White (Wo)Man’s Burden: Madonna, Malawi, & Celebrity Activism [Original Cut]
by Latoya Peterson, published at Jezebel.com
On Monday, Madonna broke ground on a new school project in Malawi; today, she takes to the Huffington Post to ask for donations. Her megawatt star power helped engage media attention – but are high profile celebrities actually hurting progress?
In the new issue of Arise, reporter Hannah Pool examines the idea that “all Africa ha[s] to offer the world was begging bowl.” The article, titled “Good Will Hunting” starts off with a bang:
“When high profile celebrities get shown visiting disadvantaged areas in Africa and those images get beamed out to the rest of the world, I believe they almost do more damage than good,” says Moky Makura, Nigerian-born, Johannesburg-based author, M-Net presenter and founder of the Africa our Africa blog. “We don’t want to keep reinforcing the image of a helpless continent. We will only eradicate our problems when we build economies based on commerce, not charity. To do this, Africa needs to be seen as an investment destination or trading partner, not as a charity case.
Pool then delves into the conundrum that faces many activists on the African continent – if many people are embracing the idea of “trade not aid” as a way to push forward development, who benefits from this “charitainment?” Pool elaborates:
The merging of charity and entertainment – or, as Time magazine called it, charitainment – has led to some damaging consequences. Celebrities (and their agents) have realised that being seen to care about Africa brings instant cool. About 25 years after Live Aid, A-list celebrities are forever falling out of the pages of magazines such as Hello! or OK!, tearfully waxing lyrical about how spending five minutes in an African orphanage changed their whole view on life. And thanks to Madonna and Angelina Jolie, some Western media appear to be under the impression that the best way to empty Africa’s orphanages is not the eradication of poverty but mass adoption by wealthy pop stars.
“Whether it’s Bono shilling for AIDS dollars, Angelina and Madonna toting their African offspring, Gwyneth [Paltrow] and David Bowie declaring they are African, or Matt Damon and George Clooney rallying for Darfur, it appears that a new generation of philanthropists have taken up the ‘White Man’s Burden’,” says South African academic Zine Magubane on the pan-African blog Zeleza Post.
As soon as Pool mentioned Matt Damon, I immediately thought of this bit from Entourage:
“Gimme the fucking check Vince!”
At any rate, Pool dropped the bomb that’s been hovering over any discussion of aid and Western involvement in Africa. The idea of The White Man’s Burden actually stems from a Rudyard Kipling poem of the same name:
Take up the White Man’s burden–
Send forth the best ye breed–
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild–
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
Take up the White Man’s burden–
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another’s profit,
And work another’s gain.
Take up the White Man’s burden–
The savage wars of peace–
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.
Scholars have long debated if White Man’s Burden is a love letter to imperialism or a satirical take-down – Kipling was an avid imperialist but was also a satirist, and his intentions with the piece aren’t fully understood. However, the poem and the term have been propelled to the heights of infamy due to the application of the core concept around the globe.
Personally, I prefer Henry Labouchère’s acid-tongued retort, The Brown Man’s Burden:
Pile on the brown man’s burden
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