educating alice

In our celebrity culture where news is as often gotten from The Daily Show as from any more traditional source, the issue of do-gooding celebrities is complicated. In an interesting article in the National Interest on the issue, David W. Drezner points out how far more successful Gore has been as a celebrity than as a more conventional politician while also noting that not all look favorably on celebrity involvement.

Development expert William Easterly has argued that the celebrity focus on Africa’s problems has been misguided. By focusing exclusively on the diseases of sub-Saharan Africa, celebrities have unwittingly tarnished an entire continent: “[Africans are] not helpless wards waiting for actors and rock stars to rescue them.” Many African officials and activists share this sentiment, even heckling Bono at a development conference.

I’ve written here and here before about my feelings about celebrities and Africa. It still feels churlish to complain yet too often the result is not a better understanding of the issues, of the continent, or even better help. I’m not sure Drezner’s article changed my feelings, but it certainly gave me plenty to think about.

Here’s a personal essay I wrote for the papertiger’s website.

I’ve written here and here about the way Africa has become the continent du jour. Now here’s Julius Lester’s take on the seemingly never-ending trend for celebrity adoption of African orphans.

Colleen Mondor at Chasing Ray alerted me to Vanity Fair’s special issue on Africa. I’m of two minds about it.

On the one hand (or mind) it does reinforce my previous post on Africa being the hot continent du jour. Looking through the Table of Contents, I see a lot of articles from the point of view of outsiders — Bono, Christopher Hitchens, Brad Pitt, Sebastian Junger, and Bill Clinton to name a few. And let’s not forget Madonna; Punch Hutton has a very kind piece about her work in Malawi, “Raising Malawi: Madonna Lends a Hand.” Having not yet read the other articles, I can’t speak for the other outsiders, but this one on Madonna? Simplistic, glowing, and you’d never know that some did not think so highly of Madonna and her efforts in Malawi. Chimanada Ngozi Adichie, for one. Check out the Orange Prize winner’s interview, “Madonna’s not our saviour” for an insider’s perspective on all these outsiders. (Thanks to Linda Lowe for the link.)

On the other hand (or mind), I do appreciate the in-depth articles in Vanity Fair and assume there are plenty in this issue. And maybe, just maybe some readers of this issue will decide to learn more. That is always a good thing, isn’t it?

Watching Leonardo DiCaprio share the screen with genuine handless black Africans or Ralph Fiennes’s gardener learn a lesson in postcolonial realpolitik while I munch my popcorn doesn’t rouse me to action; it stirs horror, pity, sometimes repulsion, sentiments that linger uneasily until the action starts up again to sweep away that empathy with another explosion, gunfight or rousing chase.

So writes Mahohla Dargis in her excellent essay, “Africa at the Cineplex,” in today’s New York Times about the true outcomes of the recent swatch of commercial features about Africa. Movies like Blood Diamond along with recent ad campaigns and celebrity trips — all are certainly making the continent and its troubles more familiar to Americans. But, as Dargis, points out, what of it? Are Americans understanding Africa any better? Doing anything, really? We Americans are lucky to be able to spend a few hours in the cinema feeling for Africas or to be able to buy something nice for ourselves and, on the side, give a few dollars to Africa as well. And the film companies make money for themselves, their investors, with a bit goes to Africa as well.

Don’t know the answer, but I’m glad there are folks like Mahohla Dargis pointing out the realities of Our African Attention.

Many of the children’s literature bloggers have a tradition of posting poems on Friday. And so in the spirit of the day, here is a lovely book of African poetry. Selected and illustrated by Veronique Tadjo, the poems in Talking Drums give a sense of the vast variety that is Africa.

From the Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) herself, Tadjo writes in her introduction, “Let me tell you a secret; this selection of poems is in fact a story, the story of Africa as told by some of its very best poets.”

The poems are from all over the continent and their subjects are equally wide-ranging from animals to people to death and more. Some of the creators may be familiar names (for example, the Nigerian Ken Saro Wiwa who was executed some years ago), others less so, and then there are some poems with no named authors — traditional poems from a range of cultures. Here’s one:

The European

In the blue palace of the deep ocean
dwells a strange being.
His skin is white like salt
his hair long like plaited seaweed.
His dress is made of fishes,
fishes more charming than birds.
His house is built of brass rods
his garden is a forest of tobacco leaves.
His country is strewn with white pearls
like sand on the beach.

Traditional, Gamma

It was Uli Knopflmacher, at that magical NEH seminar I attended so long ago, who called this Garth William’s illustration from the first chapter of Charlotte’s Web, “Madonna and Pig.” When pointing this out to my fourth graders, I always need to say that it has nothing to do with the singer Madonna, celebrated children’s book author and Malawi Orphan Adopter.

But today’s post does.

What troubles me about Madonna’s adoption is what troubles me about so many of the wealthy and well-known do-gooders who drop in various parts of Africa with their media entourages in tow, start their own NGOs because they think they know and can do better, and offer sound bites of Africa that don’t do much to expand people’s understanding of the continent. Yes, they mean well. So many do.

I have this outlying point of view because I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Sierra Leone, a country on the opposite side of the African continent from Malawi, but one that is most likely perceived by many as very similar — a desperately poor country that needs all the help it can get.

For many years I stayed pretty quiet about my experience. People were not interested and had such simplistic responses that I learned to say nothing. Until the war. It went on for years without American media paying much attention to it. Only when they got wind of the atrocities, when the capital Freetown (where I had lived for two years) was invaded, when child soldiers became an issue, finally the media paid attention. Finally Americans noticed. Even my students noticed and so together we created the Edinger House Sierra Leone Project.

Atrocities drew the world’s attention to Sierra Leone, genocide to Dafur, and a celebrity’s adoption to Malawi. Which country will be next? Why? And will it result in a better understanding of Africa and its people? I wonder.

I’ll end with another Madonna, “The Holy Virgin Mary” by African- inspired artist Chris Ofili, which sparked quite a bit controversy here in NYC some years ago.