Africa Doesn’t Need Another Charity Song From the ‘Saviour’ West

British Poverty crusader and Live Aid founder, Bob Geldof was once quoted to have said “I am responsible for two of the worst songs in history,” the former singer and activist said in 2010. “One is ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?‘ and the other one is ‘We Are The World’.”

Famous names including Nigerian born Seal, boyband One Direction, Bono and singers Emeli Sande, Rita Ora, Angelique Kidjo and many others came together to record vocals for a Band Aid track in a west London studio hoping to raise resources to fight the deadly Ebola virus in parts of West Africa.

Celebrity charity campaign are worthy of commendation when done in the right way. In most cases, star-studded charity efforts tend to be over-the-top, self-righteous and of questionable real-world value. The problem for Bob Geldof, is that a growing number of Africans considered the lyrics in the new song to be a misnomer.

Do they know it’s Christmas?

Economist William Easterly wrote in Slate earlier this year that the song promotes “a worldview in which ‘they,’ Africans, are unable to help themselves in preventing famine, and so passively await rescue from ‘we’ Western famine experts, a category that apparently includes rock stars.” Furthermore, the suggestion that “they” need to know that a Christian holiday is taking place obliviously invokes the sins of colonialism. And the song converts a massive, diverse, and complicated continent into a single, undifferentiated place where, apparently, “nothing ever grows” and “no rivers ever flow.”

Although well intended, the original campaign conjured an image of an Africa full of people who were unable to help themselves and constantly looking up to foreigners for help. Critics of African-centered charity programs have always contended that the emphasis on charity alone has failed to address crucial issues like economic injustice and neoliberalism. Shouldn’t it be curious that those ‘white saviours’ are so concerned about raising money for Africa (thereby raising their own international profile) but at the same time were silent on the fact that most of all these ‘Aids’ goes back to the West in the form of embezzled money, tax evations, and unfair trades between African states and the Western nations. Where are the concerts against these issues?

According to Chitra Nagarajan, human rights activist, “It’s yet another classic sign of white Western saviourism, in this case with celebrities swooping in to “save” the people of Africa. Not only does this take away the agency of people living in African countries who are the ones who actually lead and make change happen, but it perpetuates stereotypes of conflict, poverty and disease as the single story of the continent.

It is worth noting that Ebola-inspired songs have already been written and produced by African artists themselves – Liberian musicians Samuel ‘Shadow’ Morgan and Edwin ‘D-12’ Tweh wrote and produced ‘Ebola in Town‘. Another song ‘Africa Stop Ebola‘ was produced by Malian, Ivorian, Congolese, and Guinean musicians.

The wise thing Bob Geldof and his ‘African loving’ cohorts should have done is to promote these African songs to the international community rather than overshadowing them with their own self-centered ‘saviour’ agenda.

Culture of Stereotyping

During the period of the Live Aid campaign, many were unaware of the fact the actual famine in question at that time was localised to the northern region of Ethiopia. Due to political manipulation, the songs, concerts, and fundraising appeals were distorted to form a single, negative, and biased view of Ethiopia, making it synonymous with famine, poverty, and desperation – Ethiopians to this day are yet to recover from this stigma.

80 percent of British citizens, according to a 2001 research study on the legacy of Live Aid, associate the developing world with poverty, hunger and need. This type of negative representation doesn’t just leave Africans with a image problem; it can have broader implications for tourism, investments and other opportunities necessary for self-governance and autonomy. It is time for Africans at home and in the diaspora to push back the lies and negativity. Staying passive or nonchalant about this issue allows for the perpetuation to continue and many outside Africa will keep buying it.

Africans Reacts

As Africa’s fastest growing economy and with the largest GDP, Nigeria contained Ebola in three months without foreign intervention. Nigeria used infrastructure and systems already in place to fight and to contain Ebola. Ever since Patrick Sawyer tested positive for Ebola on Nigerian soil, they able to respond quickly by quarantining and treating suspected Ebola patients, tracing the contacts of those infected, and launching a massive public awareness campaign about how to avoid further transmission of the virus.

It takes a substantial amount of courage from a young Afrobeat artist, Fuse ODG to declined Bob Geldof’s invitation to feature on his Band Aid charity anthem. He maintained the song “was not in line” with his personal beliefs.

The chart-topping British singer, of Ghanaian origin, has used his time in the spotlight to champion This Is New Africa (TINA), a movement he hoped would showcase the Africa he knows and loves – a vibrant and self-sufficient continent.

He maintained he was forced to pull out because the lyrics in the re-recorded version of Geldof and Midge Ure’s 1984 hit Do They Know It’s Christmas, have been branded ‘ignorant’ and caused widespread outrage among people from the African Diaspora because of its “offensive” lyrics about the Ebola crisis.

“Big up Sir Bob Gekdof & his heart. He approached me about about being on the Band Aid song, however upon receiving the proposed lyrics, I felt the message of the Band Aid 30 song was not in line with the message of The New Africa movement (TINA),” he wrote on Twitter.

In the original 1984 version (organized to highlight the Ethiopian famine then), the lyrics read: “Where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears”, but these were replaced with “where a kiss of love can kill you and there’s death in every tear.”

Another line reads: “No peace and joy this Christmas in West Africa. The only hope they’ll have is being alive”.

UK-based Nigerian rap artist @MrBreis wrote on Twitter: “The lyrics to this #BandAid30 song are ridiculous, misplaced, ignorant, backwards, nauseous, spiritually malevolent and condescending.”

“No peace and joy this Christmas in West Africa. The only hope they’ll have is being alive” really Bob!? #BandAid30

— BREIS (breeze) (@MrBreis) November 15, 2014

Now is the time for the West to discontinue with their constant perpetuation of Africa from a single narrative that hinges upon hopelessness, despair, chaos and hunger. We have seen this narrative played over and over and it is no longer music to our eyes.