BEFORE our eyes, the Live Aid movement has been transformed into a Live 8 movement, whose purpose has become to support the British Prime Minister Blair and his Chancellor Brown at the Group of Eight meeting of the seven biggest capitalist powers, plus Russia.
Brown and Blair are the ‘good guys’.
Allegedly, they will be waging a struggle to get the agreement of the world’s bankers to abolish the debt repayments of the African states to the capitalist world’s financial institutions.
The enemy is President Bush of the US, who is opposed, but who just happens to be Blair’s political boss and the main beneficiary of Blair’s foreign policy since 2001.
There is almost a love affair taking place between the ageing pop stars leading the Live Aid movement and the Labour government, with assurances being given in advance, that if, despite a mass protest outside the Edinburgh Group of Eight meeting, ‘nothing happens’ to end poverty in Africa, it will not be the fault of Prime Minister Blair.
In fact, the establishment seems to be doing quite well out of Live 8.
It is not just a question of the political support being given to the Labour Party leaders, but also the fact that Prince Charles and his Prince’s Trust Charity are to get the £1.50 that it costs to text for the chance of a ticket for the July 2nd London pop concert, and millions are texting.
The question is how can the Blair government – the partner of the US’ genocidal and illegal onslaught against Iraq, which has cost the lives of 100,000 Iraqis and destroyed the infrastructure of that country, turning life into a living hell for its people in the pursuit of privatising its economy and seizing its oil wealth – be the saviours of Africa?
The answer is that they can’t.
In Africa, they will act in the same manner as they have in the Middle East.
Any abolition of debt will be made dependent on a wise use of the ‘savings’ made by the African governments concerned, and a supervision by the banks of the way that the savings are used.
And since the debts, and the interest on the debts, have proved to be unrepayable because of the grip that imperialism has on the African economies, there will be ample cause for finding fault with, and condemning, ‘corrupt governments’ and demanding that they be removed so that the people can live.
This will be the rallying point for cries for regime changes, so that the privatisation of entire African economies can be carried out, by and for the big banks, and the grabbing, if they can, of the enormous riches of the continent, its oil, diamonds, gold, coffee and timber resources.
The Blair-Brown plan is essentially for British imperialism to play its own part in the redivision of the world being carried out by the United States, by grabbing parts of Africa.
Any talks with Bush will be to try to get his permission to play this role.
Doctor Livingstone and his bible, are to be replaced by Chancellor Brown and any military forces that he can muster.
Africans are not blind as to what is taking place.
Recently, South African government ministers bitterly criticised the remarks of Chancellor Brown, made during his recent visit to West Africa, when he declared that ‘we’ had to stop apologising for the British Empire, and that by and large it had done a good job for the people that it had colonised.
Brown was accused of spreading the modern imperialist slander that Africans are naturally idle and corrupt, and that African governments are dictatorial by their very nature, and that Africans desperately needed the return of British colonialism and imperialism.
The News Line agrees with the South African ministers on this question.
We salute the millions of Africans who struggled and removed the colonisers from the continent.
We also salute the youth of Britain who responded to Nelson Mandela at Trafalgar Square when he called to make poverty history.
This will not be done by trailing behind Brown and Blair.
Making poverty history will be done by organising socialist revolutions to overthrow capitalism and imperialism, thus making the rule of the bosses and bankers history!
