Bono: `Juxtapositioning' for the world's poor

Christian Century, Feb 13, 2002 by John Dart

One day the lead singer of U2 is joining billionaire Bill Gates at the World Economic Forum in New York in criticizing the U.S. for being stingy with aid for the world's poorest nations. The next day Bono is in New Orleans performing with his rock band during halftime at the Super Bowl.

Versed in the politics of economic aid for underdeveloped countries, Bono once met with Pope Paul John II to publicize the global campaign for debt relief in the Third World. "Now I am here with the pope of software, making another unusual juxtaposition," Bono said at a New York news conference with Gates of Microsoft fortune on February 2.

After announcing he was personally giving an added $50 million to fight the spread of AIDS, Gates decried the U.S. for being "the laggard" among world aid donors--directing his remarks to fellow panelist U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill on the third day of the economic forum, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.

O'Neill politely brushed aside the criticism, saying that poor nations have received "trillions of dollars in aid over the years with precious little to show for it," evidently counting the bailouts of indebted countries. "The question is, how do we create a situation so that people become engines of economic progress, and not just objects of our pity?" O'Neill said. Bono responded that progress is impossible without basic health care. "Dead people don't make a great work force," he said.

Saying diplomatically that O'Neill's stance accurately reflects an American distrust of foreign aid, the singer disclosed that he will accompany O'Neill on a visit to Africa in March. "The great thing about hanging out with Republicans is that it is very unhip for both of us," Bono said. "There is a parity of pain there."

Bono appeared to handle the juxtaposition better than Konrad Raiser, general secretary of the World Council of Churches. Raiser was one of some 40 religious leaders invited to participate in the economic forum, ostensibly due to the religious elements in some political conflicts. Others included George Carey, archbishop of Canterbury (who declared that a big question mark hangs over capitalism, which "has to act within boundaries"); Cardinal Francis Arinze, the Vatican's top interreligious official; and Desmond Tutu, former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town.

The WCC executive said he prefers collaborative efforts in contrast to the forum's "individualistic" approach. "It's a strange feeling," he told Ecumenical News International. "I can't get away from the sense that I'm in the wrong place." A critic of some aspects of a globalized economy, Raiser said he sympathized with an estimated 7,000 people who protested outside the meeting site. Thousands more attended an alternative World Social Forum in Brazil intended to counter corporate-driven globalization.

Some religious representatives felt caught in an odd kind of damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't bind, reported Episcopal News Service. Religion (read "religious extremism") was attacked when it was seen as "deviant," but then held up as a kind of paragon for all that ails the world when it represented the impulse of peace and mediation.

Maybe there's a song there, Bono.