Bono AIDS America
Bono’s “Lesson in Giving Back” Rallies Claremont
by Richard Root
I first met Bono at The Ritz in 1980 when I was attending New York University. Being a Connecticut native, I couldn’t believe the lead band was playing at 4 A.M. I was heavily into punk and new wave, but I had never even heard of this band. I knew The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Cars, The Ramones, Blondie – but who was U2?
When Bono came on stage, I was mesmerized. Sedated. Worshipful. I, who love dancing, stopped amidst a thousand swirling bodies. Bono sang to the ceiling. I could have sworn I saw a halo encircling his body. He held his arms out like Christ. I wrote for my college newspaper. I knew the music well. U2 and Bono, I thought to myself, could not be pegged. They were not a genre. Or they were inventing a new genre.
I saw Bono and U2 again the next year at “25 Cent Beer Night” at Toad’s Place in New Haven. Punk had not yet seeped into the “boondocks.” They did what they had to do to get someone to come see them play. Bono and I spoke only briefly. I didn’t even tell him that his music had changed my life. The next summer, I played the album War every day as I wrote my novel Shiraz. Bono’s message became one with my own. He became one of my major mentors. He still is today. He and my father inspired me to found the Root AIDS Foundation.
And I am not alone. If anyone can save the world, Bono can. He admits he has a “Messianic complex.” More power to him. At least someone does. Unlike his music, Bono’s speaking style is understated, even humble. As we all sat there awed, Bono assured us that “the world is more malleable than we think.” He spoke of his own upbringing, saying that he had come of age “during a turbulent time.”
His fight is a basic one. He simply wants to solve the global health crisis and rid the world of extreme poverty. He insisted “the power of Rock N’ Roll should not be undersold.”
He shared with the crowd that his first influence was The Clash, which he saw at age seventeen when he was growing up in Dublin. “It was like a public service announcement with guitars,” he joked. Unfortunately, The Clash never went beyond smashing guitars and drinking beer. Bono did.
He asked us not to tell his band he was in Claremont. He was supposed to be recording a new CD in Dublin.
Another defining moment for Bono was “the summer of Live Aid and Band Aid, of Feed the World.” He said it changed his life. That summer he and his wife, Ali, went to Ethiopia for one month. The Africans called Bono “the girl with a beard.” Etched in his mind was the image of a father holding out his child saying, “Please, take my baby.” Bono’s voice grew hushed. “We turned him down. It broke his heart.”
Then Bono began to barrage Bridges Auditorium with the heavy facts. “Did you know that 3,000 children will die a day in Africa simply due to a mosquito bite? Malaria. This can be stopped through simple drugs we can buy here in America.” Why not share them with Africa?
Bono posed a challenge to his audience, consisting primarily of students and educators: “The question is are we going to do something about it?” I know I am. This is why The Circle Foundation was created.
Again, the canon boomed. And the passion rose in Bono’s voice. “Too much AIDS money has lined the pockets of too many corrupt dictators.” I had totally forgotten about that. It is not that we are not giving money. It is also that the people who need it are not getting it. This is why The Root AIDS Foundation runs its money through the University of Pennsylvania, presently directly to the Root Memorial Offices. Doctors are there to cure—not prosper. My father, Dr. Richard K. Root, died for the cure between the teeth of a crocodile. But there are more doctors on their way.
Bono said that the situation in Africa was a “moral problem.” Bono reminded his upper-middle-class crowd “that we cannot deny to others what we demand for ourselves.”
He praised the Africans he has met over the years as: “Innovative people, gorgeous people, a great people.”
Then he offered an answer, referring to Claremont McKenna’s motto: “Civilization Prosperous with Commerce.” This is what Bono is attempting to access. He is creating commerce that drives its funds directly to a dying continent. “Love thy neighbor is not advice, but a command.” Even the atheists in the crowd nodded their heads, “yes.”
Bono drove the nail deeper. “If these epidemics and pandemics were raging across America and Europe, would we not put them out?”
Bono’s musicality now began to infuse his speech, and the jet lag slipped off his body like silk from stone. “This is the generation that can put an end to ignorant, brutal, stupid poverty.” Raising one strong finger, he noted, “Climate change and this are the two major defining moments of our world.” We must do something now, before it is too late!
Besides co-founding DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa) in 2002, Bono (along with Bobby Shriver) launched Product RED to buy AIDS drugs for Africa.
We have launched The Circle Magazine internationally with the same objectives in mind.
Bono’s fight has just begun, and he WILL carry on “…with or without you.”