White Saviour

[username8348]

Ed Sheeran has said that he wouldn't participate in a rerecording of Do they Know it's Christmas which was first released in the 80s to raise money for a famine in Africa.

The single and other similar endeavours have been criticised as portraying a negative view of Africa and belying a White Saviour complex.

Some critics have said that Africa is capable of dealing with its own problems and such sentiments mean it loses business and investment:

While they may generate sympathy and donations, they perpetuate damaging stereotypes that stifle Africa’s economic growth, tourism and investment, ultimately costing the continent trillions and destroying its dignity, pride and identity - Fuse ODG

Do they know it's Christmas was last rereleased to raise money for ebola. Geldof has denied the claims saying that they're bollocks and the money has achieved a lot.

Western countries give a lot of aid to African nations, is it time to stop that aid? Many countries are feeling the pinch and could plough the money into their own nations.

AIBU to believe that we should stop playing the White Saviour and as advised, let Africa deal with its own problems?

I say this as a poc, charity begins in your home country and this whole thing boils down to race baiting.

Yes of course.

But It would be rare for large numbers of children to starve to death in the UK.

That has happened in parts of Africa.

Bob Geldof was genuinely trying to help. And thats not a bad thing. He did more than a lot of other celebrities.

I cringe every time I hear "do they know it's Christmas" - Ethiopia is an country with an ancient tradition of Christianity that pre dates most European countries.

Surely the lyric is about being hungry/starving being the opposite of Christmas. Christmas being about gifts/food/plenty therefore the opposite of famine. It's not about lack of awareness of Christianity. They were raising funds for food not bible classes. I'm not saying the song is genius and I'm sure your lecturer had some good insights, but your example feels like a wilful misreading.

Also I remember seeing a doc about how the song was written and as with many of these things, it was very much on the hoof, done to a tight deadline to do the job and not precision-tooled to stand any of this kind of analysis. The doc on Netflix about the making of We Are The World is also worth a watch for a glimpse of the mayhem these projects sprang from. The fact that they had an impact and did some good is quite a miracle in itself, given the coke-fuelled big ego madness of the 80s pop scene.

Great post.

Yes, but you may as well say that about food/clothing/whatever banks over here - charities have become part of the welfare state and allowed governments to stand off. 🤷‍♀️

Good intentions don't necessarily lead to good works. A teenage relative went to an African country on a class trip to build houses. This was to improve the relative's university application; they went and returned with no practical skills. This is a good kid with good intentions.

Yet I try to imagine what the reaction would be if teen girls from a prosperous area in an African country, and with zero practical skills, arrived in Scotland to build houses in a poor area, therefore reducing work for local trades, and put up shoddy buildings in order to tick a box on their university applications, while also posting social media photos of dirty and poor Scottish children. I don't suppose that would go over well.

I agree. As a nation, British people are incredibly generous. Every major fundraiser, we dig deep and donate. Even people with very little themselves. And now we’re being told that’s somehow wrong.

I was a teenager when the whole Band Aid and Live Aid stuff happened. It was revolutionary. A vast amount of money was generated overnight, often from young people like me, who’d never considered donating to charity before, spending our pocket money on a charity record. We did it in good faith, and we truly believed we were helping. Yes the lyrics were clumsy, but it was thrown together at speed, and I think the end justified the means. A whole generation of people became acutely aware of the suffering thousands of miles away, and wanted to help.

It makes me angry when people who weren’t even born then, and don’t understand how different life was, start criticising us for apparently doing it wrong.

I wonder how many starving children the rapper Fuse ODG has fed.

I think Bob Geldof was right to do what he did. He tried . And by getting a lot of celebrities to do the song, he raised awareness.

@Ginmonkeyagain the song wasn’t questioning the awareness of the Christian calendar in Ethiopia. It was suggesting that such was their suffering, their starvation, their desperation, they might have lost track of the dates, as utterly devastating pain turns life into a meaningless blur. Have you never experienced a loss so tragic that you forget what day it is? Imagine multiplying that feeling by many thousand. You might not know it was Christmas.

There wasn't a single person on the planet that would have said "wait, stop buying & making that song because it's offensive & inappropriate to help" when it was made. I'm sure the world has moved on & maybe the likes of Ed Sheeran has a point. But it was of it's time & people were starving, literally, there was pictures of people barely alive. And we didn't have globalisation on the scale it is now so most people didn't know this was happening, the record raised awareness of the issues going on in Africa at that time.

I think Bob Geldof did a good thing & it came from a good place; the lyrics are dated & he'd probably agree, but this was the era where there was lots of inappropriate things going on, especially within the pop scene.

I think he was trying to help, & it did save lives, I think they did a good thing & it as other good deeds, should be celebrated for what it was.

I think that the original BA song should be remembered for what it was, a well-intentioned thing that raised awareness. It would never have won an Ivor Novello award but the hasty, cobbled-together nature of the track has become part of the story.

I like seeing the video now - images of major stars arriving at the studio, chatting whilst they waited. A snapshot of a particular time.

I wouldn’t want it to be revisited.

Absolutely this

I can see how a 40+ year fund raising effort looks today but I think it's worth remembering that at the time virtue signalling wasn't a thing and charity wasn't as politicised as it is now. No one boasted about buying the record because they were an empath!

It's complicated.
There are many charities that support 3rd world countries that listen to the people there, and do valuable work. It's easy to be cynical and tar all charitable giving with the same brush.
Much of our Foreign Aid budget is spent in the UK, housing asylum seekers.
China is pouring money into Africa, and other countries. Whereas western countries aim, at least, to do some kind of gatekeeping on how the aid is used, China 'goves' indiscriminately, on projects that might not be to a country's best interests.

It was of it's time and truly came from a good place by well intentioned young, idealistic people. Bob and others were very passionate about doing something to help, you only have to see the famous interview Bob did.

The impact of the reports on the famine were horrifying at the time, and I think it's hard to understand now how shocking they were.

It should be retired now.

This wasn't the first though. The first was actually the Concert for Bangladesh in 1971. Lots of musicians getting together to perform, raise funds and tell the world about the situation in Bangladesh. There were issues with getting the funds to the right organisations to assist those in need, but it also raised immediate awareness of the war between East and West Pakistan, as it was then.

We simultaneously take interest payments from developing countries.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/developing-countries-facing-debt-crunch-2023-10-04/#:~:text=High%20interest%20rates%2C%20growing%20investor%20risk%20aversion%20and,range%20of%20developing%20economies%20mired%20in%20debt%20crises.

I like the sound of direct giving, Moonlight. How do you do it? Are there charities set up for this?

I use Kiva, you actually loan the money (minimum $25) I've lent to a female dairy farmer in Pakistan, a seamstress in Peru and I can't remember the others. I just relend the same money.

www.kiva.org/blog/how-microfinance-supports-livelihoods-in-developing-countries

Why would we look back at something that happened so many years ago with the sensitivity of today.
We watched the Michael Burke reports and artists got together and made the Band Aid single, held Live Aid and we purchased the record watched the show, whatever.
Surely it is easier to have an identity crisis with a full stomach.

I don't have an issue with the original version and the way it was created to respond to a horrific, urgent situation within the circumstances of the time. It saved lives.

The world has changed a lot in the last 40 years, and especially the last 20. Mobile communications have done a lot to create opportunities in areas that were previously remote.
Re-makes of charity singles aren't going to solve structural development issues; that needs to come at government/ regional/ institutional levels.

I thought the problem lyrics were more the ones that go
"And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas time.. Where nothing ever grows / No rain nor rivers flow" relegating the whole of a massive continent to a single image of a starving child.

But I agree that it did any amazing job at the time. And it shouldn't be redone- something more relevant to now should be instead. Maybe something on cancelling poorer countries debts?

It is sickening when people virtue signal that giving money to people or developing countries is white saviour as a reason to do nothing and feel smug in their position that by doing nothing they are helping people learn to look after themselves.

A lot of these countries do deserve money, as a right not as something they should feel grateful for.

It isn’t for other nations to “teach people to look after themselves”.
There are very complicated histories with international debt and badly thought through historical loans leaching of poor nations to richer ones. These debts should be written off years ago as irresponsible lending

And reparations for colonial exploitations (which will not happen) would in theory be deserved and outstrip any charity giving.

I think it means there but for the grace of God go I. It means we should have compassion.

Did she offer up how she makes a difference to the world @Lallydallydune ?

I’ve volunteered in the UK and abroad since I was 13 and at 50 I’m now a volunteer director of several charities, run a community centre, manage a charity shop and have a business helping charities be better with strategy and operational gubbins.

I grew up in Africa in Nigeria. It does have a lot of corruption but it still has needs and I’d rather risk supporting on the ground organisations (with money, resources or volunteering) than imagining them closing due to lack of support. In Nigeria this last two years I’ve supported Land of Hope that mainly saves abused, abandoned and neglected children - many accused of witchcraft. They also support elders in the same position. https://landofhope.global/en/

Please continue to support charities in any way you can. Sometimes just helping online with admin or social media/marketing is a great help?

No one would say it out loud, but we all prefer that it's someone else suffering. not us

I think this line was included deliberately, to make people confront an ugly and uncomfortable truth

This came up on Twitter.