Can we now finally get rid of 'Do they know it's Christmas'?

[Tokenminority]

This song drives me absolutely up the wall. It's patronising, reductive, and it completely harms efforts towards equality.

I understand the focus on equal opportunities and stopping police brutality, but other narratives, such as the pictures painted in the 'Do they know it's Christmas' song, can be just as harmful.

'Africa' is not a country. You did not go on holiday to 'Africa', similarly to how you wouldn't have sent that you went on holiday to 'Europe' when you in fact went to France.

Of course there are major problems surrounding poverty on the African continent, just as there are in other places, but African countries are not only filled with begging, malnourished children who have never seen a Christmas present.

The picture attached is a photograph of Lagos. If I went on the street and asked random people on which continent that photo was taken, would anyone even consider the possibility that it may have been Africa?

it wasn't saying that #they' should be grateful for breathing ffs!

it is saying that while we are buying silly, expensive gifts for christmas and worrying about whether it will snow or not, there are people who will be luckily to actually live , that they don't give a shit that it's Christmas -they need help to survive-RIGHT NOW!

as for the controversial line 'well tonight thank god it's them instead of you'-that was WRITTEN to be controversial and bono was really worried about singing it- it was written to be shocking. It was written to make the record buying public think 'omg-what if it was me?'

It hasn’t dated well but it made a difference where other aid didn’t. It was a route for the world to show compassion and to donate. It raised awareness and provided about £150 million - a huge amount at the time. It also helped supply chains and ensured other monies were spent in an effective way. The infrastructure helped get food through to camps but also helped create safe routes for medicine, water, staff and vaccines.

One doesn’t say Africa when one means Ethiopia nowadays but at the time, the people in the camps wanted/needed food, drinking water and healthcare. They didn’t give too figs whether it was a white saviour who handed it to them. They were too busy burying their children to worry about being offended.

Aid delivery and the focus of support has changed somewhat now with more emphasis on sustainable self help but at the time they simply needed people to give enough money to save lives. It did that.

"That song has dated sooooo badly. Great white saviour exemplified in one song."

It's not perfect but it did raise a huge amount of money and save countless lives. What have you done to match its impact?

The song was specifically written to raise money in response to news coverage of the Ethiopian famine in the mid 80s. Food wasn't growing then - that was the point. "Do they know it's Christmas?" refers to the fact that we would all be sitting down to huge meals and eating way too much whilst others starved. It is using phrases and scenarios that resonate with the people they want to buy the song and thus donate money.

Whinging about it now and trying to compare it to the situation now is utterly ridiculous.

Reading this in amazement. There was a famine. The lads were trying to help. Thank fuck they did. How anyone could’ve seen those news reports and not tried to help in any way they could is beyond me. I hope if I am ever starving someone writes a song to raise money to help me, and isn’t put off by trying to determine the exact meteorological conditions at the time so as not to offend some global weather expert sitting in their nice comfortable christmas non-starving house.

This argument has been done to death a thousand times. (that's a yawn)

Christ I can't believe what I'm reading.
malificent7 Yes, of course the snow is a metaphor. We seem to be lone voices in a sea of woke.
The song as others have said, was well meaning and raised a lot of money. So no, let's not get rid of it or Fairytale of New York either..or is there another thread for that one?!

I spent last night reading the whole thread (not sure how it passed me by first time round!)
Even though I love Christmas songs, including this one, I can see how it's problematic and am looking at it from a privileged viewpoint.
People are so ignorant when it comes to Africa, and this song doesn't help much.
I remember seeing in an online group somebody asking for Ethiopian food recipes and really ignorant comments (what, not like flies? dust?) being offered by a couple when I questioned and answered though and pointed out there was some lovely Ethiopian cuisine dishes they deleted their comments, think it's just pure ignorance sometimes.
People who can't see what's "wrong" with the song I think half the time just don't want to.

Basically this

Imagine a song was written about the Bosnia and Herzegovina crisis at the time and for “poetic” reasons they used “Europe” in the lyrics to peddle massive stereotypes about poverty, hopelessness and violence. And that song remained one of the most popular Christmas classics worldwide year after year
This song and the nature of subsequent charity appeals have sparked mass misinformation about the African continent which while the continent does have its problems, it is a vast and culturally rich continent, full of life, arts and celebration

I hate the song and agree regarding Africa not being homogeneous and therefore entirely poor. However the OP was so obnoxious I’ve half changed my mind.

Africa is still full of poverty in many countries. Even Nigeria has huge inequality despite some becoming very wealthy. Do they have free or cheap healthcare (in response to the OP’s covid comment)? There’s loads more to do across the world, although I agree “white saviour” isn’t a good look, but then neither is any black, privileged, western saviour either. There’s no easy answer and it takes a long time, but since 1984 it is much better in many places. It’s harder for young people as the song was very much of its time. And it wasn’t because they couldn’t grow crops, it was primarily due to war and corruption.

"I doubt the Chancellor who has just cut the aid budget will hear that song with an easy conscience again"

No-one who supports the lockdown should hear the song with an uneasy conscience. We have cut the aid budget as a direct result of becoming poorer due to the government's attack on the economy. The money for aid (and the health service come to that) has to come from somewhere. Economic downturns have an unfortunate way of killing lots of people.

@Alexafrost that may be the government reasoning but the aid budget does not need to be cut, it's a choice. The cut is under 0.5% of government expenditure at pre-Covid levels.

“ Nigeria health care system faces notable challenges; poor healthcare infrastructures, lack or inadequate funding, and poor policymaking and implementation which leads to underinvestment in the healthcare system. These challenges among others in the Nigerian healthcare system contribute to failure in the healthcare system [1]”

Just to put the picture of Lagos into context.

Reading this in amazement. There was a famine. The lads were trying to help. Thank fuck they did. How anyone could’ve seen those news reports and not tried to help in any way they could is beyond me

That's completely missing the point though - don't think anyone is saying that it wasn't a good thing they did, at the time it was a song to help people starving, with totally good intentions (and I'm old enough to have been around when it was on the news)
It's the painting of Africa as one big starving blob of poor people when there's 54 (I think without googling?) different countries, and yes I know the song lyrics wouldn't have scanned as well if they'd have pointed that out, but it has contributed to the stereotypes as mentioned in the thread.
I think it's really interesting to get different perspectives on this, African people on the thread with their experiences I'd never have heard otherwise.

"@Alexafrost that may be the government reasoning but the aid budget does not need to be cut, it's a choice. The cut is under 0.5% of government expenditure at pre-Covid levels."

Yes, it's a choice and probably a poor one but difficult choices will have to be made more and more the longer we continue with restrictions and lockdowns.

I agree the lyrics are awful but I remember the absolute groundswell of support when it was released and the huge amounts of money it raised and for that reason I will always love this song. Would the world be a better place if Bob and Midge hadn’t written this? I don’t think so. If I were starving I’d rather be given support by an out of touch colonialist (although Ireland has never colonised anywhere) than left to die by someone who fully understood the nuances of my continent and culture.

This song wouldn’t be written today and rightly so but I ignore the crass words and instead feel the loving intention behind them.

"This song and the nature of subsequent charity appeals have sparked mass misinformation about the African continent which while the continent does have its problems, it is a vast and culturally rich continent, full of life, arts and celebration"

Yes, the words are a little clueless at times but your criticisms are ludicrously myopic. The misinformation was already there before it was written and the song and the charity appeals saved countless lives.

Is that not better than sitting on your arse and being self righteously woke while doing sod all to actually help anyone, especially those who were in great danger of starving to death without that help?

What have you done that has achieved a thousandth of what they achieved with that charity song?

[quote nosswith]@Alexafrost that may be the government reasoning but the aid budget does not need to be cut, it's a choice. The cut is under 0.5% of government expenditure at pre-Covid levels.[/quote]
This exactly. It’s not only nothing much to do with C19 but more to do with popularise politics. It’s also very short sighted in terms of potential impact on future health problems in U.K.

The lyrics are atrocious, but I agree with a pp that there are songs with far more offensive lyrics that should go first if we are going to get onto the business of banning songs!

@Hugglespuffed

Well no, i wouldn't say I'm going to Europe if I was going to France. But that is because I live in Europe. Other places would say that. American people, for example, say they are heading to Europe!

Ok. But would you say you're going to South America if you were going to Brazil? I too can't stand it when "Africa" is somehow reduced to one huge impoverished country. It's not. (have to add that I never heard this somg before and had to look it up!)

(have to add that I never heard this somg before and had to look it up!)

Have you been living on Mars?!

And lest not forget that as a region, Africa still has the honour of topping the leaderboard for hunger with something like 20% of the African population undernourished according to the UN

So why isn't there a thread complaining about the UN not recognising that Africa isn't just one country. Even today we have the UN today talking about hunger and starvation in Africa, so go and fixate on the fact that in some areas of Africa, children are becoming overweight so we must not talk about "Africa" when we talk about the hunger problems the continent is facing,

That song always reminds me of how the world woke up and took action that changed the world. Asking people to look at what they had and see that millions had so little. I doubt the people who received help that year would complain that the song talks about the problems of Africa not Ethiopia etc.

@Possums4evr

Were they trying to educate people about Africa? I thought they were trying to raise money for the famine in Ethiopia. This was certainly clear to anyone alive and of reasonable maturity at the time of release.

Well, quite. As I recall a great deal of money, attention and -as a result - good - was done because of this record and the concert in 1985.

But go ahead and trash it, OP - fill your boots. Merry Christmas.

Jesus, talk about an exercise in not seeing the bigger picture.

Yes, let's ignore all the people it saved from literally starving to death and instead concentrate on it not properly distinguishing Ethiopia from the rest of Africa.

Michael Buerk's reports from Ethiopia were so utterly shocking that anyone who saw them at the time remembers them nearly forty years later. Have you seen them? We all watched the same news in those days. It's quite difficult to describe how horrified everybody was - your friends at school, parents, teachers, everyone. And Geldof's urgency, saying 'people are dying NOW', which was true

I agree. I can still see that report in my mind's eye nd hear Buerk's narration. I think if you weren't around when it was shown on the news, you won't appreciate the impact.

The song was of its time and so will always be a bit problematic. But I do think it was made out of love for other human beings who were suffering so terribly at the time.

Oh sorry, meant to add that obviously at the time not everybody in Ethiopia was starving.....you know I wouldn't want to negatively stereotype every Ethiopian

When you need help, when it needs to be organised, it's not a negative stereotype , it's a sensible abstraction .