Diversity Management, Equality, Equal Opportunities, Affirmative Action, News & We The People!

Bob Geldof’s live8 superduper “popstar” loaded global party to “help” the people of Africa and “make poverty history” happened July 2nd 2005. World “leaders” will no doubt be compelled to banish poverty from the face of the planet in record time. Pat on the back kiss kiss all round darlings!

Wait a minute, where were all the reggae boys and girls who for long decades have been chanting down the Babylonian shitstem establishment highlighting the hunger and suffering of the people of Africa?

In the approximately 10 hours of performance time in each of the 10 locations, I heard a less than 2 minutes rendition of “Stand up for your rights.” by Rita and Steven Marley on the Philadelphia stage via BBC television.

I did look around to see if I could find any AOL streaming video from the internet featuring reggae artist or the event from Cornwall and had no luck.

I gather that billions of people were watching around the world.

I understand that 8000 were able to attend in South Africa in the presence of Nelson Mandela and wondered if there were any big screens or other facilities anywhere else across this vast well-populated continent for the supposed beneficiaries of this wonderful event to see and feel the dignity of being included.

Seems to me that reggae music has long been the single most vocal music genre articulating the plight of Africa at the hands of the world’s top industrial nations. Yet their contribution seems to have been actively excluded.

The rush to gather a few token African artists down in the Cornwall ghetto at the last minute under the pressure of widescale protest did seem to me more than a little unfortunate too! Apparently a massive 5000 people saw this African contribution to this global event.

Did I miss a page here somewhere?

I imagine that when the G8 members look at these facts in the cold hard light of day they will ask themselves a few questions including ones along the lines of:

$) Why should I take this event seriously? After all it surely was no more than a massive advertising opportunity for the western music industry based on the biggest Blacksploitation event in modern history?

$) Why should I take the stated cause seriously when the organisers clearly haven’t? After all its deeds that count, not words. If one is serious about the words then how can one exclude and discriminate against the very people one is claiming to help and actively exclude and discriminate against their accepted time honoured champions?

Surely all those billions of people who attended the various concerts and march and watched on television will be asking themselves similar questions too!

Surely they see that the “same mindset” that created the tragedy of Africa and actively maintains and exploits it is on display here in the organisation and execution of this event.

I hope the organisers were not so naive to think we the people wouldn’t see what was what.

Could it be that they don’t care about our sensibilities or what we think or feel?

Yet the care so much about poor old Africa!

The music industry got its advertising anyway and reggae music sure wasn’t visible spoiling things for them.

The G8 members familiar with reggae music may also ask; Who sang that song that goes “Dem a hypocrite, hypocrite?!”

Good day out wasn’t it? Now lets get back to the “real world!”

Article ©2005 All rights reserved, Floyd Campbell

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Floyd Campbell is Principal of
CAMPBELLCONSENT DIVERSITY
Specialist in Diversity Management
Consulting, Training, Research & Marketing
http://www.campbellconsent.com

LINKS:
http://www.live8live.com/theconcerts/index.shtml
http://music.aol.com/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/4645333.stm