Some days ago, the British magazine "The Word" had Bono on its cover with the headline ‘Superstar saviour or sanctimonious git? Bono On Trial: A WORD investigation.’
Neil Mc Cormick , Daily Telegraph music critic and all-times friend of Bono´s replied...
"Of course, it is no such thing. An investigation would suggest a genuine issue and a serious journalistic attempt to get to the bottom of it. It is just an attention grabbing headline yolking together some skimpy reminiscences of encounters with the rock star by Word magazine regulars, some axe grinding by familiar Bono bashers and a bit of ranting diatribe by a couple of obscure freelancers who presumably glad of the soap box...
Laura Barton concludes this 9 page feature with a kind of vague concern that Bono’s politicking may be driven more by narcissism than philanthropy. She’s not sure, mind you. It’s just a bit of a nagging notion. Now, I really like Laura’s writing about music because she approaches her subjects in an original, poetic, emotional, almost touchy-feely fashion, but as a witness for the prosecution she’s about as damning as Mr Magoo at an identity parade. And that’s about it. If only all trials were conducted in such a random, anecdotal and highly opinionated fashion, with so little recourse to the facts, and no opportunity to answer back.
Now I like Word magazine, and I like the people who make it, but they should be embarrassed about this. It reeks of something cobbled together at the last minute because they didn’t have a suitably heavyweight cover star. The fact that they thought it was a good idea is indicative of the place Bono now occupies in popular culture.
At the height of Live8’s ‘Make Poverty History’ campaign, some wags made a bit of money on the side with a ‘Make Bono History’ t-shirt. For some, Bono is the greatest rock star of our times, to be celebrated as much for his idealism as his music. For others he is an insufferable bore, preaching about how we should live our lives. Perhaps more than any other rock star, he has become a divisive, love him or hate him figure. It is something of which he is well aware. “I’m sick of Bono,” is his standard line. “And I am him.”
The roots of Bono’s activism lie in his Christian faith, the sense that he has to give something back in order to justify the privileges of his success. He is accused of asking people to dip into their own pockets when he lives a millionaire lifestyle but, in fact, his principal approach is to lobby for political change rather than call for charity. Behind the spotlights, his personal charitable commitments are significant, and critics might be surprised at the relatively modest scale of his family lifestyle. Indeed, his real engagement with Africa started when Bono and his wife did voluntary work at an Ethiopian orphanage during the 1985 famine, where he witnessed despair and heroism that left an indelible impression upon him. Bono acts because he is compelled to.
I have seen what he puts into this, how it possesses him, what it means to him, and the accusations of dilettantism or narcissism are so far wide of the mark as to be laughable. Is there ego involved? Of course, it would be absurd to pretend otherwise. Ego is part of the job description, it’s a necessary force to get someone on stage in front of a rock band in the first place. But it takes more than ego to put in the office hours that Bono does (at least two days a week, even when his full time job in U2 is in full swing). And the ego is reigned in by a palpable humility, a sense of being in service to others, his strong feeling that this is the price his God (not mine, by the way) asks of him in return for all the good things that have happened in his life. You can ask questions, as Dave Marsh regularly does, of the point of celebrity politicking, but the answers lie not in fatuous opinion about motivation, they lie in the math of investment and policy change. There are plenty of figures publicly available, particularly with regard to third world countries who have had billion dollar debts cancelled and have been able to put that money to work in health and education.
Bono’s organisations, Data and Red work within an umbrella of established aid groups, and I don’t hear them complaining about his involvement. Bottom line, I always think, is that there are people around today, educated and healthy, who wouldn’t have been alive without his energy and commitment to their cause. He is putting in his own time and energy in an effort to make a difference. What exactly is the problem? That he annoys you?The same spirit that drives Bono onstage drives U2 in the studio. And ultimately, politics is secondary, because without the music no one would be paying attention. While many of their contemporaries have either retired or retreated to a comfort zone of nostalgic hits, U2 constantly strive to create new work to rival their best, and in the process have had a run of sustained creativity and popularity that sets the bar for everyone in rock and roll (as to recent reports that their new album has been a flop, it currently stands at over three and a half million sales worldwide, not bad going in a peer 2 peer download era. And the tour hasn’t even started yet). Love them or hate them, Bono and U2 will be history when they no longer make music that engages our attention. I
am not suggesting Word are wrong to ask questions of Bono. But what, really, is the question? How about what kind of rock stars do we want? Idealists driven by passionate belief, who stand up to be counted, who try to make a difference, and who espouse the same ideals in their life as in their music? Colourful characters whose imaginative participation in the hurly burly of the world makes pop culture more interesting? Compassionate human beings who feel beholden to give something back for the immense privileges they receive? Or shallow self-interested showbusiness celebrities who never stick their heads above the political parapets for fear that it will get shot off? There are plenty of the latter, you can see them on magazine covers every day. There is only one Bono. And I’ve got a question for Word and all the other Bono critics who seem to be so offended by his existence. What does it say about them, that the rock star they would put on trial is the one who is making the most effort to do some good in the world?NMC
Bono and Neil,circa 1999
To read the complete post:
http://www.neilmccormick.co.uk/
