Paul Theroux to Bono: Stop Hectoring Us About Africa Development

Wow. this guy has obviously never done his research. Bono has never once advocated throwing money at the problem. He rails aginst those who ease the burden of corrupt governments through simple charity, he has said that accountability is the requirement, and those who refuse to be accountable get nothing. He’s a business man and wants to see a tangible return, end of story. The guy who wrote this obviously doesn’t know this, and i suspect their will be many letters to the editor next week saying what i am now saying. I could pull up a million quotes from interviews where he says this, and provides complex reasons why the previous method of addressing the needs of Africa has failed.

On a personal basis, he and his wife have set up a clothing company that makes some of its clothes in africa, and some of its clothes in europe. This is a tangible business venture, not a charity, and provides well paid employment and the beginings of an industrial base that are badly needed. He expects top quality from his african factories, or he will pull the plug. He is not in the business to make a ‘crap’ product, he expects top quality and a profit, and he’s said this. He’s said that he is not in the charity business a million times.

He also rallies for europen and western farm subsides to be lifted, so african farmers can compete and get their goods into the global marketplace. The problem for africa is that the global economic structure (trade rules, western subsidies, WTO rulings etc) has made a playing field that for Africa(even those countries that are well governed, like Tanzina) that isnt even close to being level. It is for these things he strives. Africa is barely able to enter the global economic system. More american companies should invest in Africa like they did in ireland, and have the strictest rules for investing and accountability. If the irish government wasnt accountable, then america would never have invested in ireland the way it has. In his campaign for debt relief, all african countires are not automatically granted this easing, they must fulfill a strict list of requirements built along a chain of measureable accountability, and if they don’t, fuck em, they get nothing, is his view.

He’s no bleeding libereal soft hearted dude.  He will say time and time again that he is not in the charity business, and is disgusted by it, as it solves nothing. The africans he deals with are the ones who want to get shit done, and who are serious about it.  He has no time for the corruption.

As for him being white, well, i’ve always wondered why its only white people that seem to work on these things for Africa. I always ask myself, where are the wealthy blacks doing their bit, or the middle class blacks, or the Africans that have left, why dont they go back and build up their countries? I’m often disgusted when i read in the globe and mail that it is really hard for doctors from 3rd world countries to get their liscense in canada, and that these doctors want it to be easier…Canada should not allow doctors or other vital professionals to move to our country, i have always felt this. It is a disgrace that we allow them to come here, while africa and india and other such places are starved of their expertiese.

As for bill gates and his computers, well, he wants to distribute 100 dollar wind up computers to schools in Africa. If the schools want them, and can get them for free from bill, then why not.  Mr. theroux has obviously done little research, and only glossed over the bono headlines, which in themselves are often misleading. The bigger they are , the more suseptible they are to attack, especially superficial and fact weak arguments such as Mr. Theroux’s.

He writes
”  I am speaking of the “more money” platform: the notion that what Africa needs is more prestige projects, volunteer labor and debt relief. We should know better by now. I would not send private money to a charity, or foreign aid to a government, unless every dollar was accounted for - and this never happens. Dumping more money in the same old way is not only wasteful, but stupid and harmful; it is also ignoring some obvious points.”

....hmmm…he must have taken those words right from bono’s lips, becuase that’s what he says constantly….i can’t wait to read the letters to the editor next week, Mr. theroux is gonna look like a doofus for having his head up his ass and not doing a flake of research!!

For a writer, the man doesn’t seem to have done a lot of reading about someone he is making a bold, uneducated statement about.

Good thing I’ve never read his books, who knows whether or not he has done his research!

I have read some of his books, and he comes across as an elitist, bitter egomaniac.  And I know two people who have come across him personally, with very unpleasant results.  One of them a Bangladesh-born scholar who said Theroux made fun of his accent within 2 minutes of meeting him.  His diatribe against Bono is borne out of jealousy at all the attention the latter is getting.  Would people like Warren Buffett be supporting Bono if he didn’t have some kind of economic rationale behind his advocacy work?  Theroux hasn’t done squat for Africa except make money for himself on his worthless books.

I’m a big fan of Bono, however after reading “Dark Star Safari” by Theroux, I see things in a different light.  This book was written by a man who actually lived in Africa - not someone who visited from time-to-time.  People should be educated on all sides of the situation.  Furthermore, I’m still wondering how someone on here can say that Tanzina is governed well????

I have read some of Theroux’s work; and though I admire his skill of observation and description, there were parts, passages, etc. that I found, well, unfriendly and even pretentious.  But does that alone make him wrong on Africa, or Bono?  And though I definitely like Bono’s music more than Theroux’s writing, it isn’t enough to make me side with the former and disagree with the latter.
  As far as the comments from Shane and Kate that Theroux hasn’t done his research; He’s live, LIVED, in Africa!  What more do you want?  Would it help if he lived in Africa and was a nice guy? 
  And as for Rod’s comment.  Why is it that everyone who criticizes Bono has to be jealous? 
  Most of us have dreamed of being Rock Stars, so what?  Does that mean that because we aren’t Rock Stars now we have no value as Human Beings, that our point of view doesn’t count and so we should bow our heads in respectful silence or nod them in approval to everything people like Bono say and do?  And if not, expose ourselves to ridicule and sarcasm from him or his fans (though I think his fans would do more of it than he would)?
  How silly, how 80’s, or, how Today; where it still seems as if you are only worth what you have in the bank and how famous you are.  Sick. 
  I have met Bono on four different ocassions while working in NYC and I will say this much; Bono, though nice enough, is honest when he tells us, as he has more than once in interviews, that he IS a meglomaniac (something he has in common with most government officials in Africa).  And that condition does NOT come with a switch that you can turn on and off.  In short, he’s a publicity hound.
  Is it ANY coincidence that as his career tappered, he got balder, paunchier (“The Short Fat One” as Robert Plant called him), his voice more hoarse, etc. that his interest in Africa became such a passion? And his approach more, as he called it, “militant”? 
  I for one refuse to be impressed or sentimental about his cause or, excuse me, his “emergency”.  Either way you look at it it is something that came with even more publicity than one of his bands tours.
  Orwell was right; there IS a certain power in facing unpleasant facts; and the unpleasant fact of the matter is that Africa is unsavable and the United States is not.  It very much needs to be saved.  It is awash in crime, addiction, the chronic abuse and neglect of its children; (which is a problem that genuinely transcends race, gender, religion and spills out into all of our major institutions from education, business, and government, causing damage that is “hard” to see only because we stubbornly refuse to pay attention to it, thereby making it worse), bad education, problems with public safety, national security, immigration, race relations, the list goes on. 
  All of this, and Bono lectures on how God is going to punish us for what is happening in Africa?!  Is the fact that he is a Rock Star suppossed to make us not notice how shameless and crazy that comment is?  And he’s said it more than once.
  He truly is the product of his culture and generation; one that wanted it all.
  Another twin fact is that 1- most whites are not rich and famous.  2- those who are often suffer from guilt and a conspicuous “love” of black people.
  What has been the result?  6 Trillion dollars spent (lost) on programs of one kind or another for Blacks in America alone; deteriorating cities; forced busing, bad blood between the races (because of course poor whites, the ONLY ones with any real experience with blacks, were offered up as sacrifices to the above mentioned white guilt; a guilt apparently insatiable and definitely perverse, not to mention useless; as if you could build anything on guilt and government funding!).
  Bono is unquestionably talented and obviously successful; he is also correspondingly narcisistic and superficial.  To steal a part of a quote from Pete Townsend when commenting on the attention he and his group received over the years…..If someone as self-absorbed and as shallow as Bono has received so much attention, it’s because his audience is like that too.