a thought, a memory inspired by the recent re showing of Live Aid on the BBC
I do, I remember moments of it, Queen in particular, I remember mostly that for the first time that I had experienced before or since, I cried with the world.
The video they played just after David Bowie's spot had me, and everyone in my living room in tears, later that week I think every single person I spoke with said the same thing..they cried and they put their hands in their pockets. Some had never given to a charity before, others took money they would have given to preference charities and donated it to Live Aid.
Bob Geldoff never did say 'give me the F*****g money', he said 'give me the money' but he did swear during that conversation we all saw and heard him........and in some weird way it seemed to galvanise 'us' the ordinary people.
His obvious passion, his frustration, his sheer fear for a peoples thousands of miles away reached out and in one swear word he made himself one of 'us'. Ordinary, frustrated, angry at the injustice of a child starving....Live Aid worked.
So I was in my living room, glued to the TV screen in a way I had never been so mesmerised before. My children where the same, in fact others turned up and stayed, a walk in the park, of a mooch round the streets was forgotten as they sat and watched. Of course a semi party atmosphere developed, a huge curry for tea, enough to share with all the additional visitors but somehow the cans of beer didn't appear after Geldoff said 'don't go out tonight...give me the money instead.
Guilt, embarrassment maybe..or simply a very human response to what was before us. Celebration of music, and all it inspired and represented in the 'faux' world of the media didn't seem so important at all, in fact it was 'because' these musicians belonged to that world, that they where able to reach an audience world wide and actually show us in both their time and effort and the video clips just what it was Mr. Geldoff was trying to tell us....we where for the first time in our human history being made aware we where a global village and that a child starving in Ethiopia was as wrong as a child starving in the house next door.
There was nearly 50 million pounds raised for the cause that week, but other things also came from that meeting of the worlds musicians. For the first time as a world we had shared in real time a connection. What was to come in the future with the world wide web and digital satellite and i pods, and so much more was still a twinkle in the inventors eyes. What was created for Live Aid used technology so out dated now it seems a miracle that it was ever pulled off, but it was.
I am older now, I have wonderful memories of what that single, explosive experience created in my own family. Now as a family their is a generosity towards certain charities. Ones that bring real and ongoing solutions to problems. We are not rich or famous, but we give where we can.
Live Aid made us aware, in ways that other methods had failed to show us the importance of, the devastation created, the real human tragedies being lived daily. Now the media floods us with such images and such methods are commonplace, perhaps to the detriment of the message.
We grow immune to suffering, we see images on the daily news that would equal any horror film, hear of atrocities and then of course the world wide web provides us through YouTube some pretty awful stuff.
Last month someone sent me a video link, I clicked on it without checking the title and was trapped in horror. literally screaming as I witnessed some poor man, his feet on fire , inhaling the smoke to try and die quicker. Why ? because his village thought he was a witch ! worse things, people being murdered, sacrificed for political and other reasons have all been on the web.
Live Aid began a tremendous connection, between us, the ordinary man and woman in the street, and our fellow human beings in the whole of the world.
The world wide web, upholds that connection, keeps us aware of what is going on and why and where and how our fellow humans are developing in their own part of the world.
I was in my living room, witnessing living history, part of a tremendous and amazing phenomena that would one day explode across our world, forever changing it, forever making it, no longer a secret world but one where we can celebrate the joys and commiserate the woes of our global community.
Live Aid began it.....what where you doing on that day ?
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