Bob Geldof: “Why journalists should shut up!”
A few weeks ago, I met Bob Geldof. I had to make a portrait of him for the Dutch newspaper I work for. Apparently, Geldof hasn’t got much respect for Berlin journalists. “All you guys should shut the fuck up,” he told the reporters at the press conference of his organization DATA (debts, AIDS, trade, Africa) in Berlin.
“You didn’t write about Africa, you haven’t been there, so now you listen to me,” Geldof shouted. He was having his usual bad hair day, and had already let his audience, packed in a sticky room at the Staatsratgebäude, wait for over an hour before showing up.
Africa activist and Live-Aid founder Geldof knew he was in an important building. Long before GDR-dictator Erich Honecker and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder had their offices here, this was where, in November 1918, Philipp Scheidemann founded the Republic of Weimar, the first democratic German state.
Together with fellow Irish musicians U2, Geldof organized the worldwide music festival Live8. Everywhere they go, Geldof and U2-frontman Bono have easy access to the mighty and powerful people of the planet. Doors at Downing Street and the Kanzleramt are always open to these political activists, whose celebrity gives them credibility.
But they are also putting a lot of international pressure on the G8-circus. Two years ago, at Gleneagles in Scotland, Bono and Geldof told the G8 leaders to double the budget of aid to Africa by 2010. They also convinced them to cancel the high debts of the poorest African countries.
In Berlin Geldof declared that the “G8 leaders should make true what they promised in Gleneagles. These goals haven’t been reached by far. Only Japan and the UK are on schedule.” Then he quoted The Financial Times speaking about ‘the world’s golden age’. “But do we want to see the pornography of poverty, twelve kilometers from Germany?” He said there’s no lack of power or political will, but of ideas: “Africa is not hopeless. It’s instead creative and dynamic.”
Later this week Bono will give a concert in Rostock. It’s not quite sure if he will sing ‘It’s a beautiful day’. But with his intelligent combination of celebrity and diplomacy, he has managed to put the future of Africa on the international agenda.
German Development-Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul was visibly impressed with Geldof. She promised to pass on his Africa plans to Merkel, who is presiding over this year’s G8 summit in Heiligendamm. But 40 percent of Germans think the event is all about nothing. They call it a fake: "Scheinheiligendamm".
