Akon will power Africa

It's been a while since we've heard from Akon, who once cut a swathe through this blog, upsetting Buddhists, not quite landing a show on Capital Radio, not quite doing a duet with Michael Jackson and throwing people off stage. Oh, and dry-humping a teenage girl on stage and then blaming the parents for letting her go out dressed like that.

However, he's back to delight us again, and this time he's bringing solar energy to Africa. Good Magazine reports:

[T]he singer announced that he would be launching a Solar Academy in Bamako, Mali. The Academy will train local African engineers and entrepreneurs in order to teach them how to produce solar power. The initiative, called “Akon Lighting Africa,” aims to bring solar power to over 600 million Africans.

Lighting Africa noted that solar power electricity and micro-grids are already “really taking off in rural Africa.” The continent, their statement argues, has over 120 days of sun a year, making it that much easier to harness solar power. Akon’s goals are two-fold: both to provide clean alternative energy and great, meaningful jobs. The Academy will help empower people all across educational levels to build the electricity that’s going to light their homes."

It's a good thing to do, of course.

But 'Akon Lighting Africa' is a little at odds with the stated aims - if this is about empowering local people (both literally and figuratively) why does the branding laud Akon?

Still, good luck, Akon. Let's hope its more successful than his last high-profile business venture, Fantrace. That social networking site sank without fans. Or, indeed, trace.

Band Aid 30: Act global, think local

The Bradford Telegraph And Argus knows what's crucial about Band Aid 30:

BRADFORD’S One Direction star Zayn Malik will feature on a new Band Aid song.

The term "ebola" doesn't appear until the penultimate word.

It's also uncomfortable the context in which is appears:

and is expected to raise millions to ease Africa’s Ebola crisis.

Most of Africa doesn't have an "Ebola crisis". So, in much the same way that the original Band Aid painted a picture of a continent entirely in the grip of famine (which wasn't the case), the new one is painting a picture of a continent raddled with disease (which isn't the case). Nice to keep those Imperialist traditions going, isn't it?

Bookmarks: Some stuff to read on the internet: Bono and Bob

G2 meets Dambisa Moyo, who provides one of the sharpest critiques of what's wrong with Bono I've read in a while:

Partly, of course, it's about power, and purse-strings; partly, she believes, it's a PR issue, "there are many well-spoken, smart African leaders who should be on the global stage"; very largely, given that so far not many are, it's a case of who gets to do the talking, and increasingly, it is people like Bob Geldof and Bono, the most visible representatives of what she calls, in a thrillingly withering manner, "glamour aid".

"There are African policymakers who are charged with the responsibility of creating policy, and implementing policy. That's their job. Long, long lines of people have stood in the sun to vote for a president who is effectively impotent because of donors or because glamour aid has decided to speak on behalf of a continent.

How would British people feel if tomorrow Michael Jackson started telling them how they should get out of the housing crisis? Or if Amy Winehouse started to give the US government advice about the credit crunch? And was listened to? I think they would be perturbed, and worried. I mean, they've completely disenfranchised the very people we've actually elected!"

Bono: a shaky grasp on the past

There's much in Sean O'Hagan's interview with Bono in today's Observer Music Magazine, and if you were judging him on the basis of a singer in a rock and roll band, you'd probably be content with the breadth of his knowledge. But given that he's shaping public policy, his lack of understanding and glib grasp is a little worrying. Take this, for example:

It's a scary and an amazing time. Look, the world is waking up again. Not to get too grandiose on your ass, but there are shifts that always happen after a major crisis. So, after the First World War, the League of Nations; after the Second World War, the United Nations. The IMF, the World Bank, all came about after periods of crisis. And after 9/11, the Iraq dabacle, and the market meltdown of the last year, I think this is the moment when actually everything is up for grabs. It's like Bob Dylan says on Brownsville Girl [he breaks into a Dylan impersonation]: 'If there's an original idea out there right now, I could use it [laughs].' And there are original ideas out there, that's the thing."

You could just about accept "not to get too grandiose on your ass", I suppose, but when it's the most coherent part of the sentence, you might choose not to. "There's always shifts after a major crisis"? What does that mean? Is he suggesting that The League Of Nations was a good thing, despite it being a terrible, terrible failure which helped bring about the Second World War, while simultaneously allowing Africa to remain a playground for the Western Imperial powers? And wasn't, really, the Second World War the real shift that followed the First World War?

More closer to now, is Bono trying to smear together the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, the Iraq "debacle" (I wonder if he ever called it that when he was hanging with George Bush) and the global financial meltdown into one, single, event? How does that make sense - after all, the global reaction to September 11th was almost in complete contrast to the global reaction to the invasion of Iraq?

O'Hagan asks Bono if he ever thinks he's being played:

"I don't care if I get the results. You have to judge me only by the results. If there were no results and you saw a picture of me hanging out with George Bush or Tony Blair or whoever, that would be a different matter. But if you see a picture of me and Bush and two years later you hear people saying 'How on earth did a conservative administration start the largest response to the Aids emergency yet?' I understand why people threw tomatoes at me at the time but even the worst critics have stopped."

Even the worst critics have stopped? Bloody hell, Bono, even you and Geldof were criticising world leaders for not doing enough last year. And you're hardly anywhere near your harshest critic.

It is true that Bush did support Africa more deeply than Clinton. But the evangelical edicts which came with much of the AIDs initiative money, like the Abortion Global Gag Rule, did a lot of harm, leading to the closure of clinics and making it harder for some people to receive condoms and sex education - so the funding of HIV drugs has to be seen in the context of the work Bush helped do to fuel the HIV crisis at the same time. And while Bono might think that it was his golfing trips at Gleneagles that swung the attention the Bush White House gave, especially in the second term, it's more likely that result of the Chinese rush to access the agricultural, energy and strategic value of African nations. For while there's been some Bono-pleasing health investment, Bush was building up AFRICOM. But perhaps Bono sees Africom as simply another body in the mould of the LON, the UN and the IMF.

So, O'Hagan asks, did Bono keep his opposition quiet in return for access to the White House?

"No, it's more that I don't make a song and dance about my criticism. Everyone in the White House knows where I stood on the war. In the run up and when it was just about to happen, I had many conversations where I expressed my feelings. But I felt I had to focus on this one thing which was, don't make a deal on extreme poverty. Make it truly colourless politically. It was the power of one clear idea. And it succeeded. And it was very, very difficult, and there was a lot of hand-holding, hours and hours, weeks and weeks, meeting after meeting after meeting, trying to get people not to play politics with the world's poor. And for me to alienate people who, to be fair to them, were often sending their sons to Iraq I just felt, I don't want to be shouting my mouth off about this war when really I have a chance, along with other people, of achieving for the first time broad political consensus on this one hugely important single issue of Africa and aid."

Aaah - it would have been too confusing for Bono to criticise the war publicly while campaigning on global poverty. Although, erm, somehow it wasn't too confusing for him to make his anti-war feelings known behind closed doors? That makes sense. It would have been distracting for us to know, but not for the administration.

Still, it's all in the past now. Bono is busily recalibrating his non-partisan stance into being surprisingly Democrat-friendly:

The amount of U2 fans who supported [Obama]! The young U2 fanbase were really active in the campaign. Though the One campaigners are from every political colour, an enormous amount of them were also campaigning for Obama."

Sadly, there are no questions about Bono's property developments, nor about U2's tax status. But then, you can't get everything in, can you?

Madonna: Don't you wish she was fighting for your continent, too?

It would be one thing if Madonna had simply used her Vanity Fair interview to suggest that there was some sort of parity between Britney Spears' personal life and the lives of Africans.

Instead, Madonna also gave us a glimpse of how she views the continent:

“When you think about the way people treat each other in Africa, about witchcraft and people inflicting cruelty and pain on each other, then come back here and, you know, people taking pictures of people when they’re in their homes, being taken to hospitals, or suffering, and selling them, getting energy from them, that’s a terrible infliction of cruelty. So who’s worse off? You know what I mean?”

Madonna, did you just say that "people treat each other in Africa" with "witchcraft" and "inflict[ing] pain on each other"? Do you really picture the continent in those terms?

A continent of withcraft and cruelty. It makes you a little nervous that someone who can paint such a view of a place is involved in trying to push her religion into one of the nations there.

Joining the dots between doing the lines

After his comments earlier in the week, the UN's Antonio Maria Costa expands on his view of drugs at length in The Observer this week. It's undoing the work of Geldof and Bono, he says:

Within Europe in recent years, a few influential pop stars and other fashion-conscious celebrities have been at the forefront of efforts to improve living standards in Africa. Bob Geldof's Live Aid concerts and Bono's Drop the Debt campaign have been vital in raising political awareness and money to tackle the continent's economic crisis. Stopping the trade in blood diamonds and promoting fair trade with Africa have been two other favoured causes of the celebrity elite.

And yet for every rebel with a cause, there are 10 others without a clue. While some well-meaning pop idols and film stars might rage against suffering in Africa, their work is being undermined by the drug habits of careless peers such as Kate Moss. For the cocaine used in Europe passes through impoverished countries in west Africa, where the drugs trade is causing untold misery, corruption, violence and instability.

Of course, the actual truth is more complicated still - after all, Pete Doherty was both doing coke and part of Make Poverty History. Simultaneously. Canceling himself out.

Costas explains how cocaine is now adding an extra layer of misery to West African life, as the ports there become a funnel for the drug on its way to Kerry Katona's house and Amy Winehouse's mansion:

The cocaine is unloaded and then repackaged for shipment to Europe. It is moved up the coast hidden in export consignments - crates of fruit or crafts, even frozen fish. Because the cocaine trade from west Africa is relatively new, the European authorities are not looking for it with the same vigilance that applies to goods from South America or the Caribbean, so there are fewer checks.

This burgeoning trade is a disaster for west Africa. It perverts the local economies. In Guinea-Bissau, for example, the value of the drugs trade may be as high as the country's entire national income. It spreads corruption and undermines security.

It is also spreading addiction and related health and social problems, particularly since couriers and other helpers are often paid in kind with narcotics.

There's also blame to be shared with the media:

The media deserve much of the blame. The entertainment industry puts a gloss on the latest drugs scandal and uncritically spins the story for all its worth. Notoriety sells, whereas when stars such as Eric Clapton discreetly seek treatment for their addiction there is little interest. If the media want to assume some social responsibility, they should not act as cheerleader or megaphone for celebrity junkies.

That's a slightly simplistic take on the story - you could hardly argue that Doherty, Moss or Winehouse are praised for their drug-taking, but the problem is that the gossip media have great trouble untangling excess from success; you only have to look at Gordon, struggling to balance condemnation for Amy Winehouse snorting vodka while applauding heavy drinking in his caner's league to know that looking for any sort of moral coherence in the commentary is going to be hopeless. It's not that The Sun and Heat are in a moral vacuum - they can sound outrage so shrill only dogs can hear it when they feel like it - but they lack any framework in which they operate.

Brown calls for Asbos on Bono and Bob

It's nice in these disconnected times to hear young people taking an interest in politics, so we note with some joy Ian Brown's thoughts on international development:

"I get angry about how African kids have to live. I thought the G8 Summit at Gleneagles in 2005 was a real missed opportunity,”

“I applaud how Brown and Blair tried to put it at the top of the agenda. I didn't like the way Bono and Geldof hijacked the G8 Summit demo with their pop concert. The only result was Pink Floyd sold a few more million albums.”

“People have to realise you don't help African children singing along to 60-year-old men playing their tunes from 40 years ago. It was like 1750 all over again: we are the great white do-gooders.

“If there is another G8 meeting then there should be a court order banning Pink Floyd or Geldof or Bono from leaving their houses until it's over."

It's only take a year and a half for him to work up the response, but better late than never, eh?

Bono helps the Africans

We're a little behind the loop on this one, but we've just seen a physical copy of the Bono-edited edition of Vanity Fair - you remember, with Madonna and George Bush and the like on the twenty "collectors" covers (encouraging you to buy the same fashion magazine 20 times; that'll raise spirits of people living on less than a dollar a day).

There, slipped inside, was a Jewellery supplement, advertising gold and diamonds and multinational couples dealing in precious metals and gems.

Africa politely asks Bono to tone it down

Bono turned up at the Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference in Arusha. But if he was expecting to be received as a hero, he got something of a surprise, as journalist Jennifer Brea reports:

These speakers were selected to support a thesis, painfully obvious but somehow radical in this age: Africa won't be "saved" by aid, but by the ingenuity and determination of its own people.

Andrew Mwenda, an outspoken Ugandan journalist who was jailed last year for criticizing President Museveni, lambasted the Western world's "international cocktail of good intentions" for robbing Africa of its future. After all, what country has ever gotten rich from aid? What Africa needs is investment.

Near the front of the darkened auditorium a white man with orange sunglasses stood to object. It was Bono! The audience (myself included), exuberant in the presence of celebrity, craned their necks to catch a glimpse. Aid saved Ireland from the potato famine, Bono declared.

Hmm. Not sure I'd have invoked the Potato Famine, where starving Irish watched their crops disappearing overseas, where the famine was mainly a result of the rich seeing the poor overseas as being inferior, and well-meaning attempts to 'help' by outsiders made the problem worse, Bono.

In a conference where the main focus was on how the West sees Africa as a problem for it to be solved, rather than a place where people can find their own solutions, Bono hadn't got off to a great start:

George Ayittey, author of Africa Unchained, a wildly popular book which argues Africa's problems should be solved by Africans, was bumped from his scheduled spot so that Bono could play a prerecorded greeting from German chancellor Angela Merkel on the importance of honoring aid commitments to Africa.

Even the supplying of mosquito nets which Bono argued for in the US Congress isn't what Africans themselves would have asked for:

Kenyan economist James Shikwati, who in advance of the 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles famously asked rich nations, "for God's sake, please just stop" giving Africa aid, thinks even misery is an opportunity.

We can fight malaria by distributing free mosquito nets, which may cost $10-$60 each by the time you get them down often impassable dirt roads. Or, as Shikwati suggests, we can train locals how to operate a business spraying homes with an insecticide that will keep them mosquito-free for six months at about $2 a family.

We can spend billions importing medication, or you can invest in local farms that grow the Artemisinin, a Chinese herb with potent anti-malarial properties, and the factories that process it.

We can continue the endless cycle of need and dependency, or you can create jobs, develop indigenous capacity, and build a sustainable future.

Bono's desperate attempts to be loved only made things worse:

After his impassioned defense of aid, an African man in the audience asked Bono, "Where do you place the African person as a thinker, a creator of wealth?"

[...]

Visibly wounded by the question, confused how anyone could misinterpret his good intentions, Bono, like the proverbial white man with black friends, set out to prove how down he is with the black man.

Africans are the "most regal people on earth" and music is their DNA, he told the room of mostly doctors, engineers, and businessmen. He then began singing a traditional Irish dirge to show us how Celtic music has Coptic roots, and so is fundamentally African. I wasn't the only one giggling in the back row.

Bono, in his awkward defense of his "Africa credo," also represents our fundamental failure to listen.

The next time Bono pops up claiming to speak for Africa, wave your Red American Express card at him and ask on whose authority?

[Thanks to Michael M for the link]

Bono: the master politician

Seasoned Bono watchers won't be surprised to note that he's turning his ire on Blair for the failure of the G8 to deliver on its promises from two years back. Not Bush - Bush, whose even weaker response Bono lavished with praise last week. Bono's modus operandi has always been to pop up to criticise leaders who are about to be voted out or step down, giving the impression that he's prepared to lecture, without the danger of losing the chance to hang out at state banquets.

(It's notable that this time round, Bono met only with Merkel and Bush, both of whom will still be in their jobs this time next year.)

Interestingly, Bob Geldof - whose business interests are primarily centred on the UK, unlike Bono's US-centric affairs - was happy to call all the G8 leaders "creeps". Except one:

"I'm really sorry for Tony Blair. He pushed this to the point of exhaustion so well done him, he had nothing to lose so he went out all guns blazing," he said.

The sad heart of the story, though, is that this is partly Bob and Bono's fault: they were the ones who took the mass demand for action behind the wire in Gleneagles, and, over some games of golf, exchanged it for some vague promises. They dispersed the crowds for their friends. And now they're surprised the promises were broken.

Perhaps it would help journalists cover these stories if they stopped referring to Bob and Bono as "rock stars" - the outcomes are a lot less surprising if you tag them as "millionaire businessmen".

Ndour calls for Darfur action

Earlier this week, Time called Youssou N'Dour one of the most influential people on the planet. Let's hope so: he's trying to mobilise artists from across Africa to campaign for immediate help for people in Darfur.

He might not solve the civil war and the humanitarian nightmare we've all helped to create, but it's got to be more use than Hugh Grant throwing egg-timers filled with blood around, surely?

Madobono

There's every chance there's no close personal friend and the quote was cooked up while two of The Sun's journalists were waiting for their cup-a-soup to dissolve. But, according to a "family friend" of Madonna, she wants to be thought of as a Mrs. Bono:

She has poured her heart and soul into this movie and believes it will have the same effect on the world as the Live Aid concerts.

“Madonna wants to dedicate the rest of her life to helping children.

“She desperately wants to become the female Bono and be taken as seriously as him. Her days of being the Material Girl are gone.”

That this quote carries the byline of "VIRGINIA WHEELER in Malawi" makes it look even more suspect - this would be a close friend who Wheeler happened to bump into in Africa, was it?

And while we're not fond of Bono, at least he has the honesty to admit that much of his fundraising work is done in the context of being a businessman, not using it to try and foist some cult onto a desperate people.

If Madonna is "dedicating the rest of her life" to helping children, then what's all the work being done on prepping a hip-hop album for?

And does she really believe that a self-serving film showing her hugging African babies is going to "have the same effect on the world as the Live Aid concerts"?

God complex, eh? Congratulations, Madonna. You really are the female Bono.

Here we go again, then

We're guessing that the reported plans for Madonna to take another child from Malawi is intended as much as a screw you to the critics as anything - like a teenager turning the stereo up rather than down when Dad complains.

This time, of course, it's a girl, and the story is almost the same as with David - she saw her on the television:

“Madonna saw a film of children at a place called The Consol Home.

“She spotted a beautiful girl called Grace who lit the room with her smile, and fell head over heels for her.

“Madonna kept saying, ‘That girl has so much love in her. I want to help her achieve her potential’."

It really is creepy, isn't it? It's like she treats these films from Malawian orphanages like its QVC or something.

The source, however, acknowledges that things will be different this time:

“But adoption officials are being very strict after the uproar when Madonna adopted David. They know Grace is her first choice, but have insisted she looks at other girls first — and that the final decision is theirs.”

Yes, "you must at least pretend to go through the motions of looking at other potential children first" - that's much stricter than just asking "cash or card, madam?" but still hardly in line with the country's adoption rules.

Of course, it would be awkward for the Malawian officials to apply the law and the African Union standards this time - and not just because of that sponsorship Madonna sorted out for one of their colleagues. If the residency rules, and the clause about "only as a last resort" and all the usual procedures are followed this time, it will raise a question about why they weren't last time. On the other hand, if they don't, the criticism storm is going to be twice as harsh.

However, it might not happen: Liz Rosenberg, Madonna's spokesperson, has denied Madonna is in Malawi shopping for a child:

"Madonna is going to Africa to continue her work with the Raising Malawi organisation," the star's spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg said.

"She is overseeing the building of a children's healthcare centre. She is absolutely not adopting another baby."

Of course.

On the other hand, five days before Madonna adopted the non-orphaned orphan David, Liz was insisting she was just in Malawi for some Challenge Anneka style good works:

However, Madonna’s rep Liz Rosenberg told Us Weekly that the reports are “completely inaccurate”: “I can confirm Madonna is in Malawi on a private visit.”

“She is building an orphanage and child care center and is involved in other initiatives geared toward helping children orphaned by AIDS thru the Raising Malawi organization.”

“She has not adopted a baby despite reports that she has.”

Spookily similar, isn't it?