It was a pleasure to be asked to write for Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) when the blokes re-released this year’s anniversary remake of Band Aid’s ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’
For 40 years now, Ethiopians specifically, and Africans in general, have been doing the work of being worthy recipients for Band Aid. Now, they should be recognised for that work and rewarded as workers.
Like the ghost of Christmas past, the tedious melody of white saviourism/effective emergency fundraising (pick your lens) hit the playlists in December, and we returned to tired debates over whether disempowering stereotypes of suffering strangers are OK, if they generate income to reduce their pain.
Sir Bob Geldof summed up his defence of the jingle saying: “There are 600 million hungry people in the world – 300 million are in Africa. We wish it were other but it is not. We can help some of them. That’s what we will continue to do.”
Actually Bob, there are other ways to understand the problem of global hunger and of working towards its solution. Geldof’s framing of the ‘problem,’ echoes prevalent understandings that African suffering is the result of a combination of ‘natural’ disasters, local malevolence and mismanagement. None of which, of course, are linked to global production chains and capitalism, which serve elite interests, not hungry people.
Yet, framing the problem as whether or not the celebrities directly profit is a red herring to distract the public from more deeply critical considerations of why claiming to help Africans can produce a profit to begin with.
Why are recipients of Band Aid considered to be just that— passive takers of the goodwill of compassionate people in the places where Christmas is the chance to claim our moral worth? Because there are profits to be made from worthy help.
Ethiopians should not be recipients of help but agents, working as part of the production cycle for feelings of beneficence. These sentiments, emotions and feelings are used to sell stuff.
Instead of worrying only about whether the profits are going to celebrity humanitarians themselves, this new year we should recognise that the recipients of all the global do-gooding are providing their labour in the production of our good feelings. Thus, they should be paid for this work. Everyday Humanitarianism in Tanzania Copenhagen Business School Centre for Business and Development Studies Stefano Ponte Alexandra Cosima Budabin Mette Fog Olwig Onna Malou van den Broek
Instead of being passive receivers of donations, it’s time Ethiopians were paid for their work in the global compassion industry, writes Lisa Richey
Read the full blog "Do they know it’s payday?" here ⬇️
https://lnkd.in/dsBNRBpN
Passionate Content Strategist (Technology, compliance, education) - Trilingual English-German-French
2moFantastic initiative (and I love the Sendung-mit-der-Maus wrapping!!!)