Anyone else just hear that?
Robtel Neajai Pailey, apparently.

She wants the Band Aid single withdrawn as it’s insulting.
Doesn’t seem particularly arsed that less money would be raised.

My first reaction was disbelief.
Yours?

I need to read more on this, obviously.

Lots of negativity out there regarding the single:
Al Jazeera article

to whom ?

I just wish they could do something “different” the one in 2004 was bloody awful (I’ve not heard the new one yet). Shirley someone could pen a more up to date song? Hashing some slightly different lyrics into the old one to is a bit meh.

weeksy – Member

to whom ?

Africans, apparently.

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2014/oct/24/fatalistic-forecasts-hampering-ebola-efforts-liberia

Apparently the WHO and CDC need to be a bit more upbeat about Ebola. So perhaps a reworking of ‘Walking on Sunshine’ would be more acceptable.

Doesn’t make any odds what the song sounds like. It could be Bob Geldof farting through a mega phone for what its worth. Its about us putting our hands in our pockets and giving something to a nation full of very very poor people. Just hope the money goes where its needed.

There is a text number to donate a fiver if you don’t want to listen to the song. I don’t for one.

Africa doesn’t want any more western band aids

Ok, fine.

Is the money going directly to the DEC appeal?

They’d raise more money if they held a bidding war for the opportunity to punch Bono

Western charity songs like the one being proposed by Geldof are not only patronising, they’re redundant and unoriginal. Producing an Ebola song now to raise money, nearly one year after the first reported case in Guinea, is belated at best. It reeks of the “white saviour complex” because it negates local efforts that have come before it.

Seems a fair point to me.

Just hope the money goes where its needed

Rest assured Bob will get money for a good scrub and a new pair of socks.

They’d raise more money if they held a bidding war for the opportunity to punch Bono

+a lot

Drac, I agree.
On a logical level, it’s a valid argument.

However, if it helps save lives in a time of crisis, does the end justify the means?

lilchris – Member

Rest assured Bob will get money for a good scrub and a new pair of socks.
Evidence?

The word ‘patronising’ is pretty redundant term here. I don’t mind being patronised by a paramedic if I’m lying broken in the gutter, I just want to be fixed up.

If Liberia and Sierra Leone had the outbreak under control already, they wouldn’t need to be patronised by western governments sending medics and setting up field hospitals on their territory.

Doesn’t make any odds what the song sounds like. It could be Bob Geldof farting through a mega phone for what its worth. Its about us putting our hands in our pockets and giving something to a nation full of very very poor people. Just hope the money goes where its needed.

Bollox. It’s about a bunch of washed up, sell out, aging rockers shouting “look at me!!!”

They could collectively donate more than the sales will raise without even noticing. And, without subjecting us to this spectacle.

I think(and I may be wrong) it was insulting because they are dealing with the problem and don’t need the paternal guidance off the White Man.
On that basis you can sort of see the point, how would we feel if the bunch of Americans singers put out a record raising money for NHS because we are too poor or stupid to run a health service?

Any way I don’t give, they can look after their own problems and Ebola isn’t even much of a problem considering all the other shit going on in Africa.

However, if it helps save lives in a time of crisis, does the end justify the means?

Possibly but it doesn’t take the point away.

Bollox. It’s about a bunch of washed up, sell out, aging rockers shouting “look at me!!!”

They could collectively donate more than the sales will raise without even noticing. And, without subjecting us to this spectacle.

Or that. They could pay their tax avoidance to the cause that would help.

Was she on Sunday Morning live? I think so. I get why she might find the whole thing irksome and patronising, and generally not good for the image of Africa as a whole. But people lying dying in ditches and mass graves probably does a lot more damage to Africa’s image.

If Africa was capable of dealing with it as she suggests then we wouldn’t be having this conversation as African nations would have controlled it. She was proposing people boycott the record. As vomit inducing as it might be to see celebrities back slapping and moral high horsing, it might save some lives. You would like to think.

The first one was pretty ridiculous, treating “africa” like one hot dusty weird place, “there won’t be snow in africa this christmastime except hopefully in the ski resorts…” “No rain nor river flows, except one of the world’s longest rivers is in africa”. “Do they know it’s christmastime, well a pretty decent proportion of the world’s christians live there, give it time and africa’ll be more christian than the uk so yeah they do.”

The new one’s tried to get away from that though it’s pretty clunky, it’s all a bit “patronising ignorant bullshit redacted”… Was this really the best idea anyone had? But what are the odds of it doing more harm than good? Not much I think.

does the end justify the means?

The means could have been achieved in another way

Two things struck me

1. He was immensely ignorant of African charity songs
2 He kept just saying so we should do nothing even though she clearly articulated what she wanted and her objections
The band Aid fella should be a Big hitter on here…belligerent, did not listen, attacked straw men and repeated himself till the other person wandered of bored.

IF africans say the song offends them then they are better placed to judge than I am

PS they do its christmas time even though “they” are Muslims unlike “us”

If Liberia and Sierra Leone had the outbreak under control already, they wouldn’t need to be patronised by western governments sending medics and setting up field hospitals on their territory

Isn’t that kind of the point. What they need is to be able to solve these crises themselves. Having ‘the west’ come in with a sticking plaster once every few years does save lives now but it isn’t a sustainable solution.

They could collectively donate more than the sales will raise without even noticing. And, without subjecting us to this spectacle.

It does bug me a bit when a bunch of millionaire tax dodgers ask me to stick my hand in my pocket.

Froth, froth, fizzle…

Just what the f*** has she done to raise funds for for the ebola crisis and if she doesn’t like it she can give to DEC etc. Same applies to the whingers on here, too. It’s just one tiny bit of an overall bigger effort.

I’ll start the Bono thing off…£20.

Isn’t that kind of the point. What they need is to be able to solve these crises themselves. Having ‘the west’ come in with a sticking plaster once every few years does save lives now but it isn’t a sustainable solution.

Yeah, it’d be nice if they had sanitation, education, infrastructure, stable democarcy, low levels of corruption, etc etc but that isn’t the case on the ground now is it?

If Bono gets his jollies and feels he’s made his contribution then that’s a small price to pay for some quick funds for a problem that’s occuring today.

I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning.

Will the money raised amount to more than U2 have dodged in tax, through their creative offshore accountancy schemes, I wonder?

And I wonder how many of ‘the Great and the Good’ involved are up to exactly the same? Most, if not all, I’d imagine

Its great donating a couple of hours one afternoon to help some people in Africa, all very publicly, in a blaze of self-congratulatory publicity, when at the same time considering yourself above the business of contributing any of your income to the society you make all your money in 🙄

My best mate is a medic on (taxpayer funded) RFA Argus out in Sierra Leone, treating ebola victims, at the moment. To my knowledge he’s not been on telly preaching to people while avoiding paying any tax

Most of those having a go at it are just trying to make a name for themselves or think they are being particularly cool. Not sure about the new version, have not really heard it yet, but the original was a great song. If you really look at the lyrics, yes they don’t make a great deal of sense but that goes for most songs, does it matter?

Will those the money is for tell Bob to keep his money because they think the song is awful and patronising?
Did Robtel Neajai Pailey suggest how she will raise the money or is any charity fund raising patronising?

Well given that is it us who are ultimtely sorting this issue out (better late than never) and it is costing us alot of money, how we decide to raise that money is upto us and if it causes offence then tough titties.

You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. If we jumped on the Ebola issue early on and intervened, we would have been criticised for assuming that African nations can’t sort these things out for themselves. And in any case we were supporting the Ebola outbread early on, its only since its not been contained and is spreading that we’ve upped the activity on it to prevent a global epidemic.

I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning.

S’okay, but it’s not bacon, is it?

We’ve had people in Africa crying out for western intervention in the Ebola crisis for quite a while now.
Seems to have been something in the media almost every day.

What do we do?
Try and raise some cash quickly and carry on with the longer term initiatives that have been in place for years, or not bother for the fear of insulting someone?

1. He was immensely ignorant of African charity songs

So was I.
No one seems to have made a very good effort to publicise them.

2 He kept just saying so we should do nothing even though she clearly articulated what she wanted and her objections
The band Aid fella should be a Big hitter on here…belligerent, did not listen, attacked straw men and repeated himself till the other person wandered of bored.

I thought it was a score draw, tbh.
Scrappy, but a good contest.

Well we could just put a big wall up around the place and say ‘sort it out yourselves’, so compared to that raising money respining a god-awful song seems pretty harmless…..

Whatever has been said in the above argument, this trumps all:

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJLqyuxm96k[/video]

Most of those having a go at it are just trying to make a name for themselves or think they are being particularly cool.

I love a straw man in the morning- to misquote Binners misquote

given that is it us who are ultimtely sorting this issue out

I think that is the sort of patronising stuff that annoyed her.

What % of people dealing with Ebola are “us” rather than “them”?

I thought it was a score draw, tbh.

I switched it off at the third what do you expect us to do nothing as a an answer tbh..he just ignored every point she made [ yes some were weak]

Just watched this again, didn’t realise it was seven years ago.
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DgIRjecItw[/video]

Isn’t that kind of the point. What they need is to be able to solve these crises themselves. Having ‘the west’ come in with a sticking plaster once every few years does save lives now but it isn’t a sustainable solution.

To be fair, no-one in Africa or beyond was predicting an outbreak on this scale, and the current efforts will leave all these governments far better prepared for the next one.

It’s not always easy to predict what the next challenge will be, and some of these countries have little or no health infrastructure partly because of conflict.

The point about aid dependence in relation to the 1980s Band Aid/Live Aid cash is a much better one. Hopefully the cash from this release will go straight to an organisation which will spend it in a coordinated way.

The opinion of one African citizen probably outweighs the collective might of the opinion of everyone on this website though.

Frankly I think people who jump into these debates feet first with an opinion aren’t treating the subject with the respect it deserves. Your starter for ten should be to spend the time doing something positive. I appreciate there is some irony in me posting here.

I’m off to try and buy one of the other songs she mentioned that are already out there, written and produced by African musicians.

Well we could just put a big wall up around the place and say ‘sort it out yourselves’

You have wonder where Africa would be now if we’d done that in the first place rather than hundreds of years of colonialism.

I’m off to try and buy one of the other songs she mentioned that are already out there, written and produced by African musicians.

If you find out which option gets more money to those who need it, let us know.
Serious comment, btw, can’t find much info out there.

Obviously, we could just donate without having to buy a song in the first place.

The african nations are short of your brass, just look how old those uniforms are.

Let’s all join hands and sing a song about it……..

http://www.msf.org/

Links to regional/national sites in the banner at the top.

Easy to set up a direct debit.

Worth remembering that the BBC has some history with Band Aid

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/bbc-apologises-over-live-aid-money-reports-2124576.html

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2014/oct/24/fatalistic-forecasts-hampering-ebola-efforts-liberia

Apparently the WHO and CDC need to be a bit more upbeat about Ebola. So perhaps a reworking of ‘Walking on Sunshine’ would be more acceptable.

Never heard of CDC but ain’t Townsend still struggling to finnish his book so will not have time for charity record.

Never mind that. How about a charity re-release of ‘Breakfast in America’, you tight bugger?

Yeah, it’d be nice if they had sanitation, education, infrastructure, stable democracy, low levels of corruption, etc etc but that isn’t the case on the ground now is it?

and you haven’t asked yourself why that is?