Bob Geldof, the fading B-class rocker formerly of the "Boomtown Rats", recently made it known that Prime Minister Paul Martin wasn’t welcome at the upcoming G-8 summit unless he was prepared to cough up .7% of Canada’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to help "fight poverty" in africa. Geldof must have the balls of a canal horse to think that who is or is not invited to attend the summit depends on him.
Some 20 years ago Geldof’s Live aid concert, which was held to alleviate poverty and starvation in Ethiopia, accomplished very little, if anything to that end. at least the Live aid concert raised money, which presumably went to those in need of it, albeit I wonder how much of it found its way into secret Swiss bank accounts held by Ethiopia’s leaders at that time. as I wrote in these pages three weeks ago, you can throw all the money in the world at african poverty, but until such time as africans themselves take control of their own destiny, throw out their corrupt and greedy leaders and commit to democracy, it won’t change a thing.
It appears to me that Geldof is yet another guilty, self-loathing, wealthy westerner who believes, naively, that curing third-world poverty is as simple as sharing the wealth. In some ways this is a sad spectacle as Geldof seems to actually believe that no one but he is aware of third-world poverty, when daily we are reminded in a plethora of media, just how squalid some of the conditions under which people have to live are. Holding a series of rock concerts to raise awareness of poverty is akin to having an automobile race to raise awareness of poor air quality.
There is a conceit that is peculiar to individuals who think along the same vein as Geldof, a belief that third-world people are incapable of raising their standard of living, that they are victims of colonialism, which means that we, as the so-called heirs of the "white man’s burden" are obligated to solve the underdeveloped world’s problems. To me, this is a gross perpetuation of the concept that white people are superior, as other races are incapable of helping themselves.
What’s curious about this entire concept is that no one, even those who strongly support the concept of Live 8, believes that it will actually make a difference. Geldof’s demand that developed nations dedicated .7% of their GDP to eliminating poverty is so out of touch with the world’s reality as to be ludicrous. It is yet another socialist scheme that would further burden the already overtaxed people of most western countries. Someone should recount to Sir Bob the saying ascribed Winston Churchill: If you’re 18 years old and you aren’t’ a socialist, then you have no heart. But if you’re 40 years old and are still a socialist, then you have no brain.
Clearly, there is a poverty problem in the third world, particularly in africa. Throwing money at the problem will do nothing to solve it. Liberal socialists love to talk about "root causes", but only when it comes to excusing reprehensible acts perpetrated against so-called rich nations. In africa’s case, it’s like the concept of "root causes’ doesn’t even exist.
Thus in Geldof’s mind the steady decline of nations like Zimbabwe, which went from one of the wealthiest nations in africa, practically feeding the entire continent, to one of the poorest in record time under the kleptocratic rule of Robert Mugabe, is somehow the responsibility of Canadian taxpayers. Sorry, Bob, no dice. It’s not the responsibility of western taxpayers to fix africa’s problems, even if their great grandfathers were colonists. and it’s not your place to tell Canada’s prime minister not to bother showing up at the G-8 conference unless he ponies up the cash.