I often switch the Television over to watch Enough Rope on the ABC. Yes, already mentioned this once today!
This evening Andrew Denton's interview with Bono from March was a conversation with Bono. Amazing. Insightful. Relevant. Food for thought.
You can access it here.
Some highlights....
On George Bush:
ANDREW DENTON: What's George Bush patter?
BONO: I thought he looked rather enviously at my glasses. So I slagged him off about his dress sense. But I rode in one of those ridiculously long motorcades once and he was waving to the people on the street and I said to him, "You're pretty popular around here aren't you then, Mr President?" He said, "Wasn't always so, when I first came to this town, people used to wave at me with one finger." So, he's funny.
ANDREW DENTON: How did you explain it to the band?
BONO: I'm still explaining it to the band.
On the opportunities available to the United States:
ANDREW DENTON: The US has many critics around the world, but you believe this is America's moment, don't you?
BONO: Meaning?
ANDREW DENTON: This is America's time, if America wanted to step up to the plate?
BONO: Yeah. I think it's all - I don't think it's about America. This is a real moment in time where it is possible, if we want to, to be the first generation that says no to extreme poverty. And by extreme poverty we mean stupid poverty, kids dying for lack of food in their belly in the 21st century, or 3000 Africans, mostly children, dying everyday from mosquito bite. That is ridiculous and history has a way of looking, as I said earlier, has a way of making things that looked acceptable once appear ridiculous now. This is that moment. Other ages they had, you could pull back apartheid or it was the fight for equality and civil rights in the United States that defined the '60s and '70s. This is our shot at greatness. Other ages had a chance to put a man on the moon. I spoke to Bush about that, and just said, "Look, that was a great demonstration of financial prowess and intellectual genius really, putting a man on the moon. We're not asking you to put a man on the moon here, Mr President. It will cost less to the bring mankind back to earth so to speak and be that generation. We want to have our beaches and our barbies. We want to go to our rock shows, and no-one has a greater life like a spoiled rock star like myself. But I can't really enjoy it the way I'd like to knowing that there's this haemorrhaging of human life which could be stopped and isn't being stopped.And I think, you know, in a way we shouldn't be blaming the politicians. Really, we have to give them permission to spend what is in the end our money. In Australia's case and in Europe, everywhere, we're asking for 0.7 per cent of GDP. That's what it will take to stop this. That's less than 1 per cent. ...... everyone looks at everywhere else. I know this. I've been in Gleneagles with Bob running around the golf course in the G8 meeting. Everyone wants to know what everyone else is doing. Even if the Australians weren't in Gleneagles, the Canadians are looking at the Australians.This is a critical moment.......What an opportunity to be able to do that. Look, everyone knows how I feel about Australia. But you have to give the politicians, whoever's in power, permission to do this.
ANDREW DENTON: Have you spoken to John Howard about this?
BONO: I haven't and I'd like to when we get back.
ANDREW DENTON: Will you have that opportunity, if he'll have you? Have you asked?
BONO: I haven't yet.
ANDREW DENTON: How is that set up? Your people meet his people and it happens?
BONO: Kind of like how we met.
On Australia and Canada
BONO: ....You do get the feeling right in Australia that there's just - this is a new model. Something going on down here, a new society being dreamt up. And you're doing really well. It's an amazing - even just coming here having not played for years, you can see there's a prosperity, the way people walk. It's a confidence. With that, should be the opportunity to lead the world outside of this hemisphere, to actually just take some moral high ground. You can afford to now. I don't want to be a boring asshole
ANDREW DENTON: You say this to every country you visit.
BONO: The only other country I think has the chance in leadership in terms of creating a new model as Australia would be Canada. I would argue similarly with the Canadians.
On Scary Soccer Mums
BONO: Politicians love to write cheques and it is hard to get them to cash them. But again I answer you the same. It's about the movement. The movement are there. They're much more important than people like me. And they're made up of all kinds of people. We've got - it's a big tent is what Bill Clinton said to me. "That is a big tent. You've got rock stars, soccer mums, religious folks." Actually, in some ways the politicians are much more scared of the soccer mums and the religious folks than they are the student activists and the rock stars, but when we all start hanging out together, they're terrified and that's probably the single idea that we brought to the table, was let's not divide countries in half along party lines. This was always the subject of the left. It's no longer that and that's something I'm proud of. We're working across party lines and that's where our power comes and that's the way we'll get them to cash the cheques.If Australia decides that 0.7 is the decent thing to do - less than one per cent and it wants to lead the world and actually meet the world on these terms, if you decide it, the politicians at the next election will agree with you.
On Faith
ANDREW DENTON: As a man of faith, when you look at Africa, what's your concept of a working God?
BONO: Look on the God thing I have to be really careful because I'm not a very good advertisement and so I don't want to sit there and say, "I'm a man of faith," Yes, I am, I just can't. I recently read in one of St Paul's letters where it describes all of the fruits of the spirit, and I had none of them.
ANDREW DENTON: You fulfill a Christian ideal.
BONO: No, I don't think so. All the commandments I've broken and the ones I haven't I've probably wanted to. But that said, I do have a faith and it is challenged on a daily basis by what I see in Africa.
Denton closes the interview
ANDREW DENTON: I'd like to close with a quote from one of your favourite poets. Brendan Kennelly, "If you want to serve the age, betray it," what does that mean to you?
BONO: Well, he is an extraordinary poet. The book of Judas is an amazing epic poem. There is these amazing Jewish sheep herders standing in front of a pharaoh. He says, "You say you're equal to me." Yes, that's what it says in the book . Eventually they're accepted as equal, but not women, or not blacks. And it's a pain in the arse, equality, but right now where we're at with it. is if we believed that these people's lives were equal in value to ours, we would not be letting them die like this. This is not an argument for giving money to corrupt leadership or redecorating presidential palaces. Let's be tough, and vigorous and demanding of our aid. But let's increase it and let's be that generation that can say to our kids, "We stopped that".And just another one on the Jewish thing while I'm there. I met this incredible man in the United States Congress Tom Lantos and he was a survivor of concentration camps and he told me that years later it wasn't the mistreatment in the camps and the brutality that used to haunt him, but the thing that haunted him were the blank stares of the faces as they were being loaded onto the trains. And I knew this is a very heavy thing to bring up. I don't bring it up this lightly, but is there some analogy here. He said, "Oh no, it's worse than that, because we know where these trains are going. We are letting children die for lack of medicines you can get in any corner shop." And so I asked him could I use this analogy and he said "Yes", and that's what our generation has got to do. We've got to go down and lie across the tracks.
ANDREW DENTON: It's easy to talk, great to sing, but I really respect the fact you give time. Bono, thank you.
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