Jesus Loves U 2
Many U2 fans must have been outraged when they spotted the recent work of a Dutch sculptor named Frans Smeets. The sculpture depicts the rock icon Bono, dressed in a Nike shirt, holding out his hands in a way that reminds us of Jesus summoning his apostles. By his feet lies an African baby, staring at him with a creepy look on his face, as if he wanted to say, "why don't you save me?" Hilariously, Bono doesn't seem to be very bothered by the child, on the contrary, his face expression and body language seem to reply, "what do you want from Bono, a piece of record?"
Whether you actually go about to claim this sculpture as "art" or not, one cannot deny the striking message that Smeets is communicating with his work. Today it has become immensely popular for international icons to be engaged in politics, religion and charity. Pop princess Madonna adopts an African child and shows public interest for the Jewish faith, Al Gore becomes the new "Green saviour" to tackle global warming, Bill Gates directs Microsoft to spread Windows to the Third World, and Bono, as we all know, is renown for his fight against poverty and injustices.
Thanks to worldwide medial exposure, people from every corner on this planet are able to witness how compassionate and caring these (multi-)millionaires really are. How brave they must be to care for people who don't have any food to eat or are suppressed by horrible regimes that reduce their personal freedom! Wouldn't life be great if all people around the world were able to join hands, regardless of class, ability and skin colour, to form a world nation where we all lived together in happiness and freedom! Poverty would disappear, racism would be a thing of the past, classes would be no more, and all people would be seen as equal worth. How beautiful!
When Smeets chose to depict Bono as a careless Jesus, he was actually being clever. From the looks of it, we might see Bono as a hero. He's got a lot of money and gives some of it away to people who might need it better. But are his motives really that unselfish? The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche studied the notion of pity and asked himself why certain people help those in a position below themselves. He came to the conclusion that pity was a way for people to achieve power. When we help those who are weaker or otherwise inferior to us, we naturally feel good about it. In one sense, we feel like a hero, regardless if our help is to any actual use. In fact, Nietzsche found that people, who pity other people, want them to remain in that weaker position, so that they become dependent on their saviour.
When Bono engages in charity for the Third World, he becomes an international media icon, which means he and his rock band U2 receive tons of promotion money, not to say how much more his records probably are going to sell. Bono acts like Jesus; he's not really interested in helping people in the Third World, he's only looking for a clever way to gain power and wealth, while upholding a public image of "caring." One could say that the poor state of the African children help to make Bono richer. Charity is just this: a business model that aims to generate money for a small group of people, while the real problems continue to grow.
So how do we know when help is either selfish or unselfish? How can we be sure that Bono, Madonna, Al Gore and Bill Gates are just rich swindlers? If we're honestly interested in helping someone, we do this best by solving their problem. Pumping in more money from the West does not solve the poverty of the Third World.  In fact, the Western aid actually serves to increase poverty, by keeping generations of starving children alive - children that natural selection otherwise would take care of. Thus the number of people growing up without food and water naturally increases, contributing to the chaos and infections that run wild in Africa right now.
In conclusion, if we compare a person's stated motivations with how the problem is being solved, we either find a brave hero or a sneaky parasite. If Bono really cared for the African baby that is lying by his feet, he'd promote family planning and hand out free condoms to most of the African population. That way he could end poverty within generations and if he was at all smart, he'd make sure to sterilize people with HIV and thus at the same time help to free the African people from AIDS. But Bono would never do such a thing, because that would be "fascist" and "totalitarian." In other words, it'd be effective and actually solve the poverty he's whining about in TV. Therefore he will continue to play Jesus, suck up to any corporate business opportunity, neatly symbolized by his Nike shirt, and carelessly hold out his hands to the people who scream for help.
by Alex Birch
August 26, 2007
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