Bob Geldof hits back at ‘white saviour complex’ claims around Live Aid
Bob Geldof has hit back at claims previously expressed that Live Aid and his own work for the charity initiative suffer from ‘white saviour complex’.
Geldof has battled with this label for decades and has newly opened up about his disdain for the term. He said adamantly, “That doesn’t exist. That’s just a word, a theory like Original Sin.”
Geldof helped raise millions for Ethiopia via Band Aid, a charitable initiative co-founded by the Boomtown Rats frontman and Midge Ure. The sensation began with the famous 1984 Christmas song ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’, which led to huge stadium shows at Wembley Stadium in London and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia.
Though raising tremendous amounts of money for famine in Ethiopia, the song has since suffered criticism for the outdated lyrics that enforce a patronising, Western viewpoint on the famine in Africa. U2 frontman Bono, who participated in Live Aid, admitted in his 2022 memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story admitted that he felt guilty of a white saviour complex.
When The iPaper asked about his perspective on the issue, Geldof noted of Bono’s stance, “Well yeah, he probably believes it. But there isn’t such a thing. I’m not interested in political correctness, this certain woke stuff.”
He added, “It’ll pass, and you’ll still have hungry people. I’m only interested in stopping human beings dying of starvation. I’m not interested in boosting someone’s idea of their parents’ country.”
Geldof also addressed the issue of white saviour complex in his charity work earlier this year, revealing that the media once pressured him to visit Africa. He shared, “I said, ‘I’m not the story. People are f***ing dying of no food in a world of surplus food, that’s the story.’ And they said, ‘We can’t keep doing the starving child, the starving mother, we’ve done it, Bob.’”
Recently, Geldof combatted popular claims that he was running for the Irish presidency, explaining that he does not have enough time amid his musical duties to commit to a political career.
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