I propose Bono as the next pope, he is already rich and preachy, he wants to end poverty and that's a good goal for a pope. Not long ago, he had an editorial about the end of AIDS, and last week, he took the stage for one of these TED conferences to proclaim himself a ‘factivist’ and declare the end of poverty in 2030. He bombarded his audience with slides and statistics announcing good news: 8 million AIDS patients have received retroviral drugs, malaria deaths have been cut by 75%, child mortality is way down, the number of people living in poverty declined from 43% in 1990 to 21% in 2010…. And he continued:
‘If the trajectory continues, look at the number of people living on a dollar a day by 2030: zero. That can’t be true, can it?’
‘That's the zero zone’….’For numbers crunchers like us, that's the erogenous zone. It's fair to say I'm sexually aroused by the collating of data.’
This sounds disgusting and that’s the problem right there, Bono is in perpetual electoral campaign to be elected best Samaritan, announcing the good news to the planet, and he gets a giant kick out of it! And in case everyone had readied a Christ comparison, he added that the Zero Zone is not only possible but will also bring benefits, for one thing ‘you won’t have to listen to an insufferable jumped-up Jesus like myself’. Haha!
Then he talked even more about his One Campaign:
‘We’re here to try and infect you with this virtuous database virus, the one we call factivism. It’s not going to kill you; it could save countless lives. We in the One campaign would love you to be contagious, spread it, share it, pass it on. By doing so, you will join us and countless others in what I truly believe is the greatest adventure ever taken. The ever-demanding journey of equality. Could we answer that clarion call of Nelson Mandela with science, reason, facts and dare I say it, emotion?’
Funny, he didn’t mention his Red one, which was heavily criticized for being a joke and giving less than 10% to the people really in needs. The conference is not online yet, but honestly, there’s nothing new there, just Bono and his usual sermon-style discourse feeding his messianic-super-ego. I don’t know if his numbers are correct, but this sounds like total nonsense to me! When I am watching the world news, I don’t see the world progressing toward a better place, in 2030 we will face overpopulation, and more of this climate change, with less food and water to share, so good luck with that! Plus, this overwhelming amount of good intentions is always suspicious to me. Beside the fact he does not do what he preaches (to say the least) or even pay his taxes to his own country, what interests Bono the most is winning another pompous TED $100,000 prize (he already won one in 2005) and he sounds like a fool when he added:
‘We're going to win because we don't understand politics. We're going to win because we don't play their dirty games. We're going to win because we don’t have an agenda. We're going to win because the tears that comes from our eyes actually come from our hearts. We're going to win because we have dreams. We're going to win because we are willing to stand up for our dreams.’
Bono doesn’t have an agenda? Bono has the Bono agenda, and it’s a huge one! Instead of pleading Africa’s case as if he were the Mother Theresa of rock’ n’ roll, in front of a room full of white rich people, may be Bono should consult African people who know what they are talking about? People like, for example, Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo who thinks that aid given to Africa has actually held back Africans, because it has led to corruption, dependency, and killed entrepreneurship. She said in interviews:
‘The second point is that in the aid model, you disenfranchise Africans because the governments are not held accountable. The fact that there was a vacuum big enough for these celebrities to step in and speak, ostensibly, on behalf of the African continent is worrying. Africans stand in the hot African sun to elect their leaders, not celebrities. We expect African leaders to come up with policies about where they want to take Africa. We expect these leaders to attend G8 and other international gatherings to articulate a view of where they see Africa. The African people do not expect their countries to be represented by celebrities.’
‘The African issue should be championed by the African leaders charged with delivering long-term growth for their people. Anyone else offering opinions is pretty much moot.’
Why don’t they give a TED conference to this woman?