Bono
Third World Debt
By Richard Blow
Of all the celebrities making
their mark in world politics today, the most persuasive is a 39-year-old
musician once known for popping out of a giant lemon to make his entrance
on stage. He is, of course, Bono, and in the 20 years since he and
U2, the band he sings in, first started touring the United States, he has
become rock's most powerful voice.
In the early days, the Irish
quartet won converts with a dramatic, propulsive sound - so much more optimistic
and spiritual than the punk that preceded it - and passion. Rather
than insulting audiences, U2 inspired them. By 1989, with the release
of The Joshua Tree, U2 had established itself as the most popular
band in the world.
And perhaps its most political.
U2 treated the stage as a soapbox, singing about U.S. policy in Central
America, violence in Northern Ireland, and apartheid. Bono himself
was active in Live Aid, Amnesty International, and Artists against Apartheid.
In time, the band became an object of satire, its ideology threatening
to shout out its music.
So, in the '90s, U2 radically
remade itself. On its Zoo TV and Pop Mart tours, the band staged
a carnival, blending in spectacle, such as the giant lemon. "Zoo
TV was about throwing off our moral baggage," Bono says. Politics
was never far away, but the angle of approach became oblique. At
some shows, the band aired footage from the war in Bosnia. Bono,
meanwhile, made a habit of telephoning the White House from the stage and
broadcasting the conversations. George Bush, who had probably never
heard of U2, did not take the calls. Bill Clinton, who was a fan, did -
a fact that marked a new challenge for the group, the transition from rock
rebels to political authority figures.
It's a role Bono has taken
to. Though he's busy working on a new U2 album, to be released this
fall, and a film, he has thrown himself into Jubilee 2000, an international
campaign to pressure western banks and governments to forgive the debts
of Third World nations. The loans, proponents of debt forgiveness
argue, were often made to corrupt dictators who used them to line their
own pockets. Now, new governments are suffocating under the weight,
unable to pay back the principal and diverting scarce funds away from their
citizenry to make interest payments to wealthy westerners. For Bono,
Jubilee 2000 is not only a political issue, but a moral one: How can westerners
justify human suffering in the name of loan payments? In an increasingly
interconnected world, he argues, maintaining an economic stranglehold on
developing nations will haunt us sooner rather than later.
The rock star's crusade is
gaining momentum. Last fall, the G7, a group of Western governments,
agreed to cancel $70 billion in loans. Much credit goes to Bono,
who has made pilgrimages to Rome, Wall Street, and Capitol Hill to fight
for his cause. After Bono met separately with the pope and President
Clinton, both men announced their support for Jubilee 2000, and Clinton,
citing Bono as an inspiration, declared that his administration would officially
support debt forgiveness. In an exclusive George
Interview, Bono reveals the behind-the-scenes details of his social
activism.
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