LIVE 8 and G8--A DISSENTING VIEW

The BBC has published on its website's music section a critical view of the Live 8 concert by David Stubbs (left) an editor of the U.K. music magazine Wire, on "Why I Won't Be Watching Live 8" - - in which Stubbs laments the white-bread character of the entertainment lineup and the notable absence of many African performers in a concert supposedly designed to raise consciousness about the inhuman, crushing poverty that afflicts sub-Saharan Africa. Stubbs criticizes Bob Geldof(right) for his overly-friendly attitudes towards the world's powerful. I heard the great Camerounian Afro-jazz musician Manu Dibongo (left) express precisely the same reservations in a live interview yesterday on TV 5, the international francophone channel (Manu is a huge star in France as well as in French-speaking Africa), in which he explained why he, too, was boycotting Live 8. "Tony Blair wrote the score for this concert, and Bob Geldof is his orchestra leader," Manu said, "I suppose this concert can't hurt, but will it really help? It cost a lot of money to organizes these concerts around the world -- how much? And was this the best use for this money in terms of helping Africa? How honest an effort is it when the music and the people for whom the concert's organizers are claiming to speak are absent from it?" There's no transcript of Manu's interview available on the 'net, so read Stubbs' cri de coeur by clicking here. ....Also, there's a strong critique in the July 6 edition of Australia's quite useful Green Left Weekly -- an intelligently edited radical newspaper Down Under, published by the Socialist Alliance -- which has a wealth of explication dissecting what's really in the anti-poverty plan that is the G-8's response to Geldof & Company, in a new piece headlined "G8, How the Rich World Short-Changes Africa:"

"Across the globe, there has been a genuine outpouring of popular solidarity and sympathy with the people of Africa, symbolised by the tens of thousands who attended, and the millions who watched, the Live 8 concerts. Unfortunately, celebrations to mark what British deputy PM Gordon Brown described as 'the intention of world leaders to forge a new and better relationship  between the rich and poor countries of the world' are premature.

"The G8's promises fall far short, and contradict important aspects, of MPH’s demands as detailed on its web site — “Trade justice”, “Drop the debt” and 'More and better aid'. MPH demands that 'the unpayable debts of the world’s poorest countries should be cancelled in full' and “poor countries should no longer have to privatise basic services or liberalise economies as a condition for getting the debt relief they so desperately need”. Yet, the much publicised British government-brokered deal only cancels the multilateral component of the debt of 18 of the world’s poorest countries (with another 20 that may become eligible in the future). But this “relief” comes with the very strings that MPH opposes — strings that will ensure that poor countries remain trapped in dire poverty.

"As the grassroots anti-debt coalition African Jubilee South explained on June 14, eligibility 'involves the implementation of stringent free market reforms such as [health and education] budget cuts, financial and trade liberalisation, privatisation' and, as the G8 states explicitly, 'the elimination of impediments to private investment, both domestic and foreign'..." Read the rest of this stinging and revealing indictment by clicking here.

RACISM IS ALIVE AND WELL, #2: (Second in an occasional series -- if you missed the first installment, click here): The Associated Press reported last week on a new series of stamps issued in Mexico that embody the most vulgar and repugnant racial stereotypes of blacks imaginable. "The Mexican government has issued postage stamps depicting an exaggerated black cartoon character known as Memin Pinguin, just weeks after remarks by President Vicente Fox angered U.S. blacks. The series of five stamps released Wednesday depicts a character with exaggerated features, thick lips and wide-open eyes. The character's appearance, speech and mannerisms are the subject of kidding by white characters in a comic book series, which started in the 1940s and is still published in Mexico..." Read the rest of this story by clicking here. (Chapeau to Afro-netizen for this one...)