In his book Bad Samaritans: First World Ethics and Third World Debt Paul Vallely writes: "Far from playing the Good Samaritan the rich world has developed a new role. Today we are Bad Samaritans. We do not simply pass by on the other side . . . We cross over and announce our intention to help. We take the injured man to the inn. But we do not acknowledge that he has been injured and robbed by men who work for us. The silver we pay for his convalescence is only a small proportion of what our agents have stolen from him. . . We are blind to an even greater injustice. We are blind to our own role in the proceedings."
The release of the Live Aid DVD is a reminder of that day in Wembley Stadium when structural economics, the machinations of the World Trade Organisation, the Mengistu dictatorship and intricate geo-political forces came face-to-face with Duran Duran and Hall and Oates.
Watched by over 1.5 billion people, Live Aid raised more than £140 million for Ethiopian famine relief. A multiple of that amount is expected to be raised from worldwide sales of the DVD - again, the artists are waiving their royalties and Warner Music have paid a large sum to the Band Aid trust in return for the rights to the DVD.
The music on the day apart, what will strike most people is how, 20 years on, the underlying problems that prompted Band Aid/Live Aid have yet to be resolved. The debt/death escalator is still on the move and the G8, World Bank and International Monetary Fund are still the genteel thugs they always were.
This generation, with their better grasp of globalisation, are beginning to ask pointed questions. For example: why is there pressure on developing countries, through the World Trade Organisation, to allow their public utilities, in particular water, to be privatised? And why is this used as a condition for new aid or debt relief?
You can say what you like about bands such as Coldplay, but their repeated highlighting of world trade issues has alerted however small a percentage a people to the fact that every time you buy something made or grown in a developing country, you are taking part in a billion-pound scam.
As Paul Vallely wrote of Band/Live Aid: "Geldof, for all his skills as a populist, has to find a way of moving the issue on from one of charity to one of justice". This new focus on fair trade goes deep into the details of rules, taxes, tariffs and quotas and shows how if the developed world applied the same tax principles to itself as it does to the developing world, then those on the lowest income would pay the most tax, while those on the highest would pay nothing.
The release of the Live Aid DVD has focused the thoughts of Fisseha Adugna, the Ethiopian ambassador to Britain, who points out that Ethiopia lost about $900 million from unfair coffee trading in the last five years alone. And over the last 12 months, the country has had to pay $150 million to service its debt.
Twenty years on and Geldof has been battered and bruised by dealing with preposterous debt and trade conditions. The newly set up Global Commission For Africa - made up of the world's richest countries, institutions and African leaders - will question fixed assumptions on development and in particular why, so many years after Band/Live Aid, none of the solutions seem to be working.
What began as a charitable event in Wembley Stadium has now become a debt/fair trade issue. Rock that all over the world.
The four DVD Live Aid set is available now.
www.liveaiddvd.net
www.maketradefair.com
bboyd@irish-times.ie
