Angelina Can Eat My Ashes
By Leilla Matsui
Created Oct 26 2006 - 8:27am
Dear Madonna,

You are no doubt dismayed by the public outrage that has greeted your
decision to adopt a baby boy from Malawi - a country that most people in the
West probably only know from the ad campaigns of charitable organizations
showing sickly babies covered in flies, while being watched over by your
former wedding guests, now sockless and stubbled with earnest three day
beards. I imagine that you are shocked, truly shocked that anyone would
question your decision to remove a child from such unimaginable suffering as
Bono breathing down his crib. After all, what kind of person would condemn
someone so young to a life of hardship, especially someone with millions at
her disposal; a loving "mammy" who will tote her little Sambo around in a
1,200 thread count batik wrap specially designed for him by Tom Ford
himself, and provide him with every consumer item under the less
skin-damaging sun.

Little David Banda is the luckiest boy in the world, you repeat to yourself
666 times a day while fiddling with your little red thread bracelet, because
that's how every self-serving mantra eventually becomes truth. It's written
in the Khabible. One minute little whats-his-name is languishing in a
overcrowded, under funded orphanage in one of the poorest nations on earth,
and the next minute he's soaring over the ocean in a private jet to make his
new home on a palatial English estate, where he will be tended to by a
complete staff of servants and diapered in monogrammed Pampers. You have
even sweetened the deal with a complete DVD box set of 'The Lion King' so
that he can immerse himself in African culture. That should shut up those
annoying people who think removing a child from his own people and culture
is somehow a bad thing, even if said culture hasn't yet invented pots to
piss in.

No stranger to criticism, you probably think the public backlash over your
latest publicity stunt is just more sour grapes from the usual suspects,
this time disguising themselves as human rights campaigners. And what
exactly are they complaining about, anyway, you gripe at your husband, who
is no stranger himself to your sudden fancies, whether its a decision to
fire your interior decorator or take up the cause of philanthropy several
decades after it became fashionable. "Angelina can eat my ashes!" you shriek
when your husband suggests that the Jolie-Pitts have already claimed the
title of 'Cookie' magazine's most beautiful baby shoppers - an honor you
have coveted almost as much as an Oscar and an audience with the late Pope
on his death bed. "A girl just can't get a break", you fume. "I mean, what
IS the problem?" First, NBC edits out the part of your concert tour where
you stand crucified on a 'lite brite' cross to prove you haven't quite
"nailed" the cause of your dimming celebrity, and now they are on your ass
about your latest Missoni (oops, I mean MISSION) to Africa.

Here's the problem, Madonna. You swoop into Malawi with a yet to be signed
cheque for $3 million, hoping that by pledging the money to an orphanage,
the authorities will re-write the laws in your favor. "What laws"? you
grumble to your husband when someone points out to you that your actions
amount to kidnapping, even if a bribed official has given your crime the
government stamp of approval. Someone in your entourage points out to you
that under Malawi law, people hoping to adopt children must live in the
country for at least eighteen months. "This dump doesn't even have flush
toilets, what makes them think their laws mean shit"? you scream at him as
he peers off into the distance hopefully, while silently praying that a pack
of jackals comes along and tears you apart limb by limb, and dragging your
still squawking head into the dense foliage encircling the camp to be pawed
at and batted around by hungry hyena pups.

Undaunted, you return to your tent and check yourself in the full length
mirror you brought along for the occasion and make the final adjustments to
your outfit. You told your stylist you wanted your look to be evocative of
Africa's "glamorous" colonial era. "Think Marlene Dietrich meets King Kong
at the opening of the Stork Club inside a smoking volcano". This is why
you've chosen to dress like the trophy whore of a wealthy plantation owner.
Your African hosts should really get a kick out of that. Even though you
ended up being more Norma Desmond than Desmond Tutu, your low-cut jungle
green Versace wrap around dress and safari hat complimented your caked on
alabaster complexion quite nicely. You managed to achieve the look of a
former "blimey" spewing bar wench, plucked from obscurity by a visiting
adventurer from the "Dark Continent" looking for a piece of tail to
compliment his collection of rhino heads. Your new look is reminiscent of
someone who spends her days in the shade, reading romance novels and
shooting the occasional elephant before heading out for cocktails at the
club. But I guess we should be grateful that you left the rollerskates and
the ghetto blaster at home.

After a hard day at the orphanage, choosing a baby that will compliment that
wonderful hand woven bag you picked up in the market earlier, you decide
it's time to celebrate. With the entire International press corps
surrounding you, you seize the chance to make a video for your next dance
hit. A word of advice: You should probably edit out the part where your
unpaid African back up dancers look on in bewilderment and embarrassment as
your frantic pogo-ing recounts the age old story about the evil sorceress
with fire ants in her pants.

In the clamor and excitement of the festivities no one noticed as you
discreetly handed over the little "orphan" to your assistant, who boarded
him into your private jet and spirited him away before the ink is dried on
the adoption papers. You insist on calling him an orphan, even though is
father is very much alive, but temporarily, at least, unable to raise his
son, owing to the tragically, all too familiar circumstances of his life.
The death of his wife has left him a bereft and impoverished widower with no
other choice but to relinquish custody of his son until he is able to get
back on his feet. For considerably less than what you paid for David, you
could have given him at least that opportunity, if you had maybe read
something more relevant to the topic of global poverty than 'Cookie'
magazine's top ten list of lucky celebrity orphans. You might have
discovered that the wealth you endlessly accumulate, and the system that
makes it possible for you to lavish such largesse upon your latest
self-improvement project at the expense of people like Yohane Banda, is
responsible in large part for Mr Banda's inability to feed a child on his
non-existent earnings as a farmer. Not surprisingly, you have chosen to
overlook that particular aspect of your new child's life and legacy,
wilfully ignoring the bigger picture here in order to clutch a small black
child at your breast in a homage to your own brand name. So now Mr Banda is
left to deal with his most recent loss, cast aside like last season's Prada
bag, and realizing only when its too late that he has signed away his past
and future to his new colonial master, who uses the same tactics as the
previous ones to seize another nation's assets under the cover of legality
and consent.

Hoping that the "nice" American lady would provide his son with an education
and raise him until he was ready to return to his homeland, Mr Banda signed
on the dotted line, believing that his son would eventually be returned to
him. Since Mr Banda can neither read or write, there was no way his consent
should be considered legal or binding. Clearly, he was misled by orphanage
officials in order to speed up the process of your fly-by "adoption". But
naturally, you blame all the negative publicity on the media, whom you
accuse of manipulating Mr Banda to give false and conflicting accounts of
the abduction of his son.

Acting on your publicist's advice, you brought your case to the American
public on 'Oprah', hoping the African American billionaire talk show host
would give you her own official stamp of approval, and a sob sistah shoulder
to cry on. No stranger to disastrous shopping expeditions, your new friend,
OprahT knows first hand the woes of trying to get one's hands on a coveted
consumer item and being told by the staff at Hermes that she would have to
wait until the following day to make her purchase. Unfortunately, Oprah used
the obvious racist slight on her spending power to highlight the astonishing
inability of French saleswoman to recognize her as a global brand
phenomenon, rather than use her own first hand experience of France's
institutionalized racism to enlighten her viewers to the worsening plight of
France's immigrant populations. The fact that she was taken for a North
African (quelle horreur!) by a Hermes staffer and therefore denied access to
the store for after hours shopping didn't offend her principles, only her
vanity. Imagine confusing the elegantly coiffed icon of American media with
a lowly Berber shoplifter. The 'gaul' of some people". There is a similar
disconnect in your aggrieved sense of injustice, too, Madonna. You present
yourself as the victim of a media smear campaign, a misunderstood
philanthropist, unfairly maligned by hostile forces who will stop at nothing
to bring you and your butt munching bodysuit hemlines down a notch.

No match for Oprah, or the global media juggernaut camped out in his goat
pen. Mr Banda is forced to reconsider his options and has "agreed" to
relinquish custody of his son to your permanent care. Congratulations. The
war on the poor rages on, but you've won your own personal battle, and even
have the "trophy" to prove it. I just hope the next time you are looking to
something to adopt, you might consider a more humane and less self-serving
world view.
_______

--
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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson