Madonna's Adoption of David from Malawi Gains Final Approval

I am curious to see some comments on this recent article. What do you think? This article comes from the Jamaican Observer In support of Madonna

DIANE ABBOTT Sunday, June 01, 2008

This week a court in the pitifully poor African country of Malawi gave the final approval for the adoption of a little Malawi boy David Banda by the multimillionaire American superstar Madonna. It has been a hugely controversial case. There have been two years of intense and hostile media coverage here in Britain where Madonna currently lives.

DIANE ABBOTT

Initially, I myself was doubtful. I have heard too many stories of black children adopted by white families in Britain who have grown up traumatised and confused. So I believe that children are generally best adopted by families from a similar ethnic and cultural background.

But I quickly came to support Madonna's action in the face of the vicious and hysterical press campaign against her. British journalists descended on Malawi and found the little boys relatives including his father (who had handed his son over to an orphanage at just a month old when the mother died of AIDS). None of the relatives, including the father, had ever visited the child or sent a penny for his upkeep. In fact, the father had gone on to remarry and have other children. But, prodded by British journalists, the relatives began to profess undying love for the child and drop heavy hints that Madonna should pay for them all to fly to England to check up on his welfare.

Why she should fly them all to England to see a child, whom they had never bothered to visit when he was living up the road from them, was never explained. That did not put off the British media who accused Madonna of baby snatching and breaking Malawi's adoption laws.

When Madonna flew to Malawi to bring the boy home she was tracked by hundreds of journalists and when he came off the plane in London he was greeted by a scrum of photographers. Snatched photographs of the tiny sleeping black baby were on the front page of every British newspaper the next day.

Briefly little David Banda was the most famous black baby boy in the world. Since then the adoption has gone through an elaborate official process including a Malawi official actually visiting Madonna's seven million pound home in London to assess whether she was a suitable mother.

In the face of all the criticism, Madonna gave an interview defending herself to the queen of American daytime television Oprah Winfrey. On the Oprah show Madonna said "The media are doing a great disservice to all the orphans of Africa by turning it into such a negative thing," She went on "I first spotted David in a documentary that I was financing about Malawian orphans. I became transfixed by him.

But I didn't yet know I was going to adopt him. I was just drawn to him. When I met David at a Malawi orphanage, I was told he had survived malaria and tuberculosis but still had severe pneumonia. I was in a state of panic, because I didn't want to leave him in the orphanage because I knew they didn't have medication to take care of him. So, I got permission to take him to a clinic, where he was given antibiotics. The conditions that I witnessed in Malawi were the equivalent of a 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."

Now a court in Malawi has ruled that Madonna and her husband Guy Ritchie are "perfect parents" and Madonna is finally the lawful parent of the little boy she saved from pneumonia. I appreciate the concern about rich white women going shopping for little black babies in poor countries. But if Madonna had not adopted the boy he would, almost certainly, have died. And if by chance he had survived it would have been to face a life of misery and destitution.

His extended African family took no interest in him until Madonna came calling. You could argue that why just this one child and what is Madonna doing for all the millions of AIDS orphans in Malawi? But in fact she is also funding six orphanages in Malawi which will help thousands of children.

I quickly grew tired of Madonna's critics because none of them had shown the slightest interest in suffering African children before or since. At least Madonna took a sick African child into her home and is spending millions on helping others.