There was a precise moment in 2002 when Canadian journalist Stephanie Nolen suddenly understood the catastrophic effect of AIDS in Africa.
"I was chatting with Lillian Chandawili, an HIV-positive 35-year-old widow who looks after her sister's orphaned children as well as her own, on the porch of her house in Nkhotakota, Malawi," recalls Nolen.
"As the villagers came by to greet 'the white stranger,' Lillian would quietly remark, 'He has it,' 'He lost his wife' or 'She lost her children.' I realized there was no one left in Nkhotakota to farm, trade or work in the city to earn money. Everyone who could have been working was either sick, nursing someone who was sick, or looking after orphans," Nolen says sadly.
"At that moment I saw beyond the numbers of deaths and infections on paper, and realized how HIV/AIDS had cut this place off at the knees."
The Republic of Malawi in southeastern Africa is one of sub-Saharan Africa's most densely populated countries. It is estimated that anywhere from 15 to 30 per cent of Malawi's 13 million people are HIV-positive. Average life expectancy is 43 years of age.
The devastation that AIDS has caused in Malawi has repeated itself in countless villages and cities across Africa. In "28: Stories of AIDS in Africa," Nolen takes the reader on an emotional journey through the continent as she tells the stories of 28 people fighting HIV/AIDS - one for each of the 28 million people living with the disease in Africa today.
The reader meets Cynthia Leshomo, Botswana's Miss HIV Stigma-Free; Andualem Ayalew, an Ethiopian soldier ostracized from the army after revealing he was HIV-positive; Lefa Khoele, a 12-year-old Lesotho boy with the disease desperately trying to pass Grade 3; and many others fighting for better access to drug treatments and trying to raise awareness of the disease. The stories are powerful, heartfelt and deeply human.
The people in "28," of course, tell a larger story. UNAIDS (The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS) has predicted that without increased international aid, there could be 90 million AIDS cases in Africa by 2025.
And yet, says Nolen, the response from the developed world to a continent that could have 18 million AIDS orphans by 2010 has been achingly slow.
Nolen, who grew up in Ottawa and Montreal, is The Globe and Mail's Africa correspondent but has covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She now reports from her home in Johannesburg where she lives with her partner and their seven-month-old son.
She laments the dearth of media coverage on the epidemic.
"I would travel for weeks and never see another western reporter," she explains. "What's happening here without the spectacle that gets you on the evening news is the biggest story in the world. Why am I the only person out here?"
Why indeed?
"It's because they're black and poor and live in countries that are economically and politically marginal," says Nolen matter-of-factly.
Tuesday, 1 May 2007
The Material Girl and America's double standard
The time-tested practice of adoption too often gets a bad rap in the mainstream media. We hear horror stories of long-lost biological relatives fighting expensive legal battles to remove children from a happy adoptive home. Research also indicates, all too often, pregnant women facing unexpected pregnancies see adoption as a bad choice, viewing it as another name for abandonment. As a result, it stands to reason that a number of babies who could find life and love in an adoptive home are being unnecessarily aborted. Adoption is unfairly seen as an evil rather than as a good, and the news media unfortunately play a significant role in this disinformation campaign.
So, at first, I was pleasantly surprised at the positive reports on celebrity adoptions being reported in the news media. If a mega movie star such as Angelina Jolie could help put a positive spin on international adoption, more power to her. I thought even Madonna, who seemed to defy traditional family values, could get a pass for her efforts to give a child from a poor nation a good home.
Yet, a report in the Daily Mail newspaper makes me wonder about the ulterior motives of some of these celebrity adoptions. The report says Madonna is spending mega-bucks on orphanages in Malawi — a laudable action, until you read the fine print. Because it seems that Madonna's primary aim is actually to convert the kids to her adoptive religious faith, Kabbalah.
According to the Daily Mail, nearly half the population of Malawi is under the age of 14 and many of those children are orphans. As a result, it stands to reason that they may be searching for security — a search that might be taken advantage of by those who are pushing a certain form of ideology.
Again, it's marvelous that the Material Girl has the wherewithal to provide food, medical supplies, and books to the orphans of Malawi. And if she chooses to bring some of these children into her own home, so be it.
But, make no mistake, Madonna is an evangelist — and she should be treated as such. She is planning to tutor as many as 7,000 orphans in Malawi in Kabbalah principles, according to the Daily Mail report.
Here's where traditional journalism's double standard comes in: Madonna, whose Kabbalah beliefs are considered trendy, is seen as a humanitarian for her work with orphanages. I expect headlines reading, "Santa Madonna" any day now. She's even been called a kind of celebrity Mother Theresa.
In sharp contrast, if a star who was an avowed Christian began a similar outreach campaign to Malawi's orphans, she would be labeled a religious zealot. Anti-Christian bigotry in the media is not only tolerated — it's often celebrated, especially by what can euphemistically be described as the "celebrity left."
One noted practitioner of Kabbalah was quoted as saying that the majority of mentally ill people are not, in fact, mentally ill, but possessed by evil spirits and that "unseen extraterrestrial forces affect terrestrial affairs."
I rest my case.
So, at first, I was pleasantly surprised at the positive reports on celebrity adoptions being reported in the news media. If a mega movie star such as Angelina Jolie could help put a positive spin on international adoption, more power to her. I thought even Madonna, who seemed to defy traditional family values, could get a pass for her efforts to give a child from a poor nation a good home.
Yet, a report in the Daily Mail newspaper makes me wonder about the ulterior motives of some of these celebrity adoptions. The report says Madonna is spending mega-bucks on orphanages in Malawi — a laudable action, until you read the fine print. Because it seems that Madonna's primary aim is actually to convert the kids to her adoptive religious faith, Kabbalah.
According to the Daily Mail, nearly half the population of Malawi is under the age of 14 and many of those children are orphans. As a result, it stands to reason that they may be searching for security — a search that might be taken advantage of by those who are pushing a certain form of ideology.
Again, it's marvelous that the Material Girl has the wherewithal to provide food, medical supplies, and books to the orphans of Malawi. And if she chooses to bring some of these children into her own home, so be it.
But, make no mistake, Madonna is an evangelist — and she should be treated as such. She is planning to tutor as many as 7,000 orphans in Malawi in Kabbalah principles, according to the Daily Mail report.
Here's where traditional journalism's double standard comes in: Madonna, whose Kabbalah beliefs are considered trendy, is seen as a humanitarian for her work with orphanages. I expect headlines reading, "Santa Madonna" any day now. She's even been called a kind of celebrity Mother Theresa.
In sharp contrast, if a star who was an avowed Christian began a similar outreach campaign to Malawi's orphans, she would be labeled a religious zealot. Anti-Christian bigotry in the media is not only tolerated — it's often celebrated, especially by what can euphemistically be described as the "celebrity left."
One noted practitioner of Kabbalah was quoted as saying that the majority of mentally ill people are not, in fact, mentally ill, but possessed by evil spirits and that "unseen extraterrestrial forces affect terrestrial affairs."
I rest my case.
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