The odd couple go on safari (and

 

 

                       The odd couple go on safari (and

                       try to save the Third World while

                       they're at it)

 

                       The Independent, UK 18 May 2002

 

                       On Monday, Bono – the pop supremo turned Third World

                       campaigner – pitches up in Africa for a four-country, 10-day tour.

                       Beside him in the passenger seat will be the stern-faced figure of

                       Paul O'Neill, the silver-maned United States Secretary of the

                       Treasury, also known as world's most powerful finance minister.

 

                       And sprawled across the back of the tour bus, with cameras rolling

                       to capture the unique African jaunt, will be a scrum of bush

                       correspondents from media as unlikely as MTV and Rolling Stone

                       magazine, the music bible.

 

                       "It is possible for the two of us to see life through each other's

                       eyes," said Mr O'Neill, previewing the trip. "I'm going to get a set of

                       blue wraparound glasses and I'm going to give him a grey wig."

 

                       The odd couple's tour kicks off in Ghana and moves down to South

                       Africa and Uganda before a final gig in Ethiopia. They may not be

                       able to decide on which tapes to play on the tour bus – or plane –

                       but behind the incongruity lies a deadly serious purpose.

 

                       Africa's problems are finally showing, however faintly, on the radar of

                       American foreign policy. President George Bush, who recently

                       announced a $5bn boost to foreign aid, is finally considering issues

                       such as debt relief, fair trade and the continent's HIV/Aids crisis.

                       There has even been talk of a Marshall Plan for Africa.

 

                       And deep within the White House, harrying and haranguing on

                       which direction to take, is the unlikely figure of Bono. The scruffy

                       Dubliner's role is deemed so influential, it earned him a cover on

                       Time magazine last March.

 

                       "I'd have lunch with Satan if there was so much at stake," Bono

                       recently told a fellow U2 member, the Edge, who is worried about

                       the damage the association with conservatives could do to U2's

                       street cred.

 

                       But others are also worried, for different reasons. They wonder

                       whether Bono is riding the White House, or if it is the other way

                       around.

 

                       Mr O'Neill is a well-known sceptic of foreign aid and, even after the

                       $5bn pledge, an extremely small proportion of American aid goes to

                       the Third World.

 

                       Will the Irishman's passionate patter genuinely turn minds in

                       Washington, or just provide glowing PR for a hawkish administration

                       driven by self- interest? "Bono knows his stuff really well. We take

                       our hats off to him," Salih Booker, from the Washington think-tank

                       Africa Action, said. "But he risks inadvertently legitimising

                       approaches, such as globalisation, that in the end may be very

                       harmful."

 

                       Bono, a seasoned campaigner and committed Christian, says he

                       knows what he is doing. Whereas other pop stars tend to pick up

                       fashionable causes like new Gucci leatherwear, Bono and his wife

                       Ali have stuck with Amnesty International, Greenpeace and the

                       Chernobyl Children's fund down through the years.

 

                       They spent six weeks working in an Ethiopian orphanage in 1986 to

                       better understand what they were supporting; during the Popmart

                       tour Bono would phone up the targets of his activism live on stage.

 

                       But when it came to the cancellation of the Third World's crushing

                       $350bn (£240bn) debt, he changed tack. First he sought out the

                       Pope, then a slew of European prime ministers, and finally George

                       Bush. The central idea is that celebrity, not music, can change the

                       world.

 

                       Bono used his fame to prise open doors – sometimes offering

                       autographs for sons and daughters – and once inside dazzled

                       sceptical policymakers with his nimble grasp of the facts.

 

                       Mr O'Neill admits he first avoided meeting with Bono, thinking it just

                       a publicity stunt, but then extended a 30-minute meeting into an

                       hour and a half. Now he describes him as "a substantive person

                       who wants to make a difference".

 

                       Bono has famously converted some crusty old conservatives,

                       despised by most liberals as untouchables, to his cause. The most

                       famous conversion was of the powerful Republican Jesse Helms, a

                       bitter critic of foreign aid, the United Nations and homosexuals. By

                       appealing to their common Christianity, Bono reduced the

                       80-year-old senator to tears.

 

                       In January he took the Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs on a tour of

                       three African countries. Those they met were impressed with his

                       common touch.

 

                       Sister Mary Donovan guided him around a Malawi township ravaged

                       by Aids and poverty. "A more astute, compassionate human being I

                       have not met in a long time," she said.

 

                       Soon afterwards he was addressing world leaders alongside Bill

                       Gates, then there was the Time cover, headlined "Can Bono Save

                       the World?"

 

                       By March, he was standing beside President Bush after the extra

                       $5bn in aid was announced. According to some reports, Bono was

                       a crucial player in securing the commitment. Photos showed him

                       strolling alongside the grinning Texan, flashing a V for victory sign.

 

                       It was a far cry from the days when the singer used to flash two

                       fingers at the establishment – such as the Greenpeace dinghy stunt

                       outside the nuclear power plant in Sellafield – and not from within it.

 

                       But that is exactly the factor that has worried campaigners like

                       Salih Booker. "The closer he gets to politicians, the closer he's

                       getting to that grey world of compromise. His strength is being on

                       the outside, a campaigner," he said.

 

                       Bono counters the critics by saying that strength comes from

                       influencing those on the inside. Next week's unprecedented trip will

                       put that idea to the test.