Bob Geldof guest-edited Sunday’s edition of the Italian publication La Stampa. In the coming days we’ll be posting English language versions of the featured articles, including this one from Colin Firth:

Why do you have to hear it from an actor? I have a profound dislike of activism. I do not enjoy hearing dispatches from the crisis zone delivered by actors and rock stars. I get no joy from fund raising events, op-eds, posters, t-shirts, speeches, slogans, petitions and rock concerts. I’m tired of it. And I’m tired of the crisis.

If your profession somehow gives you a public voice, you quickly find that you have a new relationship with those who don’t have one. Your voice quickly becomes a cherished commodity. Not for its merits but for its sheer volume. You may have nothing to say, but those who do, the wise, the desperate and the better informed are all clamouring to make use of your easily earned media connection.

Imagine passing the scene of a car accident. Someone is dying. There is a doctor on the scene but he doesn’t have his equipment and he doesn’t have a phone. He asks if he can use your phone. Do you say “Sorry, not my job. Sorry I have no credibility …” or do you stop thinking and just do it? That is frequently the position of the guilt-ridden celebrity.

We are not in a position to choose whether or not we have a relationship with our own society or with world’s poorest people. We can choose the nature of those relationships, but, either way, they’re there. We’re business partners. If we choose to ignore them we are simply choosing to make that relationship a negligent and destructive one.

As voters and consumers we are directly complicit in the misery of the millions we do business with. If we let our governments and businesses think we are indifferent to their cynicism they will go on practicing it on license from us and every cup of coffee we drink and every piece of cotton we wear will continue to be an act of cruelty.

We are involved with Africa whether we like it or not. I drink African coffee, I drive a car containing African copper, my wedding ring is made of African gold. Of course I’m aware of famine, drought, poverty and corruption, but I also see the statesmanship of Mandela, Joaquim Chissano and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf… the works of Achebe, Okri, Soyinka, Saro Wiwa … the music of Fela Kuti, Cheik Lo, Asa and Angelique Kidjo.

My own children will inherit all this together with the children of that continent. Within 15 years they’ll be trading with each other or fighting with each other, exchanging diplomacy or whatever other relationship we might have set in motion. They will also share the triple crisis of a global economic slump, high food prices and climate change, all of which will be addressed (or not) by this years G8 in Italy.

I no longer choose whether or not to have a relationship with Italy. My wife and children are Italian. I am completely in love with the country for better or worse. I was decorated by the Italian Ambassador as an exhortation to promote Italy’s image abroad. It’s easy when it comes to food, people, language, architecture, art, fashion and history. Easy when I hear that 72% of Italians want to see Italy’s aid budget kept high. But never have I felt more urgency to prevent the ultimate figuraccia than now.

Mr Berlusconi is this year’s president of the G8. If he neglects the millions of children who are dying on his doorstep, and abandons all honour by failing to deliver the promise of aid he made in front of the world’s press in 2005, any attempt to rescue Italy’s image from this will be almost impossible.

It’s tempting to look for ways back to a reassuring silence. To try to return to a belief that one person can’t really make a difference … that actors should shut up. But you can’t unknow what you know. Once you’ve seen what a well placed or well-timed word can do, there’s no going back.

I had dinner with Bob Geldof a couple weeks ago. I explained that I felt I had to be judicious about when and when not to speak out, that I had to hold fire and keep under the radar so as not to blow all credibility. He said, “F— that you’ve got to just go!” If everyone did that we could finally do away with long-winded actors.