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By Tracey Hackett, Contributing Editor
2007.7
Just because it’s a small book, don’t assume it’s insignificant.
Bono’s On the Move published last year by Thomas Nelson’s W Publishing Group, is slightly larger than a compact disc jewel case, but its message is a powerful appeal to the Western world to continue battling poverty, disease and debt in Africa.
Its message — originally presented as a speech to political and religious leaders at last year’s National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. — is contrasted with portraits of African people taken by the U2 lead singer on his first visit to the continent in 1986.
Whether readers respond to the singer’s humanitarian philosophies with idealized inspiration or skeptical cynicism, it’s not the who or the where of the book, however, that ultimately makes it important — it’s the what.
Its message of hope in humanity carries a far greater significance than the occasion for the speech or its celebrity presenter.
On the Move reminds readers that the way to grace is through action that leads to justice.
“Most will agree that if there is a God, God has a special place for the poor. In fact, the poor are where God lives,” Bono says.
His talent as a songwriter also surfaces in the speech, lending a lyrical, almost poetic perspective to the idea of finding God in the poor.
“God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house,” Bono says. “God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them.”
Bono’s African photographs, which mostly consist of humble portraits of children engaged in simple daily activities, give a visual representation to the concept of finding God in the poor and help readers feel as if they “are with them.”
There’s an image of a little girl who, at first glance, seems to be giving a shy, uncertain smile to the unfamiliar lens of the camera, but at second glance, she might instead be crying. There’s a little boy in tattered clothing who Bono says changed his life, although the singer admits to being unable to remember the child’s name. There are pictures of smiling, laughing children playing in the dirt, and one of a serious boy at a well, filling a jug with water. And there’s a portrait of a child staring solemnly into the camera as the protective hands of a guardian lovingly cup the child’s chin.
Each countenance, with its beseeching eyes or exuberant smile, reveals a truth and an honesty that helps to put human faces on a staggering statistic.
The number of African people who die each month from AIDS is more than 150,000 — the number of people who where killed by a tsunami early last year in Southeast Asia.
Bono calls the dire conditions in Africa “a tsunami every month” that is a “completely avoidable catastrophe.”
He reminds Christians that “the only time Christ is judgmental is on the subject of the poor,” and Bono references the Gospel of Matthew 25:40 to illustrate his point. “As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.”
It’s not a coincidence or an accident, he says, that poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times in the Scriptures. It’s an emphasis.
But helping to alleviate such poverty and the often inescapable disadvantages it creates is not a directive limited to Christianity.
“Check Judaism. Check Islam. Check pretty much anyone,” he says.
In fact, he concludes, the pursuit of justice needed to remedy the poverty, disease and debt in Africa is as much a secular issue to the Western world as it is spiritual because “history, like God, is watching what we do.”
In addition to its haunting images and soulful message, however, perhaps the most important thing about the book is that each volume purchased contributes positive and direct assistance to the situation in Africa.
That’s because all royalties from the sale of On the Move are being donated to the One grassroots campaign to help make Africa’s poverty history. For more information about the organization, visit its web site at (LINK HERE: To view this link you must Register. If you're already a member, Login Here!)
That feature alone could be reason enough for readers to keep copies of the book “on the move” for some time.
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Published on
07-05-2007 at 06:03 AM |
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07-05-2007 03:39 PM -
will try and hunt down a copy, cheers!
