Dear Madonna, Please Don’t Come Back To Kenya Again …We Don’t Need Your Ignorance Here

Dear Madonna

You are a great artiste. Ever since the 80s, your mix of sex, arrogance and talent created a heady cocktail that transformed the way people talk about music. You ushered in a new era of pop star – diverse, mysterious and not afraid to call out anyone who opposed you. But that’s where the compliments end.

I take this as an opportunity to let you know that Kenyans are very bright people. We are allergic to ignorance. We are bright, that’s why one of the greatest US presidents of all time has Kenyan heritage. That’s why the best actress to come out of Africa is Kenyan. Our nation is the place where icons get molded out of common folklore

Last week, you were in our country on a mission to help eradicate poverty and create better living conditions. At least that’s what we thought. But we are now seeing things clearly. Your two main missions were self-promotion and tourism. All should I say ‘poorism’? . You merely wanted to trigger a twitterstorm of delight accompanied by blog headlines such as ‘MADONNA SAVES AFRICA’, You are one of the many celebrities that are all too eager to show off their philanthropy credentials.

We know that your relevance diminished a long time ago. All the fans you had are now too old to dance to your controversial tunes. Over the last few years, you have done ridiculous things to get yourself back in the TMZs of this world. Good for you, but our humble request is that you keep our country out your list of absurdities

Take the tweet below for example.

That’s an open sewer, not a place where residents draw water from. It’s an open sewer in a slum called Kibera in Nairobi. There are slums all over the world. Even your country has ghettos that are not so good looking. There is sufficient water supply in Nairobi. No one drinks water that is mixed with garbage. What are we? Wild pigs? Maybe you have no idea what a sewer is so let me give you the dictionary definition

Sewer: An underground conduit for carrying off drainage water and waste matter.

Anything that passes through a sewer is for disposal, not usage. Sewage matter can only be re-used if treated in a recycling plant. And that’s not what happens in Nairobi. We get clean water. Okay Madonna?

To be honest we are sick of foreigners who come to our country but only find it fun to show the world the negatives rather than the positives. Why focus on the slums and not on the positive stories? Why search out the most miserable environments to photograph and continue propagating negative stereotypes of Africa as a nest of poverty and problems?

Madonna, you have simply immersed yourself among the clique of tourists and journalists that make the world think that Africa is one big jungle full of illiterate and sick humans. You champion the dominance of negative stereotypes. You preach to the universe that Africa is a continent of unending horrors.

Kenya has so many beautiful places and so many people living comfortably. We aren’t in hell. Not everyone has HIV/AIDS. Not everyone lives in shanties. It would be unfair and idiotic of me to visit Baltimore’s ghettos in the US then use those to make a general conclusion about AmericaIt’s almost impressive to be so confident in your own incorrect conclusions that you actively want to share them with the world like this. Logically, you’d maybe hope that the bigger the audience you have on social media, the more careful you’d be when stating opinions as fact, especially if they fly in the space of accepted wisdom. Obviously, this isn’t how you look at it. In your mind you might have thought. “No one cares that much about Africa, so no one will notice my ill-informed thoughts.’

WRONG

Anyway, we appreciate the organization that brought you here (hope2life) and their goals. However, I believe that only decent and bright celebrities should be chosen to headline programs that aim at helping Africans. Not people with questionable characters like you. .Kindly don’t come to Kenya again with this kind of ignorance. Thank you

Not Yours truly,

Philip Etemesi

Kenyan Writer