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David Edgar Matter the Five Million Unemployed!) 26 September 1985 Marxism Today THE LIVE AID CONCERT gave a num­ Live Aid was a remarkable international institution by the relatively rich ber of fabulously rich people the opportun­ ity (at the cost of a few hours of their time) of the North for the desperately poor of the South. to parade their compassion in front of one of the largest television audiences in his­ tory. Among them were a number of performers known for their highly dubious opinions - including both the stars whose reactionary remarks led to the formation of Rock against Racism. Top of the the American bill was a former protester now turned born-again Christian, and the Brit­ ish line-up was headed by a former Beatle WHY last in the news for tearing up a striking teacher's leaflet. The organiser of the event - whose stage act used to include the projection of pornographic films - owns properties in Chelsea and Kent, and has ID CAME been nominated for a prize founded by an arms manufacturer and given in the past to Henry Kissinger and Menachen Begin. Not surprisingly, the event was almost totally lacking in any political content, and indeed began with the showing of a special­ ly recorded video in which two multi­ LIVE millionaires announced that 'the time is right for dancing in the streets' (try telling that to the starving of Ethiopia, or for that David Edgar matter the five million unemployed!). And the jamboree ended (in Britain) with the communal singing of the ethnocentric 'Do contemporary Conservative portrait of the And finally, this condition was blamed on Live Aid gashed a great modern malaise. (and also, by a subtle sleight of hand, gaping hole in the Since the riots of 1981, the Conservative extended to) those adult groupings who leadership has regarded the state of the were held at one and the same time to be contemporary conservative nation's youth as a matter of particular setting children a bad example (Sir Keith portrait of the modern concern. Initially, this took the form of Joseph's constant refrain to the teachers) cabinet committees solemnly considering and to be themselves in the position of malaise how children could be taught to manage greedy children, unable to restrain their their pocket money; then Mrs Thatcher clamorous demands on the paternal state. they know it's Christmas' and (in America) and her ministers began to complain (in As Mrs Thatcher remarked in April, of with the presumptuous 'We are the the context of the riot, and with increasing humanity in general and the British popu­ World'. frequency) that children were no longer lace in particular, 'you don't get the best Much of the above is true. So why didn't given the clear rules they need and indeed out of them, unless you are really rather 1 it feel like that? Why did it feel that despite want, and without which they cannot learn firm'. the tarnished reputations of Bowie, Clap­ the ancient and necessary virtues of disci­ ton, McCartney, Dylan el al, for once they pline and self-restraint. Increasingly, such Heysel Stadium were on the right side? Why indeed, amid notions were associated with the baleful This model was reiterated with consider­ all that undoubtedly blatent commercial­ effects of the welfare state - which was able force - if not positive glee - in the ism, and indubitably mawkish sen­ supposed to foster in the young (along with immediate aftermath of the tragedy of timentality, was it impossible to prevent the insidious propaganda of left-wing the Heysel stadium in Brussels. In the the odd tear creeping into the corner of at teachers and social workers) the idea that Spectator, Richard West wrote that 'the least one eye? their every appetite was an entitlement, collapse of teaching and discipline in our and that they bore no personal responsibil­ schools, thanks largely to Shirley Wil­ Clear rules and bad examples ity for the amelioration of their condition. liams, is nowhere more evident than in Before answering that question it's useful, Further, the argument ran, the decline Liverpool . (where) a whole generation I think, to pose another, which is why the of religious, social and familial sanctions - of pampered, undisciplined children has reaction of the Right to Live Aid was so and the promotion of 'morally relative' and grown up with the habit of petulance, embarrassed and half-hearted. And the 'permissive' ideas in the educational and envy, greed and wanton cruelty - as seen answer to that, I think, is that by its very communications media - led to a situation last week on the television screens of the 2 existence, let alone its triumphant success, in which any denial of gratification was world'. In the same publication, Auberon Live Aid gashed a great gaping hole in the viewed as a legitimate excuse for violence. Waugh identified the hooligans as 'our September 1985 Marxism Today 27 Burgess' dire warnings about the inevit­ ably atavistic nature of mobs, this gather­ ing was completely, one might almost say eponymously peaceful. Indeed, it was en­ gaged in what is (for the Right) the most laudable of purposes - voluntary charit­ able endeavour. As was pointed out by a left critic of Live Aid (Mark Lewis, in the Guardian), the event could well be com­ pared with those Victorian philanthropic activities 'so vigorously encouraged by both Thatcher and Reagan', even if the nineteenth-century do-gooder donated his own wealth, and often chose to do so anonymously.11 And although Mrs Thatcher's sterner economic gurus might in fact have a bit of trouble with the general concept of overseas aid, even if donated from private sources, surely it was better for 70,000 young persons to be throwing teddy bears at each other rather than beer cans, singing and swaying rather than slinging and slaying? The new Right and rock V roll So why in the event was the response so incredibly muted? Why did the columnists and leader-writers not queue up behind The Times' Richard Williams to proclaim that 'the Wembley leg of Saturday's ex­ traordinary Live Aid concert felt like the wonderful, overpaid "workers" on a been the motto of the age'.9 spree'3, and in the Sunday Telegraph de­ for the contemporary British manded that from now on the 'Calibans' be Wembley and Philadelphia Right. the 60s served up kept 'locked up in their caves'.4 In the But it was the Daily Telegraph that pre­ the poison in a peculiarly Guardian, Mary Whitehouse pointed the sented the model in its starkest form. finger of blame at 'the soft-centred, self- Attesting that 'in matters of public be­ concentrated and virulent interested, liberal-humanist sentiment haviour great improvement occurred be­ form which has beguiled our universities, tween the middle of the last century and schools and indeed churches' and which the middle of this one', the paper's leader- healing of our own nation', proving that, now 'has demanded a terrible price in writers went on to argue that 'the post- despite Heysel, 'young people could human delusion and consequent 1945 settlement embodied a reversal' of gather peacefully in large numbers, drawn suffering'.5 this trend: 'it became fashionable among as much by a "good cause" as by the chance In the Daily Mail, Anthony Burgess the middle classes to sneer at family, to worship the gods of popular asked 'what has gone wrong with the lower respectability and middle-class values, entertainment'?12 Indeed, apart from Wil­ orders'6, a question answered by Lynda premarital chastity, social disciplines, liams and (initially) two put-downs in the Lee Potter, who defined the message of the neatness and thrift'. As a consequence, Guardian, there was hardly a murmur in 'gratification society' as follows: 'If you're 'they should not have been surprised when the feature pages at all, and while every lazy, go on social security; if you lust after what the Victorian middle classes called serious daily ran a leader on Heysel, only children, rent an obscene video; if you're "the lower orders", but to whom they had one (the Daily Telegraph) commented on depressed swallow valium ... if a fellow a sense of responsibility, took those who Live Aid, which was described as 'wholly worker dares to defy you, chuck a load of set intellectual and political fashions in this concrete at him; if you don't like the look country at their word . They failed to 1 London Standard 11 April 1985. of a rival football supporter, kill him'.7 For understand that ordinary people need sim­ 2 Spectator 8 June 1985. Brian Walden (in the London Standard), ple rules to live by, and that without a 3 Ibid. Heysel showed that if 'the working classes framework of social discipline they can 4 Sunday Telegraph 2 June 1985. 10 5 Guardian 10 June 1985. in our cities ... are not restrained by very easily become brutalised'. 6 Daily Mail 31 May 1985. Christian morality, then they are not res­ Less than two months after that was 7 Daily Mail 5 June 1985. 8 trained at all', while for George Gale (in written, there was another international 8 London Standard 4 June 1985. the Express), 'we have positively and event, also involving large numbers of 9 Daily Express 31 May 1985. enthusiastically endorsed indiscipline' 10 Daily Telegraph 3 June 1985. young people, assembled in (on this occa­ 11 Guardian 15 July 1985. in a period when 'permissiveness has sion) two sports stadia. Despite Anthony 12 Times 15 July 1985. is September 1V85 Marxism Today London: Down and Outs.
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