/ARTS WEEKLY/TELEVISION: Oprah’s Visit Haunts Zambia

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Zarina Geloo

LUSAKA, Dec 16 2003 (IPS) - She came, she saw, she conquered? Well not quite. Zambians have not bought into American Talk Show host, Oprah Winfrey’s whirlwind tour to Zambia to assess the country’s HIV/AIDS situation and see how her organisation, the Oprah Winfrey Foundation, could help.

Making her first visit to Africa outside of South Africa, Oprah, as she is known, flew into Zambia Dec. 3 accompanied by UN special envoy on HIV/AIDS Stephen Lewis, her faithful film crew and scores of beefy bodyguards. She had been in South Africa for the Nelson Mandela charity AIDS concert.

Upon arrival in Zambia, she went straight to the tourist town of Livingstone where about 100 other visiting Americans, among them health secretary Tommy Thompson, had just left after celebrating the World AIDS Day on Dec. 1.

In Lusaka, she visited children orphaned by AIDS, as well as child-headed households and talked to mothers receiving anti-retrovirals to combat AIDS. She thought the images would make a great story.

“. people sitting in my audience will gasp when they see (these) pictures on the screen,” she said.

This comment was probably her undoing.

“Filming the dying and desperate, just makes me think that all she came for was good copy to take back home,” says Bwalya Manda, a broadcast journalist in Lusaka.

Oprah “is looking for new material for her show. (Her trip) has very little to do with wanting to fight AIDS in Zambia,” Manda says.

Trudy Macgraw, an American national living in Zambia and working for a Zambian non-governmental organisation (NGO), says Zambians should be wary of “Anyone, especially Americans bearing gifts”.

“Americans are business people first. Whatever they do is driven by profit either in cash or kind. Oprah’s coming here? I don’t know, but let’s not hold our breath,” says Macgraw.

Not that there is anything wrong with celebrities coming to Zambia. It is just that people are aware that the country does not have the graphic HIV statistics of Botswana or Swaziland for example, or the success story of Uganda. It is not a fledgling democracy like South Africa, nor does it have the mystic of Namibia. Zambia does not even have the dubious distinction of having crises like Zimbabwe.

Mirriam Phiri from the ‘Network of People Living with AIDS’ says she was amazed at the high powered delegation that went to Livingstone to celebrate the ‘World AIDS Day’ on Dec. 1 with Thompson. There was Peter Piot, UNAIDs executive director, Richard Feacham, the director of the Global AIDS Fund and Dr. J. Lee, Director General of the World Health Organisation, and numerous senior executives from various American companies, academia, media and organisations. And then came Oprah.

“We do not have startling sexy stories that the international community want to see or hear. If we were in school we would be called average students. The country is very middle of road. So when it is singled out for a blast of attention, forgive us. This is all too much for us who have been ignored for so long to suddenly have all this attention,” Phiri says.

A University of Zambia lecturer, John Simwiinga, says the language Oprah used was that of a politician rather than one of an anti-HIV advocate. “She does not appear to have a clear picture of what kind of help she wants to give or even under which framework she would channel her assistance. She rightly identifies a problem with the role of the media and yet does not seek an audience with them. Is all up in the air? So a little caution is needed here,” he says.

Erickson Bwalya, who is living with HIV, says he would have wanted Oprah’s foundation to adopt an orphanage or an institution, as a sign of commitment.

“(U.S. health secretary) Thompson signed a 6.39-million-dollar grant for Zambia. I can understand why he came, but Oprah and her organisation did no such thing, just made some promises about assistance and shot lots of footage,” he says.

Oprah should have, Bwalya says, done what Arnold Schwarzenegger did when he visited Livingstone early this year: confined himself to the wonders of the Victoria Falls and the game park and made no promises.

Schwarzenegger, a film star, is now the governor of California.

Others, however, say Zambia should be grateful when celebrities visit as publicity in any form is good especially when a country is competing for resources. Sipo Kapumba, a media analyst, says Oprah’s visit was fantastic because ‘of all the countries she could have gone to, she choose Zambia’.

“We sort of get lost in the face of all these other more interesting scenarios. There is a general loss of interest in giving resources to Africa. So if graphic and horror images are what it takes to get people to talk about Zambia and reach into their pockets, so be it, that’s what the media loves. Without the horror picture (U.S. President) George W. Bush would not have committed so much funds to the Initiative to prevent Mother-to-Child-Transmission of HIV/AIDS,” he argues.

With a huge cult status, wealth and voice to her credit, Oprah said she wanted to reach out millions of viewers of the plight of women and children in Zambia. She would be showing footage of her trip to Zambia on ABC television this week and also using some images for her show. She wants people to look at Zambia as the place to start giving, or going to.

No matter what her critics say Oprah has proved her bona fides in America. Using her own money and status, she got the U.S. Congress to pass a new law on child protection known as “Oprah’s law”. In her own terrain, among her peers, she is the one with the clout. It would be interesting to see whether the international media, philanthropists and politicians will follow her cue just because she says so.