The maturation of Bono? Who’d have thunk it? Time does a nice piece on Bono’s Africa advocacy, which is less posturing emotionalism than you might imagine:

‘I know how absurd it is to have a rock star talk about the World Health Organization or debt relief or HIV/AIDS in Africa,’ Bono says. But he also knows that no one else with his kind of access to media and money has taken on the job. In an effort to keep the discussion serious and avoid the appearance of being just another rocker against bad things, he refrains from treating Africa as an emotional issue. ‘We don’t argue compassion,’ he says. His argument is pragmatic, not preachy. ‘We put it in the most crass terms possible; we argue it as a financial and security issue for America … There are potentially another 10 Afghanistans in Africa, and it is cheaper by a factor of 100 to prevent the fires from happening than to put them out.’

The DATA Agenda is loosely modeled on the Marshall Plan, which provided Europeans with foreign assistance, debt cancellation and trade incentives to rebuild their economies after World War II, so that they could act as a bulwark against Soviet expansion. When Bono met with Colin Powell in January 2001, he brought a gift, a signed note from George C. Marshall, another military man turned Secretary of State. The rock star turns lyrical when talking about the Marshall Plan: ‘You still find people my parents’ age in Europe who talk about the Marshall Plan. That was where Europe felt the grace of America, in a way more than just stepping in with its military might.’ Bono wants his vision for Africa to be as effective and as enduring for future generations as the Marshall Plan was for earlier ones. ‘Can we do something that people will be proud of in generations?’ he asks.

Essentially, the aims of Bono’s DATA agenda is to “get the U.S. and other wealthy nations, as well as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, to erase the public debt of 52 of the world’s poorest countries, most of them in Africa. By wiping $350 billion from their books, these countries would be free to spend money on health care and education, rather than pay down the principal on loans floated by corrupt and sometimes long-gone governments.”

Interested in a real mindscramble? Just for fun, compare Bono’s vision of the United State’s role vis-a-vis Africa with Jonah Goldberg’s neo-colonial neocon vision from these two successive NRO columns, “A Continent Bleeds” (from May 3, ’00) and “Jonah Golberg’s African Invasion” (from May 10). Once you’ve finished, place Bono on the political continuum, using Jonah Goldberg as your fixed point on the right…

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