Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Geldof Urges A Million To Edinburgh For Protest

From today's Scotsman newspaper:

At a press conference to launch Live 8, on 2 July, Geldof urged every man, woman and child in Britain to give up work and school and march in their thousands to a rally in Edinburgh on 6 July, in an attempt to influence the G8 summit of world leaders. Geldof said Britain had an opportunity "to do something unparalleled in the world, and especially at the beginning of the 21st century, and that is to tilt the world a little bit on its axis in favour of the poor"...

He continued: "Give up two days of work and there is a chance that maybe, just maybe, you can change things. What’s better - two days of work? Two days of geometry? Or participating in something you will remember all your life?"


His Live Aid co-founder, Midge Ure had a plea for the people of Edinburgh too:

"We want every church, synagogue, mosque to open their doors and let people in. Scotland has an amazing history of being big-hearted, we are big-hearted and we mean well. Let these people into your spare room, garage, your garden."

While police described the call as "irresponsible", Geldof said he didn’t see a problem if people were well-behaved. "You will get a few looney toons, but, as Midge Ure says, it will be a party. But how disgraceful to behave like a twat in the face of such poverty. Let’s calm down and let’s get things done."

A police statement issued after Geldof's comments said :

"We cannot allow the policing capability or any infrastructure to be overwhelmed and compromise the safety of those involved."

"We were already planning for more than 100,000 people to take part in the Make Poverty History march, which would have been the biggest event ever in Scotland. Now there has been talk of up to a million people coming to Edinburgh but, frankly, it is difficult to conceive how they could all get to this area in the first place and where they could assemble in safety.

"Crowds of this size are potentially hazardous. No-one wants tragedy to distract world attention from the real aims of the campaigners."


Live 8 will host five concerts,in support of the Make Poverty History campaign, an alliance of UK charities, trade unions and other organisations which is supported by the UK government. The concerts will be held in London, Berlin, Rome, Paris and Philadelphia to highlight demands that the G8 Conference address world poverty. Gordon Brown, the British Chancellor, has already drawn up plans to do just that but they are being blocked by President Bush.

Richard Curtis, the director of Four Weddings and a Funeral, who is a spokesman for the campaign, said: "World poverty is sustained not by chance or nature, but by a combination of factors: injustice in global trade, the huge burden of debt, and insufficient and ineffective aid.

"Each of these is exacerbated by inappropriate economic policies imposed by rich countries." Each day 50,000 people die as a result of extreme poverty, he said.

Curtis added: "If 50,000 people died in London on Monday, in Rome on Tuesday, in Berlin on Wednesday, in New York on Thursday and in Paris on Friday, the G8 leaders in Gleneagles would find the money and the solution to the problem as they walked from the front door to the reception desk."

Dammit, I'm not going to be there! This is one of those events where you want to be able to tell your grandchildren you stood with the crowd and did the right thing.

The 6th of July, 2005 in Edinburgh - A St. Crispin's Day for the whole world.

Update June 2nd

Here's the word from New Statesman magazine:

"Suspend cynicism for a moment, leave aside questions of motive, lock away the emotions that will be on display from Bob Geldof and his glittering ilk at the Live 8 concerts, and do as accountants do. Concentrate on the figures. Per capita income in the poorest countries of Africa has fallen by a quarter in two decades. Roughly 2.8 billion people - nearly half the world's population - live on less than $2 a day. Every day, 50,000 people die of hunger and preventable illness. The stats get worse: for every dollar given in aid, two dollars are recouped via trade tariffs. Then there are the debt repayments that have killed hopes of recovery."

As NS rightly points out, the "Fifty years of starvation, exploitation, conflict, misrule and deep, deep injustice" is a direct result of the mess developed nations, and in particular Britain, created when they divested themselves of the "white man's burden". That mess was then worsened by developed nations, in particular the US, as monetary blackmail was used to strongarm "corrupt economic transactions between poor countries that have been turned into mono-commodity providers and their paymasters." None of this is particularly controversial except to revisionist historians - the facts are a matter of record.

It's very easy to be cynical, but just maybe this time an outcry for basic humanity can galvanise a generation.

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