New York offered itself Saturday, September 24 a giant charity concert for the climate and against poverty by scrolling a dozen stars, from Metallica to Mariah Carey, and international leaders like Ursula von der Leyen and, via a video, the Biden couple.
Behind this event, which has been held every year for ten years at the end of the UN General Assembly, we find the philanthropic NGO Global Citizen, an international digital platform created by the Australian Hugh Evans and which wants to bring together “global citizens” aware of the scourges of famine, underdevelopment, climate change or discrimination.
To win a ticket to Central Park – the immense green lung of Manhattan – you had to register on the Global Citizen site, sign petitions and relay messages on social networks in order to put pressure on the political and economic leaders of the planet.
President Joe Biden and his wife Jill assured in a video message that the United States is committed to the “fight” for the climate and this summer adopted a law comprising 369 billion dollars in investments for “improve health, advance justice and build clean energy”.
The two leaders of the Democratic majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, came on stage in person to defend Washington’s environmental policy.
Before them, the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen was also at the concert in Central Park to tell the “citizens of the world (that she had heard them)”. “We must put an end to famines (…) Europe is mobilizing 600 million euros for food security in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific”she assured.
But after five hours of mini-concerts and consensual messages from political leaders and American corporate sponsors of the festival, it took the power of the metal sound of the legendary hard rock band Metallica to animate the thousands of fans gathered in Central Park. The nearly 60-year-old Californians delighted their audience for an hour with a version of their legendary title Nothing Else Matters sung by Mickey Guyton, who claims the title of America’s first black country music artist.
the Global Citizen Festival also vibrated thanks to the dynamic young Italian rockers of the Maneskin group and the New Yorkers of the Jonas Brothers, one of whose three brothers is married to the star of Indian Bollywood cinema, Priyanka Chopra, mistress of the ceremony in Central Park.
World-renowned New York pop artist Mariah Carey gave an uplifting version of her classic Heroaccompanied by classical dancer Misty Copeland.
Between two mini-concerts, political and economic leaders took turns on stage. The Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley relayed the alarmist messages of her counterparts from small Pacific and Caribbean countries threatened by global warming, which they hammered home all week at the UN. “Yes, my friends, our time is running out”she warned.
Violence against women has also been denounced: an Iranian refugee lawyer in Berlin, Anuscheh Amir-Khalili, spoke on stage of the death in Iran of the young Masha Amini arrested by the morality police, triggering demonstrations and their repression. “I saw my sisters forced to flee aggression, oppression and feminicide all over the world (…) We must carry the voice of oppressed women”, she launched, looking serious, to applause.