Let the Dáil unite behind Bob and Bono for the Nobel Peace Prize

WHEN the Dáil comes back from the summer recess, on September 28, its first order of business should be to nominate an Irish citizen or two for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Since these nominations are formal affairs, the Irish citizens I have in mind would have their names inscribed on the nomination papers as Mr Paul Hewson and Sir Robert Geldof.

It's a simple enough procedure. Starting in September, the awarding committee (a group of five individuals nominated by the Norwegian Parliament) sends out letters to those entitled to nominate. They include parliaments and governments, together with a range of other groups and individuals.

The Government, in other words, could make the nomination. It would be far more powerful if Dáil Éireann, so often necessarily divided, could unite around this one thing, and put forward the names of two people who have led a worldwide human rights campaign the like of which we have never before seen.

By the time this week's G8 summit is over, these two Irish citizens, ordinary men who have built extraordinary careers, could have changed the world. Not as much as they would wish, perhaps, and not in a way that will endure if their campaigning stops. But they have forced the great powers of the world to listen to a campaign for human rights in a way that is entirely unprecedented in modern history.

And they have done so in the face of that peculiarly Irish characteristic, begrudgery. All through last week I listened to commentators and broadcasters sneering at Bono and Geldof. The Live 8 concerts at the weekend were attacked as a vehicle for pop stars, some of them clapped out, to rebuild their careers on the backs of Africa's poor. Texters to a variety of radio programmes were invited to phone in messages of derision about Bono in particular, and every opportunity was taken to make fun of the man and the work he was trying to do.

You almost got a sense that Bono and Geldof, both very rich and famous men, somehow needed the publicity, as if the Live 8 campaign was in some way an advertising medium for the current U2 tour. How this could be so, given that the tour is already sold out in every country it is visiting, is a bit of a mystery.

I heard John Waters, the Irish Times columnist, saying on radio that there was something obscene about the whole thing, something obscene about the way rock stars were being invited to draw attention to a human rights tragedy of immense and unparalleled proportions.

Something obscene? Surely the only obscenity would be to know what is going on and not try to do something about it. Surely there's at least a tiny element of obscenity in using it as an occasion to belittle.

It's not just here that they have been attacked. A columnist in one of Britain's leading newspapers, the Guardian, attacked them because they welcomed the progress made so far in the preparations for the G8 summit. According to this argument, the promises of debt relief made so far have too much conditionality attached to them, and rather than welcoming that measure of relief, Bono and Geldof should have attacked the finance ministers of the G8 for attaching any conditions to debt relief at all.

Some of the conditions likely to be attached by the G8 leaders I would have no difficulty with at all especially if it means that countries reaching for a more democratic future get more help.

Others, like the demand for 'economic liberalisation,' are dangerous and should be resisted. If the G8 leaders announce that they are willing to give to the poorest nations in the world with one hand, and take back with the other, all that means is that the campaign will have to go on.

Bono and Geldof know that. They know too that for as long as they are campaigning on this issue, they will have to hold hands with people they don't like. Nobody could seriously believe that Bono, for instance, shares any of the political views and outlook of George W Bush. But for as long as George W is in a position to save lives, to deliver resources that will combat HIV/AIDS or malaria, Bono is going to seek to work with him.

THAT'S what peace-makers do. It was Shimon Peres, I think, who said there is no difficulty, and no point, in making peace with your friends. You make peace with your enemies. And if your enemy is hunger and oppression, you swallow hard and work with the people who can deliver an end to that. And you keep going, no matter how much you're derided or sneered at, until it really is an end. You pocket every bit of relief that is delivered, you say thanks, and you start planning the next phase of the campaign.

The Make Poverty History campaign, a coalition of groups and individuals whose aims Bono and Geldof are aiming to implement, makes it clear that, as they say themselves, "it isn't chance or bad luck that keeps people trapped in bitter, unrelenting poverty. It's man-made factors like a glaringly unjust global trade system, a debt burden so great that it suffocates any chance of recovery and insufficient and ineffective aid."

Everything they do, everything they say, acknowledges the fact that debt relief isn't enough, though it may be a start. More direct aid isn't enough either. A better and fairer balance of trade isn't enough. This campaign won't end, because the injustice won't end, until all three aims are accomplished more aid, fair trade and an end to the crippling debt that has robbed the poorest countries in the world of any chance of self-sufficiency or economic growth and development.

I haven't been to Africa. I haven't seen the shaming sights that others have seen, or lived in the squalor that others have experienced. I haven't held a dying baby in my arms or watched a mother weep in helpless agony. I've never met anyone suffering to the point of death with Aids, or felt the pangs of terminal hunger. I live here, in a country where all these things are alien to our experience. Children suffer here, too, and that's a scandal in itself.

But we have more than enough resources to end that scandal, and more than enough to make a real contribution to ending the oppression of the poorest of the poor.

We've promised to do it, of course, in relation to the UN aid target, and we've broken that promise. There are signs now that our government has been pressured into regretting its breach of faith with the world's poor. If they change their minds again, and reinstate the commitment to meet the UN target, that will be another achievement for Geldof and Bono. They have seen the pain and loss, and they have studied the causes. And if they were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, they would use it to drive the campaign on. Could there be a better reason for giving it to them?