Niamh_Saoirse
Rock n' Roll Doggie FOB
Rock superstar Bono has backed Madonna’s controversial adoption of her African toddler.
The U2 singer, who is also perhaps the best-known anti-poverty campaigner in the world, praised Madonna and her husband Guy Richie for the adoption of David Banda.
“I think it’s really great,” he said. “I’m very happy that Madonna should offer succour and more than that to a young boy. He’s got a great opportunity now. There’s so many children in the world — there’s really enough to go around.”
Bono, who is in Australia for U2’s Vertigo tour, revealed he and his wife were once offered an African child by a father desperate for his son to have a better life, but they were unable to take him home. Bono said the child, whose face haunts him to this day, is the reason he began campaigning for African poverty relief.
“One of the most profound moments I’ve had, one of the reasons I think I’m doing what I’m doing, was because in the 1980s I was working with my wife Ali in an orphanage in northern Ethiopia,” he said.
“On the last day, a man came to me and offered his son to me, saying, ‘If you don’t take my son, he will surely die. If you take him, you can give him a great life’.
“I could tell this man loved his son, he was a very noble-looking man, and it was ripping his heart to say this. And I didn’t, I did not take that (boy).
“It was not the rules of engagement in the camp we were working in, we couldn’t do that. It’s strange, because I can’t remember the boy’s name, but I think about him all the time.
“Oddly enough, when people ask me ‘Why are you doing that’ (the activism, the campaigning), his face comes back.”
Bono said he and Ali had an emotional moment in their Dublin kitchen a few weeks ago when prints from their first-ever African trip (which were being used for a new book) revealed a photo of the boy.
“I didn’t know I even had a photograph of him,” said Bono.
Bono, due to perform at U2’s opening Australian concert in Brisbane tomorrow, said: “I think a U2 album will not be that far away, I hope. We’ve hit the vein, I think.”
The U2 singer, who is also perhaps the best-known anti-poverty campaigner in the world, praised Madonna and her husband Guy Richie for the adoption of David Banda.
“I think it’s really great,” he said. “I’m very happy that Madonna should offer succour and more than that to a young boy. He’s got a great opportunity now. There’s so many children in the world — there’s really enough to go around.”
Bono, who is in Australia for U2’s Vertigo tour, revealed he and his wife were once offered an African child by a father desperate for his son to have a better life, but they were unable to take him home. Bono said the child, whose face haunts him to this day, is the reason he began campaigning for African poverty relief.
“One of the most profound moments I’ve had, one of the reasons I think I’m doing what I’m doing, was because in the 1980s I was working with my wife Ali in an orphanage in northern Ethiopia,” he said.
“On the last day, a man came to me and offered his son to me, saying, ‘If you don’t take my son, he will surely die. If you take him, you can give him a great life’.
“I could tell this man loved his son, he was a very noble-looking man, and it was ripping his heart to say this. And I didn’t, I did not take that (boy).
“It was not the rules of engagement in the camp we were working in, we couldn’t do that. It’s strange, because I can’t remember the boy’s name, but I think about him all the time.
“Oddly enough, when people ask me ‘Why are you doing that’ (the activism, the campaigning), his face comes back.”
Bono said he and Ali had an emotional moment in their Dublin kitchen a few weeks ago when prints from their first-ever African trip (which were being used for a new book) revealed a photo of the boy.
“I didn’t know I even had a photograph of him,” said Bono.
Bono, due to perform at U2’s opening Australian concert in Brisbane tomorrow, said: “I think a U2 album will not be that far away, I hope. We’ve hit the vein, I think.”
There really are a lot of children out there in the world who need a new home.
