[Marxism] From Material Girl to Spiritual Mum: Madonna, Malawi, and Baby David

[steve sharra]

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

 From Material Girl to Spiritual Mum: Madonna, Malawi, and Baby David

For Mr. Yohane Banda, who had never heard of the pop diva Madonna 
until she visited Malawi last week to adopt his 13 month-old son 
David, the closest he could relate with the material girl was the 
word Dona, meaning rich white woman, in Malawian parlance. In a 
matter of days, he now knows her, and the rich guy Guy Ritchie, as 
the new parents of his son. My initial reaction to the news was 
amazement at how a child whose father was alive and available could 
be termed an orphan, and be considered for adoption. I have since 
learned from youtube videos and other news articles that Mr. Banda's 
first two children died in infancy, and he gave up David for fear 
that he too would die, after his mother died a week after his birth. 
The debate that has erupted over the adoption has elicited 67 
webpages of comments on the BBC website Have Your Say, and is still 
raging on across Malawi listservs, newspapers and radio stations. As 
debate can sometimes be a powerful tool for social change, the views 
expressed by most people on the topic, in Malawi and around the 
world, reveal the extent of pessimism on the one hand, and optimism 
on the other, about Malawi's and Africa's future. An unspoken 
corollary of that pessimism and optimism is the idealization of the 
global North, of its material wealth and supposed happiness, and of 
celebrity bliss.

full: <http://mlauzi.blogspot.com>