Bono Recommends Doing Comedy To Fight Extremism

The musician tells stars like Amy Schumer, Chris Rock, and Sacha Baron Cohen could be employed by the Senate to fight Daesh.
U2 frontman #Bono has recommended that comedy should be used to fight extremist groups.
In testimony before a Senate subcommittee at Capitol Hill, the musician called members to take speedy action to deal with the global refugee crisis and terrorism.
“It’s like, you speak violence, you talk their language. But you smile at them when they are goose-stepping down the way, and it takes away their power,” he said.
“So I am proposing that the Senate address in Amy Schumer and Chris Rock and Sacha Baron Cohen, thank you.”
US Senator Jeanne Shaheen replied: “Actually that’s not the first time I’ve heard specialists on how we counter brutal extremism talk about that.”
Bono talked about the flood of people escaping their homes and called it a human torrent threatening the very idea of European unity.
He urged lawmakers to think of international aid as national security instead of charity.
“When aid is structured correctly, with a focus on fighting pauperism and growing governance, it could just be the best bulwark we have facing the extremism of our age,” Bono said.
Bono said members of Congress required to confront an “existential threat” to Europe that hasn’t been marked since the 1940s.
Countries such as Poland and Hungary are going to the right politically, a shift he described as a “hyper-nationalism”, as the UK is set for a referendum on EU membership in June.
“This is unbelievable stuff,” he said. “And you should be very excitable in America about it.”
Africa, in particular, is fighting with what Bono called a phenomenon of three extremes – ideology, poverty, and climate.
“Those three heights make one unholy trinity of an enemy, and our foreign policy needs to face in that direction,” he said. “It’s even bigger than you think.”
Bono co-founded the One Campaign, a support group that works to end poverty and preventable disease.