Weep not, child

There are two paradigms – in and out of court – that are being used to debate the Mercy Chifundo adoption case. One is a legal paradigm in which the arguments being advanced attempt to determine to what degree Madonna fulfilled or failed to fulfill the requirements of the Malawian adoption law. The other, led by our intellectuals, is a cultural nationalist paradigm which analyses the case in terms of the opposition between Western cultural imperialism and cultural nationalism. In this latter instance, 4-year-old Mercy Chifundo, who is just an orphan in need of a loving family and the best chance at success in life, is reduced to cultural nationalism’s latest exhibit in its body of evidence against Western imperialism.

Cultural nationalism’s core argument is that Africa has a unique cultural history and, therefore, universal theories and practices of social and economic development cannot be applied to Africa. Abdullahi an-Naim, a rights scholar, best captures this view:

'International standards on universal human rights have been primarily conceived, developed and established by the West. They cannot be accepted and implemented globally by peoples of other parts of the world.' Cultural nationalism’s goal is to define an African model of socio-economic development based on the notion of an authentic African experience. Sedar Senghor, for example, argued that the West’s rationality was cold and dehumanising, and instead advocated for a society informed by emotion which, he claimed, was a humanising aspect of the African personality. Other expressions of cultural nationalism – Mobutu’s authenticism, Kaunda’s humanism, Nkrumah’s conciencism, and even today’s afrocentric intellectual expressions – are based on an assumed existence of an African worldview and sense of ‘being’ provided by the African traditional society.

As the dominant post-colonial thought, cultural nationalism not only informed our body politic, but has also exerted a dominating influence on our artistic and other expression. In much of African literature, for instance, the motive is to validate the precolonial traditional society. This effect is achieved by juxtaposing characters morally corrupted by western influence to the moral uprightness of characters who remain true to their traditional values ( Okot P’ Bitek’s Song of Lawino best exemplifies this tendency). Even young African writers and artists who have never experienced traditional life, feel constrained to reproduce the philosophy and imagery of an idyllic traditionalism and the Babylon of Western influence. This idea of the self-evident morality of traditional culture and the corrupting influences of the West is all pervasive, finding expression in discussions on topics ranging from women’s rights to democracy on our call-in radio chat shows and TV debates. For the few who decide to write about the experiences of a modern African who is responsible for his/her situation and conditions of life, the rebuke from the cultural nationalist orthodoxy is swift and ruthless. In an article in the BBC Africa magazine, Kenyan filmmaker Judy Kibinge recalls the opposition to her film on the basis that 'Africans do not kiss', this particular lapse in morality being caused, I suspect, by the corrupting influences of the West.

Thus the cultural nationalists’ vehement opposition to Mercy Chifundo’s adoption by Madonna. Never mind the merits of the legal and moral arguments in favour of the adoption, or the fact that, by all accounts, Madonna is a good mother. Never mind that the adoption gives little Mercy a means of escape from her grim circumstance and the best chance to become a successful African woman. Never mind all that. In the view of cultural nationalism, this is Western imperialism in the person of Madonna seeking to corrupt African culture and African sense of ‘being’ in the person of Mercy. So the newly-found biological father of the child, even though he had never even seen her, pronounces his opposition to the adoption and proudly declares that he wants her to 'grow as a Malawian…with our culture.' No shame for having shirked his responsibilities, no criticism of himself, or even of the politicians that have made Malawi such a poor country. But that’s just the problem with cultural nationalism – you need not own up to your responsibilities and failures. All one needs to do is claim African culture and castigate the sinister intentions of western imperialism, and one is free of any responsibility. That is why so very often, criticism of shortcomings in our governance and politics, or even artistic products, is met with a cultural nationalist defence or – as made famous by Robert Mugabe – offence.

The Malawi Supreme Court has decided to act in the strict interests of the child in accordance with the statute governing adoption, overturning an earlier ruling. Had the judges of the Supreme Court succumbed to the ideological arguments and ruled against the adoption, the proponents of cultural nationalism – no doubt stroking their professorial beards and patting their flowing Kente robes – would have celebrated the ‘victory’ over this latest of assaults by western imperialism. In a Malawian orphanage, a little child would have continued to play, innocent of the life she had just been condemned to live, and unaware of the cruel irony that cultural nationalism, which has informed – explicitly or implicitly – the ruinous post-independence socio-economic policies which created the conditions that produce thousands of children like her in Africa, had acted again to block her escape from those conditions.

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* Tee Ngugi is a former columnist for The Namibian newspaper and the Southern Times, and now works for a non-governmental organisation.
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