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DUBLIN, Ireland - Irish rock star and global humanitarian Bono became a knight of the British empire Thursday — and joked that his youngest son thought he was about to become a Jedi instead.
Bono, 46, was named a Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in an informal, laugh-filled ceremony in the Dublin home of British Ambassador David Reddaway.
Fifty years ago this week, the idea of Europe was set to paper, on a continent unsettled but past the worst of the postwar period. The air was clear of sulfur if not spleen. Ireland was a small rock in the North Atlantic made relevant only by its cultural totems and ever increasing diaspora. In Berlin a chasm was opening up between East and West–the partition of lives, fortunes and fates. In the global struggle between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., between freedom and totalitarianism, Europe was the fault line and the front line. Old Europe was being rebuilt to fight the next war: a battle not just of ideologies but also, very possibly, of nuclear arsenals. It was not a moment for dreaming–more like one for digging a basement and ordering a year’s supply of tinned soup.
And yet this was the moment the New Europe was born.
On the continent that had been the theater for mankind’s darkest hour, we witnessed a very human miracle. The people of Europe found that their capacity for destruction was mirrored by an equally immense capacity for forgiveness, grace and hope. Looking to the U.S., Europeans could see how cherry-picked European ideas from minds like Locke, Rousseau and Tom Paine could flourish in a society not polluted by blood and aristocracy. And so, in 1957, six nations signed the Treaty of Rome and, with that one crucial act, built a showcase of multilateralism, prosperity and international solidarity.
Fast-forward 50 years. An Irish rock star reads the treaty with the enthusiasm a child has for cold peas but does uncover what I think technocrats might call poetry. Not much of it–just a turn of phrase here and there. Like Article 177, which summons the signatories to foster "the sustainable economic and social development of the developing countries and more particularly the most disadvantaged among them" and calls for a "campaign against poverty in the developing countries." Not exactly Thomas Jefferson but a glimpse of the kind of vision that might bind us.
Over the next 50 years, we might need a little more poetry. Europe is a thought that has to become a feeling–one based on the belief that Europe stands only if injustice falls and that we find our feet only when our neighbors stand with us in freedom and equality. Our humanity is diminished when we have no mission bigger than ourselves. And one way to define who we are might be to spend more time looking across the eight miles of Mediterranean Sea that separates Europe from Africa.
There’s an Irish word, meitheal. It means that the people of the village help one another out most when the work is the hardest. Most Europeans are like that. As individual nations, we may argue over the garden fence, but when a neighbor’s house goes up in flames, we pull together and put out the fire. History suggests it sometimes takes an emergency for us to draw closer. Looking inward won’t cut it. As a professional navel gazer, I recommend against that form of therapy for anything other than songwriting. We discover who we are in service to one another, not the self.
Today many rooms in our neighbor’s house, Africa, are in flames. From the genocide in Darfur to the deathbeds in Kigali, with six AIDS patients stacked onto one cot, from the child dying of malaria to the village without clean water, conditions in Africa are an affront to every value we Europeans have ever seen fit to put on paper. We see in Somalia and Sudan what happens if more militant forces fill the void and stir dissent within what is, for the most part, a pro-Western and moderate Muslim population. (Nearly half of Africa’s people are devotees of Islam.) So whether as a moral or strategic imperative, it’s folly to let this fire rage.
How will Europe respond? For all the babble of clashing ideas, there’s more harmony than you might think. Historic promises have been made on aid, debt and even the thorny subject of trade. Aggressive progress on these, matched by advances in fighting the evils of corruption in Africa, could transform the continent and prevent the fire from spreading. As a group, the E.U. countries have promised to commit 0.7% of GDP to the poorest of the poor. How Europe works to keep that promise is as important to Europe as it is to Africa.
We might remember that Europe, 50 years ago, did not pull itself back from the abyss on its own. Across the Atlantic was a nation with a pretty broad notion of neighbor. Sure, the Marshall Plan wasn’t all altruism–the U.S. wanted a bulwark against Soviet expansion as the temperature of relations dropped below freezing. But it was also generosity on a scale never before seen in human history. It defined America in the cold war era.
What will define Europe in this new era? What will provide the bulwark against the extremism of our age?
Part of the answer lies eight miles away.
Copyright © 2007 Time Inc. All rights reserved.
New York, NY (March 26, 2007 - musicrising.com) — U2’s The Edge announced the Icons of Music Auction to benefit Music Rising on Saturday April 21st 2007 at Hard Rock Cafe New York in Times Square at 5pm.. The auction event will offer one of the most significant collections of music memorabilia from many of music’s greatest legends with proceeds benefiting Music Rising (www.musicrising.org), a campaign co-founded by The Edge, producer Bob Ezrin and Gibson Guitar Chairman and CEO Henry Juszkiewicz in 2005 to aid musicians of the Gulf Coast Region in regaining their livelihood after the devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The live and online auction, hosted by Julien’s Auctions (www.juliensauctions.com), will be offering approximately 200 pieces of music memorabilia, much of which has been specifically donated for this cause.
Read the rest of this story »
He’s logged thousands of hours of stage and studio time on the 1975 Gibson Les Paul. The 45-year-old musician has used the guitar throughout his years with U2.
"I wanted to give something really significant that would really mean a lot for me to give. It deserved something that I would miss," The Edge told The Associated Press by phone from France.
Bono from U2 holds the award for Global engagement during the "Echo Music Awards" ceremony in Berlin March 25, 2007. The German Phonographic Academy honours artists from all over the world in 24 categories.
This award was an honorary prize for his global activities, especially fighting poverty.
See more images from the event in our Gallery >>
REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke (GERMANY)
For the fifth straight year the African Well Fund is holding a fundraising drive to raise money in honor of Bono’s birthday. All donations will be used to fund water projects in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Schenectady, NY (PRWEB) March 22, 2007 — The African Well Fund is excited to announce the 5th Annual Build a Well for Bono’s Birthday fundraising drive. The fundraiser aims to raise money in honor of Bono’s May 10th birthday that will be used by AWF partner Africare to fund water projects in Sub-Saharan Africa. Donations for the drive will be collected from March 22nd to May 11th.
U2 fans and others inspired by Bono’s tireless activism on behalf of Africa are invited to make a donation in his honor. Donations from the four previous fundraisers totaled more than $80,000 and were used to fund water projects in Angola, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Donations may be made by visiting www.africanwellfund.org/donate.html. As in previous years, contributors are invited to sign our online card and leave a birthday wish for Bono after donating. The messages, along with a "Well Share" certificate for the amount donated, will be delivered to Bono via Principle Management at the conclusion of the fundraiser.
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