There’s more than a week left until Thanksgiving, but everything smells like pine cones, Urban Outfitters is selling “tacky” Christmas sweaters and Mariah Carey is raking in another million dollars for a song she released two decades ago. Whether you like it or not, Christmastime is here.
One of the downsides of Christmas this year is that somebody, somewhere decided to bring back the god-awful do-gooder anthem, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”
Originally written and recorded in 1984, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” was a charity single meant to spread awareness of famine in Ethiopia. The song was subsequently rerecorded with stars in 1989 and 2004, with the latter’s proceeds going toward famine relief in the troubled region of Darfur, Sudan.
This year, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” showcases the fresh new faces of the British music scene, even including musicians featured on previous recordings. Some of these stars include newcomers Jessie Ware, Ed Sheeran, Ellie Goulding, One Direction and Rita Ora, while more established musicians like Bono and Chris Martin of Coldplay return.
The 30th anniversary version of the original recording, which debuted on iTunes yesterday, raises money to fight — you guessed it — the Ebola epidemic.
On one hand, I’m glad that the music industry has found a way to cash in on One Direction’s obnoxious popularity for charitable purposes.
But if you actually listen to the song, or even glance at the lyrics, there are a lot of problems.
For one, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” is responsible for the same mistake many people in the Western world make. It generalizes Africa, talking about it as if it were a small country or state. In reality, Africa is one of the most diverse continents in the world, with a vast range of religions, ethnicities and cultures.
And it’s important to add that, out of the three West African nations (Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea) that have been hit the hardest by Ebola, only one (Liberia) is majority Christian. So, the answer to the rhetorical “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” question is a resounding “no.” And if they do know, most of them have no reason to care.
Even for the Christians who do recognize Christmas, I doubt they celebrate the same capitalist, consumerist holiday that is Christmas in the Western world.
If you take a closer look at the lyrics, penned by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, you can find an inaccuracy in nearly every oversung line.
The lyric, “and there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmastime,” is simple proof that the songwriters must have fallen asleep during their basic climatology lessons. This line is false in two ways.
Firstly, it actually does snow at Christmastime in the part of Africa located in the northern hemisphere. Places like Morocco even have ski resorts. And for an extra twist, the section of Africa that’s in the southern hemisphere won’t have snow in December because, like Australia, summer is just now starting.
And what about places like New Orleans or Miami, where it’s an accepted fact that we will probably never see snow in our backyards? Why isn’t there a song called “Do The Cajuns Know It’s Christmas?”
Besides some outright fallacies, the song contains some really blatant racism and exceptionalism.
Take for instance the incredibly offensive lines, “But say a prayer / Pray for the other ones” and “Well, tonight, thank God it’s them, instead of you.”
The “other ones?” Right, because there are no suffering, starving or oppressed people in America or the United Kingdom. With poverty rates of 14.5 and 23.2 percent respectively, America and the U.K. aren’t exactly strangers to suffering.
And as for the “thank God it’s them” line, is this song honestly encouraging listeners to engage in a twisted feeling of schadenfreude? Aren’t you so glad that you’re the oppressor and not the oppressed? Wasn’t it cool when we colonized Africa and then started the trade of actual human beings in order to build our fortunes for the very low price of nothing?
All of these are better rhetorical questions than “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”
SidneyRose Reynen is a 19-year-old art history and film and media arts sophomore from New Orleans, Louisiana. You can reach her on Twitter @sidneyrose_TDR.