted when he won the TED award two years ago. There are a number of pictures floating around of him with other participants. Busy fellow.
 
Incase anyone is interested:


Bono
WISH ONE: I wish for you to help build a social movement of more than ONE MILLION American activists for Africa.

Goal:

Empower Americans to fight stupid, crushing poverty in Africa and AIDS by making a big noise.
Actions Taken:

Rights to the URL www.ONE.org secured and delivered by the Jane Addams Hull House.
Sun builds cool SMS technology that allows instant sign-ups at U2 concerts; a team from Sun travels with the U2 tour to run it.
Multi-company team of Sun, Macromedia, Microsoft and Tribe, redesigns the www.ONE.org website.
Anonymous TEDster commits $10M over five years to Bono's team.
Result:
1.4M signups ahead of G8 summit where major debt cancellation/AID package agreed. One.org signups subsequently exceed 2M.

WISH TWO: I wish to tell people ONE BILLION times about ONE, with as much of this as possible before the G8 Africa Summit in July 2005.

Goal:

ONE billion media impressions for the mass-market campaign to tell everyone in the U.S. about ONE and the global fight against poverty.
Actions Taken:

John Kamen, of Radical Media, creates ONE film which plays all over TV Networks and the Internet
Google contribute adwords
Jay Amato and Viewpoint negotiate 1.5 BILLION online ads with help from 24/7 Real Media, About.com, Accuweather, ad pepper, AOL, Boston.com, Burst Media, CBS, UPN and CBSNews, Ebay, Gamespot, iVillage, MaxOnline, Monster.com, MSN, MSNBC, NowPublic, Right Media, UGO, ValueClick, VIEWPOINT Search, Whitepages.com
Results:
Exceeded ONE BILLION impressions target before the G8 summit. Total impressions granted eventually exceeded TWO billion.

WISH THREE: I wish for you to show the power of information —its power to rewrite the rules and to transform lives — by connecting every hospital, health clinic, and school in one African country, Ethiopia, to the Internet.

Goal:

Track and improve public health with information technology; expand the resources available to local schools
Actions Taken:

Sun, AMD, HP, Cisco, and TEDsters Taylor Milsal and Joseph Mouzon meet with DATA for a half day brainstorm.
NYC meeting with Jeffrey Sachs' Earth Institute team from Columbia.
TED delegation are hosted in Addis Ababa by Tom Darden's Cherokee House.
TED delegation visits schools, clinics, and meets with government: Ministry of Health, Ministry of Information, Ministry of Building Capacity, The World Bank, State Department, Ethiopian Telecommunications, local NGOs.
Big problems are encountered: Pushback from teachers and doctors, government telecoms monopoly and erupting political violence.
Results:
After in-depth research, TED reports back to Bono... this is NOT the best way for TED to help in Africa. Instead, TED decides to connect the community to remarkable people, projects, businesses in Africa and announces TED Global in Tanzania, June 2007.
 
THANK YOU, BONO - for your determination in following through on what you know in your Heart is right


and for having the confidence to SPEAK THE TRUTH THAT YOU KNOW IN YOUR HEART with undeterred conviction. :bono: :heart: :heart: :hug:
 
financeguy said:
"A question from Derrick Ashong about how Africa can leverage its cultural patrimony gets a happier response: he notes that Irish culture isn’t a northern European culture, and that many traditional Irish melodies can be traced directly to Morocco - he illustrates with a short piece of song. "

So he's an expert on anthropology now along with everything else. :rolleyes:

could perhaps be something to do with the ancient links between Morocco --> Spain, Spain --> Ireland?

(invasions and shipwrecks)
 
Last edited:
Great speech, great sentiments, and let's hope there's more positive developments to come.

On a historical note there was certainly contact and trade between the mediterranean and North Africa and southwest England during the Bronze age - large tin deposits over here that they needed. And southwest England was still a Celtic culture at the time, with very strong cultural and familial links to Ireland.

End of historical lecture :wave:

Teddy
 
financeguy said:
"A question from Derrick Ashong about how Africa can leverage its cultural patrimony gets a happier response: he notes that Irish culture isn’t a northern European culture, and that many traditional Irish melodies can be traced directly to Morocco - he illustrates with a short piece of song. "

So he's an expert on anthropology now along with everything else. :rolleyes:

Well we didn't come from any 'Celtic' race, that would have come under what the Greeks called Keltoi or the Romans referred to as Gauls (even then that was a very loose grouping, as the people referred to as celtic certainly didn't see themselves as being one and the same).

As mama cass said, I believe we are more closely related to the Basque...genetically there seems to be little connection to any Celtic peoples....other than the adoption of the culture.
 
Jamila said:
THANK YOU, BONO - for your determination in following through on what you know in your Heart is right


and for having the confidence to SPEAK THE TRUTH THAT YOU KNOW IN YOUR HEART with undeterred conviction. :bono: :heart: :heart: :hug:

You took the words right out of my mouth.
 
In college I wrote a paper on the person I admired most (OK, it was a junior college). Anyway, the person was Martin Luther King. If I were to write such a paper today, the person would be Bono. Is there a more admirable person on earth? Seriously. It sounds ridiculous. A rock star is your most admirable person? Well...yeah! I honestly can't think of a person whom I admire more than Bono. Even if I weren't a U2 fan.
 
Back
Top Bottom