Another Plague Grips Africa: Madonna
Me Madonna, you baby
The pop star's adoption is a fairytale come true . . . at least for someone
MARGARET WENTE
Who among us does not feel pity for the plight of Africa? Its problems seem overwhelming and intractable. Its people endure wars, disease, and famine. And now, just when it seems the situation could scarcely get worse, Africa has suffered another blow.
Madonna came to town.
Last seen hanging from a crucifix, the world's most overrated pop star is the latest in a long line of celebrities who have discovered the Dark Continent, and, like Livingstone before them, are determined to save it. Madonna is also taking home a souvenir -- a cute dark-skinned adopted baby. Dark-skinned babies (along with Birkin bags) are the latest must-have celebrity accessory. Too bad Angelina Jolie can't sue for storyline appropriation.
"For the last few years -- now that I have children and now that I have what I consider to be a better perspective on life -- I have felt responsible for the children of the world," Madonna modestly revealed. And so she has decided to devote a few million dollars of her sizable fortune to building orphanages in Malawi. Why Malawi? Why not? Namibia was taken. And George Clooney has the franchise on Darfur.
To be sure, it's hard to find a country that's worse off than AIDS-ravaged Malawi, where the annual per-capita income hovers around $200 a year. Few people there had heard of Madonna before she descended from the skies in her private jet, like a toned and buff dea ex machina. But even before she landed, rumours had begun to sweep the country about a famous white lady who was coming to pick out a sibling for Lourdes and Rocco. Madonna's people denied an adoption was in the works. Meanwhile, her advance team was fanning out in their SUVs (imported for the occasion) to audition suitable orphans. A local newspaper interviewed an 11-year-old girl named Mpheso, who said, "They told me I will be a friend to a white girl called 'Lodess.' "
Why is Africa the celebrity cause du jour? It can't simply be the photo ops. Maybe it's because the sufferings of Africa offer a cheap and easy way to reproach the West for its neglect and callousness (see Sir Bob Geldof, Bono, et al.) The awkward fact that Africa has gotten poorer, in spite of half-a-trillion dollars' worth of Western aid, is not allowed to spoil this narrative. Celebrity outrage would be better aimed at the kleptocrats and murderers who run Africa's thugo-cracies. But nobody would buy a concert ticket for that.
"I am African," declares Gwyneth Paltrow in a recent ad for a children's charity, in which she (and not the children) stars. In spite of the blue paint slashed across her cheek and the ethnic beads wrapped around her neck, you could have fooled me. "We are on the verge of farcical at this point," said Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff. "This has become just a part of the public relations play book. Everybody has a PR person and every PR person says 'which country do you want to adopt?' " And if you can't decide, you can adopt the whole darn continent.
It worked for Angelina Jolie. First she adopted a child from Ethiopa, to add to the child she'd already adopted from Cambodia. Then she decided to add her own child to her collection, and to give birth in Namibia, a scenic country previously known for its game parks. Wild lions were employed to fend off the invading paparazzi. The birth (attended by a leading Los Angeles obstetrician flown in for the occasion) was headline news around the world, and the holy trinity of Angelina, Brad and their surprisingly homely infant, Shiloh Nouvel, snagged the cover of Vanity Fair. No longer is Angelina a scheming home-wrecker. Now she is a loving mother who adopts dark-skinned orphans and gives away her money. "She is a genius at changing the narrative," said one tabloid editor. "How do you hate someone who spent Thanksgiving helping Pakistani earthquake victims?"
But let's not be cynical. The Namibians got something too -- a major tourism boost. A majority of the voters in a local radio poll said Ms. Jolie's birthday should be declared a national holiday. Only 16 per cent thought the visit was "a chance for sycophantic losers to seek fulfilment."
The visit of Madonna and her retinue has already goosed Malawi's GDP. The local people are grateful for the new orphanages, which, thanks to her spiritual interests, will have projects based on the Kabbalah. Let's also not forget the lucky little kid who won the jackpot, a one-year-old boy she has (mercifully) named David. International adoptions are against the law in Malawi, but exceptions can occasionally be made. David's birth father, a farmer whose wife died of AIDS, is very happy for his son. "Madonna promised me that as the child grows she will bring him back to visit."
Nobody but the hardest-hearted cynic could see a dark side to this fairytale come true. So what if building orphanages also happens to be good for image-polishing? Everybody wins, and the fact that Madonna is able to keep her name in the news in the lead-up to next month's TV concert special is just a happy accident. Everybody gets a happy ending, except maybe for the kids who didn't make the cut. As the bewildered girl Mpheso recalls, "They said someone would arrive soon to prepare me for the trip, but no one has come."
