Word: geldof
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Live 8 concerts—organized by British activist Sir Bob Geldof—are designed to put pressure the leaders of the G8 countries to increase aid, cancel debt, and deliver what Geldof calls “trade justice” to Africa, in advance of this month’s G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, where Africa tops the agenda...
...some real politics going on. It's not just the politics of protest, for which the G-8 became infamous four years ago during riots in Genoa, forcing levels of security that would make Kim Jong Il blush. There will be protest, possibly flamboyant. The rock singer Bob Geldof has called for a million people to make their way to Edinburgh to campaign for Africa's poor. He even wants another Dunkirk of small boats to ferry activists across the English Channel; much better TV than taking Ryanair. Geldof is also mounting a worldwide string of "Live 8" concerts...
...Geldof's social evangelism began early. As a teenager in Dublin, he helped start a chapter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and did community work because "I was never into sports." But his success at galvanizing a socially somnolent rock community surprised even the organizer. "It went beyond Woodstock," he says. "It went beyond idealism and that ridiculous term activism, which basically means talking about something but doing nothing. Live Aid was activity as opposed to activism. We made giving exciting...
...success the rocker who once announced to an indifferent world, "I want to get rich, get famous and get laid," has been drubbed by several professional relief outfits. There is much rivalry among charitable institutions, and some of the pros, smarting from Geldof s high visibility and hyperactivity, have had harsh words. By their protective reckoning, Geldof and his Aid outfit are good at grabbing attention, slow on detail work and chary of bailing out other agencies. "I'm not an accountant," huffs Geldof, who is nevertheless adept at running down stats, from the average number of berries constituting...
...midst of all this sound, fury and fund raising, Geldof has been dubbed "St. Bob" by the press. He has been denounced by Britain's splenetic right-wing Member of Parliament, Enoch Powell, as a "crypto-imperialist" and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Certainly Geldof s lively penchant for the vernacular would make for a salty acceptance speech in Oslo, but any wishful, wistful speculation about the award's being grabbed by a rocker should not steer clear of the main point. Rock music, the most formidable force in Western popular culture, found a focus...