Madonna Adoption | 03/31/2009 9:35 am
'Bully' Madonna Plans School in Malawi
© Getty Images
Madonna’s not getting much love over in Malawi.
The pop star arrived in the impoverished African nation this week to, she hopes, adopt another child, Mercy James. Madge first fell in love with Malawi two years ago, when she adopted David Banda, a move that sparked outrage among many citizens. And that outrage has only been revived in recent days.
Scores of activists are decrying Madonna’s plan to bring another one of Malawi’s young into her family, but it’s perhaps the Human Rights Consultative Committee who offered Madge the most vitriol. Said the group’s chairman, Undule Mwakusungura, to the Daily Mail: "We feel Madonna is behaving like a bully. She has the money and the status to use her profile to manipulate, to fast-track the process." A judge there heard Madonna’s case this week, but said a decision won’t be made until Friday at the earliest. Mercy James doesn’t have any parents and her uncle has reportedly approved the adoption.
In the meantime, Madonna took son David Banda to see his biological father and spent some time surveying land where she plans to build a school. And even that generosity has been irritating ordinary Malawians, who claim the pop star is simply taking their farms without offering compensation.
"She has bought all this land and we are told everyone will lose their gardens and have their houses demolished," said resident Lucy Chagoma. "‘We are told to leave our gardens after this year’s harvest, we are told our houses are to be pulled down but nobody is talking about compensation." In fact, government officials insist people will be compensated for moving.
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Dear Margo: When Dad/Gramps Just Ain't Interested
23 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
I guess my question to Ms. Madge is this: there are thousands if not millions of children in this country who can benefit by you adopting them. Why not focus on helping those at home?
And why not help out the good people of Detroit (your home town) who are arguably dealing with the worst economy in this horrible recession by helping them with updated schools? For that matter, what about helping the kids in downtown LA? Why do you and all these other celebrities feel the need to save the world and not your own neighborhoods!?
Let me answer the questions for you Madge. Helping out your home grown people isn’t nearly as glamorous as going to Africa to help people who clearly don’t like you and feel used by you.
It’s kind of sick: I applaud her wanting to help children, but flying off to Africa to get a couple of children seems to me a bit like shopping for accesories. When we have so much to do here at home, it is obvious publicity hungry activity that is driving you and not the need to nurture a needy child.
JMHO.
Dang straight it isn’t as glamorous helping out home-grown people!
Compare Madonna’s situation to Oprah’s charity efforts: despite a lot of donations to US schools, Hurricane Katrina victims and others, she was criticized for opening her elite girls’ school in South Africa rather than creating something similar in the US. Oprah’s words: "I became so frustrated with visiting inner-city schools that I just stopped going. The sense that you need to learn just isn’t there," she said. "If you ask the kids what they want or need, they will say an iPod or some sneakers. In South Africa, they don’t ask for money or toys. They ask for uniforms so they can go to school." Source: http://www.eurweb.com/story/eur30607.cfm
We live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. As bad as our inner-city or poor rural schools and neighborhoods are, our poorest people have vast resources available to them in comparison with the poor elsewhere in the world. Most of our poor have things like shoes, clothing, electricity, and potable water - even cars, TV and cellphones! They have access to government assistance programs like food stamps, disability payments, medicaid, and unemployment benefits. If they care to learn, they do have access to a free education. Again - as limited as some of these things can be, they are light years ahead of third-world poor. We have scads of illegal aliens pouring in here to take advantage of the least scrap of opportunity that our own citizens deem beneath them. Maybe that’s why wealthy celebrities take their charity abroad… it’s nice to be appreciated rather than criticized for your efforts.
Thank you Lila for your post. You are right in one way, our poor are wealthy for the most part when compared to other countries.
However, if anybody does charity for the appreciation, then they don’t really have the hang of giving at all. It’s not about what they give you (the appreciation), it’s about what you give them. If you only do things for the appreciation, then you are just buying people’s affection.
OK, you are right - one should not do charity work EXPECTING appreciation - but I stand by my comment in the sense that we are human, after all, so when you receive appreciation, it is a nice feeling, and that feedback will make you want to continue your efforts. On the other hand, if you try to help someone and basically get your efforts thrown back in your face, or are criticized for your supposed motives - well, being human, the reaction might be, "OK, then, guess you don’t need my help after all… see ya."
I have traveled quite a bit and seen some real poverty, I mean REAL POVERTY, in countries where the government really can’t do much and you are on your own. I just wish we Americans would recognize that and appreciate what we do have.
Agreed. And I do understand how frustrating it is to give to people who ask for an iPod instead of a school uniform, a Gameboy instead of a healthy meal. I do a lot of charity work and have heard those types of requests many times. But the only reason I can come up with for those requests, is that they are kids. There are other, less obvious ways to give without being Santa Claus (although that’s a good thing to do as well) and getting the hugs.
Maybe a better option would be to donate for the lunches, the uniforms, the school improvements without the interaction with the students directly. Just a suggestion. Look at Harry Connick Jr. and all the work he’s done in New Orleans. Some of it is publicized, of course or we wouldn’t know about it. But he is helping his home town. Madonna could definately help the people of Detroit. And I bet she would receive more publicity, more respect, and more understanding than she ever has!
Honestly, these people don’t seem to want Madonna in Africa. If they really felt they were living in poverty and needed to be taken care of by an American pop star, don’t you think they would welcome her help?
Well, yes, the Malawi government and politicians are ambivalent about Madonna’s intentions - but the people who benefit directly from the adoptions are David and perhaps Mercy. They are too young to ask, I know - but I also would like to hear from orphanage directors and other aid workers, since Madonna is active in Raising Malawi and HELP Malawi, both charities aimed at providing for children (especially orphans). Do they think she is meddling, or "buying" her way through the bureaucracy? (She gives to other charities too - not all related to Africa)
I think some of the uproar is a matter of national pride - wherever children are adopted by foreigners, the implication is that the country can’t or won’t take care of its most vulnerable citizens, and their governments are sensitive to that. I have noted the same ambivalence to foreign adoptions in Russia, China, Romania, Guatemala, Korea… the sad thing is, in some of these cases the kids are just "warehoused" in orphanages and languish without individual care, which stunts their development, but the native country won’t let them go and usually, no good reason is given.
Interesting: here’s an article showing both sides of the debate:
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/Story?id=7218470&page=1
She gets my approval. In a heartbeat~
Why does Angelina Jolie-Pitt not incite the animosity and much-voiced outrage that Madonna seems to garner for the same desire to include destitute children from a troubled third world country in her life? Is it because Angelina Jolie-Pitt exhibits a more stable, moral lifestyle? Please. Is it that helpless, ethereal, doe-eyed look and whispery voice that make Jolie-Pitt somehow more sympathetic and , therefore, admirable for her attachment to the UN and her pursuit of ‘adopting a child from every country’? She stopped wearing the capsule of blood around her neck and had some of her tatoos removed, that justifies Jolie-Pitt and eliminates Madonna?
For me these women are no different from one another, and perhaps not that dissimilar from you and me. Despite their reputations, riches and renegade spirit, they want to embrace the world, make it smaller, more familiar, less divisive. For those who cannot move off that point of defining Madonna as a self-absorbed whore incapable of sincere love for a child, consider how much less we make of ourselves by sitting in judgment of her. And think about the Malawian woman who has so strongly lashed out at Madonna; why do we assume she is not just seeking personal publicity? How many people did the media interview before they found this opinion? And Madonna is doing this instead of all the other suggestions offered here because that’s what she wants to do. Seems to be a popular, not sinister, philosophy.
I write on wOw because I want to feel like my personal world is bigger than my reality. I want to spend time with Liz Smith and Candice Bergen, Joan Ganz Cooney and Sheila Nevins, Lesley Stahl and Marlo Thomas, Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner and by extension, all their worlds……one degree of separation. And all of you from across the country, knowing what you think, how politically haywire you are……..just kidding, really. Our preservation results from our similarities not our differences, our compassion not our judgment.
Peace and grace, friends
Victoria,
I can’t help but agree with you and although I can never know for certain, the motives of Madonna’s heart, I am left to discern the exterior actions of this person…….I believe what you say to be correct.