Dear Bono....

Every time I hear the words ‘poverty in Africa’ or ‘every three seconds a child dies’, or simply see Bob Geldof on my television set my brain tells me to switch off. Automatically the information registers and filters through to the ‘I’ve heard it all before’ part of my brain. World Vision commercials, Oxfam commercials, UNICEF ─ all have little effect in convincing me not to change the channel. Unfortunately, even the phrase, ‘do not change the channel’ is a series of words in which I conjured my excuses to ignore long ago. I tend to snub them over and over again with each commercial. It would almost take more energy not to change the channel than to listen to what these people are trying to tell me. It is the same way we might block out an old relationship or distant memory we don’t fancy revisiting. The split-second propensity that runs though our mind goes something along the lines like this:

I know this is an important commercial and I know these are desperate kids but I spent time in the past thinking about this before and there really isn’t anything I can do. I sponsor a child, I know other people who sponsor children, not everyone in the world is going to help the poor and I’m doing all that I can do and all that listening to this commercial would do would is depress me and being depressed is counterproductive as it is not going to help anyone.

The truth is we’re right. There isn’t anything we can do by ourselves. We have a right to tend to our gardens and refinance our homes and get excited about the holiday we are yet to put in annual leave for. If there was something we could do we’d be doing it. We’re not mean-spirited and we don’t take our good fortunes for granted. So we go on with our lives, happy to pay our taxes and elect the governments who commit to humanitarian aid on our behalf. We elect strong leaders in democratic parties and we trust that they are doing everything they can to help as representatives and ambassadors of our consciences.

The truth is that we brainwash ourselves every time we tell us to forget about something, whether it be poverty in the third world or that distant memory we long to forget. These days we are so used to figuring out our own reasons for our behaviour and justifying the decisions we make that we easily do things without even justifying why we do them. According to Jung, the unexamined self is not worth living. But some horrible things are so easy to do because all we need to know is that if we had to, it could be justified. For example, it is okay for me to be reading my sister’s diary because she borrowed my car last week without asking. Or, it is okay for me to lie about implementing this policy after the election, because the public do not really understand the complexity of the economy anyway. Or, it is okay for me to ignore the images of starving children on the television because (a) I’ve ignored them before (b) I have previously realized and concluded the situation is hopeless and (c) I am not moved by these images as I used to be.

One of the greatest tragedies I believe for the Non Government Organisations (NGOs) doing their best to make poverty history is that people are becoming highly desensitized by the images of famine. NGOs strive to make their television commercials more emotive, more real and more miserable. We are provided with anecdotes; illustrated hopeless scenarios and shown the horrors of baby bags of bones with no inevitably futures. The unfortunate truth about extreme poverty is that there is little we haven’t seen.

The Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen stink-bomb, Beyond Borders, was a bad film that gave incredible insight into real life sub-Saharan poverty. It also gave us a basic understanding of the triumphs and obstacles that surround the delivery of UN humanitarian aid in war-torn regions. There was a shocking authenticity about the film with stark footage of Africa and its people perishing from chronic malnutrition, AIDS and malaria with little left to the audience’s imagination. It was shocking mainly due to the fact that it was a typical Hollywood picture. The Oxfam and World Vision commercials are all in all, just that, TV commercials. TV commercials are meant to disrupt us, annoy us and sell us something we don’t necessarily need right in the midst of being entertained. We certainly don’t need to be depressed by images of poverty when life is filled with so many other depressing times in our lives. Sometimes merely getting the family together at Christmas is punishment enough.

But to be bombarded by these images in a Hollywood film is almost violating. Traditionally, going to the movies was supposed to be an avenue of escapist entertainment.. It is a time when we are treating ourselves to an outing. It is a time when we are spending an exorbitant amount of money for a small popcorn and a choc top. Even a heart-stopping horror movie is watched to relax or escape. So what then do we learn about ourselves? Why are we moved by images sometimes and not others? Does it make us shallow? Or does it just make us incredibly moody?

The sad truth surrounding extreme poverty today is that the images used to address the issue have become symbols that now define it. Anyone and everyone who is only trying to help, have become nothing but clichés. There are many clichés which today encompass third world famine and extreme poverty such as the child sponsorship commercials – where the identity of each organisation has slowly merged into one; the televised charity comedy festival galas which all have three good acts and the rest a series of trios who sing ‘funny’ songs and one guy is always playing a guitar; and the token Christmas appeals come the festive season. While these components are all reminders of what it is we mustn’t forget is happening in our world, ironically they are also symbols that switch our minds onto auto-pilot. We ignore now not because we want to ignore, but because we are conditioned to. The mediums of the message are the same, the advocates are the same; even the desperate and hopeless message is the same. When nothing seems to be changing – when all our efforts to make a difference seem pointless, this is when we undertake a distracted sense of disinterest instead.

So what is the answer to what seems like a hopeless situation? The first is to empower the people again. People need to know that they can do more than contribute a pledge during a telethon. And voters need to understand that their politicians are only going to advocate on issues that a safe majority of people are in favour of. So why do we constantly see the people we elect as the ones with all the power? The reality should be, we elected them didn’t we, would we really elect a party that wouldn’t do what we elected them to do? Even the phrases ‘power of the people’, ‘one person making a difference’, ‘a voter’s voice’ have all become meaningless and clichéd. And when words become meaningless, they also become powerless. The overuse of terms and phrases kills the English language and kills the ignition of motivation. How many times do we use the terms ‘literally’ or ‘dilemma’ without really remembering what they mean?

People don’t even have emotions for long enough anymore – they have issues. We live in an age where we are surrounded by Oprahs and Dr Phils and the benefits of therapy. We are tempted more to do the wrong things to give ourselves proof that we need help. We cross paths we know shouldn’t be taken but choose them anyway to confirm we suffer the very condition we have read about. An affair would give our sorrow meaning or the drugs would prove we are in pain. People are not entirely clueless of their problems anymore and it can either be a good thing or it can be dangerous. A little bit of knowledge is not always harmless

A person’s identity too is something everybody wants defined, fearing its loss. Some people might be so determined in wanting their partner to know how deeply they love them that they overact their jealousy. Some people enjoy the attention others show in an identity trait, like loyalty, that they then exaggerate the trait – acting more loyal than is reasonable; perhaps adapting a secondary trait, like being violent, simply to reinforce the first identity trait. To give a small anecdote, I have a tendency to drink too much coffee during the day. I know this affects my ability to sleep and it would be in my best interests to cut down, however, people at work know me as the guy who drinks a lot of coffee. I cut back, people might forget who I was. My identity might change if I decided to change. The point being that society’s own self-awareness of their motivations these days allow us not only to find an excuse to make us feel better – but allow us to invent one.

Today, the crusade to detach the existing stigma associated with depression has been with tremendous success. But to be a cynic just briefly, there is always the possibility that the very openness towards the subject and frequent admissions of depression by more and more people might later deter some people from seeking help themselves. This type of mentality is evident in the increase of workers compensation claims or simply having not wanting to give an opinion others have heard too many times before. Extreme poverty is unfortunately another casualty of the connective cliché. All we will ever know about these people are the identical pictures we see on the television or the voices of the translators over their own. If we have a breakthrough we might discover their interests lie in soccer, or their ambitions are to become a school teacher. There are no individual personalities amongst famine ─ all identities are the same.

Little do we wonder whether the people affected by extreme poverty have sexual preferences or interests like us. Are the majority of them right-handed like most people? Do they all prefer the warmer months to the colder ones? The less we think of them as human the easier it is for us to justify our neglect. Do sub-Saharan Africans have issues or hang-ups or problems unrelated to their overshadowing burden of hunger? And to our inconvenience it becomes unfortunate that they indeed have likes and dislikes, habits and vices, just like us. But we will never find out if they are funny or what music they might like or where their talents might lie. While we live in a world where we consider everybody equal, we do not care enough to want to know the answers to these very human questions. But when we know that ultimately people are kind, it makes it hard to fully comprehend the debilitating powers of the cliché and how it can brainwash us into sheer and utter complacency.

In Australia, smokers and their friends are assaulted with images of gangrene limbs and clogged arteries and collapsed lungs on the spines of cigarette packets. These images are supposed to deter smokers from smoking and ease the consciences of the governments who allow tobacco companies to sell the cigarettes. Some people even buy cases these days to allow them to smoke in peace without being bombarded with the foul images of someone’s mangy limbs in front of them. And while these images are being used to mean well, it is only a matter of time before even non-smokers are desensitized by them. Let’s not forget that society has overcome being shocked by women wearing dresses above the knee and naked Vietnamese children fleeing the aftermath of a Napalm Bomb; or even Haley Joel Osmond seeing actual dead people. How long is this method of smoking deterrence going to work?

In 2005, Jamaican journalist, Ingrid Brown, wrote an article titled Helping Children to Cope During Disasters, which outlined the need to counsel children after the event of a natural disaster. As hurricanes can be quite frequent in the Jamaican region, many children tend to suffer psychological trauma, manifested in depression, bed-wetting, anxiety, sleep disorders, loss of appetite and psychosis. Brown interviewed the Ministry of Health’s consultant psychologist, Dr Yvonnie Bailey-Davidson, who said that while educating children in schools is important in preparing them for a hurricane or an earthquake, over preparedness can be counterproductive. Dr Bailey-Davidson states:

"A general education programme is vital and this can be done in the media to sensitize the larger population. We can look at radio, television and newspapers and the Jamaican Information Service can also play a vital role in having a regular programme. But (unfortunately) what you find out is that after a time, when nothing happens, people become desensitized...."

Like the pictures on the cigarette packets, when nothing tends to happen, when smokers do not end up developing emphysema or lung cancer straight away – the scare factor wanes. In the realms of extreme poverty, desensitization occurs when the gradual awareness finally sinks in that there has been no improvement; people are still dying. No matter how many times new telethons run on TV or World Vision ads invade our programming – we give in to the fact that this is not going to go away. We are stuck with it.

The BBC’s six-part series Geldof in Africa showed us another side to Africa through the eyes of Sir Bob Geldof himself. The result is highly poetic and beautiful to say the least, making this documentary the rather pompously clichéd ‘essential viewing’. Geldof knew only too well the rut poverty awareness had gotten itself into from the catch 22 predicament of the need to show images of famine. It is so crucial for the world to see the misery surrounding extreme poverty yet unfortunately too much with little result can desensitize even the kindest of hearts. So Geldof brought to us a different Africa, a beautiful Africa of course, but a beautiful Africa within its cities as well as its arid villages and deserts.

Shrewdly, Geldof manages to sneak in some fascinating narratives on the political climates of some of the continent’s lesser-known danger zones. The Democratic Republic of the Congo which has become notorious to academics for its miniscule level of news coverage at the height of its violence, was reflected on as a nation with much despair. Geldof even goes on to say that the UN could be caught at times losing all hope. One then imagines what level of hope can be maintained should more people be made aware of the state of affairs. He states:

"For seven years the Congolese have been involved in the first Pan-African war. It has been the biggest conflict the world has seen since World War II. At its height, nine countries were involved, 4 million died and we barely heard about it. And the reason for this war is as simple as it is depressing – greed and control over the country’s vast diamond, gold and mineral wealth."

From there we learn that the Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the richest countries on the planet in resources. Many of the mines harbouring this prosperity are excavated by hand on the sly due to the late Mobutu’s policy that its wealth belonged to the state. But what is interesting is the truth that we did in fact barely hear about it. In the 90s, the country formerly known as Zaίre was undergoing a fully-fledged war. During that time we heard a lot about NATO troops going to Kosovo (and even killing some 1500 innocent civilians) and Australia sending peacekeepers to East Timor and unabombers in America and the shenanigans of a crazy sports-star named OJ. For some reason, even war in Africa did not get much of a mention on the news. We always get the blow by blow of what is happening in Israel and Palestine. Is this because a story is always unfolding? Or is it because there are political interests of the western world that still exist in the Middle East? Or maybe it is just because there are fewer foreign correspondents in Africa?

Africa has today become a symbol of sheer hopelessness resulting in few countries coming to its rescue. The reason Australians (finally) helped the tiny country of East Timor gain its independence was not because of East Timor’s assistance to Australians during the Second World War; it was because of Australia’s neighbourly responsibilities. As a warm and fuzzy theory, it is understood that the larger nations have a civil obligation to help the smaller ones in times of military bullying by third parties. I suppose we saw this splendour by NATO forces in Kosovo as well as the Allied Forces in Kuwait. I also suppose we saw this civil obligation take place in East Timor. Whether we saw it in those wacky Americans when they invaded Panama to oust Noriega differs on which way you look at it. Don’t forget that this invasion by the Americans was deplored by not only the Organisation of American States but by the UN General Assembly as well. The sensation of de ja vu today is overwhelming. We mustn’t forget that the occupation of Panama was back in the 1980s so it is understandable that 21 Jump Street, crimps and New Kids on the Block were beginning to drive people a bit nutty by then. But, if you’re a small country and you aint got oil or a big brother next door to look bad for not stepping in – then unfortunately there isn’t much hope for you. Yugoslavia just happened to be lucky it was a part of Europe otherwise they too might still be waiting for humanitarian and military assistance.

Australia however is the maltese terrior of all nations. In Australia we think we are bigger than we actually are. We believe this due to our latest strength in the economy, assistance to Uncle Sam in invading Iraq and the single-handed invasion of Hollywood by the almighty conquerors such as Nicole, Rusty, Crocodile Dundee and The Wiggles. But Australia is only 22 million in population with kilometres and kilometres of unmanned Australian borders. Anyone can invade the bejeezers out of an island so big yet so small quite easily. The Australian Government can’t even keep Vietnamese boat people out of its borders, let alone a Japanese invasion. It’s no wonder former Prime Minister John Howard believed it so sensible in building a relationship as strongly with the United States; despite America’s reputation for always seeming to get itself into trouble.

And the reason Africa remains a symbol of despair is because the entire continent is a mess. It is not a tiny country like East Timor crying out for help. It is not an Arab territory with multiple oil reserves requiring protection. Africa is 30 million square kilometers of beautiful but very troubled terrain. It is the friendless child in a country school of just six kids. This continent that makes up one fifth of the world’s total land mass is alone and it is desperate. Each country in Africa, while they have their triumphs, also has their struggles. But each country has become a symbol of unimaginable despair. While South Africa we see as an economically stable nation moving forward, we know still lives in the aftermath of apartheid. In Zimbabwe all we see is the formidable Mugabe; in Sierra Leone ─ the violence; in Sudan – the genocide. And all over Africa we see the effects of vast indiscriminating famine. We see extreme poverty; or what we believe to be extremely hopeless poverty.

And in Lybia, we wonder exactly just what Colonel Qadhafi, the Cosmo Kramer of all dictators, is up to this time. While despicable in all ways, there is no denying he is a tyrant who knows how to get maximum news coverage. His antics include refusing to pay public servants in times of inflation, recruiting an all-female troop of bodyguards and doing deals of redemption with the Vatican. Even his recent stunt offering Libya’s cooperation towards the United States in its war on terror was like an episode of Get Smart. We could almost see America’s initial response of ‘thank you very much’ met by the much anticipated, ‘hang on a second…’ Whatever Libya is up to is always some kind of circus but tremendously entertaining nonetheless.

But again, nothing remains novel or newsworthy in the midst of extreme poverty. There is nothing newsworthy because there is nothing new. It has been around for years and if our world keeps moving at the pace we continue to move at then the destruction will be around for years to come. To put an end to the destruction, the media needs to cease sending a message to its audience that extreme poverty is hopeless. Each day that there is no front page story on the wasteful deaths famine imposes on the third world, our media maliciously deceives us on what is actually newsworthy. If an earthquake hits Paris killing 26,000 people then we have a contender – but as long as the body count remains the incongruous level it is for no reason other than total neglect, then journalism will remain a despicable and vile industry.

For journalists, their job isn’t about stopping atrocities but merely showing others what is going on. Journalists leave it up to others to think of ways to influence change. And such attitudes have helped them for so long now that they forget that their own industry might be the answer to some of the world’s problems. Just look at the media attention that took place over the American government’s failure to act in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. There was total uproar. Journalists going out to New Orleans were not only unprepared for the deaths they were about to be confronted by but were also unprepared for the position they were about to be put in. If they chose not to, in fact, drop their cameras and microphones to help – then there would be nobody else to do it. But it was the helplessness that took its toll on these reporters. It is reasonable to expect a journalist to tolerate the feeling of helplessness around dead bodies, it comes with the territory. A foreign correspondent should even be able to tolerate feeling helpless around a village of starving children; that would just be another unfortunate part of the job. But for these poor American journalists to be thrown into such a hopeless place where their fellow Americans were being left to die would have been heartbreaking.

And the media attention from this tragedy was enough to expect that it never happens again. But Katrina should be looked upon as a horror story that reflects the everyday goings on of the developing world. Imagine how the journalists of Malawi and Kenya feel, seeing their fellow people perishing from neglect and not being able to do anything about it. Executive Secretary of the Tanzania Press Council, Anthony Ngaiza, said:

"It is unfortunate that as much as our media publishes and broadcasts to the world the abject poverty our people live in, the developed world does not take notice. The world people in developed countries live in perceives the world through the eyes and ears of CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, BBC News and so forth. So our media is irrelevant to the ‘first world’ which has the financial power to eradicate poverty in developing countries. Just look at the Marshall Plan after the Second World War. If the developed world keeps failing to take action, the poor will remain the sacrifice of an unjust world; a social, economic and political system captained by Washington, Paris, London and so forth through capitalist multilateral institutions led by IMF and the World Bank."

Ngaiza raises an interesting point about the US’s history in humanitarian aid after the Second World War with its establishing (and selling) of the Marshall Plan. The economic development plan implemented grants rather than loans from America to Europe enabling them to dig themselves out of the enormous costs of rebuilding. Not only was it reactive planning but proactive, with admirable aspirations of stabilising a once thriving German economy. I am sure Ngaiza wishes the same amount of wit could be used by the Americans to help secure a future for Africa. However, the differences between Europe and Africa are vast and internal fighting over the years has never really demanded the western world to get involved. Even when the majority of deaths that take place in Africa have nothing to do with war, the attitude tends to be that it is none of our business.

So Ngaiza is right – Europe has been able to prosper today because of the Marshall Plan which was ultimately an implementation of humanitarian aid by the first world. This in turn should suggest that (a) history tells us that the first world does have the power to relieve poverty and (b) Europe has more of an obligation than any other to commit itself to the eradication of extreme poverty. Although having said that, with respect to Europe, it must be acknowledged that most European countries are up-to-date in relation to their recurring humanitarian aid pledges. However, it is still vital to increase this current sum if we want to make extreme poverty a thing of the past.

Also, Ngaiza’s observation that the developed world does not take notice of third world stories also confirms our media’s disregard to Africa’s issues. It is not appropriate to view these issues as irrelevant because they do not encompass western geography or its capitalistic concerns. Developing countries’ commerce can be the pitfalls to its own economic prosperity as well as the benefits for private enterprise in the first world. Just look at the cheap handiwork by sewers in India and Bangladesh or the billions made by some of the richest countries in the world from coca crops. The developed world takes delight in all its prosperity by exploiting the developing world throughout its development. In fact we should even stop referring to the third world as developing if it is to remain in the rut it has for so long inhabited.

What the world needs today is an influx of journalists into Africa. We need a surge of stories on doctors in villages; stories on villages without doctors; stories on the reduction of UN supplies from a region; stories on the regions who are yet to receive UN supplies – the list can go on and on. We need stories on the difference volunteers and not-for-profit organisations make; how children die from malaria and fever; how children die from cholera and infant diarrhea; how many women die during childbirth. We need stories on the psychological effects of malnourishment; the decline in soil fertility in dry terrain; the urgency for clean drinking water; the effects of desperate children drinking unclean and disease-infected water. We need to know reasons for basic observations like why children’s bellies swell and why women keep having more and more children.

There is so much we do not know about extreme poverty that affects a fifth of our shameful world. These stories I am sure have been written numerously as feature articles before in many metropolitan newspapers and journals all over the world. But feature articles are not good enough. This issue requires hard news stories and descriptive news reporting that matches in proportion the seriousness of the subject. Imagine if the toppling of the World Trade Centre only made it into the World News section of page 17 of our local metropolitan newspapers. It is a ridiculous hypothetical scenario but by no standard as ridiculous as the lack of news coverage third world famine receives.

But as we keep discussing these issues, every three seconds – a child dies. Or if one person reading this decides to sponsor a child – then they have the chance to save a life. Or for every dollar that can be donated to UNICEF….. the panic died out years ago. No one should ignore any of these messages but we do. Yet then again, no one person should be responsible for making this drastic change in our world. The cliché of the morbid world needs to be ignited again and panic is required to set. We rely on our newspapers and the news we sit down to watch after work to tell us what to worry about but the saturation of information has dumbed us into believing the destruction of famine is unchangeable. There is no excuse whatsoever for the global neglect that is killing a billion people and the world needs to move quickly for less people to die.

But most of all, people need to be open minded in what they read. We need to forget the justifications we make for our emotions. We need to turn feeling guilty into feeling responsible, shamefulness into motivation; but most of all we need to forget everything we think we know about the myths of the developing world. Our countries have never given much in humanitarian aid, civil war is not the reason we cannot get food into Africa and corrupt governments are not going to steal all the monetary aid our governments and NGOs have contributed. And the more the media researches these myths to alleviate the concerns of most people, the faster we can move forward in undergoing and achieving this making poverty history mission.