When George Negus mentioned to various folk that Dateline scored an interview with Annie Lennox, without exception the reaction was the same - "Lucky you!" People were immediately interested to hear about her dual lifelong passions of music and humanitarian issues, things like the impact of HIV-AIDS on women and kids in South Africa.

ANNIE LENNOX: I can hardly talk because I'm right here, beside the reality of the HIV-AIDS situation where you can buy coffins, uh, right off the shelf.

But her good intentions aside, the outspoken British pop diva also has her detractors. Earlier this year, she was savaged for her public condemnation of the Israeli offensive in Gaza.

ANNIE LENNOX: We call on the ministers of all nations to please take responsibility. Speak out! Demand an immediate and absolute cease-fire now!

Well, Annie and George Negus sat down together last week in Melbourne, just before she headlined the TV Logie Awards.

 

 

 

 

GEORGE NEGUS: Annie, I thought I'd better explain first up that I am musically challenged.

 

ANNIE LENNOX: Is that so? I could tell from the first moment I set eyes on you.

 

GEORGE NEGUS: Children run screaming from the room if I try to sing. That's how bad it is. But I am an international political journalist, and to be honest, I love your music, but I am really interested in the other part of Annie Lennox. But I would like to talk about your music because you are loved and admired by so many people and what I find interesting about you - quite the opposite by others because of your outspoken ways - but how do you feel, do you feel your life is dichotomous?

 

ANNIE LENNOX: Well, in actual fact I think all our lives are dichotomous and polarised depending on whatever circumstance we are in. And of course it tends to get the little more heightened if you are a person in the public view and you are putting out your work and you are communicating, you will be loved by some and you will be loathed by some, and you personally have to walk that middle line between both things understanding you have to have your own sense of self-value, because if you try to please everyone, you never can.

 

GEORGE NEGUS:  Let me try and link your music and your activism. The album 'Annie Lenox - Songs of Mass Destruction' is not exactly a top-40-type title for an album, is it?

 

ANNIE LENNOX: It is a loaded title, and I guess, you know living in this planet as we all do, and observing the madness that goes on around us - politically, socially, economically, environmentally - one has the sense of tremendous despair, impotency, rage, frustration. I, for one, as a sensitive human being and as a mother and as a parent, looking around me, I just feel sometimes overwhelmed by the things that go on that you just think - how can people do X, Y, or Z to each other? Why can't this planet be a little bit more kind? Why can't it be a bit more wise?

 

GEORGE NEGUS: Do you sometimes get the feeling that it's just a filthy rumour that the human race is intelligent?

 

ANNIE LENNOX: That's an interesting rumour. The thing is that at the time that the American troops went in to Iraq, and then the British troops swiftly followed, I was kind of appalled. We were given these excuses - "0h, there are weapons of mass destruction." And a few months later we discovered there were no weapons of mass destruction. It was a bare-faced lie. And it was their good excuse to fool us with a smokescreen. I felt really immensely conned and betrayed and I was raging because I felt for the people, those citizens of Iraq.

 

GEORGE NEGUS: I am a bit confused because all the stuff, the blurbs, talks about you as a dark person, a melancholic person, but we have been laughing our heads off about really quite serious things. What is wrong with us? Did you take your happy pills today, or what?

 

ANNIE LENNOX: Well, you see, you said you read a mountain of stuff about me, but you actually haven't met me until this moment. That's true, it makes a big difference, doesn't it? Many changes happen to an individual. I have been living a life that nobody knows about because it is my life. The bits of my life that people get some sense of - what is written about...

 

GEORGE NEGUS:  Why does the word 'dark' keep coming up? You acknowledge it.

 

ANNIE LENNOX:  I do, absolutely. Because I think the world, as I said to you earlier, what I have understood of it, is that we live in a dualistic existence - opposites co-exist. For a very, very long time, for most of my life actually, I think I drew a lot of my inspiration, musically and artistically, from that darkness. A lot of artistic people are drawn to that. And I don't mean about the dark practices - I just mean negativity generally.

 

GEORGE NEGUS: The black dog?

 

ANNIE LENNOX: The black dog. We all have to fight against it because it is very, very easy to become despondent. It's much harder, I think, to actually find a peace within oneself living in this existence that is - I mean, you know, I get disturbed when I see weapons being indiscriminately pointed at children and then I see their little bodies blown to pieces. That doesn't sit well with me.

 

GEORGE NEGUS: Is it possible that your music is the 'light' for you? That the lyrics are dark quite often but the actual music itself is anything but dark - it's beautiful. Sometimes it's very rock and roll.

 

ANNIE LENNOX: It can be all kinds of things. Music is such a fantastic resource, you know. For me, it's a means of expression, and that was always the thing that drew me to music. Even when I was a little girl, to sing was an immense source of joy for me, and still is. Just to sing, I don't have to have an audience, I can sing walking down the street. A melody makes me feel good. That's the intrinsic nature of music - there is a feel-good factor involved in it. Also it's an international language, it crosses through all sorts of cultural barriers.

 

GEORGE NEGUS:  It's also a case of buying an album is a lot cheaper than going to a shrink, isn't it?

 

ANNIE LENNOX:  Well, I don't think it's a substitute.

 

GEORGE NEGUS: Can we talk about the celebrity activism which has become almost an international debate, that people like yourself, Bob Geldof, Bono, the Dixie Chicks, Angelina Jolie, that you're using your status and your celebrity, as it were, to push causes as though you don't have a right to do that. In fact, people like you have been described by one British politician as "mad, bad and sad". You must react to that.

 

ANNIE LENNOX: I have reacted to that and I have thought about it and I have thought, well, there's always the negative, there's always somebody who is going to be very negative about that. So that's not going to stop me doing what I do. Because I see that it makes a difference and that's what I am about doing. I have a platform. I don't necessarily want to push anything on anybody. If they are interested, and they want to listen to me, fantastic.

 

GEORGE NEGUS: They have right to say you are talking rubbish.

 

ANNIE LENNOX: They have a right to say I am talking rubbish. They can say anything they want. They can also, if they are interested, they can give me their time, if not, that's fine.

 

GEORGE NEGUS: Is it the HIV-AIDS awareness campaign with women and children in South Africa that is your preoccupying thing at the moment, or the Middle East, because you have been savaged by the Israeli media over your comments about Gaza? You were involved with the Make Poverty History, Nelson Mandela's Foundation, you are involved in so many things.

 

ANNIE LENNOX:  The thing is this, you know, I look at the planet and I see endless issues and problems and they look insurmountable in many instances. And I think our whole main thrust of the issue nowadays, right here and now, is sustainability. How can we make the planet a safe place to live in in terms of our ecology? Do we have a future? Do our children have a future? Do our grandchildren even have a future? Is it too late? All of these questions are burning issues of the time. I am very interested in information. I am interested in the planet in general.

 

GEORGE NEGUS: You are obviously well-read, you are worldly, you are intelligent, you are articulate, so why do people - usually people who disagree with you, by the way - why do they want to say what the hell would Annie Lennox know about these things? Bob Geldof and Bono get the same thing.

 

ANNIE LENNOX: People do, people do, it's a very negative reaction. They always will. Let's go back to HIV-AIDS and how I came to encounter this situation of the African HIV pandemic. It goes back a few years actually. I was invited to take part in Nelson Mandela's 46664 campaign and it was launched in 2003 in Cape Town, in South Africa. Now Dave Stewart and I had been anti-apartheid supporters back in the day, and we had actually taken part in a huge concert at Wembley Stadium in 1987 while Mandela was still incarcerated on Robben Island. And I think that concert was one of the contributing points towards the tipping point of raising his global profile. And raising the profile to say, at that point in time, "You know what, apartheid is repugnant. We don't want it. We, the young generation, we will not accept apartheid." And it was as if there was a turn in the atmosphere. I remember it.

 

GEORGE NEGUS: It was one of those moments?

 

ANNIE LENNOX: Yes, it was. And I mean, what a miracle that Mandela survived 27 years of incarceration, walked out of prison as a rather elderly man in his 70s, ultimately to become president and to prevent the bloodbath of civil war taking place in his own country. Then, the double twist, is that all the artists were invited after the concert to witness Mandela speaking on Robben Island. He stood in front of his former prison cell in the exercise yard and addressed the world's press. And we listened to what he had to say about HIV-AIDS. And he described it as a genocide.

Nelson Mandela is one of the most revered and respected living individuals on the planet. When you mention his name, people literally take a gasp of breath because they have so much respect for the man.

 

GEORGE NEGUS: Probably the most admired individual on earth, if it comes down to it.

 

ANNIE LENNOX: Absolutely. And what made me really sad, was despite all the facts, the triumph of the struggle against apartheid, the whole story - that there's Mandela talking to the world's press and he is describing HIV as a genocide. That word is coming out of his mouth and we are all happy for him and everything like that, and yet I was ashamed because I thought, I didn't know that, I would never imagine I would ever witness Mandela describing a genocide of a different kind taking place in his country that is actually an invisible, preventable virus.

 

GEORGE NEGUS: Can I put this to you? A colleague said to me, "Thank goodness Thabo Mbeki is gone as president of South Africa because he was almost in denial about HIV-AIDS."

 

ANNIE LENNOX: He was, yes.

 

GEORGE NEGUS: So how do you feel that we've now got this guy Zuma as the president, who has in fact been charged with raping a young woman with HIV? How do you react to THAT?

 

ANNIE LENNOX: Well, at the time everybody was just aghast, really. And I have to stay, with all respect, that visiting South Africa and seeing it for myself, from my own perspective, it's kind of a topsy-turvy world - politically, socially, economically - everything is upside down. It is a country where although apartheid has been done away with logistically, since 12 years or so, the vast inequity...

 

GEORGE NEGUS: Economic apartheid still exists?

 

ANNIE LENNOX: Yes, without question. And the vast majority of the black population are living in chronic and endemic poverty. I visited townships outside Cape Town. There was one place, maybe you have been there yourself, you know Kyalitsha, which is just outside Cape Town. It has 1.5 million population. HIV is rife, rape is rife, women and children are raped constantly. Violence, drug taking of every kind, and you just look at that situation where life is very cheap and you think, "Where is the solution here?"

 

GEORGE NEGUS: You are quite obviously a reluctant superstar. There are lots of ways to describe you, but that is one of them for sure. But you have also been described as the most successful female recording artist in history in the UK, which is a hell of a burden to bear.

 

ANNIE LENNOX: Depends which way you look at it.

 

GEORGE NEGUS: How would you prefer to be remembered? That way, or as Annie Lennox, the person who upset the Israelis by protesting against their behaviour in Gaza? What would you rather have on the proverbial tombstone?

 

ANNIE LENNOX:  I do not, and did not believe that by bombing civilians contained within Gaza, who had no place to go, was a solution to ongoing peace in the Middle East. I didn't set out to upset anyone. If they are upset, it is unfortunate, but I think that that point of view is extremely important to be said, no matter which side you are on. I do not believe that by responding with violence in this particular way, where I knew you would see the civilian population in Gaza being decimated, as they were.

 

GEORGE NEGUS: They would argue, of course, that there were bombs being lobbed from Gaza into southern Israel.

 

ANNIE LENNOX: Of course. I agree that there were rockets going into Sderot, but at the same time perhaps if the Israeli Government could have said to the civilian population, "We are going to give the woman and children a safe exit, we are going to have something humanitarian." This is a tiny part of the world. There are over 1.5 million people living there cheek-by-jowl, half the population are children. And that I found - of course you can compare and contrast - but I was like, "This has to stop." This is not about me being anti-Israeli, this is not about me being pro-Palestinian, this is just for humanitarian crisis that has to not happen. And it did, and we saw the results, and I don't think we are any closer to peace in the Middle East. To me, it is an absolute tragedy without any question whatsoever on both sides.

 

GEORGE NEGUS: Could you see the future for you being no music and all activism, or do you think you will always be this composite being?

 

ANNIE LENNOX: I am very loathe to project too far into the future. I would say that in terms of my activism, 50% of my energy goes towards music and 50% goes towards the things that I really feel passionately about - human rights, women's rights, children's rights - those are the things I feel really passionately about. And if I feel I can contribute, shine a light, raise awareness, then that actually makes me feel that I am not just powerless from a personal point of view. That I have something to offer. You see, the thing that motivates me is this - I have travelled to countries and I have seen favellas and townships and people living in extreme poverty and I think the resources that we have - never just mind the money in the bank or those things - just the basic things, like we have hot and cold water running out of taps, clean water, so far - who knows how sustainable that is? But what I'm trying to say is that we take those things for granted. We take democracy for granted, we take our freedom of speech for granted, we take things for granted because they have always been there for us.

 

GEORGE NEGUS: We take things for granted that other people still haven't got.

 

ANNIE LENNOX: Exactly, exactly.

 

GEORGE NEGUS: It's been great talking to you. Thank you for giving us so much time. Whether you're singing or whether you're talking I think you have got people's attention.

 

ANNIE LENNOX: Thank you, thank you. Can I slap you now?

 

GEORGE NEGUS: For what? Anything.

 

ANNIE LENNOX: Oh, I don't know. I just felt like it.

 

GEORGE NEGUS: Any half-dozen cheap shots.

 

ANNIE LENNOX: All those cheap shots that you tried.

 

 

Camera

MICHAEL BARNETT

 

Second Camera

TONY CONNORS

 

Sound

GARY DIXON

 

Interview Producer

JANE WORTHINGTON

 

Editor

MICAH McGOWN