Wow – a very popular post, this one!
Just to be clear, the original story is a joke.
If you’re looking for the actual song, you’re not going to find it.
Almost 30 years ago, Bob Geldof and friends famously posed the provocative question, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Now, according to the joke news site Hayibo, they finally have a response. A group of African musicians, calling themselves Plaster Cast, have released their single, “Yes, We Do!” The proceeds will be donated to the UK to fund instruction in discipline, literacy and contraception at British schools.
In the past, I’ve written a fair amount about international development and, at times, been especially critical of the way celebrities, like Bono, Madonna, etc., have injected themselves into development matters, plowing ahead with nothing but their limited understanding of complex issues and overcharged emotion for navigation; for example, Bono’s calls for a “Marshall Plan” for African countries with nary a clue of what the Marshall Plan actually entailed and how it sucked innovation from Europe to the US. So, I think this article is not out of place here.
I cannot hope to top the hilarity of the original article, so let suffice a few choice quotes to entice readers to follow the link below:
“… was [Geldof] just saying that Africans were stupid? Of course we knew it was Christmas.”
“Just because we don’t have Boney M or Christmas advertising in September doesn’t mean we are oblivious to it.”
“… it had taken a while for [Africans] to realise that it wasn’t actually an elaborate joke. ‘We kept waiting for them to laugh,’ [singer Boomtown Gundane] said, ‘But the punch-line never arrived.'”
“Gundane said he hoped that his involvement with the song would turn him into an expert on British politics and economics in the same way ‘Do they know it’s Christmas’ had turned Geldof and Bono into the world’s leading experts on Africa.”
See the full article here on hayibo.com
