Band Aid revisited: humanitarianism, consumption and philanthropy in the 1980s

Abstract

This article revisits the iconic Band Aid phenomenon of 1984–1985. The analysis sets out to historicise and contexualise Band Aid within the 1980s as a decade, and contemporary British history more broadly. The central argument is that Band Aid was not as epochal as often assumed, instead fitting into a longer history of humanitarianism and charitable fundraising in Britain. However, Band Aid still remains an important signpost for how British society was reshaped during the 1980s by far-reaching changes in capitalism, popular culture, governance and technology. Band Aid both reflected and reinforced an ongoing shift in the legitimacy of charity and welfare, away from state-led welfare solutions towards more individualised and market-driven forms of action articulated through the realms of consumption and mass culture. This form of marketised philanthropy was highly effective at stimulating public donations, but it did so by shunning overt engagement with the underlying causes of global hunger and poverty.

Keywords:

• Band Aid
• Live Aid
• humanitarianism
• NGOs
• charity

Acknowledgements

I am deeply grateful to Matthew Hilton for all his patience and support during the doctoral research which this article grew out of. I would also like to thank Chris Moores, Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite and the participants of the 2013 ‘New Times Revisited’ conference (held at the University of Birmingham and the University of Warwick).

Notes

1. For a comprehensive account of how the 1984–1985 Ethiopian famine came to be framed as a major news story in Britain, see: Franks, Reporting Disasters.

2. Do They Know It’s Christmas? was released on 3 December 1984, entering the UK Singles Chart at number one and becoming the biggest single of all time with over 3 million copies sold. This record was held until 1997 when it was overtaken by Elton John's Candle in the Wind 1997, released in tribute to Princess Diana.

3. Geldof, Is That It?; Franks, Reporting Disasters, 72–7.

4. McSmith, No Such Thing as Society, 3–4.

5. Ibid., 184.

6. Stewart, Bang!.

7. Hall and Jacques, “People Aid.”

8. VSO, The Live Aid Legacy; Müller, “The Long Shadow of Band Aid Humanitarianism”; Lousley, “Band Aid Reconsidered.”

9. Richey and Ponte, Brand Aid; Müller, “‘The Ethiopian Famine’ Revisited”.

10. Tester, Humanitarianism and Modern Culture; Kapoor, Celebrity Humanitarianism; Hague et al., “The Voice of the People?”

11. Jones, The Eighties.

12. Benthall, Disasters, Relief and the Media; Lidchi, “Finding the Right Image”; Franks, Reporting Disasters.

13. Christian Aid Archives, SOAS Library, London (hereafter CAA): CA4/A/16/6: Disasters Emergency Committee, “Fundraising for Famine in Africa by British public channelled through voluntary relief and development agencies,” December 1985.

14. As of November 2016, the Disasters Emergency Committee is comprised of 13 member agencies: Action Aid, Age International, the British Red Cross, CAFOD, Care, Christian Aid, Concern Worldwide, Islamic Relief, Oxfam, Plan, Save the Children, Tearfund and World Vision. For more on the history of the DEC, see: Jones, “The Disasters Emergency Committee.”

15. Save the Children Fund, Annual Report 1984–1985, 24.

16. Jones, “The Disasters Emergency Committee.”

17. Harrison and Palmer, News out of Africa, 68–78; Higgins, Satellite Newsgathering, 13–20.

18. Oxfam, Accounts for the Financial Year May 1979–April 1980.

19. Lidchi, “Finding the Right Image,” 101.

20. Müller, “The Long Shadow of Band Aid Humanitarianism,” 470.

21. Geldof, Is That It?, 291.

22. CAA: CA4/A/16/7: A. Pennington, “Letter to all members of the Joint Agency Group”, 1 August 1985.

23. CAA: CA4/A/16/7: Jean Harrison, “Band Aid’s ‘Schools for Africa’ Project”, 3 September 1985.

24. Baughan, “Every Citizen of Empire”; Manzo, “Imaging Humanitarianism.”

25. Jones, “The Disasters Emergency Committee.”

26. Cohen, States of Denial, 178.

27. Cohen, States of Denial, 178–95; Dogra, Representations of Global Poverty.

28. Independent Television Authority (ITA) Archive, University of Bournemouth Library (hereafter ITAA): Box IBA/01070, file 5002/5 (vol. 2): Disasters Emergency Committee, “Minutes of the Chief Executives meeting,” 25 March 1983.

29. De Waal, Famine Crimes, 112–32.

30. Ibid., 20–6.

31. Philo, “From Buerk to Band Aid,” 123.

32. CAA: CA4/A/16/7: Martin Bax, “Post Live Aid,” 17 July 1985.

33. ITAA: Box IBA/01070, file 5002/5 (vol. 3): Diana Leat, “Broadcast Appeals: Report of an Explanatory Study Conducted for the Central Appeals Advisory Committee,” December 1986.

34. Wheeler, Celebrity Politics, 153.

35. Hilton et al., The Politics of Expertise, 92.

36. Black, A Cause for our Times, 229.

37. CAA: CA4/A/16/7: Kate Phillips, “Live Aid,” 19 July 1985.

38. War on Want Archive, SOAS Library, London (hereafter WOWA): Box 110: Untitled document and author, 1985.

39. ITAA: Box IBA/00943, file 8072 (vol. 1): Independent Broadcasting Authority, “Charities given the right to advertise on independent television and radio,” 4 September 1989.

40. Richey and Ponte, Brand Aid, 32.

41. Shah et al., “Bono, Band Aid, and Before.”

42. Black, A Cause for our Times, 82–3.

43. Robinson, “Putting the Charity Back into Charity Singles,” 408.

44. Raghavan, 1971, 142–5.

45. Shah et al., “Bono, Band Aid, and Before.”

46. Mitchell, History and Cultural Memory in Neo-Victorian Fiction, 47–53.

47. Briggs, “Victorian Values”; Vinen, Thatcher’s Britain; Saunders, “Crisis? What crisis?”

48. Lankester, The Politics and Economics of Britain’s Foreign Aid, 12.

49. Burnell, Charity, Politics and the Third World, 215.

50. Wagg, “When I give food to the poor …,” 103.

51. Hall and Jacques, “People Aid.”

52. Hebdige, Hiding in the Light, 220.

53. Sky, Rick. “Forty Million Notes!” Daily Star, 15 July 1985, 2–3.

54. “Live Aid Souvenir Issue.” Daily Mirror, 15 July 1985, 1.

55. Street, Music and Politics, 108.

56. Graham, Bill Graham Presents, 473.

57. McSmith, No Such Thing as Society, 4.

58. Graham, Bill Graham Presents, 466–7.

59. Lucy Robinson makes a similar argument about charity singles in the 1980s: Robinson, “Putting the Charity Back into Charity Singles.”

60. McSmith, No Such Thing as Society, 186.

61. Lankester, The Politics and Economics of Britain’s Foreign Aid, 32–3.

62. BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham (hereafter BBC WAC): T41/482/1: Band Aid Trust, “Trustee’s Meeting,” 7 March 1985.

63. See, for instance: BBC WAC: T41/482/1: Band Aid Trust, “Minutes of Meeting of Band Aid Trustees,” 21 January 1985.

64. Korten, Getting to the Twenty-first Century.

65. Brooke, “Historicizing 1980s Britain,” 25.

66. Quoted in Lynskey, A History of Protest Songs, 382.

67. Lousley, “With Love from Band Aid,” 14.

68. Hall and Jacques, “People Aid,” 10–1.

69. Putterford, Phil Lynott: The Rocker, 320.

70. Graham, Bill Graham Presents, 466–7.

71. Geldof, Is That It? 284.

72. Band Aid had seven trustees: Bob Geldof; Midge Ure (musician and co-writer of the Band Aid single with Geldof); Michael Grade (BBC executive, and Controller of BBC1 during 1984–1985); John Kennedy (specialist lawyer and agent within the music industry, later President of Universal Music); Maurice Oberstein (music business executive and Chairman of CBS Records UK); Harvey Goldsmith (renowned concert promoter); and Chris Morrison (who managed many prominent artists). See: BBC WAC: T41/482/1: Band Aid Trust, “Minutes of Meeting of Band Aid Trustees,” 21 January 1985.

73. Wheeler, Celebrity Politics, 153.

74. For more on Rock Against Racism, see: Frith and Street, “Rock Against Racism and Red Wedge.”

75. Geldof, Is That it?, 286.

76. Tester, Humanitarianism and Modern Culture, 9.

77. Dunn, Martin. “How I pulled off the impossible.” The Sun, 12 July 1985, 15.

78. Chouliaraki, The Ironic Spectator, 124.

79. Collins, Billy Bragg: Still Suitable for Miners, 161.

80. Marquand, “The Paradoxes of Thatcherism”; Kuehn, “Compassionate Consumption.”

81. For more on neoliberalism as a ‘governing rationality’, see: Payne, The Consumer, Credit and Neoliberalism; Brown, Undoing the Demos.

82. Littler, Radical Consumption, 23.

83. Davis, “Compassionate Consumerism.”

84. This chimes with Anthony Giddens's suggestion that ‘life politics’ has displaced ‘emancipatory politics’ in late modernity. See also Jeffrey Weeks's account of the ‘new individualism’: Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity; Weeks, The World We Have Won.

85. Lilie Chouliaraki describes this as a move towards ‘post-humanitarianism’, which is more ironic, more self-focused and more rooted in lifestyle choices: Chouliaraki, The Ironic Spectator.

86. Littler, Radical Consumption, 30.

87. Richey and Ponte, “Brand Africa,” 137.

88. Zižek, First as Tragedy.

89. Scott and Street, “From media politics to E-protest?”

90. Hicks, Hilary Clay. “Superevents and Mega-audiences.” Billboard, 26 April 1986, 4.

91. CAA: CA4/A/16/7: Mary Galvin, “Bandaid,” 22 February 1985.

92. Ponte et al., “Bono’s Product (RED) Initiative.”

93. For more on Corporate Social Responsibility, see: Littler, Radical Consumption, 50–68.

94. Hicks, Hilary Clay. “Superevents and Mega-audiences.” Billboard, 26 April 1986, 9.

95. This echoes an argument recently put forward by Stephen Brooke: Brooke, “Historicizing 1980s Britain.”

96. Scott and Street, “From Media Politics to E-protest?”

97. Huq, “Labouring the Point?”, 91.

98. McAnulla, “Liberal Conservatism: Ideological Coherence?”

99. Cameron, David. “Combating Poverty at Its Roots.” Wall Street Journal, 1 November 2012. Accessed November 11, 2016. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204712904578090571423009066

100. Do They Know It's Christmas has been re-recorded and re-released three times by Band Aid since 1984: in 1989, 2004 and 2014. All three of these versions reached number one in the UK singles chart, although none came close to matching the original version for the number of copies sold.

101. Cottle, Global Crisis Reporting, 157–60.

102. Hilary, John. “The arrogance of Saint Bob.” Guardian, 5 April 2010. Accessed November 11, 2016. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/apr/05/geldof-arrogance-poverty-agenda-starsuckers.

103. Quoted in Hodkinson, Stuart. “G8 – Africa Nil.” Red Pepper (2005). Accessed November 11, 2016. http://www.redpepper.org.uk/G8-Africa-nil/

104. Darnton and Kirk, Finding Frames, 6.

105. Mouffe, “Which Ethics for Democracy?” 85–6.

106. Bishop and Green, Philanthrocapitalism.

107. Edwards, “Why ‘Philanthrocapitalism’ Is Not the Answer,” 237.

108. Holmes, “Biodiversity for Billionaires”.