There has been so much bru-ha-ha about pop-star Madonna’s recent adoption of a little boy, from Malawi. My problem is not with her widely-publicized adoption. Not so much. My beef is her reaction to the media, about the issue. She spoke with Oprah yesterday.
She said amongst other things:
“I beg all of those people to go to Africa and see what I saw and walk through those villages. … To see 8-year-olds in charge of households. To see mothers dying, with Kaposi sarcoma lesions all over their bodies. To see open sewages everywhere. To see what I saw. It is a state of emergency. As far as I’m concerned, the adoption laws have to be changed to suit that state of emergency. I think if everybody went there, they’d want to bring one of those children home with them and give them a better life.â€
Imagine! Do I blame her? No! Of course not. I blame the majority of African leaders who only care about their stomach. They care little about the welfare of the “common manâ€. They are so busy mastering and implementing the art/act of “theivery†that there is little left in the state coffers for the social welfare of the people.
The roads are bad, the streets are dirty. The hospitals are ill-equipped (little wonder they [the leaders] fly abroad when they are ill), the school teachers are either not well-paid, or not paid on time, or a horrible combination of both. I could go on and on.
Back to Madonna:
“Anybody who had that idea would be discouraged from doing it. For me, that’s what disappoints me the most. I feel like the media is doing a great disservice to all the orphans of Africa, period, not just Malawi, by turning it into such a negative thing.â€
I never knew the situation is so bad that westerners now have to fly into Africa to adopt “orphansâ€. I don’t blame you, Madonna. :-s
