Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
spontaneous, altruistic, international disaster relief
efforts - although he was not the first celebrity to take
on massive famine relief. In 1891, Leo Tolstoy and his
family organized soup kitchens, feeding 13 000 people
daily in the Volga region of Russia following destruc-
tion of crops by inclement weather.
Bob Geldof was a musician from Ireland who
worked with a band called the Boomtown Rats that
had one international hit single in 1979, 'I don't like
Mondays'. They were the number one band in
England that year. Because he was a musician, Geldof
had contacts with most of the rock stars at the time and
was also aware of the sporadic efforts by musicians to
help the underprivileged in the Third World. For
example, following the 1970 storm surge in East
Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and that country's indepen-
dence, musicians organized a concert, the 'Concert for
Bangladesh', to raise money to help overcome the
disaster. It was staged free by several famous rock
groups, and raised several million dollars through
ticket sales and royalties on records.
Bob Geldof, like many other people in 1984, was
appalled by the plight of the Ethiopians - and the fact
that the famine remained virtually unknown to the
outside world until a British television crew, led by
reporter Michael Buerk, chanced upon it. Buerk's film
showed the enormity of the disaster, and painted a
dismal, hell-like picture. Children were being selec-
tively fed. Only those who had a hope of surviving were
permitted to join food queues. People were dying
throughout the film. In the midst of this anarchy, the
Ethiopian people stoically went on trying to live in
the camps, which were over-crowded and lacking
medical aid. Their honesty formed a striking contrast
to the greed of most people viewing the show. Starving,
Ethiopian refugees would not touch food in open
stores unless it was given to them. No one appeared to
be doing anything to help the refugees. The Ethiopian
government had denied the existence of the drought,
and the international monitoring agencies had failed to
bring it to world attention. UNDRO in particular
appeared hopelessly inefficient.
The emotional impact of the BBC film stunned all
viewers, including Bob Geldof; however, a rock
musician was hardly the most obvious candidate to
organize and lead the largest disaster relief effort in
history. The day after the screening of the documen-
tary, Geldof began to organize, coerce, and lie to put
together a group of musicians to produce a record for
Christmas 1984, the profits of which were to be
donated to Ethiopian relief. The group was made up of
the most popular rock musicians in Britain at the time:
Sting, Duran Duran, U2, Style Council, Kool and the
Gang, Boy George and Culture Club, Spandau Ballet,
Bananarama, Boomtown Rats, Wham, Ultravox,
Heaven 17, Status Quo, David Bowie, Holly, and Paul
McCartney. The band was called Band Aid, an obvious
play on words, but chosen in reality because the name
would make people aware of the futility of this one act
of charity in overcoming the famine. In the end, Bob
Geldof managed to convince all people associated with
the record to donate their services free. The British
government, after protracted lobbying, waived the
value added tax. The proceeds of the record were to be
put into a special fund to be distributed for relief aid as
a committee saw fit. The record contained the song
'Do They Know It's Christmas?' on side one, and some
messages from rock stars on side two. It cost £1 30p
and reached number one the day it was released, six
weeks before Christmas. Within weeks it was selling
320 000 copies per day and utilizing the pressing
facilities of every record factory in Britain, Ireland
and Europe to meet demand. People bought 50 copies,
kept one, and gave the rest back for resale; they were
used as Christmas cards, sold in restaurants, and
replaced meat displays in butchery windows. Musi-
cians in the United States (USA for Africa) and Canada
(Northern Lights) subsequently got together to
produce a similar type of album, which had the same
success in North America. Over twenty-five Band
Aid groups ('Austria für Afrika', 'Chanteurs Sans
Frontiers', and three German groups amongst others)
were formed worldwide, raising $US15 million for
famine relief.
Following the success of the Christmas album, in
1985 Bob Geldof organized a live concert. It was to
become the first global concert and would run for
17 hours on television, using satellite hook-ups. It
would start in Wembley Stadium in London, and then
end in Philadelphia with five hours of overlap. Famous
bands would alternate on a rotating stage. The concert
would also draw in television coverage of smaller
concerts held in Australia and Yugoslavia. Countries
would pay for the satellite link-up, and at the same
time be responsible for organizing telethons to raise
money. Paraphernalia would also be sold, with all
profits going to the Band Aid fund. As much as
possible, overheads were to be cost-free.
