| The Make Poverty History Campaign |
In February 2004, a Commission was set up by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair
to generate ideas about how to eradicate the massive soul-destroying poverty in Africa -
it became known as the Blair Commission for Africa.
The publication of the report was timed to occur in March 2005,
during UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's term of office as President of the G8 -
which started on 1st January 2005 -, and in time to be discussed at the 31st "G8 Summit",
which occurred in Gleneagles, Scotland on July 6, 2005. During the second half of 2005, Tony Blair held the presidency of the European Union. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "The Make Poverty History campaign was a British and Irish coalition of charities, religious groups, trade unions, campaigning groups and celebrities who mobilized around the UK's prominence in world politics in 2005 to increase awareness and pressure governments into taking actions towards relieving absolute poverty. The symbol of the campaign was a white wristband made of cotton or silicone. Usually on the band the words would be written in black, with the 'Poverty' word a lighter shade. A 'virtual' white band was also available to be displayed on websites."Although its stated aims were not new, "the scale of the 2005 campaign dwarfed previous efforts". It had to in order to make the best possible effort to not allow Prime Minister Tony Blair - known Arch-Deceiver over weapons of mass destruction - to get up to his old tricks and try to get away with ruthlessly exploiting the noble-sounding words about proposals to alleviate the poverty in Africa, as a means of boosting his marketing image, and so give him an election-winning advantage, without resulting in any significant action that would genuinely save as many lives as possible. Thus it was designed to exploit Tony Blair's double first of having a term of office both as President of G8 and President the European Union. |
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| Live 8 - what it was about |
Live 8 was the sub-campaign put together by a certain group of pop musicians,
such as Bono of the Irish Rock band U2 - named after the shot-down spy-plane -
and Bob Geldof
that was part of the Make Poverty History campaign.
To try to get politicians, particularly those gathering
together for the "G8 Summit" in Scotland
to eradicate the massive soul-destroying poverty in Africa,
and so to - to make use of the catch-phrase coined to advertise this specific purpose -
Make Poverty History, they organized a set of musical events, or concerts, of epic proportions, to demand their list of demands designed to eradicate those sufferings be met. The Live 8 concerts were timed to occur just before - July 2 - and culminated on the day of the G8 Summit itself to achieve maximum impact. Live 8, unlike Live Aid, wasn't intended to raise money, but generate awareness and political pressure. |
| The Break-Up of Make Poverty History | On January 31 2006, the majority of the members of the campaign passed a resolution to disband the organisation, arguing that the UK coalition had only agreed to come together formally for a limited lifespan, to correspond with the UK holding the presidency of theEU and G8. However, Poverty was not Made into History, but its child campaign Live 8 lives on to Make Poverty History |