'Bono wrong to say activism has gotten complex especially when it comes to Gaza'

Irish Daily Mirror

a day ago

I can't believe the news today.
The opening line a young Bono wrote in the 1980s to U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday.
The words were inspired back then by the indiscriminate shooting of civilians in Derry by heavily armed troops.
He sang them again last week as U2 collected a lifetime Ivor Novello award
Bono also used the occasion to belatedly raise his voice on the 600 days of slaughter in Gaza that have followed the October 7 massacre of Israeli civilians by Hamas.
He declared: "Hamas release the hostages, stop the war. Israel be released from Benjamin Netanyahu."
It was a somewhat muted take, coming as it did during the dire hours in which multiple agencies, world leaders and activists were warning that thousands of Gazan children were about to die from forced starvation.
Not even so much as a "tonight thank God it's them instead of you."
But then as Bono would go on to explain to us later that week, when speaking to RTE, these things are "complex."
The frontman also lamented the "competitive empathy" of those who think "my emergency is more important than your emergency."
It wasn't clear which emergency was competing with the plight of Gaza's children that day.
Israel's vengeful assault would equate to 4,000 Bloody Sundays committed against civilians in Ireland for 600 days running.
It would be comparable to the complete ethnic cleansing of northern Catholics by forcibly removing them over the border.
And akin to the slaughter during the Troubles of hundreds of aid workers, paramedics and journalists.
As atrocity goes, that's pretty competitive.
Bono also defended the medal of honour he accepted from Joe Biden and America, the country that has bankrolled all that horror.
"I kind of get the realpolitik of the situation that Joe Biden found himself in... I took that medal on behalf of all those people who don't get medals: the activists, the people who are getting killed now in Gaza ... it's deeply ironic."
Indeed it is.
Almost as ironic as this column wanting to hear more from Bono after years wishing he would just shut up.
Wanting to hear him now use his pulpit in the US to forcefully call out the slaughter in Gaza - purely on its own merits.
To sing: "I can't believe the news today" and sing it just for seven-year-old Verd al-Sheikh Khalil who survived this week's Bloody Sunday on the strip – or was it the early hours of another Bloody Monday – after an Israeli shell was fired at the Fahmi al-Jarjawi School where she was sheltering.
Her five siblings and her mother all died. Verd can be seen in a video emerging bewildered from the rubble and the flames of another day's unforgettable fire.
It would be welcome too to hear Bono sing…"I can't close my eyes and make it go away"… and dedicate it only to Doctor Alaa al Najjar.
The lifeless bodies of nine of her 10 children were plucked from the rubble of her home as she worked at the Nasser Medical Complex, in Khan Younis tending the other dying and maimed.
Yahya, Rakan, Raslan, Gebran, Eve, Rival, Sayden, Luqman and Sidra - aged from just a few months to 12 years old.
In Benjamin Netanyahu's twisted world they would be classed "on the wrong side of humanity" like the world leaders he described that way for daring to challenge this genocidal campaign.
To even utter the words "Free Palestine" – as an honourable roll call of Irish artists have – is "the new Heil Hitler" the blue-rinsed butcher of Gaza absurdly declared.
It is in these dark hours that Bono told us he has decided to take a backwards step from his activism, because it is hard to keep up with the complexities of it all as a "single issue" guy.
In that he is wrong. It's not hard. It's as simple as it ever was.
You ignore the realpolitik. And remember what it feels like when you can't close your eyes and make it go away.