So Geldof, Bono and the rest of them pulled off another stunt. A Cirque de live 8. They declared that they had reached a turning point. "Tomorrow 280 million Africans will wake up for the first time in their lives without owing you or me a penny...". This bit of hogwash /nonsense was immediately lapped up by the G8 chorus line. Tony Blair, stealing a bit of the Bono-Geldof trapeze act, did mid-air splits heralding it as a “victory for millions.” Even the unusually kitsch-articulate, arrogant and vain-glorious George Bush, could come up with nothing pompous and sucked on mild words like “milestone.” etc. He had reason. He had other ideas, which differed a wee bit from these unruly rock-politicians. He was not going to give into all this debt-relief, while his man Wolfowitz ran the show for the IMF/WB combine. According to John Pilger, well-known British correspondent, “Blair would like the IMF to pay its share of the "relief" by revaluing its vast stock of gold, and passionate and sincere Bush has said No!”

How better to contain the outrage, anger, destitution, impoverishment and utter hopelessness of the African people than to counter it with images of the carefully-cultivated “rebelliousness” of these tank-bottomed-out non-balladeers from another era. The monumental fraud of announcing the 55 billion dollar debt relief for Africa came down to actually 1 billion dollars spread out over 18 countries. As most discerning economic observers have maintained that for every dollar given to Africa, some 3 dollars are being taken out by the loan re-payment policies dictated by the IMF and the World Bank. These are the stark facts that even the IMF does not deny. Bono even cutely remarked that he was “disappointed” in Canada’s Paul Martin. He was supposedly a “good guy”.

What a circus act perpetrated on the backs of the African people, without their acquiescence, without their participation and while they die slowly in the parched interiors of the continent that has produced all the ores, minerals, that has given the western world its imperial might! What was on the minds of Geldof and Bono? What exactly were they seeking? What was on their minds when they discovered that Africa needed help, suddenly? Why Africa now? Were they not a part of a carefully constructed attempt to deflect world attention from the criminal invasion and occupation of Iraq? Was it not a godsend for the unpopular lap-dog premier of Britain, who desperately needed to be cuddled by his electorate? Was it not a carefully timed rock and roll distraction to bring the world’s youth again into a state of youthful euphoria about nothing and distance it from the militant protest against globalisation that had been occurring the past five years? Was it not a carefully sponsored rock and roll detour? How come Geldof-Bono never want to do a concert for Latin America, where in Venezuela the President is rocking everyone’s boat by using Oil money for social benefits for his people? Or for that matter in Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Uruguay, where landless peasants and native activists are coming down from the hills and straightening things out, nation after nation and ensuring that the old days of the United Fruit company are not back anymore in Latin America? I could live with a little Carlos Santana, Paco de Lucia, Antonio Banderas, Gypsy Kings, and Gato Barbieri concert squat in the middle of Mexico City! As they are increasingly saying in Latin America "Que se vayan todos!" (Out with them all!)

Now just as the G8 circus got underway, bombs ripped through the London underground. Who are the 56 who died? Mainly young people below thirty. From diverse religious and ethnic backgrounds who live and work in the core of the city. The people who died are the same people who have increasingly voiced their opposition to Britain’s role in following Bush to Iraq. The people who were blown to bits were the same people who have time and again given London an international face, a face that is relatively open-minded, tolerant and welcoming as against the close-minded cultural ignominy of the dark days of Enoch Powell, Ted Heath and Margaret Thatcher. So what exactly was on the minds of the 4 blokes who carried the bombs into the subway? Theirs was also a master plan. A master plan to deflect and destroy the initiatives of the people of Iraq to win back their country. By striking and killing totally innocent civilians, during the start of the rush hour, away from the centre of the war that is going on in Iraq they were only doing the job of aiding and abetting Blair, just as 9/11 came as a godsend for a faltering, directionless Bush (who was found not carrying out official duties 75% of his time before 9/11). These 4 (and maybe others behind them) carefully planned this cowardly spectacular act to deflect world attention from Iraq and once again prop up and bolster a blustering Tony Blair. Some journalists suggest that the Madrid bombings resulted in the withdrawal of Spain from the Coalition. No, it did not. What it did do was to hasten the fall of the directionless right-wing Spanish government. The population of Spain was already determined and clear about its opposition to the war in Iraq. These self-declared soldiers of Islam, who carried out this attack in London, live in a quasi-self-centred world of primitive religious retribution, martyrdom and nothing else matters to them, other than the act itself. They have developed a world view that negates the views of all others who are also fighting against poverty, world domination and occupation and somehow feel that an act of spectacular destruction at the centre of world power, even if it results in the death of hundreds of innocents is an act to be lauded. They have also been very carefully tutored into believing that partisan resistance (mass popular uprising) as was happening against the fascists in Europe during World War II, or against the French and then the Americans in Indo-China, or against the French in Algeria or the mass support for what is happening in Latin America today, can develop into movements that are secular and more all-encompassing than their narrow-minded, feudal religious agenda which postures as a “freedom” movement.

Geldof or Bono are cultivated apologists and their counterparts are the feudal bombers of London, all bent on distraction and deflection.