Vicky Allan
WH AT to make of the events of the last week, in which the mega- s t ar Madonna was given a slap in the face by Malawi, the country she has chosen as her chief charity benefactor? The saga is so muddled it’s almost farcical, a “they said, she said” followed by a “she said she never said”, which has left the singer smarting – and perhaps deservedly so.
In the past, Madonna has been criticised ( by writer Mick Hume) for treating Africa like an “orphan in need of adoption”. This latest episode began when she was stripped of her VIP status on the way out of Malawi and made to line up with all the other nobodies in the normal airport queue. Last Wednesday, the Malawian government delivered a statement which suggested Madonna’s acts of kindness smacked of blackmail, accused her of bullying state officials, and said she seemed to want “Malawi to be forever chained to the obligation of gratitude”.
In response, Madonna expressed disappointment at what s he dismissed as lies. Then on Friday, we learned that the country’s president was “incandescent with anger” about the statement which she did not herself issue. It wasn’t quite a retraction or an apology, but it was certainly some sort of climb-down.
Nevertheless, the words were out. Whoever had composed them, a feeling of discontent had been expressed by some Malawians at a celebrity’s activities in their country.
In some ways this was refreshing. It reflects what some of us feel when we see certain celebrities jetting around the globe, pitching up at poverty-stricken villages and orphanages to crowds of smiling, waving children. It suggests that we might not be so very wrong when we detect a whiff of the colonial there. But also, it was a message that every celebrity, politician, gap-year volunteer, would-be African baby adopter, or general do-gooder should attend to: that, though it’s good to give, we must beware of being patronising. We must not get caught up in the idea of “saving” Africans.
Madonna is far from the only star to have gone to Africa to donate some of her millions, or to have adopted an African child. The American magazine website Mother Jones shows a map of how celebrities have carved up the continent, each taking their own patch to help. Madonna’s publicist, we learn there, once said: “She’s focusing on Malawi. South Africa is Oprah’s territory.”
Oprah, of course, is something of a charity queen. The opening of her girls’ academy in South Africa was attended by Quincy Jones, Tina Turner, India Arie, Chris Rock, Mary J Blige and Mariah Carey. Students got uniforms designed by Oprah and pillowcases embroidered with the letter “O”.
More recently, Angelina Jolie has made the world her cause and, in doing so, she’s managed to rub a few people up the wrong way. When she decided to have her baby in Namibia, because it was “the cradle of humankind”, a