“Live 8 Moscow,” Red Square, July 2, 2005
20 years ago today was a heady day for me and the tiny crack team of campaigners I worked with back then. A day of TV interviews; being bumped from the BBC by Snoop Dog; helping to put Pink Floyd back together; giggling with Brad Pitt. The extraordinary Birhan, a survivor of the 1984 Ethiopian famine, on stage and glorious. We’re running late. Kofi Annan tells the crowd “you are the United Nations” but the Met police want to shut us down. 10 concerts in 9 countries. One million people on the street in Philadelphia. A vast sea of humanity in Berlin. Billions watching on TV and on AOL (yes AOL!). Everyone wearing white bands. Mandela live from Johannesburg reminding the world why we were doing this. We were Making Poverty History.
Once it was all over and the giant Hyde Park crowd had gone home I sat on the edge of the stage with Bob Geldof, legs dangling over the stage, dumbstruck.
Bob had spent years saying no to Live Aid 2. He knew it would be a nightmare and he would be crucified for it (white saviour pun intended). There were stand up rows. I’m not fucking doing it. Please Bob. I’m not fucking doing it. In the end he did it because he was persuaded that, although the Make Poverty History campaign to cancel debts; invest in fighting AIDS; and for trade justice was strong in the UK, there was no pressure on the other G8 Leaders who needed to sign up to a global deal.
Live 8 was put together in an insanely short period of time with the singular goal of heaping pressure on those G8 leaders. Bob said yes 3 months before what was to be the biggest music event in the history of humanity. Those 3 months were insane. Paying the Prince’s Trust £1 million just to be able to use Hyde Park. Arguments about toilet capacity. Panic that someone might drown in the Serpentine. Why can’t we get the fucking Pope? Begging the Mayor of Rome to give us the Circus Maximus. Bob persuading all the world’s artists to play. Moscow? Tokyo? Bob constantly ill, full of snot. Wall-to-wall media.
Then a few days after the concerts, on a sunny day in Scotland, the G8 released their communiqué. Faced with intense public pressure, they had responded. Billions of dollars of debts cancelled; billions more committed to fight AIDS. But no real progress on trade justice. After everything it felt weirdly anti-climactic. In retrospect it was an extraordinary outcome. Over the decade that followed debts were cancelled and more money flowed to effective AIDS and health projects. The global child mortality; maternal mortality; AIDS deaths graphs all bent precipitously in the right direction and kept going.
Of course it was flawed. At least as televised, there were too many aging white rock stars, and not enough African artists (though they featured more heavily on the global bill). The focus on the G8, was a top down view of the world. In the political deals that were struck, not enough respect and agency was allowed to the people in whose name it was done – even if the whole project was informed by the African-led Commission for Africa that Bob demanded. And you can’t make poverty history at a G8 summit. The world is much more complicated. We knew that.
But what a glorious moment when the people of Britain and the world came together and said we don’t think it’s right that the poorest countries in the world are paying more servicing their debts to the World Bank and IMF than they are paying on education and health. We don’t accept that millions of people are dying of AIDS for want of drugs that cost a pittance. And when the politicians, led by the Labour leaders Gordon Brown and Tony Blair actually acted.
What a different world it is today. The cost of living crisis. The rise of populist nativism. June’s G7 summit a dysfunctional Trumpian mess. War in Europe, and the urgent need to spend more on defence. The first Labour Prime Minister in over a decade has responded by slashing the aid budget (have no doubt that hundreds of thousands will die as a result). The kind of global political-cultural-celebrity jamboree of Live 8 is from a completely different time. Another world. You simply couldn’t do it today. It is too removed from people’s daily grind. It would be completely out of touch.
And yet, the horrors of Gaza; the new African debt crisis; famine in Sudan… Yes we must invest heavily in parts of Britain that Westminster politicians have neglected for too long. Yes we must prioritize the daily struggles of British voters and address outrageous inequality at home. Yes we need to strengthen our own military in the face of Putin. But can we ignore a world that is on fire? Eventually if we withdraw support from those fighting poverty, hunger and disease and protecting democracy and justice in low income countries it will come back to bite us. Because disease, conflict and instability don’t respect borders.
Maybe the next movement for global justice will be more hard-nosed and rooted in this gritty reality that if the world goes up in flames, we all burn together. Maybe it will be more punk than pop.
Olly Buston, Future Advocacy CEO was Europe Director of Bono and Bob Geldof’s ONE Campaign (2004-2011) and a key architect of Make Poverty History.