As ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ turns 40 years old this month, Ed Sheeran has added his voice to those critiquing the song’s ‘damaging stereotypes’. Maddy Fry used to share that view. She explains what changed her mind
There’s one Christmas tradition I’ve really come to hate.
It’s not the Advent calendars being sold in August, or Mariah Carey assaulting the senses every time I walk into the chemist.
It’s the anti-Band Aid pile-on.
This year is the 40th anniversary of Bob Geldof and Midge Ure’s famine-baiting jingle. In the current climate, it’s hard to turn around without hearing someone scream the words “white saviours.” But I’m sensing that those who attack the song so vehemently might be nursing murkier impulses.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s lots I find uncomfortable about ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ The helpless, desolate view promoted in the lyrics of one of the most beautiful and diverse continents on the planet is troubling, even if the money the song raised did save lives.
I was 15 when Band Aid 20 and Live 8 happened in in the mid-noughties. I remember going on Make Poverty History demonstrations and seeing activists from Tearfund holding up banners saying “Love Thy Neighbour.” I was inspired to study African history at university, and soon discovered my lecturers held a very dim view of celebrity involvement in Africa. I’d recently found God, and I discovered my fellow students tended to view NGOs, especially Christian ones, as handmaidens of colonialism. In that environment, my scepticism became baked in. Clearly I knew best, and the intentions of anyone who was misguided but good were written off as plain evil.
Two decades later, I feel more ambivalent about Band Aid. People’s concerns about how to engage with those in the global south who might be in need, without taking away their voices or agency, are legitimate, and I’m glad it’s gone mainstream rather than just being a topic of debate among academics. Yet recently it’s become wearily normal for some phrases to get thrown around without much sense of what they mean, to the point where they become diluted. ’Colonial’ and ‘imperial’ are good examples. It’s bizarre when newspapers such as the Daily Mail and the Express, (never ones to be first in line to criticise Britain’s role in the 19th century Scramble for Africa) start quoting those sorts of terms to gleefully attack Geldof. It made me wonder about the company I was keeping whenever I criticised the song.
Words such as ‘colonial’ and ‘imperial’ are thrown around without much sense of what they mean
Another irony is how little media attention in Britain has been paid to what people from African countries think about Band Aid. Ten years ago church leaders in Sierra Leone and Ghana voiced mixed feelings about Band Aid 30. It got virtually no attention over here. Recently The Guardian published a feature interviewing Ethiopian expats in Britain about what they make of Band Aid 40, and the nuance in their perspectives is refreshing - yet you can count pieces of coverage like this on one hand.
You also only have to take a quick glance at the ‘Ethiopia’ subreddit to see people wading in to point out Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s hypocrisy at railing against Band Aid, all while he oversaw the deaths of thousands of children in the Tigrayan war. Inconveniently for some, their views on Band Aid seem to be mixed, which is harder to get across than endless coverage of Ed Sheeran. It makes much of the hand-wringing look simply like white, privileged hubris.
It reminded me of how bemused I was when I first heard about the organisation No White Saviours, as it was notoriously fronted by a white person. It begs the question of whether those in the West should be the ones trying to fix a problem they have started, or if it’s better to leave that in the hands of the communities they have patronised and belittled. Yet white Britons braying about how patronising Band Aid is can risk drowning out the voices of people at the sharp end of horrifying global events.
John Kennedy, the lawyer for Band Aid and a trustee for the charity, stated in a recent interview that he was uneasy about the record label wanting to remove pictures of African children from the artwork for this year’s Band Aid remix. I understand why. You don’t give someone a voice by making them invisible.
Historically, Bengal and Stalin’s Ukraine have had the word ‘famine’ associated with them as much as Ethiopia. It’s a reminder that such misery can happen anywhere, but years later, it’s apparently fine to want to stop the destruction in Mariupol, but it’s taboo to say that about Tigray. Anyone who does must have a sinister ulterior motive. It’s hard to see how that counts as progress.
Cynicism is a dark pleasure, one that Christians don’t get the luxury of embracing. It’s the easy way out, and that’s not our calling. Band Aid doesn’t contain all the answers, but not many of its critics seem to either. Admitting that is perhaps a good place to start.
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