LONDON — As travelers go I seem to have the worst luck of any
since the late Christopher Columbus. He sets out for India and
slams into the New World, wrecking his reputation as a navigator
and assuring that by the late 20th century he is blamed for every
disorder on the American continents from racism to poison ivy. I
set out for London and a quiet week enjoying the arts and leisure,
and what happens? I arrive the very day this class-conscious
country’s most self-regarding pompous elites are gathering en masse
in Hyde Park to strut their moral superiority and to order us
lesser mortals to transform Africa into a middle-class suburb of
Stockholm — I refer to the singers at the idiotically named Live 8
concert.
That is not all. Just two blocks from my hotel another gaggle of
chosen people gathered, to wit, the solemn participants of Gay
Pride Day, or was it Gay Pride Week? Whatever it was it was very
noisy. Its mob left a great deal of debris in the street and above
the street — inflated condoms. And it lasted right through lunch,
a fine time to dine al fresco even in London in July, but
who wants to dine in the presence of a mob scene and amidst
floating condoms?
Of the two spectacles by far the more tolerable was the Gay
Pride spectacle. It only lasted a few hours. Moreover, the
participants whom I saw did not have the superior attitude lorded
over us by the Live 8 megalomaniacs. Many of the young men I
spotted leaving the scene of the Gay Pride antics looked like very
earnest middle-class fellows intent on advancing their careers in
the white-collar workforce once they doffed the orange hair or
angel wings that they were wearing for this special day. Admittedly
some wore feathers and women’s lingerie, but otherwise they seemed
rather ordinary.
Many shared a peculiarity that I noted in observing Senator John
Kerry a few weeks back as he walked along a crowded corridor at
Reagan Airport. They studiously stared at the pavement a few feet
in front of them, apparently not wanting to make eye contact. I can
understand why our wind-surfing, bungee-jumping, he-man war hero
would fix his eyes on the ground. But I cannot explain why these
ostentatiously made-up activist homosexuals would be so
self-conscious. At any rate, they were polite.
That cannot be said for the Live 8 eminences. All were boastful
and defiant know-it-alls convinced that the problem in Africa is
lack of money and neglect from the West, though surely even the
must drugged-up of the rock singers knows that most of the money
that has been heaved at the continent since the chaotic end of
colonialism has been either wasted or filched. Britain’s Royal
African Society claims that in the past 50 years Africa has
received a trillion dollars in aid, ten times the aid sent to
Europe after World War II. Nonetheless, more Africans live in
deeper poverty today than when the aid began to flow. Recently it
was revealed that corrupt Nigerian officials pocketed
£220 billion in bribes over the past few years. How
much the other corrupt officials throughout the continent have
accounted for can only be imagined.
Nonetheless the assembled rockers shouted — some called it
singing — threats to the political leaders of the West to take
action to end the evils afflicting Africa. None has been supportive
of Tony Blair’s and George Bush’s attempts to end the evils
recently afflicting Iraq. Yet military action against Africa’s
corrupt potentates is about the only imaginable way Africa’s
suffering can be alleviated in the near future. Would they like us
to commence “regime change” now or after we have brought democracy
to Iraq?
The angry threats sounded by the Live 8 singers were matched by
the angry lyrics of their songs, some of which they have been
singing for decades. It is preposterous to think that this is the
voice of international charity. Rather it is the voice of modern
pop entertainment, an entertainment devoid of talent and ravenous
for attention and money. In the year following Live 8’s
predecessor, Live Aid, record sales in the United Kingdom soared
21%, twice the rate of increase the year before or the year after.
Doubtless sales will be up this year too in the UK and America
alike.
Actually CD sales have been dropping for the assembled stars of
Live 8 for some years and soon will begin to drop again. Unremarked
in all the hoopla about this hypocritical spectacle is that rock is
dying. The entertainers have grown tiresome. Their fake poetry and
angry shouts can only be in fashion for so long, and the evidence
is that the fashion is now moribund.
Perhaps the most tiresome and pretentious of all the
entertainers in the Live 8 lineup was Madonna. I have always
insisted that she cannot sing. The other night, as she lurched
across the stage, pulling her shoulders back and thrusting her
belly forward, she proved that she can no longer dance. She has
become sclerotic from the waist down. Perhaps she will go to Africa
in the Peace Corps, which, with a lot less hype, has done a lot
more for poor Africans than the megalomaniacs of Live 8.
