Sita Kisanga talked a lot about it.
She’s the Angolan woman convicted of aiding and abetting the cruelties perpetrated on a little girl by her aunt, who believed her to be a witch. In order to “beat the devil out of her”, the aunt had hit the child, rubbed chilli in her eyes and made as if to drown her.Mrs Kisanga said that she believed the girl was “kendoki” and “in our culture kendoki can kill you and destroy your life completely. Kendoki can make you barren, sometimes kendoki can ruin your chances of staying in this country.”I’m all in favour of making that last bit a self-fulfilling prophesy by sending Mrs K right back to Angola after she’s served her time, along with the aunt (whose asylum claim was earlier turned down). But even minus these two, there would still remain the difficulty of what to do about African communities whose native beliefs are difficult to reconcile with British cultural norms.I was less taken aback by the belief in black magic than I might have been if I were not an occasional reader of Loot. Kendoki might until last week have been assumed to be one of those amusing new crossword-style number puzzles, but it’s now something we’ll all be hearing about Sita Kisanga talked a lot about it. The true idealist recognises that the problems of Africa and of climate change are not amenable to easy solutions, and that progress will often be frustratingly slow, if not impossible But that is what makes it worth attempting..

From the naivety of “Just give them the money” he has moved to an understanding of the need to support good governance and free trade – which is, after all, what “fair” trade really means.In the parallel struggle to secure effective action against global warming, a similar pragmatism is required. It is no use simply railing against energy-hungry America, or the obstinacy of Mr Bush, however wrong-headed he might be. Mr Blair is pursuing the right tactic in lobbying swing members of the US Senate, of working with the growing elements of the US polity that recognise the dangers of climate change.These are causes that inspire idealism and a sometimes strident demand for instant action. His raw anger at the needless suffering in Ethiopia that inspired Live Aid 20 years ago has matured into the more considered manifesto of the Africa Commission, on which Mr Geldof sat and which reported earlier this year.

It is easy to dismiss the motives of rich celebrities wearing white wristbands (which we analyse on pages 14 and 15). Above all, it is easy for those who broadly agree on the objectives to disagree about the policies for achieving them. It should be recognised that, in their approach to poverty in Africa and elsewhere, Mr Geldof, Mr Blair and Gordon Brown are all essentially on the same side. It is even possible to recognise that George Bush has done some good in Africa, such as putting resources into Aids treatment.Effective idealism is not a matter of absolutes: it is a process Mr Geldof is a prime example.

It is to the Prime Minister’s credit that he rejected their advice.
We applaud the same spirit of attempting the impossible in Bob Geldof. His aggressive piety can be irritating; his wilfulness can be irresponsible. His call for a million people to march on the G8 summit at Gleneagles next month was literally asking for trouble. But as a call to moral arms, we know what he meant.It is always easy to cavil, to sneer at idealism, to point out that Mr Blair’s high rhetoric has been used as a cover for low politics before, or that Mr Geldof’s consciousness-raising efforts have produced limited or ambiguous results.

When Tony Blair first suggested that he was thinking of making Africa and climate change the priorities of Britain’s presidency of the G8 group of rich nations, it is all too easy to imagine the Yes, Prime Minister moment that followed. “What interesting ideas, Prime Minister,” Sir Humphrey would have said. “How very brave.” As life imitated art, civil servants then offered Mr Blair some lower-risk alternative priorities that would be more likely to produce what are known in New Labour jargon as easy wins. It has been fundamentally flawed from the start by the refusal of George Bush to insist that it be fought – as even the Japanese were fought in the Second World War, despite their refusal to abide by the Geneva Conventions – by the highest standards of international law.. And Mr Rumsfeld has even appeared to accept this, as it has become known that he twice offered to resign over the disclosure of mistreatment of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib His conduct is as cowardly as his policy is reprehensible. If he genuinely accepted responsibility, he would have quit, rather than allow President Bush to turn down his offer.The so-called war on terror has been compromised by the semi-official US policy of the use of semi-torture in Afghanistan, Guantanamo and Iraq. What Newsweek should have said is that interrogators urinated on copies of the Koran, kicked them and soaked them with water balloons.