Source: The New Republic Online

By 6 a.m., the streets of Blantyre, the commercial capital of Malawi, are thick with people. A thin strip of a country west of Mozambique, Malawi has one of the highest population densities in Africa and hardly enough food for all its people--it suffers persistent famines, and emaciated beggars lie on the sidewalks, groveling for change they can use to buy nshima, the traditional porridge staple. Even Malawians who own businesses struggle to survive: With an average annual income of $600, Malawi ranks as one of the poorest nations on the world's poorest continent. Outside the city, hungry men and women have torn apart Malawi's forestland, searching for anything to eat and leaving the hills denuded. At the city's main hospital, mothers camp outside, anxiously waiting for news on their sick kids--14 percent of Malawians have HIV, and the country has approximately one million AIDS orphans.

Clearly, Malawi is missing some key to development. And now, as the entire world knows, they've found it: thirteenth-century Jewish mysticism. In August, Madonna decided she must help Malawi, although the World Bank, the European Union, and many other donors already pour funds into the country. Madonna declared that she would spend at least $3 million creating an organization that will help Malawian orphans by providing them with physical assistance and "a sense of self-empowerment." They will attain this self-empowerment by studying a children's program focused on the teachings of Kabbalah. Overseeing the project along with Madonna is Michael Berg, founder of the Kabbalah Center, the Los Angeles institution where stars like the Material Girl, Britney Spears, and Demi Moore come to trade Talmudic commentary. (Madonna reportedly first tried to give the money to unicef to work in Malawi, but the U.N. organization did not want anything to do with kiddie Kabbalah care.) No matter that Malawi is a devoutly Christian country where few people know anything about Judaism.

"I have felt responsible for the children of the world," Madonna told Time in August. Still, Madonna had never been to Malawi before announcing what she calls her "big big project" in August. No problem. This fall, she finally stepped down on its soil, trailed by the world press. Arriving by private jet, she and her husband, Guy Ritchie, made a whirlwind visit to Malawian children's homes and then adopted a young child, causing an uproar in Malawi over whether the Material Girl had subverted the usual adoption regulations, which require adopting parents to be residents in Malawi for a period of time before taking a child back to their home country. The boy's father claimed to want the child back, and Madonna was reduced to going on Oprah to defend herself.

Whether or not Madonna adopted the boy legally, her entire cultivation of Malawi shows how celebrity activism has changed. Used to be, there was only one type of celebrity do-gooder. The Jerry Lewis type--earnest, maybe annoyingly persistent, but using fame to raise consciousness about an issue, and then standing back and letting experts do the rest. Now, in an era when celebrities have become the new royalty, we have three types of famous do-gooders. The Jerry Lewis prototype still exists. We also now have a second type--celebs who take on worthy topics, but act so bizarrely they tarnish their noble causes. Say, Steven Segal, who adopted a noble cause (Tibet) and then had a monk declare the tough guy a reincarnation of a powerful Buddhist lama. Segal quickly assumed the name Terton Chungdrag Dorje--though not on film credits, of course--and supporters of the Tibet cause started wondering whether Segal had made donations to the monk to win his reincarnation.

Then there is the third kind, now proliferating faster than Iran. Savvy development experts long ago figured out that, by bringing celebs into a cause, they would raise the profile of unsexy topics like African development or debt relief. But now, like a bad horror movie, the monster has outgrown its master and is taking over. Celebrities now not only want to do good but think they know how to do the good, even as they decry politicians who dare offer advice about their world of film, television, and radio. So George Clooney appears before the U.N. Security Council to lecture the world on Darfur policy, as if he could convince hard-hearted Russia and China to support tougher measures against Khartoum. Bono, of course, has become such an expert on aid policy that he now merits magazine covers analyzing his insights and his potential impact on the world. Coldplay's Chris Martin studies up on the impact of tariffs on Ghanian textiles. And Madonna thinks that what desperate Malawi really needs is red string and teffilin.

Celebs have staked out their own countries. Brangelina have Namibia--though Angelina Jolie also has Cambodia, so she's apparently a bad sharer. Alyssa Milano has Angola. Matt Damon has Zambia, though Naomi Watts is muscling in there, too. Now, Madonna has Malawi. As in her music career, where she struggles to copy the latest trends, rather than yesterday's trends, even Jessica Simpson is thinking about the poor--she told reporters she is considering adopting a baby from overseas. But what about Gabon, or the Central African Republic? They are equally desperate, and there is no reason why international policy should change just because celebrities do not favor these nations.

Small countries willing to indulge a star--Madonna was met by a presidential envoy in Malawi--seem the most in demand. If you adopt big, more developed developing nations like China or even Kenya, who will notice your work? Never mind, as my colleague Leon Wieseltier recently pointed out, the greatest charity is anonymous charity, not charity trailed by People or Us. And if you adopt these better-off nations, you might undermine the idea that what Africa and other poor regions need most is charity, rather than support for their own businesspeople, thinkers, and politicians.

Desperate people will welcome any help, of course, and Malawian orphans certainly can use any assistance, including money from Madonna. As the head of the village where Madonna's orphanage project is being built told Time, "It will mean so much to us. We can only ask God to bless this person for her kindness." The wisest development experts, like Jeffrey Sachs, seem to know exactly how much leash to give their celebs before they wind up getting detailed policy memos from them and being woken up for breakfast briefings by Brad Pitt. But this does not mean African leaders will understand why they are suddenly facing swarms of celebrities bearing ideas. And they will probably wish they caught the attention of Jerry Lewis, not Madonna.

Joshua Kurlantzick is a special correspondent for The New Republic.
 

This article was originally published in the online version of The New Republic, November 30, 2006.