Article

Christmas culture

Culture

Development

Music

19 December 2024

6 min read

Band Aid: that song, that question

What’s so funny about generosity, kindness and compassion?

Krish Kandiah

Krish is a social entrepreneur partnering across civil society, faith communities, government and philanthropy. He founded The Sanctuary Foundation.

Pop stars sing together while recording a charity single.

Recording the original Band Aid track.

Sometimes a three-minute pop song really can change lives. I should know because 40 years ago a Radio One DJ played a song that changed my life.

I was 12 years old, growing up in relative comfort in Brighton, when I heard the song “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” by Band Aid play for the first time on the radio. I remember being moved by the lyrics:

"There's a world outside your window, and it's a world of dread and fear, where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears."

As I reflected on the song, I was overwhelmed by the great inequalities in the world. I had food on the table every day, while people in other parts of the world were struggling to survive without even the most basic of necessities. I had felt so desperate watching Michael Buerk’s TV reports of children suffering in the devastating “biblical” famine in Ethiopia: suddenly, with this song, I was struck by the realisation that perhaps there was something I could do to make a difference, after all.

As a child, I did what Bob Geldof encouraged me to do: I bought the single, wore the T-shirt, and contributed some of my pocket-money. But it didn’t stop there. As Band Aid turned into Live Aid - a global concert featuring my then favourite band, U2 - I felt that the direction of my life was shifting also. I began to ask questions about what I wanted to do with my life and where I could be most effective in tackling global injustice and inequality.

I still find myself asking the same questions today, as well as an additional one – has my life over the past 40 years made the difference I wanted it to make? This is exactly the challenge being put to Band Aid. As the world remembers the fortieth anniversary of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” with the re-release of the single, could it have fresh impact on a new generation, and was it even effective the first time around?

There are important lessons to learn from Band Aid about whether such initiatives are the intended impact, but often the critiques quickly become excuses not to get involved. I’d like to look at three of those critiques to see if there is any truth in them – and if they can provoke us into doing more, not less, for the cause of global security in general, and international child welfare in particular.

I might not agree with everything about the song, but I certainly believe in the power of guitars over guns. I’d rather see meaningful music influence our world than military force any day.

The first is that the way Africa is portrayed is more harmful than helpful.

While well-intentioned, the depiction of Africa in the Band Aid song, and to be honest, in most charity fundraisers for causes within Africa, has served to perpetuate harmful stereotypes. They paint an oversimplified, monolithic image of Africa as a place of unrelenting despair and degradation, with images of starving children that are supposed to stick in our minds – and do.

Hans Rosling, in his book Factfulness, surveyed global perceptions of Africa and found that most people vastly overestimate the level of poverty. Because media and charity campaigns rarely show the thriving urban centres, technological advancements, or educated professionals that also define Africa, we are given a one-dimensional narrative that actually dehumanizes African people and perpetuates an “us vs. them” mindset where the West are depicted as saviours to helpless African victims.

The truth is far more nuanced. Yes, poverty and tragedy exist, but Africa is also home to modern skyscrapers in cities like Lagos, bustling malls in Nairobi, and world-class stadiums in South Africa. Despite underestimating the development of Africa, we should also be careful of measuring success on how many modernised metropoles we can find there. I have been to villages in Uganda, some far off the beaten track, which, while appearing relatively impoverished on the surface, are deeply rich in culture and community. They are aspirational in many ways, where children grow up in the security that extended family can offer.

To portray an entire continent solely through images of suffering is neither accurate nor fair. We – I include myself – still have so much to learn, both about Africa and from the African people.

Then there’s that question. Do they know it’s Christmas? Yes, they do.

The question at the heart of the song—whether Africans know it’s Christmas—has always been problematic. Across Africa, there are over 730 million Christians, many of whom practice their faith with vibrant passion. Not only do they know it’s Christmas, but in many cases, their faith is lived out more actively than by their fellow Christians in Western nations.

Christians across Africa are often at the forefront of societal change, leading in politics, science, and development. From presidents to Nobel Prize winners, their work is rooted in faith and a commitment to their communities. Suggesting otherwise is not only inaccurate but also dismissive of their contributions.

The question needs to be turned back on ourselves: do we know it’s Christmas? Have we added so much tinsel, glitter, sentimentality and consumerism to Christmas that we have lost sight of the incarnation at the heart of the Christmas story – God, seeing a broken world, sent his Son to walk alongside humanity and offer hope and redemption? Jesus crossed the greatest of cultural boundaries to become one of us and live with us, before paying the ultimate price and dying for us. If we really knew this sort of Christmas, what would this mean for the rest of our lives?

Finally, there’s the problem with the white saviour complex.

Recent critiques, including Ed Sheeran’s reflections on his involvement in charity work, have highlighted the dangers of the “white saviour complex.” This isn’t just about race—it’s about the mindset that Westerners so often have – that we bring the solutions because those in developing nations lack the knowledge, experience, or ability to help themselves.

Sheeran himself faced backlash for trying to assist street children during a Comic Relief project, inadvertently causing harm despite good intentions. Imposing solutions from the outside often overlooks the complexities of local contexts and risks reinforcing imbalances of power. Sometimes our good intentions lead to bad interventions. Sometimes they exacerbate problems that were historically caused by the Western nations in the first place - colonialism, resource exploitation, and the arbitrary drawing of borders, for example.

This cannot be an excuse to do nothing. This is a vital lesson in collaborating better with our African counterparts before we dare to suggest ways forward. “Nothing about us without us” is a principle many modern charities embrace so that solutions are co-designed with the communities they aim to help, ensuring that aid empowers rather than dehumanizes.

The generosity at the heart of the Band Aid initiative, the desire to show kindness and compassion – and inspire kindness and compassion in others, was an incredible message of hope. It changed my life 40 years ago. Perhaps, as I continue my reflections, it will change my life again. I might not agree with everything about the song, but I certainly believe in the power of guitars over guns. I’d rather see meaningful music influence our world than military force any day. I don’t mind whether movements for positive change are instigated by musicians or politicians.

Most importantly for me, wherever there is conflict, I pray that the real meaning of Christmas will be discovered.

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Article

Assisted dying

Comment

Culture

Politics

3 December 2024

5 min read

The assisted dying debate revealed the real role of Parliament

MPs from areas where people are vulnerable and at risk were more sensitive to the dangers.

M. Ciftci

Mehmet Ciftci has a PhD in political theology from the University of Oxford. His research focuses on bioethics, faith and politics.

An MP stands and speaks in a parliamentary debate.

MP Diane Abbott speaks in the debate.

Parliament TV.

What would be the effect of allowing assisted suicide for those ‘people who lack agency, the people who know what it is to be excluded from power and to have decisions made for them’, asked Danny Kruger MP, as he wrapped up his speech? ‘What are the safeguards for them? Let me tell the House: we are the safeguard—this place; this Parliament; you and me. We are the people who protect the most vulnerable in society from harm, yet we stand on the brink of abandoning that role.’

His words capture an important aspect of Friday’s debate: what is the point of Parliament? Do MPs meet to turn public opinion polls into policies? If the majority are in favour of something, do MPs have nothing left to do but to follow the public and sort out the fine details? We might instinctively say ‘Yes!’ It seems right and democratic to treat those whom we elect as people we select and send to do our bidding. And the polls do seem to show the majority of people supporting assisted suicide, at least in principle – although there are good reasons to be sceptical about those figures and about the conclusions drawn from them.

But there are numerous times when the majority are known to be in favour of something but politicians refuse to endorse it. Polls repeatedly show that a majority are in favour of reintroducing the death penalty. Why might it be right for MPs sometimes to ignore what the purported majority thinks and to use their own judgement?

Because Parliament is not just a debating chamber.

An older way of referring to it was to call it the ‘High Court of Parliament’ because ‘parliament, classically, was where individuals could seek the redress of grievances through their representatives,’ as law lecturer Dr Robert Craig writes. It performed its function admirably in response to the Horizon scandal: a legitimate grievance was brought to its attention, and it responded to redress the wrongs done to the sub-postmasters by passing a law to ‘overturn a series of judgments that could only have been obtained, and were only obtained, by a toxic, captured and wilfully blind corporate culture’.

Friday’s debate featured many MPs who understood what they were there to do. They acknowledged the ‘terrible plight of the people who are begging us for this new law’ as Danny Kruger said. But they also spoke up for those who were in danger of being harmed and wronged by the bill: the disabled and the dying, and all the vulnerable who were not there to speak on their own behalf.

Many echoed the concerns expressed by Diane Abbott about coercion: ‘Robust safeguards for the sick and dying are vital to protect them from predatory relatives, to protect them from the state and, above all, to protect them from themselves. There will be those who say to themselves that they do not want to be a burden. … Others will worry about assets they had hoped to leave for their grandchildren being eroded by the cost of care. There will even be a handful who will think they should not be taking up a hospital bed.’ And evidence of coercion is hard to find and trace: ‘Coercion in the family context can be about not what you say but what you do not say—the long, meaningful pause.’

An analysis shared on X by law lecturer Philip Murray found an association between the level of deprivation in a constituency and how likely a Labour MP was to vote against the bill. He also shared figures showing that 2/3 of MPs from ethnic minorities voted against it. In other words, MPs from areas where people are vulnerable and at risk were more sensitive to the dangers of helping people to kill themselves.

The second reading of the bill on Friday was a crucial moment for them to decide whether the bill would fix an injustice or whether it would itself cause harm.

But it seems that many MPs did not appreciate what the debate was about or what they had gathered to do. Layla Moran MP said: ‘The media are asking all of us, “Are you for or against the Bill?”, but I urge hon. Members to think about the question differently. The question I will be answering today is, “Do I want to keep talking about the issues in the Bill?”’ But James Cleverly MP intervened: “she is misrepresenting what we are doing at this point. We are speaking about the specifics of this Bill: this is not a general debate or a theoretical discussion, but about the specifics of the Bill.” He was right to be impatient. Unlike the Oxford Union, the vote has consequences. Parliamentarians are not there merely to debate. As the term ‘High Court of Parliament’ suggests, when MPs (either on their own initiative or as a government) propose bills, what they are often doing is conveying a plea to redress some grievance, and their debates are to decide whether to respond by making laws to grant justice to the wronged.

The second reading of the bill on Friday was a crucial moment for them to decide whether the bill would fix an injustice or whether it would itself cause harm, because the scrutiny that the bill will undergo in the following stages is not likely to be as rigorous as with government bills. As a Private Member’s Bill, the assisted dying proposal is free to be scrutinised by a committee selected by the MP who has proposed the bill, i.e. Kim Leadbeater. When the bill reaches the stage for a final vote in the Commons at the third reading, no further amendments can be made and the time for debate is likely to be short.

It is rare but bills are sometimes defeated at the third reading. With eighteen abstentions on Friday and at least thirty-six MPs claiming they might change their minds later, there is still hope.

Each sitting of the Commons begins every day with a prayer by the Speaker’s Chaplain, who prays that MPs ‘may they never lead the nation wrongly through love of power, desire to please, or unworthy ideals but laying aside all private interests and prejudices, keep in mind their responsibility to seek to improve the condition of all mankind.’

We can only hope and pray that at their next opportunity, MP will consider this bill in light of their responsibilities as the country’s High Court, charged with protecting the most vulnerable in society from harm.