as everyone surely knows by now, the purpose of the Live 8 concerts that were held last Saturday was not to raise money for africa. They had a twofold purpose; to raise awareness about the economic plight of africans and to pressure the leaders of the G8 countries to increase foreign aid to the african continent.
It is doubtful that either of these goals will be accomplished; at least to the extent that any starving african children will see any benefit. Many people who had little or no knowledge of africa before Live 8 were likely to forget about it shortly after the concerts came to a close. Those few that do actually remember are not like to have much effect on the condition of african people. The difficulty with concerts such as Live 8 is that it is transient in nature and likely to be forgotten by much of the crowd as quickly as the event came into being.
and if Canada is any example, world leaders will not be pressured into providing any more foreign aid to africa than they had already planned. Leaders are not going to increase foreign aid to .7 per cent of GDP simply because Geldof and Bono et. al. are telling them too. Sir Bob Geldof’s lecture to Paul Martin; telling him not to bother showing up to the G8 in Scotland unless he committed more funds was as arrogant as it was counterproductive and showed that Live 8 was more about Bob Geldof than it ever was about africa. Geldof’s comments didn’t bring out any more Canadian money for african relief but it did manage to bring out the pollsters. approximately 59 per cent of those Canadians questioned thought that any increased expenditures should be used at home and not designated for foreign aid. Paul Martin, who has spent billions on such things as buying the NDP, does not want to go into deficit and there is no way foreign aid will be increased at the risk of Canada slipping back into the red. Now, for what it’s worth (which is probably not very much), Martin has the support of a majority of Canadians who do not want to see foreign aid increased while such things as health care remain under funded. Don’t look for Martin to dither or flip-flop on this one.
Then again, there is always a chance that drawing attention to issues just might work and do some good. If that is the case, why stop at africa? There are many issues at home that attention should be drawn to. We in Ontario should hold a bunch of concerts to bring awareness to the fact that Premier Dalton McGuinty lies and breaks his major promise. Perhaps it could pressure the premier into actually telling the truth once in awhile and keeping the odd election promise. We could call these concerts "Lie 12" — 12 being the number that, according to the opposition Tories is the average of the number of days in between broken promises. Concerts could be held in 12 Ontario locations from Manotick to Moosenee. Of course, it would be difficult finding television networks to cover the concerts, what with the media being so pro-Liberal. It might also be hard to find musicians to be sympathetic to the cause of criticizing a Liberal leader, but it’s still worth a shot.
Much like Live 8, no admission fee would be charged and no money collected; money could be put to good use but then Ontarians couldn’t afford to pay, what with the new health tax and all. Perhaps after each song, one of Dalton’s broken promises could be flashed across the screen. Much like the Live 8 concerts was to do for africa, it would be bound to draw attention to the fact Ontarians are consistently being lied to by their provincial government.
In the end however, Lie 12, much like Live 8, won’t change very much. africans will still be dyin’ and Dalton will still be lyin’.
There is only one common solution to solve the problems both in africa and in Ontario — regime change.