What happened to the f***ing money
Bob Geldof meant well when he launched Band Aid 20 years ago, says Daniel Wolf; whether he did well for the starving is another matter
A pale, intense young man with a soft Irish accent and a mane of dark hair is banging the glass table: ‘Don’t go to the pub tonight,’ he says, ‘there are people dying now. So please, stay in and give me the f***ing money.’
It is one of the indelible television moments. On that day — 13 July 1985 — Bob Geldof laced together rock music, live television and the extremes of human misery into a single, potent brew, inventing a new way, not just of giving, but of feeling. Live Aid initiated a global culture of direct emotional response to suffering, and a global demand for direct action to make the suffering stop. It was a great achievement. Unfortunately, the Geldof approach to humanitarian emergencies can also be a liability: it favours action in place of careful thought, gestures instead of an engagement with complex realities.
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