Make Wristbands History

The charity wristband phenomenon has arrived in Romania. I was in a restaurant earlier this week and the otherwise charming, attentive young waitress blew her chance of a decent tip by wearing a green charity wristband. I couldn”t get close enough to see exactly what the embossed writing on the wristband said, so I looked it up when I got home: a green wristband is apparently a sign of support for World Orphan Week (WOW). A noble cause I am sure (although why we should be concerned about orphans just for a week and not the whole time is a question I would like to ask its organisers), but is it any more noble than the tens of other causes now jumping on the wristband bandwagon? And does my failure to sport a green wristband mean that I don”t support the rights of orphans, either for a week or longer?

The whole wristband phenomenon began in May last year when cyclist Lance Armstrong (who I refuse to refer to as ?”the greatest cyclist ever”, for he isn”t, seven Tours de France or not) began wearing a yellow wristband to promote his Lance Armstrong Foundation for testicular cancer research. The yellow bands (produced by that global leader of ethics Nike) were embossed with the ungrammatical word Livestrong. More than 20 million bands were sold in six months.

Since then, just about every charity on earth has launched its own wristband. The number of colours and causes available is mind numbing. You can have orange (Teenagers Against Smoking), purple (Celebrate Hope – Victims of Cancer), red (AIDS), black and white (Anti-Racism), yellow (Support the Troops or Livestrong), light blue (Tsunami Relief), dark blue (Anti-Bullying), pink (Breast Cancer), blue and green (Anti-Bigotry) and of course white (Make Poverty History). Wherever there”s a victim it seems, there is a sucker ready to buy a wristband.

The wristbands are supposed to raise awareness for the various causes they promote. Certainly, in the case of the young waitress the ploy worked: I had no idea that there was such a thing as World Orphan Week; I saw the wristband, looked up the colour and there you go, WOW has another convert to its cause. Well, no, actually. I might now know what WOW is, but I haven”t donated any money to it, I haven”t given up my job and gone to Africa to work with orphans, and I haven”t adopted an orphan either. I certainly haven”t rushed out to buy a WOW wristband. Net result for the WOW people? Zero.

Wristbands are in fact little more than moral fashion statements that serve two convenient purposes: firstly, they define someone by association as being compassionate and caring (and by non-association anyone not wearing a wristband must be heartless); secondly they replace the need for proper debate, discussion and promotion of honourable causes. Wearing a wristband is not a means to an end, it is an end in itself. Columnist Mick Hume wrote in the The Times last month that wristbands are “both a symptom and a symbol of our culture of conspicuous compassion (?”I feel, therefore I am good”), competitive compassion (?”I care more than you do”) and compulsory compassion (?”support this anti-bullying campaign – or else”).”

The website of the American Cancer Society (www.cancer.org) claims that wearing an orange ?”Livefree. Smokefree” wristband can “help us spread awareness about the benefits of living a healthy, smokefree life and share them with friends and family to encourage them to kick the habit. If you want to encourage others to stop smoking this band says it all.” Interesting idea that: A committed smoker (who may enjoy his perfectly legal pastime) is likely to quit after seeing his teenage daughter wearing a wristband, no discussion necessary. Likewise, the idea that middle class liberals in Europe and America wearing white Make Poverty History wristbands will solve all of Africa”s problems is similarly ludicrous.

Yet the most ludicrous idea of all is that awareness of a cause or a problem is worth anything other than nothing. When I was a teenager the fashionable causes of the day were the British mining industry and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). Millions of misguided fools who genuinely believed that coal had a future wore ?”Coal not Dole” badges. (In those days badges were worn in place of wristbands). Millions more wore ?”CND” badges. End result? Britain”s coal industry was all but destroyed (and rightly so), and the world still has nuclear weapons (and is a safer place for them). I would have thought that the same liberal minds who wore those badges would have realised by now that you can”t change the world by wearing your heart on your sleeve. You actually have to do something. Want to help orphans? Adopt one. Orphans need parents, not wristbands. Africa needs better government and strict family planning controls. The American Cancer Society needs a bottomless pit of cash. School bullies need a good hiding from their parents. Wristbands? Who needs them?

* Craig Turp is the publisher of In Your Pocket City Guides