Bono & Geldof: Bards of the powerful?

[T_i_B]

George Monbiot trashing Bono and Bob Geldof. Make of this what you will.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/hearafrica05/story/0,15756,1510822,00.html

The real danger at the G8 summit is not that the protests will turn violent - the appetite for that pretty well disappeared in September 2001 - but that they will be far too polite. Let me be more precise. The danger is that we will follow the agenda set by Bono and Bob Geldof.

The two musicians are genuinely committed to the cause of poverty reduction. They have helped secure aid and debt-relief packages worth billions of dollars. They have helped to keep the issue of global poverty on the political agenda. They have mobilised people all over the world. These are astonishing achievements, and it would be stupid to disregard them.

The problem is that they have assumed the role of arbiters: of determining on our behalf whether the leaders of the G8 nations should be congratulated or condemned for the decisions they make. They are not qualified to do so, and I fear that they will sell us down the river.

Take their response to the debt-relief package for the world's poorest countries that the G7 finance ministers announced 10 days ago. Anyone with a grasp of development politics who had read and understood the ministers' statement could see that the conditions it contains - enforced liberalisation and privatisation - are as onerous as the debts it relieves. But Bob Geldof praised it as "a victory for the millions of people in the campaigns around the world" and Bono pronounced it "a little piece of history". Like many of those who have been trying to highlight the harm done by such conditions - especially the African campaigners I know - I feel betrayed by these statements. Bono and Geldof have made our job more difficult.

[necso]

1. "enforced liberalisation and privatisation",

I think that "neo-liberalisation", which is no liberalization (the act of making less strict) at all, is what is intended here. As I understand it, neo-liberal economics in the European usage means something rather like neocon economics does here (trickle down policies, concentration of wealth, destruction of alternate economic forms (socialist, pastoralist, what-have-you), crowding out of domestic producers with cheap (often price-supported in one form or the other) imports, and all that rubbish).

[KoKo]

2. Here's an another article about this:

It's a long read and was kind of confusing to me, but interesting. Kind of supports what the Guardian article is saying:

When White Band Spells White Feather
How Glo-Bono-Phonies and Trojan Horse NGOs Sabotage the Struggle Against Neoliberalism

By PATRICK BOND, DENNIS BRUTUS and VIRGINIA SETSHEDI

Despite the global hype associated with reversing aid, debt and trade injustices during the past few days, it hasn't been an easy time for the huge Non-Governmental Organizations at the centre of the action.

A front-page London New Statesman article on May 30 revealed that Oxfam's revolving-door relationship with chancellor Gordon Brown has neutered the demands, strategies and tactics of the 450-member NGO campaign, 'Make Poverty History'. The website of the British magazine Red Pepper followed up with a devastating political critique of the campaign, including a refusal to countenance any anti-war message that will embarrass Brown and Tony Blair.
http://counterpunch.org/bond06172005.html

[Matilda]

3. When Bush promised debt relief in return for "reforms",

you knew that Africa was doomed.

We'll forgive your debts, but you'll have to open up to corporate
development by the western powers, privatize everything, and cut
your pitiful welfare spending. Hello, World Bank and IMF.

Same old, same old.