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?

I have always hated this song. So patronizing and ignorant.

yabu,
and ridiculous. and its June!

Feed the world still applies.

Are you trying to be groundbreaking? Every year there's the same discussion surrounding this, it's been covered to the nth degree

Lyrics aside, the worst thing about this song is that none of the money went to these good causes and it just helped a dictator kill more people.

www.spin.com/featured/live-aid-the-terrible-truth-ethiopia-bob-geldof-feature/ interesting article about the fundraising.

The song was written at a time when people had less awareness of things and genuinely thought they were doing something good. Like the saying goes: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I remember UNICEF adverts showing African hunger stricken children with flies all over them and sunken eyes. It's all because we are so absolutely despicable that we can't find it in ourselves to help each other out of kindness, but we need to feel pity or embarrassment to do so. Human race is vermin.

No, we cannot get rid of it. It’s an important reminder of poverty and inequality in the world. I get that it’s slightly patronising, but it has done a lot of good
Wow. The number of times I hear this for the many things that gave done Africa harm! Slavery, oh but it sparked trade. Tea n coffee plantations that disposed villages, oh but they provide jobs. Christianity demonising our culture oh but it brought "education", apartheid, oh but it developed south Africa.
I won't even bother

This thread shows just why that kind of fundraising for “poor starving Africans” is so dangerous.

People who say it was good because it “raised money” showing the idiocy of people just chucking money at a situation to feel better and then never engaging again.

Even Geldof says they got it wrong. One massive impact for example was they airdropped a load of food in, causing local farmers to go bankrupt, basically just spreading poverty further.

The entire programme was the very definition of “Africa can’t sort itself out, step aside, white saviours coming through!”

Again, I am not equating the song to police brutality. I'm also not saying that the song had bad intentions, that charity is bad, or that other songs are not offensive. Most of these other songs though are not constantly played and listened to by millions of children each year. Those kids get told subconsciously that Africa = poor black people who are not like us.

I am saying that songs like this add to a reductive narrative surrounding a continent, where all African children are starving of hunger and need to be saved in order to have a semblance of a normal life. And it is not just the song. As I said before, this happens in other contexts too. I for one was pretty offended by the suggestion made on the BBC news that healthcare in Africa wouldn't be able to cope with the pandemic during a news report.

When someone on Mumsnet complains about wolf whistling, does everyone immediately jump down their throat with a 'I'm sure this is what Emmeline Pankhurst would be worried about?'

I'm just trying to draw attention to the fact that potentially harmful narratives do not always come from bad intentions, but even the most benign things can still add to others seeing and treating you differently based on the colour of your skin. And being treated differently based on the colour of your skin is exactly what we are trying to stop doing.

I thought the same thing. It's one of the few parts of the song that actually works. It's honest.

"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."
But people do say they went to Africa, or grew up in Africa etc, and they do say they went to Europe. That's a bit odd op.

100% agree with you OP @tokenminority

As I said upthread: as if anyone in Africa at Christmas wishes they were in the UK.

I agree OP, the words are extremely patronizing and provide a really unhelpful narrative about 'them and us' ('thank God its them instead of us') and a really reduced view of poverty and supporting those who are struggling with it. I always found it quite bizarre that lots of countries in Africa have a lot of practicing Christians (disclaimer- I know a lot of other faiths are practiced too) but would apparently have no idea that it was Christmas!

@TabbyMumz

But I think the OP is pointing out precisely the way Africa is presented (and envisaged by many) as a homogenous single story of crying children batting flies off and walking 50 km to the well.

Maybe it depends on whether the listener was “there” at the time. To me, DTKIC is about a very specific famine in Ethiopia in 1984, not about Africa in general needing our help. It is the same as say a specific appeal to help the victims of an earthquake or a flood.

However I do accept that the lyrics alone (while definitely metaphorical and not offensive, as I said at length upthread) would not tell you that it was a song about the 1984 famine in Ethiopia, and it is replayed every Christmas to a generation which would not necessarily know this, and could be misinterpreted.

Out of interest, do you disapprove of the arm of Comic Relief that funds projects in Africa as well?

I'm shocked at the voting as it stands, and horrified at some of the comments on this thread.
Seriously, if anyone thinks those lyrics are reasonable today, words fail me.

What good the song or the charity did back then isn't the point now. Those lyrics would not be acceptable if they were written today.

And seriously, I'm struggling with the level of ignorance and unpleasantness in some of the posts about donating to causes on the African continent.

I taught a geography lesson to secondary pupils based on the reality of Africa, they were amazed that it wasn't all mud huts and poverty.

What a load of virtue signalling nonsense.

It was a brilliant song at the time both for the money it raised and raising awareness of the plight of adults and children starving to death in Ethiopia.

Don’t forget that the internet was in its infancy and social media hadn’t been invented so most of us in that age demographic were too old for Newsround and didn’t normally watch the news on tv as that was something your parents did.

I think most of you moaning about it on here are just jealous that you didn’t get to attend the Live Aid concert, so there!

It’s a bloody awful, crassly ignorant and patronising song, which was written and recorded in a massive rush on a single day a very long time ago by well-intentioned people. In those days there was much less cynicism about the motives of celebrities who involved themselves in charitable activities.

The song was intended to raise a lot of money very quickly for short-term famine relief, which it did, and nobody involved could have imagined that it would still be playing on repeat in a million shops and on a thousand crap radio stations every December for the next four decades.

Never hearing it again would make me very happy, and I would be the first to sign a petition to consign it to history.

And the adverts? There was one on TV just now. A little girl walking to get water?

Plenty of snow in the Mooroccan high Atlas at Christmas time.

@ZoeCM

I thought the same thing. It's one of the few parts of the song that actually works. It's honest.

What bit are you referring to?

[Paul Young]
It's Christmas time
There's no need to be afraid
At Christmas time
We let in light and we banish shade
[Boy George]
And in our world of plenty
We can spread a smile of joy
Throw your arms around the world
At Christmas time
[George Michael]
But say a prayer
Pray for the other ones
At Christmas time it's hard
[Simon LeBon (Duran Duran)]
But when you're having fun
There's a world outside your window
And it's a world of dread and fear
[Sting]
Where the only water flowing
Is the bitter sting of tears
[Bono & Sting]
And the Christmas bells that ring there
Are the clanging chimes of doom
[Bono]
Well tonight thank God it's them
Instead of you
[Boy George & Others]
And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas time
The greatest gift they'll get this year is life(Oooh)
Where nothing ever grows
No rain or rivers flow
Do they know it's Christmas time at all?
[Marilyn & Glenn Gregory]
Here's to you
[Paul Young]
Raise a glass for everyone
[Marilyn & Glenn Gregory]
Here's to them
[Paul Young, Marilyn & Glenn Gregory]
Underneath that burning sun
Do they know it's Christmas time at all?
[Chorus: All]
Feed the world
Feed the world
Feed the world
Let them know it's Christmas time again
Feed the world
Let them know it's Christmas time again

Exactly @Tokenminority

Lots and lots of people, in the U.K. at least, genuinely have no idea that Africa is a continent full of functioning countries where people live full, normal lives, produce culture and science, etc, etc.

The lyrics are cringey yes, and don't give a very positive impression of Africa, etc etc. It wouldn't be written in 2020, but, you know, Black Lives Matter and regardless of your sensitivities, the money raised from that song saved Black lives. There was a famine and millions of people were starving.

And re possibly Gordon Brown, are you trying to suggest that healthcare in Africa is as developed as in the West, seriously? It might be in some of the richer capital cities, but throughout the continent?

Not just the Chistmas song, but the charity appeals for Africans in general skew the perception of the continent as a whole.

It wasn't until I grew up and became more self informed that I realized, while these things were happening, it wasn't an entire continent built on poverty.