Rocker Bono Parlays Fame Into Advocacy for the Desperate

c. 2005 Religion News Service (UNDATED) When Elvis Presley shook hands with Richard Nixon in 1970, it wasn’t much more than a fleeting photo op. When Bono got together with President Bush for lunch at the White House in October, however, they spoke for nearly two hours about debt relief, AIDS and other issues. Bono […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) When Elvis Presley shook hands with Richard Nixon in 1970, it wasn’t much more than a fleeting photo op.

When Bono got together with President Bush for lunch at the White House in October, however, they spoke for nearly two hours about debt relief, AIDS and other issues.


Bono fronts the mega-popular Irish rock band U2. But these days the singer is just as famous for his spiritual declarations and extracurricular activism. He’s the unshaven diplomat in the designer sunglasses who has been chewing the ears off presidents, prime ministers and other world leaders about humanitarian causes.

Most recently, his faith-based humanitarian efforts earned him, along with Bill and Melinda Gates, Time’s Person of the Year Award for 2005.

“I try to live it rather than talk about it because there are enough secondhand-car salesmen for God,” Bono told Time. “But I cannot escape my conviction that God is interested in the progress of mankind, individually and collectively.”

That message has connected far beyond fans of Bono’s music.

“People look at him as more than a rock star,” says former Ohio Congressman John Kasich. “For a lot of people, he represents hope.”

Kasich was chairman of the House Budget Committee when his pal Arnold Schwarzenegger asked him to discuss foreign aid with Bono in 1999.

“I’ve never been keen on celebrities in politics,” Kasich says. “But Arnold told me Bono knew what he was talking about. As it turned out, Bono really did know what he was talking about.”

Three years ago Bono co-founded DATA, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group whose name stands for Debt AIDS Trade Africa. The organization is dedicated to fighting extreme poverty and AIDS in Africa.


Bono’s group was a driving force behind the Bush administration’s Millennium Challenge Account, which earmarked $1.5 billion in assistance for developing nations this year.

DATA also helped to lay the groundwork for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, launched with a $200 million pledge from the United States in 2002.

Kasich, a prominent Republican who now hosts a Fox News Channel talk show, became Bono’s liaison on Capitol Hill, introducing the well-read rocker to key politicians from both parties. Bono even hit it off with Jesse Helms, the ultra-conservative Republican former senator from North Carolina.

“Jesse told Bono he wished he’d accomplished as much in his life as Bono has accomplished,” Kasich says.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac all have met with Bono over the years.

“He’s making a difference in the world,” says Bono’s friend Neil McCormick, a London journalist and author of the tongue-in-cheekily titled memoir “Killing Bono.” They met in high school.


“He always had that almost messianic glint about him,” McCormick says, laughing.

“When you’re kids in a rock ‘n’ roll band, you feel you can change the world. Most people lose that naive idealism. Bono lost the naivete, but not the idealism.”

DATA’s latest push is the One Campaign, a broad initiative to rally Americans in favor of allocating an additional 1 percent of the U.S. budget for aid to the world’s poorest countries.

During U2’s concerts, Bono has been making a pitch on behalf of One, which claims 1.5 million supporters to date.

Bono “is a very effective ally,” says DATA Executive Director Jamie Drummond. “He’s an inspirational character. He’s very good at seeing both sides of an argument and talking to both sides to strike a deal.”

Bono, 45, was born Paul Hewson in Dublin, where he and guitarist Dave “The Edge” Evans, bass player Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. formed U2 in the late 1970s, when they were in their teens.

Bono’s activism is a natural extension of the band’s socially conscious brand of anthemic rock, says Jim Henke, chief curator at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and a former Rolling Stone editor who championed U2 early in its career.


“Their songs always have dealt with issues bigger than boy meets girl,” Henke says.

The group has sold 120 million albums worldwide. Its latest release, “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb,” brought five Grammy Award nominations for U2, including a nod for album of the year.

Numerous rockers have dabbled in do-goodism, although none as successfully as Bono, Henke says.

Earlier this year, Bono was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. He surfaced as a candidate to head the World Bank, too.

To hear him tell it, he isn’t ready to give up his day job or his rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. Basking in the flashbulb-popping afterglow of a news conference immediately after U2’s induction into the Rock Hall in March, Bono was asked if he would run for president.

Though he’s not eligible, he had another reason to reject the idea.

With a grin, he replied, “I wouldn’t move to a smaller house.”

MO/PH/JL END SOEDER

(John Soeder is pop music critic for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland.)

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