Bob Geldof at Queen's University
In March Bob Geldof was part of the festivities to celebrate the opening of the revamped Students Union here at Queens University. Afterwards he gave the University's R M Jones Lecture in the neighbouring Whitla Hall. Never the academic, the aging punk strode back and forth across the platform in a folksy conversational style that might have been a little out of place for such a prestigious lecture had he not been profound, inspiring and very intelligent. To be fair, the intelligence came only when the question time started. It must be said that a few, who are more likely to have been there for the RM Jones part of the title rather than to hear the man who sang Rat Trap, were put in their place when their questions to catch the scruffy punk out were answered with a knowledge of world politics and economics that were more deserving of an honourary doctorate than many who have received them from the same stage.
It was the more inspiring folksy part that I want to concentrate on here. Under the title “Making a Difference” Geldof told his story of how he almost stumbled into impacting the world as he has done. He told of how he was watching the news in October 1984 and when he saw those gruesome pictures of starving children in Ethiopia he got angry. Then he said that he took who he was and what he had and brought them together to contribute what he could. The ‘who he was’, was angry that these things should be happening in his world in his lifetime. The ‘what he had’, was the ability to write songs. And so he brought them together to make a record that he thought might raise £70,000; his contribution. He was smart enough, he confessed, to know that his days at number one were a few years behind him and so he got a few mates to help him out – line by line as it turned out. That might have made a few more thousand pounds he thought.
Of course this set in motion a set of events that are not only historic in rock music terms but also actually in terms of world history. First, Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas Time became the biggest selling single in UK history. Then, some eight months after Geldof saw the film footage on the news, Live Aid became the biggest rock concert in history. I can remember at 4am on that July morning having listened to almost every song for sixteen hours lying back in bed and thinking that rock music could change the world.
Geldof articulated this series of events that he set in motion incredibly well. He told his audience of one of the millions of letters he had received during that time. Most he had disregarded but there was a quotation in this one that he pinned inside his cupboard. It is the wisdom of, a climber apparently, W.H. Murray and it has to do with commitment. It is about having to commit before anything can begin to happen. For the climber I guess it is in risking the danger to conquer challenging peaks. For lovers it is about the vulnerability of sharing your feelings for the first time. For those wanting to change the world it is the first step of acting on belief.
“This may sound too simple, but is great in consequence. Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.
Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.
I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!”
There were two things that came through for me as Geldof spoke. First my experience of the ‘providence moving’ as Murray describes it. In 1999 I decided to take some of my students to Cape Town to build a few houses. After some talk, I committed and told Habitat For Humanity that I would go. There were many fearful moments in that next months, even when I finally arrived on the Khayelitscha township. As I look back now, eight years later, we have a bi-annual trip that has now added peace studies, Fair Trade, HIV and soccer projects to the original plan. It is now a slick operation that looks so well put together and yet the truth is we stumbled upon every aspect of it. ‘Providence moved’ and ‘all manner of unforeseen incidents’ have led us. Geldof articulated it wonderfully.
The other follows from this experience. As I, a Chaplain, gazed around the hall and thought more specifically about my own students what an inspirational story to encourage world changing decisions. As a Chaplain I believe that Jesus is waving an invitational hand to commit. Bring who you are and what you have and go for it. When the ‘genius, power and magic’ kick in, who knows what can be achieved. For a spiritual being like myself Murray’s quotation and Geldof’s story is filled with the mystery of God’s grace. In 2005, twenty years after my belief that music could change the world, I sat in a little apartment in Vancouver cuddling my daughter in tears as Bob Geldof invited onto the stage one of the children literally dying in the original television footage from 1984. Birhan Woldu walked on and this beautiful young woman smiled and waved to the Live 8 crowd a tangible symbol of what can happen if people commit. Please God that I commit!
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