Having very recently read Bono's excellent memoir, Surrender, the part that really hit me is this:
His approach was, until now, predicated on
what he often refers to as his single useful idea: you don’t have to
agree with people on everything if the one thing you do agree on is
important enough. I ask him if that philosophy is still tenable in the
face of Donald Trump’s brutal “America first” ideology?
“I
don’t think so,” he says, wearily, “I can’t do it. The organisations I
helped create and sustain can’t carry the anger that I have at the
vandalism, not just of USAID, but of people’s lives – the people that
worked on it and the people whose lives depended on it.”
There
is a sense of deep personal betrayal evident in his voice. “I think
what [Trump’s government is] doing now is so shortsighted and frankly
dumb. Then there is the delight, the – dare I say it – glee of these
people, as they pull life-support systems out of the wall with no
warning. That means a haemorrhaging of human life. It’s hard to measure
the enormity of it now.”
Aren’t many of the
people who are behind this vandalism, as he calls it, the same
Republicans and Christian evangelists he had worked with previously?
He
accepts that some of them are. “I’m sure that, when their
constituencies find out, they will take their support for this
administration away. Whether it’s millions or hundreds of thousands of
lives at risk, how in any way can you justify that as a Christian or
religious person?”
Given all that, where does this leave him?
“Out
of a job. I don’t think you can turn off being an activist but I’m not
sure the conversations I enjoy between opposite points of view are ones I
can referee at this present moment. But there are other people who can
take up that torch. We are into new territory and it’s incredibly
disturbing. I don’t recognise the GOP [Grand Old party]. There are some
people I know who I imagine still care and have kindness in them. And
it’s worth dwelling on the word kindness. In terms of the evisceration
of USAID and Pepfar, unkind is not the word to describe it – it’s
murderous.”
He falls silent for a while.
“In our lifetimes, yours and mine, we had the sense that the world was
evolving in the direction of freedom… but, the thing is, there is no
sound historical backing for that belief. Our lives are a tiny fragment
of time; the bigger moral arc of the universe does not bend towards
justice. It has to be bent towards justice.”
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His approach was, until now, predicated on what he often refers to as his single useful idea: you don’t have to agree with people on everything if the one thing you do agree on is important enough. I ask him if that philosophy is still tenable in the face of Donald Trump’s brutal “America first” ideology?
“I don’t think so,” he says, wearily, “I can’t do it. The organisations I helped create and sustain can’t carry the anger that I have at the vandalism, not just of USAID, but of people’s lives – the people that worked on it and the people whose lives depended on it.”
There is a sense of deep personal betrayal evident in his voice. “I think what [Trump’s government is] doing now is so shortsighted and frankly dumb. Then there is the delight, the – dare I say it – glee of these people, as they pull life-support systems out of the wall with no warning. That means a haemorrhaging of human life. It’s hard to measure the enormity of it now.”
Aren’t many of the people who are behind this vandalism, as he calls it, the same Republicans and Christian evangelists he had worked with previously?
He accepts that some of them are. “I’m sure that, when their constituencies find out, they will take their support for this administration away. Whether it’s millions or hundreds of thousands of lives at risk, how in any way can you justify that as a Christian or religious person?”
Given all that, where does this leave him?
“Out of a job. I don’t think you can turn off being an activist but I’m not sure the conversations I enjoy between opposite points of view are ones I can referee at this present moment. But there are other people who can take up that torch. We are into new territory and it’s incredibly disturbing. I don’t recognise the GOP [Grand Old party]. There are some people I know who I imagine still care and have kindness in them. And it’s worth dwelling on the word kindness. In terms of the evisceration of USAID and Pepfar, unkind is not the word to describe it – it’s murderous.”
He falls silent for a while. “In our lifetimes, yours and mine, we had the sense that the world was evolving in the direction of freedom… but, the thing is, there is no sound historical backing for that belief. Our lives are a tiny fragment of time; the bigger moral arc of the universe does not bend towards justice. It has to be bent towards justice.”