The African nation of Malawi is one of the poorest places on earth, a land in which villagers easily live an entire year on less than Madonna’s annual budget for soy chai latte, and AIDS claims a depressing chunk of the population. It’s no garden spot. But last week it was as if this country, which holds on to its strong tradition of family values in spite of intense international disdain and patronization, defended its honor in the face of a scourge that might do as much psychic damage to its long-term future as disease, hunger and rejection of kabbalah.
When Madonna showed up, via private plane, with her personal trainer and assorted underlings, hoping to snatch yet another evidently healthy child to add to her growing, international brood – and fill a hole in her soul left vacant by the departure of a husband, and soothe her jealousy over other starlets’ ability to save the world – Malawi did something unprecedented. The country said, through a judge, “Take your millions and your treadmill and your vegan diet, and scram!”
“Whaaat!” cried Madonna. You have no idea whom you’re up against, Malawi!
And this is why Madonna is, for the second consecutive week, my Celebutard of the Week, in keeping with my book, Celebutards: The Hollywood Hacks, Limousine Liberals and Pandering Politicians Who Are Destroying America. (Kensington.)
Judge Esme Chombo of the Lilongwe High Court rejected Madge’s bid to get her hands on four-year-old Mercy James, who lives in the same orphanage from which Madonna helped herself to David Banda in 2006. The judge smacked Madonna’s hands like a errant child, saying you can’t just jet in here and take off with a child like so many trinkets. Malawi has a law that adoptive parents must live in the country 18 months to two years, and the judge was not going to look the other way.
“The issue of residence, I find, is the key upon which the question of adoption rests, and it is the very bedrock of protection that our children need; it must, therefore, not be tampered with. As wisely put by G. K. Chesterton: ‘Don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason why it was put up.”’
Madonna, who doubtless believes Chesterton has something to do with the manufacture of cigarettes, planned to further strong-arm the country into giving her what she wants. She vowed to appeal. And she observed her rejection with a workout on the treadmill she’d had flown to the pricey lodge where she stayed, sipping Lafitte wines rather than closer-grown South African varietals.
The judge wrote: “Ms. Madonna may not be the only international person interested in adopting the so-called poor children of Malawi. By removing the very safeguard that is supposed to protect our children, the courts by their pronouncements could actually facilitate trafficking of children by some unscrupulous individuals who would take advantage of the weakness of the law of the land.
“Anyone could come to Malawi and quickly arrange for an adoption that might have grave consequences on the very children the law seeks to protect.”
The family-oriented people of Malawi were concerned about not only Madonna’s recent divorce, which ended the idea of Guy Ritchie being the second parent in the child’s life, eyebrows were also raised by her affair weeks ago with a 22year-old model named Jesus.
Mercy’s grandmother has already said taking the child would be akin to “stealing,” and human rights groups have accused her of “manipulating” the adoption process with money and fame.
But she has proven that she is tone deaf to the poverty and pride that embrace Malawians in equal measure. For example, as Madonna’s entourage took the three-hour drive to Mercy’s orphanage, the singer instead stayed behind to indulge in her two-hour workout with her imported personal trainer, Josh, reported London’s Daily Mail. She followed her staff to the orphanage by private plane – at a cost of about 10,000 British pounds.
Her obliviousness to the real needs of the people continues to show. She will push kabbalah down the throats of kids at a school she plans to build, something in which Malawians are not interested. But most egregious, she intends to build her school on a plot of land that is occupied by villagers who already are starting to get excited over selling their land to the superstar. (The chief was promised $4,000). But what happens when the money runs out, and there is nowhere to go, no land to farm?
Kabbalah will take care of them, I expect.
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