The teenage face of Bush and Blair (by Daniel Ben-Ami)

It seems like the authentic voice of a teenage girl confronting
the sudden recognition of the terrible scourge of world poverty. From
her bedroom Lonelygirl15, also known as Bree, tells anyone who is
prepared to watch her online video about her shocking discovery:
‘Believe it or not, I actually have something important to tell you
about today. And, for once, it’s not me.’ (1)

She goes on to recite some of the grimmest statistics on global poverty
and inequality. Almost half the world’s population lives on less than
$2 a day, 20 per cent of the world’s population consumes 86 per cent of
its resources, every three seconds a child dies of poverty. The viewer
is led to assume that a friend is filming her or perhaps she is even
recording herself.

But on closer examination there is something odd about the video.
The solutions she supports are exactly those promoted by campaigns such
as Make Poverty History and by Western governments: debt cancellation,
more and better aid, fair trade. Strange that a teenage girl should
spontaneously devise solutions that are identical to those promoted by
the world’s leaders (2). Also the production values of the video look a
little too sophisticated for even the most tech-savvy teenager. At the
end of the video the web address www.millenniumcampaign.org flashes up on the screen (3).

In fact the video is about as authentic as teen dramas such as One Tree Hill and The OC.
It was made by Y&R, one of the world’s largest advertising
agencies, on behalf of the United Nations (4). The UN decided to use a
character who was already a teenage phenomenon to promote its Stand
Against Poverty campaign. (For more on LonelyGirl15 and other internet
fakery, see MyScam: The PR puff behind ‘internet stars’
by Emily Hill.) It apparently figured that by using popular websites
such as YouTube and MySpace, as well as a television campaign, it could
win support among young people.

The immediate aim of the Lonelygirl15 poverty campaign is to get
people to stand up – literally – against world poverty. Last weekend
the UN’s Millennium Campaign asked people to stand as a gesture of
support for the official Millennium Development Goals.  These are
official targets, endorsed by world leaders in 2000, aimed at reducing
world poverty eg, reducing by half the proportion of the world’s
population living on less than one dollar a day in 2015 compared with
1990 levels. (5)

The lack of ambitions embodied in these goals has already been criticised in a number of articles on spiked
(6). For instance, even if the first goal were achieved it would mean
hundreds of millions of people would still be living on less than a
dollar a day in 2015. There would also be many more just above the one
dollar threshold. Make Poverty History – which essentially aims to win
popular support for these goals – is not about making poverty history
in the true sense of the term. At best, it supports reducing the worst
aspects of poverty for the world’s poorest over a relatively long time
period. Such reductions would probably come about in any case, as a
result of economic growth, without any intervention from politicians.

With the benefit of hindsight it is possible to see a pattern
emerging in relation to all these campaigns. Stand Against Poverty,
Make Poverty History and Bono’s Product RED campaign have several
features in common (7)

For a start all of them involve minimal effort on behalf of
supporters of the campaigns. What is regarded as important is making a
visible gesture rather than confronting adversity, attempting to
understand the causes of poverty or even donating money. For Make
Poverty History it was the white plastic wristband. For Stand Up
Against Poverty it was getting to your feet. And for Product Red the
key is to shop ‘ethically’: either using an Amex RED credit card or
buying goods approved by Bono. (Admittedly for some celebrities it
takes a more ostentatious gesture. Angelina Jolie and Madonna have led
the way with the adoption of little black babies (8)).

Such campaigns appeal to an amorphous sense of goodness among the
participants. Those who support such campaigns seem desperate to
demonstrate that they are morally correct individuals. In this sense
the white wristband or standing up is an expression of piety. It can
almost be seen as a form of religion-lite for the early twenty-first
century.

The supposed beneficiaries of such campaigns, the poor of the third
world and especially Africa, hardly figure except as victims. There is
no shortage of statistics about how the poorest of the poor suffer as a
result of extreme poverty – and of course they do. But the possibility
that Africans might have the capacity to make their own history or
transform their own societies is not considered. In fact, the goal of
raising Africa’s standard of living to that enjoyed in the West would
be seen as undesirable by most of today’s anti-poverty campaigners.
They would use environmental and other reasons as excuses to deny
Africans the right to decent living standards.

Finally, although they present themselves as grassroots campaigns
they are all dictated from above. The ideas and demands put forward
were all endorsed by world leaders before being presented to the
general public. The Millennium Development Goals are the product of
discussions among the world’s most powerful leaders rather than the
world’s poor. Pop stars such as Bono and teen characters such as
Lonelygirl15 are used as ways to sell these ideas to the public in an
age of extreme cynicism towards politicians.

For the world’s leaders the attraction of such campaigns is
two-fold. They help provide them with a sense of purpose. It is
possible for political leaders to feel as though they are doing
something meaningful when they generally lack any direction. In
addition, they can feel they are somehow connected to mass of the
population, including young people, at a time when they feel
particularly isolated.

Despite the teenage face, Lonelygirl15 is only a puppet. The words
she speaks in her anti-poverty videos are not hers but those officially
sanctioned by the world’s leaders. The real voices behind the face are
those of George W Bush and Tony Blair.