I’m currently looking at a copy of Jeffrey Sachs’s The End of Poverty (£8.99, Penguin) and there is one burning question I can’t dislodge: What, exactly, qualifies Bono to write introductions to books on global economics? Presumably not his extended research or in-depth knowledge; I certainly couldn’t claim it was no better than mine, but I’m somewhat dubious as to the insight he can give into Jeffrey Sachs’s economic theories. Then again, what qualifies me to have an opinion on world hunger and the moral status of the World Trade Organisation? I have been fairly vocal on these subjects. I believe I have a right, perhaps even a duty, to stand in the street and yell my ill-founded opinions to the world but, unlike Jeffrey Sachs, I am not Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General. My credentials for valid political commentary are basically that I am not a rock star. Bono’s credentials are precisely the opposite. Political causes become cool. Celebrities are expected to make pronouncements on them and we’re all supposed to express our opinion, provided it’s the right one. The Make Poverty History campaign and the Iraq war are probably the most obvious recent examples. Kids were yelling about global injustice in the street. Political apathy didn’t seem like such a problem when town centres were shut down because anti-war protesters were blockading the roads. Bono’s Mother Teresa antics may seem a bit pretentious, but does it matter if it means we can answer in the affirmative to the question, “does anybody care about the starving children?” We have a popular culture, or at least a very widespread sub-culture, in which we are supposed to care. But what kind of culture is it?
Mainstream popular campaigns on specific political issues can appear to be unsophisticated and often compromising. Immensely complex economic issues are dumbed down into three point solutions in a bid to gain support for economic justice. The mass graves full of Iraqi Kurds are ignored amid the outraged shouts of “Bush and Blair are terrorists!” (Incidentally, those who use Saddam Hussein’s persecution of the Kurds to support the Iraq War show a similar one-sidedness in ignoring Britain’s complicity in the ethnic cleansing). People are not, in general, moved to think about the issues on which they campaign, but simply told what to think about them in such a way as to produce the impression that anyone who supports the Free Market or western military intervention in the developing world is evil, stupid, or ignorant. Popular politics can easily become a politics of hate.
Popular political campaigns are polemic and not exactly unique. Televised Commons debates are watched as an alternative to Jerry Springer by the American public. Suggest to a member of the Conservative party that Anarchism is an intelligent political theory or to a Marxist that the free market can be beneficial to the poor in many circumstances and await derisive laughter. There is an inability or unwillingness to respect anyone who can see the other point of view. A communist once remarked to me that “the most charitable thing you can say about anyone who supports the war in Iraq is that they are extremely naïve.” This was the type of individual with whom you have to be very careful in expressing an opinion because he was capable of demolishing any argument he disagreed with, usually by revealing that you had very little idea what you were talking about. Here, ignorance seems a convenient and probably false explanation for polemic politics. In addressing a politics of hate, we need to address political culture generally.
The popularisation of political causes introduces people into a wider, polemic political culture, with a relative lack of information. It may be a good idea to keep your mouth shut if you have no idea what you’re talking about. However, restricting political expression to those who are best informed would, at best, paralyse humanity. At least popular political campaigns encourage more people to enter into political discourse. The nature of the discourse is nonetheless somewhat superficial.
Interestingly, whilst far-left polemic is popularised on specific issues, this does not translate into a radical political outlook. I’ve invited friends to ostensibly “fair-trade” discussions and watched them become decidedly uncomfortable as the phrase “Capitalism is evil” is uttered to rapturous applause. Some members of the far-left are irritated by the popularisation of the Trade Justice campaign because they believe that in failing to attack capitalism, the popular version fails to address the fundamental cause of economic injustice. Over two hundred and twenty-five thousand people marched in support of Make Poverty History on July 2nd 2005, ostensibly attempting to influence the G8’s decision making. For the next week, thousands of protesters-some of the same people-marched and blockaded around Gleneagles, apparently attempting to stop the G8 from making any decisions whatsoever. Popular political causes unfailingly stop short of challenging what may be referred to, although somewhat vaguely, as “the system.” So the population appears to be radicalised, but radical politics also appears moderated. Whether you think this is desirable depends upon your political perspective. Even if you think radical politics could use some moderation, I would argue that there is danger in what is effectively an a priori assumption that a particular campaign necessarily fits with centrist politics. It places very precise limits upon acceptable political thought, thus actually discouraging independent consideration of the situation.
Popular campaigns are ultimately safe: they compartmentalise politics. “Politics” is the Make Poverty History campaign or the bombing of Iraq. There is no tendency to see the world generally in a political sense. We are given one interpretation of events from which it is social taboo to deviate to the right or the left. We are told there are simple solutions to all the world’s problems and all we have to do is convince the government to enact them. We do this, apparently, in the space of a year. We are certainly not encouraged to consider that there is something fundamentally wrong with the world, or that we may personally have to live in a different way to achieve what we are campaigning for. Popular politics never requires us to leave our comfort zones.
Having said all this however, a biased and simplified introduction to the world is preferable to no introduction at all. Hopefully it will be a building block. If an Oxfam representative tells us that thirty-thousand people die every day as a result of western foreign policy we shrug but if a Blue Peter presenter says the same thing we’ll start marching. This is, perhaps, a somewhat disturbing reflection on our culture. Nonetheless, it would be worse if no one at all could make us feel we ought to care.