Geoffrey York
Thirty years ago, when Bob Geldof organized the first Band Aid song for Ethiopian famine relief, he was hailed as a hero. The song was a huge hit, leading eventually to an honorary knighthood for "Sir Bob."
Fast forward three decades, and Mr. Geldof's latest charity song for Ebola relief is a lot more controversial. Many Africans see the new Band Aid as condescending and insulting. The negative reaction has become so vehement that Mr. Geldof was finally confronted with the criticism in one of his British TV appearances. "Bollocks," he responded furiously. But as much as he might deny it, the resistance to Band Aid is a sign of an increasingly assertive Africa.
In the 30 years since the first Band Aid song, Africa has changed radically, and the perception of Africa has changed too. The world understands now that Africa isn't a charity case, and it's not a place to be pitied or patronized. The old notion of the "white savior" – the wealthy benefactor who wants to rescue impoverished Africans – is increasingly challenged by Africans themselves.
Yet when the new version of Do They Know It's Christmas? was released this week, its writers seemed to have no inkling of this revolution in African perceptions. Just like 30 years ago, they repeated the stereotypical images of death and doom in a benighted continent. The lyrics describe the whole of West Africa as "a world of dread and fear" – where there is "death in every tear."
Setting aside its medical inaccuracies (Ebola transmission has never been scientifically documented in tears) and its unfortunate contribution to irrational Western paranoia about the Ebola virus, it's the imagery of pity that Africans resent. The lyrics continue: "No peace and joy this Christmas in West Africa; the only hope they'll have is being alive. …The Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom. … How can they know it's Christmas time at all?"
While there's no question that three of West Africa's smaller countries are in desperate need of foreign help to tackle the Ebola crisis, it's shocking to see well-meaning philanthropists using phrases like "chimes of doom" to apply to the entirety of West Africa, where countries like Nigeria and Ghana are vibrant fast-growing economies.
Several African musicians, including the chart-topping Fuse ODG (a British-based Afrobeats artist of Ghanaian descent), have sharply criticized the Band Aid song. Fuse had been invited to participate in the recording, but declined to join. He said the song contradicts his "This Is New Africa" movement, which emphasize the positive and vibrant side of Africa.
For him to sing lyrics about African doom and joylessness "would simply be a lie," the rap artist wrote in an essay this week. "I, like many others, am sick of the whole concept of Africa – a resource-rich continent with unbridled potential – always being seen as diseased, infested and poverty-stricken…. Though shock tactics and negative imags may raise money in the short term, the long-term damage will take far longer to heal."
The Nigerian rap artist Breis, reacting to the Band Aid song on Twitter, was equally scathing. He said the lyrics are "ridiculous, misplaced, ignorant, backwards, nauseous, spiritually malevolent and condescending."
In the end, only one of the 30 singers in the latest Band Aid was actually an African. The rest were the usual array of Western pop stars and Western celebrities – a vivid symbol of the old foreign-aid notion of benevolent white people and needy foreigners.
In media across the continent, many Africans have reacted with horror to the latest Band Aid lyrics, condemning them as an updated version of the old prejudices about the "White Man's Burden." Ethiopians said they're still trying to escape the damaging stereotypes of their country – the images of fly-buzzing starvation and misery – that the first Band Aid helped to perpetuate. Others said the ultimate beneficiaries of Band Aid will be the celebrities themselves, and their public images, rather than Africans who are treated paternalistically and stripped of their power to solve their own problems.
There is a danger that this backlash can go too far. Some African commentators have gone to the opposite extreme, calling for the elimination of all foreign aid, and demanding that African stories be told only by Africans themselves. This ignores the fact that foreign aid can sometimes be effective and valuable. The dramatic decline in African malaria deaths in recent years, for example, is partly due to the efforts of global health agencies and foreign donors.
Ugandan journalist Charles Onyango-Obbo has argued that African stories and African causes need to be championed by everyone, not only by Africans. Instead of jousting over the "ownership" of African problems, Africans need to be less jealous in guarding their issues, he said.
Two years ago, there was a similar African backlash against an American charity, Invisible Children, for its rather naïve attempts to produce videos about the need to capture Joseph Kony, the African warlord and indicted war criminal. Yet despite all of the African criticism of the video, Mr. Onyango-Obbo argues provocatively, nobody in Africa has yet produced a better effort to focus the world's attention on capturing the warlord.
"We are willing to be internationalist in many things, but have become very protective and nationalist over the 'African story,' " he wrote in a recent commentary.
"We don't want anyone else telling it, unless they are telling it exactly the way we want it – which is impossible because we want very many different things … Telling the African story is a bigger job than tweeting, Facebooking or blogging about it. It is hard frustrating work that requires lots of study and money to get around and see realities on the ground first-hand for oneself. The reality is that telling the African story well is nearly as hard as ending poverty."
Whether you are a British pop star, a U.S. charity or an African blogger, it's impossible to tell the complexity of the African story in a single song or video or tweet – or in a single attack on that song or video. That's a lesson that still needs to be learned.