Aids is the new struggle. Yet again civil society is mobilising to fill the vacuum left by government. Once more the private sector is stirring, recognising that the present situation is unsustainable.
Many Aids activists are old hands who learnt their craft in the era of apartheid. But where once they fought an immoral and criminal regime, now they are turning their skills on a government that many support and voted for.
The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) is considering launching a court case against the government. The group is accusing the state of a breach of human rights in not providing the anti-retroviral drug nevirapine to pregnant HIV-positive women in an attempt to curb transmission of the virus to their unborn children.
This is not the action of a bitter band of old activists seeking publicity and turning on their creation. It is the course of a group of idealists troublemakers admittedly, and proud of it, but people who cherish the rights enshrined in the Constitution and insist that those in power must fulfil their responsibilities.
The TAC activists may be grabbing the headlines but with them are the trade unions, the doctors, the NGOs and ordinary people who believe that HIV is the greatest threat to the social and economic fabric of our society.
Big businesses are looking at getting to their workers the kind of care that the government seems unwilling or unable to provide.
Much has been made of plans by Anglo American to provide anti-retroviral drugs to its workers. HIV-positive Eskom employees are already able to get limited anti-retroviral care through their medical aid scheme and the parastatal has had an HIV/Aids programme since the 1980s.
The government cannot say that it did not know the epidemic that was heading towards it, although it must have been a bitter realisation in the freshness of post-apartheid South Africa.
It must also be bitter to see other governments Brazil is a leading example manage to provide the care to its citizens that ours has been dragging its feet on. Brazil’s Constitution guarantees access to anti-retroviral treatment, and the country is preparing to fight at the World Trade Organisation to protect its ability to do so.
The masterful inaction by the people we elected to look after us must end. And preferably with our leaders seizing the initiative and acting giving compulsory licenses, providing nevirapine, there are many ways rather than under the ignominy of the compulsion of a court order.
The alliance between NGOs and the government that saw them sitting shoulder to shoulder in the court case against the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association started to splinter just hours after the case was withdrawn. It’s bad news for our country and all who live in it, since in different ways we are all living with HIV/Aids. We need civil society, the private sector and the state to work together: united we stand, divided we die.
Government’s script
The Swaziland government last week prevented the publication of the independent Guardian newspaper and interrogated journalists. A senior journalist at Botswana Television resigned a few days ago because of government interference. Last month three freelance photographers in Zimbabwe were arrested for taking pictures of President Robert Mugabe. Last weekend black business people took out an expensive full-page advertisement in a Sunday newspaper, attacking the media for being racist and right wing.
The media in Southern Africa are under serious attack.
The South African government condemned the banning of The Guardian, and President Thabo Mbeki said at a World Press Freedom Day function that the principle of press freedom should be upheld.
At the weekend, business cronies of Mbeki made a stridently racist attack on the media spewing forth vitriol to the effect that racism and right-wing ideology inform criticism of the president and the African National Congress government.
The battles between the press and governments in Southern Africa are unfortunate. But if there is a proper understanding of what the media’s function is, these battles can be avoided before full-scale war takes place.
Editors and journalists do not suck stories out of their thumbs. For instance. the infamous arms deal was not hatched up or plotted by some intrepid investigative reporters. ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni’s seemingly shady acquisition of his Mercedes-Benzes is no figment of the imagination.
Questioning and challenging are part of democracy, transparency and making the government accountable to its electorate.
For a full-on functioning democracy, we need an independent, non-sycophantic press. As the media want to get on with their jobs, so must government officials want to get on with theirs.
The government’s job is not to waste energy and resources on attacking the press but rather to ensure that their own decisions, deals and policies are transparent, far-thinking, far-reaching, well thought out, creative and in keeping with the Constitution.
Easy. Simple. Try it. We’d like a shot at having other things to write about. Give us a chance.