First there had been an emotion-charged meeting arranged by my paper with then British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Bob Geldof who were both in Addis Ababa for a Commission for Africa (CFA) summit. Then The Sun’s Editor, Dominic Mohan, had come up with the idea of re-recording the Band Aid single ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ two decades after its original release. When I suggested it to Geldof, he batted straight back: ‘Only if you fucking organize it.’
The Sun subsequently flew Birhan to London for the recording in November 2004. Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney, U2’s Bono and Coldplay’s Chris Martin either sang or played. Birhan’s retelling of her heart-rending story as the symbol of Live Aid helped push the song to Number One in the British charts and raised £3 million for Africa. It was also a factor in pushing Geldof and others to organize the ‘Greatest Show on Earth’, the Live 8 concerts in 2005.
I was with Birhan and her friend and mentor Bisrat throughout the Band Aid re-recording and Live 8. They both became good friends. Birhan was born in a mud-walled hut into a subsistence-farming world that had changed little in millennia. The glitzy pop world was naturally an acute culture shock to her. With all the pride and dignity of her people, she remained wonderfully unaffected by all the razzmatazz. Slowly Birhan’s confidence grew. Over time she began to confide the horrors of her early life and the joys that would later come. Our families met and became friends. In 2007 I took my mother, Sue, on holiday to Tigray to meet Birhan’s family. My late mum, who owned a smallholding in Devon, spent hours discussing the finer points of cattle rearing with Woldu. In December 2009, Birhan asked me if I would write her life story for The Sun. When I suggested it would be better served as a book, she readily agreed. All author’s profits will be split equally between Birhan and the charity that supported her, the African Children’s Educational Trust (A-CET).
During the long hours of interviews and research in Ethiopia for this book, Birhan and her father Woldu have been incredibly generous with their time and hospitality. Both discussed family bereavements and harrowing events that they had sometimes not spoken about since the days of the famine. They always remained cheery and unfailing hosts. There was an endless stream of the world’s best coffee and Woldu always made sure he sent me home with a huge pot of wonderful Tigrayan honey. I was also privileged enough to spend an Ethiopian Christmas Day at the family home. Birhan’s stepmother, Letebirhan, and sisters, Lemlem and Silas, were also extremely patient and helpful when interviewed. Birhan’s fiancé, Birhanu, was equally welcoming. They remain an amazingly close, extended African family, all completely unchanged by the global attention Birhan has received.
I found out much of the family’s latter good fortune was down to the distinguished Canadian journalist Brian Stewart. His crew from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) had originally filmed Birhan when she was close to death. Brian was a reporter who didn’t forget the horrors he witnessed when he reached the comforts of home. He later returned to Ethiopia and made sure Birhan and her siblings had schooling and the family a decent home. Brian’s flurry of transatlantic emails for this book were astonishing in their detail and candour. Birhan’s story is thus Brian’s too. The family say they owe him everything and a large photograph of Brian has pride of place on Woldu’s eucalyptus-wood chest of drawers. Brian’s former CBC colleague Colin Dean, with him in Ethiopia in 1984, and CBC News Senior Political Correspondent Terry Milewski also provided valuable insight.
The day after I first interviewed Birhan in October 2004, I discovered through both Anthony and expat gossip in Addis that Bob Geldof was travelling in a remote part of western Ethiopia. Thumbing through the Lonely Planet guidebook I found the most likely hotel he would be staying in. The receptionist confirmed that they did indeed have a Mr Geldof staying there who was having a shower after a long day on the road. ‘How the fuck did you find me?’ was Geldof’s startled response when I got hold of him. I waited for him to use another expletive-ridden expression when asked for an interview. Instead, he proceeded to rattle through the Band Aid story, providing reams of headline-grabbing quotes, while barely drawing breath.
When Geldof and Birhan met for the first time just days later it was a special moment for both of them. Live Aid bound them together. Birhan’s vitality and promise encapsulated everything that he had been banging his fist about for 20 years. And Africa keeps calling him back. Travelling in his adored Ethiopia, he is a force to be reckoned with – sometimes tearful at what he witnesses, at other times seething with rage at his inability to get things done quicker. He’s never, ever sanctimonious and his knowledge of the aid business is now extraordinary. It has to be. The media is waiting, licking its lips, for him to slip up. Yet, I believe his mass-mobilization of public support for Africa will see him come to be recognized as one of the most significant public figures of the late 20th century.
Geldof called Birhan the ‘Daughter of Live Aid’ and Birhan loves him, she says, as another father. His wonderful foreword to this book is greatly appreciated.
Snappy-dressing, 30-something famine survivor Bisrat Mesfin and grey-haired former British Army officer David Stables are an unlikely double act, but together they run A-CET, a small charity that provides education for vulnerable Ethiopian children. The results are astonishing: graduates include a doctor, a human rights lawyer, a systems analyst and a human biologist. One A-CET pupil, Sammy Assefa, made it to Britain’s Sangar Institute in Cambridge to carry out vital PhD research into mosquitoes to combat the scourge of malaria. Both Bisrat and David have been astonishing in their support since 2004. Bisrat was at Birhan’s side throughout her journey, which culminated in Live 8. He provided the translation during interviews from Ethiopian languages Tigrinya and Amharic for this book. Although Birhan’s English is now reasonable, for many of our conversations she found it easier to speak in her native Tigrinya.
There is no literal translation from the Tigrinya and Amharic script to English. ‘Mekele’ can be spelt ‘Mek’ele’, ‘Makele’, ‘Makale’, ‘Mekelle’, and so on. I have tried in this book to use the most commonly used form or, for names, the spelling Birhan’s own family prefers. Dates and times have been converted into their Western forms.
My Editors at The Sun, Rebekah Brooks, now Chief Executive of the paper’s parent company News International, and Dominic Mohan, have been incredibly supportive. They have consistently commissioned me to write development features from Somalia to Sierra Leone and many nations in between.
The Sun’s legendary Royal Photographer Arthur Edwards accompanied me to Ethiopia when I first met Birhan and was a constant source of shrewd journalistic advice and ready wit. He also provided some wonderful pictures for the book as did his son Paul, also a Sun photographer. My brother, Giles Harvey, also helped with processing pictures and my partner, Karen Lee, spent many hours transcribing interviews. I’d also like to thanks Sun colleague Sharon Hendry for introducing me to New Holland and my publisher Aruna Vasudevan for her insight and patience as deadlines loomed.
Birhan is desperately proud of her homeland and its unique culture. She wishes Ethiopia was known in the West for more than just famine. Today, she works tirelessly to end poverty and suffering in Ethiopia. Her mother, Alemetsehay, and sister, Azmera, died in the famines of the 1980s. Birhan would like to make sure they, and the countless others who perished in those dark days, are never forgotten.
–Oliver Harvey, Castle Hotel, Mekele, May 2011
PROLOGUE
BIRHAN WOLDU STARED with wonder at the teeming mass of humanity stretching as far as her eyes could see. From her position high in the wings of the huge Live 8 stage the people seemed all jumbled together on the cropped grass of Hyde Park. Just their little heads and