YESTERDAY the PR company representing Live8, LD Publicity, refused to deny media allegations that Bob Geldof, the Live8 movement’s leader, had a soft spot for the blood-soaked US President George Bush, and was taking steps to ensure that none of the pop stars appearing at the various pop concerts supporting the Live8 demonstration at Gleneagles, criticised Bush.
The company instead refused to comment, which is a very unusual position for Geldof to take on any issue.
The bourgeois media yesterday was adamant that Geldof was boosting Bush as Africa’s chief financial supporter, and as the US president that had done the most for the African continent.
As well, the media stated that in no way did Live8 want Bush’s role in Iraq getting mixed up with the allegedly progressive role that he was playing in Africa, and that the movement was trying to get Bush aboard, not drive him away.
You would think that Geldof would rush to deny such allegations, for fear that he be deemed guilty of supporting the imperialist leaders.
However, previous to this development, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, had declared that he was intending to address the G8 Gleneagles demonstration and that he had been invited to do so!
There has been no denial of this either.
All this begs the question, just who is getting who on board?
The answer is that through the likes of Geldof, Bush, Blair and Brown are trying to turn the July 2 demonstration to the Gleneagles summit and the pop concerts supporting it, into pro-imperialist manifestations whose purpose will be to support Blair and Bush, the architects of the imperialist war against the Iraqi people.
And this is being done under the guise of the struggle to ‘make poverty history’.
When Nelson Mandela made the call at Trafalgar Square to the youth of the world to take action to ‘make poverty history’, he stated that today’s youth were the generation that was going to change the world.
He was most definitely not calling on the youth of the world to support the main leaders of imperialism, the butchers of Iraq and the super-exploiters of Africa.
Only last week it was revealed that under the Blair government, thousands of African doctors have been poached and enticed to Britain, to allow the government to cut back on the training of doctors in Britain, while condemning thousands and thousands of Africans to death from lack of medical treatment.
This is imperialist parasitism in practice – stealing Africa’s doctors, despite the huge sacrifices that have been made to train them in their own countries.
The truth of the matter is that Bush, Blair and Brown will treat mineral rich Africa no differently than they are treating oil rich Iraq.
Excusing a minimum of debt to a number of countries is just a way in to controlling how aid is used, and getting rid of governments that will not, in return for a measure of debt cancellation, privatise their economies.
This is the road to regime changes and a restoration of imperialist power in dozens of African states.
Live8 and Geldof must make it clear that Brown has not been invited to address the Live8 Gleneagles demonstration, and that there will be no ban on criticising Bush at any of the events.
The fact remains, to make poverty history requires socialist revolutions in the main capitalist countries that will make parasitic imperialism and capitalism history. There is no other way.
