The Wisdom of Ages

Bono, Africa, and Aid

Age and experience is reputed to bring wisdom.  Sometimes sadly this is not the case.  Growing years can cement the foolishness prejudices and simplicities of youth, which makes aged folly all the more ridiculous.  But often as people grow in experience, they become more subtle, discerning, and wise.  They learn that things are not always what they seem.  They realise that truth often lies beneath, not on the surface.  

David J. Theroux, writing in The Beacon, gives us an example of the latter.

Bono (nee Paul David Hewson) is the lead singer in the rock group U2, one of the most successful rock groups in history. Bono also became a major proponent of greatly expanded U.S. foreign aid and other government programs (including debt cancellation) to alleviate the dire plight in the world of HIV/AIDS, malaria, abject poverty, and other issues.

Bono's name and fame is synonymous, not just with U2, but with charitable activities in Africa.  He has publicly and passionately taken up the cause of that needy continent for most of his public life.  Bono is a professing Christian.
  He has called loudly for charity and aid to the needy people and nations of Africa.  But aid can be destructive, addictive, corrupting, and enslaving.  It is not the longer term answer.  Theroux continues:

Our Research Fellow George Ayittey met the Irish rock star Bono in July 2007 during a TED conference. Professor Ayittey was speaking and in knowing that Bono would be in the audience, he explains that “I made a special effort to rip into the foreign aid establishment.... Later, Bono said he liked my speech but did not agree with me that foreign aid is not effective in ending poverty. So I gave him a copy of my book, Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Development.”

Bono's thinking has developed, no doubt prodded by his experience over decades in Africa, to where he acknowledges that aid is not the longer term solution for Africa.  What, then, is the solution?

Just recently drawing upon his Christian faith (and possibly the economics influence of Professor Ayittey?), in a speech at Georgetown University, Bono altered his economic and political views and declared that only capitalism can end poverty.  “Aid is just a stopgap,” he said. “Commerce [and] entrepreneurial capitalism take more people out of poverty than aid. We need Africa to become an economic powerhouse.”

It seems as though Ayittey's book has made an impact, no doubt corroborating Bono's own experience and observations over the years.

But we would add this qualification: capitalism is not the hope of Africa.  King Jesus alone is its hope--as with us.  Capitalism cannot emerge and garner strength without the law of God being upon the hearts and eventually in the social and political and governmental fabric of the continent. As the King of kings stretches forth His sceptre to break down tribalism and racism, drawing people to His eternal and universal kingdom, to where respect for life and families and the property of others becomes sacred, then will capitalism emerge and bear good fruit.  When governments out of respect for the Ten Commandments regard protecting the goods which God has granted to families and individuals from the thieves which would break in and steal to be a sacred and holy duty of covenant keeping, then capitalism can flourish and living standards rise. 

Only then is it meaningful to say "capitalism can end poverty".  For without the fabric of Christ and the institutions of His kingdom, capitalism can be the most destructive engine of rapine imaginable.  As it has been in Africa.  Without Christ as Lord, capitalism becomes a curse, not a blessing.