Malawi: Madonna, Mercy And Neocolonialism
Madonna's ability to adopt a Malawian child in spite of an original court verdict against her is deeply worrying, writes Ama Biney. Madonna's action belongs in an established neocolonial tradition, Biney argues, one in which Malawi's Supreme Court judges have played a role not dissimilar to that of slavery-era African chiefs as the facilitators of human transfer. Recalling the forewarnings of Kwame Nkrumah around the shadow of neocolonialism, Biney contends that retaining Africans' self-respect will depend on challenging dehumanisation and putting such subjugation to an end.In 19th century England it was fashionable for the middle-class and aristocratic English gentlemen and ladies to return from the West Indies with a black male or female domestic servant to serve in their lavish homes; such Africans were at times painted with this genteel class sitting by their feet like pet dogs or accessories. It exemplified that they were well-to-do, had travelled and had money. It set a trend among the English elite. Today, the vogue among Western celebrities such as Madonna and Angelina Jolie has reconfigured this practice.
Madonna's recent adoption of Mercy James Chifundo, and the adoption by Angelina Jolie of an Ethiopian child, are not devoid of the usual patronising and unconscious Western stereotypes that have historically characterised how Europeans see Africans and have related to the African continent. In the 21st century new forms of colonial subjugation have engulfed Africa, racism has reshaped itself and Africans have continued to be co-opted as collaborators in their own subjugation, such as when Malawi's Supreme Court lawyers recently permitted the 50-year-old singer to adopt the 4-year-old Mercy along with David Banda, who was adopted in 2006 at the age of 13 months. How many wealthy Africans do we see going to the Romanian orphanages to adopt orphans there? And if they did, would it have the historical baggage that resides in the relationship between Africans and Europeans? Would it be morally or ethically correct if they did so?
A recent documentary entitled 'Madonna and Mercy: What really happened' broadcast in the United Kingdom on 29 June 2009 was presented by the British investigative journalist Jacques Perreti. Its force was that it unearthed two dangerous and important facts: first, the involvement of the Kabbalah sect, related to Judaism, in the social and economic fabric of Malawian society; second, the collusion of the Malawian government in Madonna's charity Raising Malawi that builds orphanages in the country.
By Ama Biney - Continue -The lessons of Idah's long journey from
With their four-year legal battle to adopt from
The Globe and Mail by Geoffrey York
Mchinji
Before Madonna, before the hype and the fury over her Malawian babies, there were the Clementinos of Burlington, Ont.
The global spotlight never fell on the Clementinos. Nobody heard of their long struggle to adopt a little girl named Idah from
But their victory, after a four-year, $35,000 legal battle, was a precedent that paved the way for the U.S. pop superstar to adopt a pair of children from the same African country. Their story raises the same awkward issues – of poverty and culture, of deciding what is best for a child's future, and for the future of a country.
“ We're doing it for the good of the child. If you can make a difference, why wouldn't you?”
Children like Idah – and Madonna's far more famous David and Chifundo – have sparked a fierce debate in Malawi, where activists worry that the phenomenon of foreign adoption is creating a commercial value for their children, and diverting financial resources that would be better spent on health and education.
But for her adoptive parents in
“We're not trying to remove Idah from her culture, but to give her an opportunity,” says Jane Clementino, a management consultant and mother of three other children. “We're doing it for the good of the child. If you can make a difference, why wouldn't you?”
Idah, whose birth name is Effina Chulu, is now a lively 11-year-old Grade 5 student and cross-country running champion at a school in Burlington, an outer suburb of Toronto. Last month she became a Canadian citizen, the culmination of a six-year effort by Jane and Carlo Clementino.
Like Madonna, the Clementinos persuaded a court to let them bypass a law that requires them to be a “resident” of
Children's rights groups are worried that these cases are making nonsense of their country's laws. In the past few years, they say, hundreds of children have been quietly removed from
But for the parents in
Idah's journey, like that of Madonna's adopted son, David Banda, began in a village in Malawi, a small landlocked country of 13 million people in southern Africa where most people subsist on less than $2 a day.
Both children were considered orphans, although their fathers were still alive. Both were taken to an orphanage called Home of Hope in the ramshackle border town of
Idah was the first child to be taken from Home of Hope and brought to a foreign land. A few years later, in an eruption of global publicity, David was the last.
A brick wall surrounds the orphanage, topped by shards of broken glass to keep intruders out. “The Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom,” says a painted slogan on the wall.
Inside the walls are 580 children and the orphanage's founder, Rev. Thomson Chipeta, an 80-year-old Presbyterian minister.
Also inside the orphanage is Idah's father, Patrick, who works here in exchange for the food he needs for his survival. He briefly meets me at a market outside the orphanage, but is reluctant to talk. “If they see me here with you, I'll be in trouble,” he says, before walking away.
There's no evidence that Mr. Chipeta is motivated by commercial factors. A former orphan himself, he seems sincere in his love of the children. Yet money, and a craving for foreign donations, is a recurring theme in almost everything he says to a foreign visitor.
Mr. Chipeta takes me on a tour of the orphanage, ending in a small brick building that bears the painted name “The Fax House to God.” Inside are the remains of a house built by South African missionaries in 1925.
“This is just a simple place where I have a direct line to God,” the minister says. “He provides all our needs.” Then he bows his head in prayer, asking for divine help so that I will publicize his orphanage “to tell many people that we need help.”
He has already given me a brochure with details of how donors can send a bank transfer to the orphanage. Madonna's charity, Raising Malawi, is providing about $300,000 annually to the orphanage, but he says it needs a further $500,000 every year.
Before Madonna came along, Canadians were the main supporters of Home of Hope. The biggest benefactor was a woman named Jane Glaves who raised tens of thousands of dollars for the orphanage from her church and Rotary Club in
The minister calls her “Auntie Jane” and “a great gift from God.” He estimates that she raised $75,000 a year for the orphanage. Its nursery and primary school are named after her.
While he is keen to seek foreign money for the orphanage, Mr. Chipeta is less keen to discuss Madonna's role at his orphanage. “People will think we don't need help,” he says.
Pressed for his opinion on foreign adoption, he calls it a “very difficult question” that only the government can decide. Then he reaches for his Bible for an ancient precedent. “Is it good for a child to be adopted? It goes back to Moses.… The Bible confirms that Moses had a better education because of the family he was brought up in.”
Effina Chulu, one of the first infants brought to the orphanage, was renamed Idah in honour of a daughter of Mr. Chipeta who had died. Bright and friendly, she became a favourite of Ms. Glaves, the Canadian woman who visited the orphanage twice a year.
In 2003, Ms. Glaves decided to take two malnourished boys from
Ms. Glaves wrote later that the journey to
But activists in
The huge sums donated by foreigners, especially after a successful adoption, are an incentive for unscrupulous people to set up orphanages for money-making reasons, they say. And the tens of thousands of dollars spent on a single adoption would be much better spent on supporting
Foreign adoption, they say, must only be a “last resort” when there is nobody in
“Many orphanages are acting as recruitment agencies,” he says. “They keep on recruiting children to justify their orphanage and to keep raising money. Once you start commercializing the process, the children lose out.”
He estimates that more than 300 children from
In the case of Madonna's adoptions, the children were given to her essentially as “a token of thanks” for her charitable work in the country, Mr. Matewere says.
In April, a high court in
“Consider the consequences of opening the doors wide. Anyone could come to
The ruling was overturned last week by
Activists worry that this ruling will make it easier for wealthy foreigners to adopt Malawian children in exchange for charitable donations to the country. The definition of “resident” has been bent completely out of shape, they say.
Mavuto Bamusi, national co-ordinator of a Malawian rights group called the Human Rights Consultative Committee, rejects the idea that foreign adoption can be justified as a response to poverty. “If a child is adopted to take her out of poverty, it's like saying that the 13 million people of
“Instead of putting one child in a school in
Another group, Save the Children UK, argues that foreign adoption can actually worsen the problems that it hopes to solve. “The very existence of orphanages encourages poor parents to abandon children in the hope that they will have a better life,” a spokeswoman said.
Back in
Ms. Clementino acknowledges that Idah has extended family in
“These children are in an orphanage because no one else could take care of them. My understanding is that there's not that many people in
The process of adopting Idah was “long and arduous,” she says. “The path isn't established – there isn't any easy way to do this. The adoption laws and the paperwork aren't easy to understand.”
In fact, if the Clementinos had never met Idah, they might have abandoned the idea of adopting a child from
MALAWI - Absent dad's Mercy dash
MADONNA'S hopes of adopting a second child from Malawi have been dealt a crushing blow after the girl's father said he didn't believe the star had 'good morals'.
James Kambewa, 24, said he wanted to spare his three-year-old daughter Mercy a life of "scandal" with a woman he claimed lacks "good morals".
He is enlisting the help of the Human Rights Consultative Committee, a group of organisations that have campaigned against Madonna's adoption bid.
Source, Herald Sun - 01.05.2009
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar