By Jonathan Jackson
When a man is told by his father "to dream is to be disappointed," he has two options: dream bigger or not to dream at all. Paul Hewson, aka Bono, is living proof of what a man can achieve musically, socially and politically when he continues to dream.
One of the unwritten rules in life is that politics and religion don't mix. There should be no blurring of boundaries, no-one 'crossing the floor'.
The same rule applies to celebrities and politics. There are those in the 'glitterati' who have made successful transitions into the political arena, but for every Arnold Schwarzenegger there is a Peter Garrett whose party-led views are now at odds with the protests that made his music so powerful.
Many celebrities, in particular singers with political motive, stay on the periphery of politics, voicing an opinion that has for the most part been nurtured by upbringing and social circumstance. That is why it is so hard for Garrett's fans to accept his ideological backflip. It is also the reason behind Bono's success.
More than any other artist (save for Bob Geldof, for whom the description of artist is shaky at best), Bono's involvement in politics resonates with the wider public. When he speaks about world failures, he comes across as a man of compassion; when he sings of world events he is a man who knows his own convictions.
As a rock star, I have two instincts, I want to have fun, and I want to change the world. I have a chance to do both," Bono says. Yet, as much as Bono is involved in governments and causes, he is only an influential mouthpiece: when all is said and done he has no impact on legislative change.
And that's the way it should be. Bono is a smart man. He understands the power he has over the millions of fans who buy his albums and attend U2 concerts. He understands his power would be diminished if he walked away from music. Music has allowed him to change lives, perceptions and values, not least of all his own.
Hewson was an outspoken child in an unorthodox Catholic/Protestant family. He'd exhibited depth of thought and described himself as a "bit wide-awake, a bit bright, a bit experimental." He wasn't an exceptional student but he displayed a flair for history and art and became an expert chess player. His initial ambition was to become an actor, but "being promiscuous with my ambitions and flirting with all kinds of things" led him to respond to a school notice appealing for musicians. Those interested were to assemble at the house of 14-year-old drummer Larry Mullen Junior.
On the homefront things were going from bad to worse due to the premature passing of his mother of a brain haemorrhage. The relationship between Hewson senior and his 14 year old son was increasingly volatile and those cutting words uttered by his father 'to dream is to be disappointed" became the catalyst for the teenager's big ambitious beginning. Bono was walking his own line, swinging to his own melody.
He says, "Sing the melody line you hear in your own head, remember, you don't owe anybody any explanations, you don't owe your parents any explanations, you don't owe your professors any explanations. You know I used to think the future was solid or fixed, something you inherited like an old building that you move into when the previous generation moves out or gets chased out. But it's not. The future is not fixed, it's fluid. You can build your own building, or hut or condo, whatever."
Finding the ability to connect physically and emotionally with an audience, Bono cultivated his reputation as one of the world's most dynamic frontmen; his love for theatrics becoming more and more apparent.
As did his ego. By the end of the 1980s, Bono was acting as if he was the second coming. His politically charged sermonising on stage began to draw criticism. It was time for an image transplant; time for sincerity in place of pomposity. By the time Vertigo was released in 2000, Bono had realised that he could educate audiences spiritually and politically and still entertain them without the sermonising.
"So my question I suppose is: What's the big idea? What's your big idea? What are you willing to spend your moral capital, your intellectual capital, your cash, your sweat equity in pursuing?"
Thus was born the mature activist.
Father Time
They say time heals all wounds and as Bono matured, so did his feelings toward his father. This was no more evident than in the song Sometimes You Can't Make It on Your Own from the 2004 album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.
The song was written in dedication of his father, whom Bono says he became close with just before Hewson senior died of cancer in 2002. The song puts him at peace with his childhood.
Bono says, "It's a portrait of him. He was a great singer, a tenor, a working class Dublin guy who listened to the opera and conducted the stereo with my mother's knitting needles.
"He just loved opera, so in the song, I hit one of those big tenor notes that he would have loved so much. I think he would have loved it, I hope so."
Bono had an impact in the political realm prior to 2000, but were the people who counted actually taking him seriously, or was he just another popstar with a gripe turned cause.
Paul O'Neill who served as the 72nd United States Secretary of the Treasury for part of President George W. Bush's first term sums up the feeling of many politicians to celebrity activism.
"I refused to meet him at first. I thought he was just some pop star who wanted to use me."
After a 90 minute meeting, O'Neill had changed his mind.
He's a serious person. He cares deeply about these issues and you know what? He knows a lot about them."
Knowledge is the key to being taken seriously. It's one thing to have an opinion, it's another entirely to know exactly what the problem is and how to approach the people who matter to try and fix those problems.
"It's not enough to rage against the lie," he says. "You've got to replace it with the truth… In the end you've got to become the change you want to see in the world."
In the 1980s he was involved with Live Aid and Amnesty International and wrote songs such as Bullet the Blue Sky. In the 1990s he co-created the compelling documentary Miss Sarajevo, but it his work in the 'noughties' which has provided insight into how mature his activism has become.
Since the millennium he has rallied friends 'with influence' to the cause of ending third world debt in his role as spokesman for the Jubillee project, later renamed Drop the Debt, as well as trying to end AIDS and poverty in Africa by founding DATA (Debt, Aid, Trade, Africa), a non-profit debt relief organisation.
It is no longer emotional for Bono. He told Time magazine: "We don't argue compassion. We put it in the 'most crass' terms possible; we argue it as a financial and security issue for America. There are potentially another 10 Afghanistans in America, and it is cheaper by a factory of 100 to prevent the fires from happening than to put them out."
DATA is loosely modelled on a post World War 2 economic plan called the Marshall Plan which provided Europeans with foreign assistance, debt cancellation and trade incentives to rebuild their economies so they could act as a bulwark against Soviet expansion.
There is, of course, still a certain amount of ego necessary to pull off this level of activism. At the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, Bono sat on a dais with Bill Gates to discuss ways in which to save a continent. The following evening he was playing to a television audience of 130 million during the halftime break of the 2002 NFL Superbowl.
Without the ego to back his dream and vision, he may have just been a one Live Aid political wonder, yet he has maintained strong relationships with the Gates Foundation, Bill Clinton, George Soros and Colin Powell among many other powerbrokers. These are all people who share big visions. "The world is more malleable than you think and it's waiting for you to hammer it into shape," Bono says.
Lyrically he speaks volumes about human experience; from love to death, to political failings and consequences. Politically, those lyrics translate into well intentioned activism that does actually make a difference.
In 2004 he led a group of anti-poverty organisations to create ONE. In 2005 the group secured a pledge by the G8 to direct an additional $25 billion in effective assistance to Africa by 2010 and in less than a year had signed up more than two million members to create a dynamic political force in support of better policies to combat poverty.
By 2007, DATA and ONE formally merged to combine high level policy depth with grassroots mobilisation expertise. The mission is the same: to prevent poverty and disease where the challenges are greatest.
As he nears 50, Bono no longer sees music as a political force, believing he can do more in the backrooms of political organisations than in sold out stadiums. He told Benjamin Nugent of Time, "I'm tired of dreaming. I'm into doing at the moment. It's like, let's only have goals that we can go after. U2 is about the impossible. Politics is the art of the possible. They're very different and I'm resigned to that now."
It is a show of Bono's maturity in the political arena that he is able to have so much influence; unlike politicians who have entered the political arena and forgotten what they stand for, Bono has never wavered from his beliefs. This gives him credibility. He will always be a musician. He will always crave a sense of the ridiculous. He will always be the Fly or Mephisto (two of his 1990's rock incarnations). For all intents and purposes, Bono is still a dreamer, but he has managed to unite his sense of ridiculousness with a level of responsibility that attracts fans in both the musical and political arenas.
