"I should probably explain why and how I got to this place. it’s a journey that started 20 years ago. You may remember that song “We are the World” or “Do They Know Its Christmas?“- Band aid and Live Aid. Another very tall, grizzled rock star- my friend Sir Bob Geldof issued a challenge to “Feed The World.” It was a great moment and it utterly changed my life.

That summer, my wife Ali and myself went to Ethiopia. We went on the quiet to see for ourselves what was going on . We lived in Ethiopia for a month, working in an orphanage. The children had a name for me, they called me “the girl with the beard”- don’t ask. Anyway, we found Africa to be a magical place. Big skies, big hearts, big shining continent, beautiful royal people. Anybody who ever gave anything to Africa got a lot more back. Ethiopia didn’t just blow my mind it opened my mind. Anyway, on our last day at this orphanage, a man handed me his baby and said, “would you take my son with you?” He knew in Ireland his son would live and that in Ethiopia, his son would die in the middle of an orphan famine. Well, I turned him down, and it was a funny kind of sick feeling. And it’s a feeling I cant ever quite forget. And in that moment I started this journey. In that moment I became the worst thing of all. I became a rock star, with a cause.

Except this isn’t a cause….is it? Six and a half thousand Africans dying , every single day, from AIDS, a preventable, treatable disease, for the lack of drugs we can get in any pharmacy is not a cause…is it? No….that’s an emergency. 11 million AIDS orphans in Africa, 20 million by the end of the decade, that’s not a cause…that’s an emergency. Today, every day, 9 thousand more Africans will catch HIV, because of stigmatisation and lack of education, that’s not a cause…that’s an emergency. So what were talking about here is human rights. The right to live like a human. The right to live the period. What were facing in Africa is an unprecedented threat to human dignity and equality. The next thing I’d like to be clear about is what this problem is and what this problem isn’t. This is not all about charity, this is about justice. Really, this is not about charity, this is about justice. An thats too bad because were very good at charity, Americans, like Irish people are good at it. Even the poorest neighbourhoods give more than they can afford, we like to give and we give a lot. Look at the response to the Tsunami, its inspiring. But justice is a tougher standard than charity, you see, Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice, it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pioneering , it doubts our concern, it questions our commitment because there is no way we can look at what’s happening in Africa and if were honest conclude, that it would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else. Not here, not here, not in America, not in Europe, in fact a head of state that you are all familiar with admitted this to me. There is no chance this kind of haemorrhaging of human life would be accepted anywhere else other than Africa. Africa, is a continent in flames. And deep down, if we really accept it, that Africans are equal to us we would all do more to put the fire out. Were standing around with watering cans, when what we really need is the fire brigade. That’s what im trying to do tonight really, that’s why im speaking to you, im trying to call the fire brigade. Im asking for your help, im an Irish rock star in America, I love this country, I know my way around, but, I really need help here. This stuff isn’t even on the news. You see, its not as dramatic as the tsunami, its crazy really, if you think about it, does stuff have to look like an action movie these days to exist in the front of our brain. The slow extinguishing of countless lives is just not dramatic enough it would appear. Catastrophes that we can overt are not as interesting as ones we could overt. Funny that. Anyway, I believe that that kind of thinking offends the intellectual rigour in this room. 6,500 people dying a day in Africa maybe Africa’s crisis but the fact that its not on the nightly news, that we in Europe or you in America are not treating this like an emergency, I want to argue with you tonight that that’s our crisis. O.k I’d like to hard cut now from the moral imperative to the strategic. Because this is not all about heart we have to be smart here. I want to argue, that though Africa is not on the frontline in the war against terror- it could be soon. Every week religious extremists take another African village they’re attempting to bring order to chaos, well why aren’t we? Poverty breeds despair, we know this…despair breeds violence, we know this. In turbulent times isn’t it cheaper, and smarter to make friends out of potential enemies and defend yourself against the later- you might clap at that actually, I think that’s the point I’m trying to make here, isn’t it cheaper and smarter to, you know, make friends out of potential enemies, then defend yourself against them later? Well, the war against terror is bound up, than the war against poverty, and I didn’t say that. Colen Powell said that, now when the military are telling us that this is a war that can not be won by villagry mite alone, maybe we should listen, there’s an opportunity here, and its real its not spin, its not wishful thinking. The problems facing the developing world are, afford us in the developed world, a chance to re-describe ourselves to the world. We will not only transform other peoples lives we will change the way those other lives see us. That might be smart in these nervous, dangerous times. Ok, I’d like to, talk for a second about commerce, I know we’ve got some brainy corporate leaders in the room, don’t you think, that on a purely commercial level, that anti-retroviral rogues are great advertisements for western ingenuity and technology? Doesn’t compassion look well on us? Now, lets cut the crap for a second, in certain quarters of the world. Brand E.U brand USA, is not at its shiniest that the young sign is fizzing and cracking. Someones put a brick through the window, the regional branch managers are getting nervous. Never before, have we in the west been so scrutinized, our values, do we have any? Our credibility. These things are under attack, around the world. Brand USA could use some polishing , and I say that as a fan, you know, as a person who buys bthe products. But think about it, more anti-retrovirals, it makes sense. But that’s just the easy part , or ought to be. But, equality for Africa, that’s a big, expensive idea. You see the scale of the suffering numbs us into a kind of indifference. What on earth can we all do about this? Well, much more than we think, we cant fix every problem but the ones we can, I want to argue we must, and because we can, we must. This is the straight truth, the righteous truth it is not a theory, the fact is that ours is the first generation that can look disease and extreme poverty in the eye, look across the ocean to Africa and say this and mean it., we do not have to stand for this, a whole continent written off, we do not have to stand for this. History like, God, is watching what we do. When the history books get written I think our age will be remembered for three things, really its just three things this whole age will be remembered for, the digital revolution, yes. The war against terror, yes. And what we did or did not do to put out the fires in Africa. Some say we cant afford to, I say we cant afford not to. Thank You."

2005 TED Prize winner

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