World Aids day came and went this week with a big show of concern. President Nelson Mandela spoke out about the silence around Aids and everywhere people were wearing red ribbons. There is clearly a new public awareness trail that has been blazed by Deputy President Thabo Mbeki.
But impressive though the awareness campaign has been, it’s too little too late. The history of Aids in this country has been a tale of missed opportunities and denial, of efforts that have been uncoordinated and ineffective.
In the 1980s, medical experts were already warning of an epidemic that could spiral out of control. But there were other more pressing matters on the national agenda – in a society that was not free, where people were dying for their convictions and children were being jailed for protesting against the system, the hypothetical dangers of a little- known disease were a low priority.
Unfortunately, this attitude persisted into the 1990s. There were Aids education campaigns, but they were always lower down on the order of business than a host of other imperatives: reconstruction and development, a new democracy, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, crime.
The results of this failure to act can be seen in the statistics – an estimated 1 500 South Africans infected daily – in the funerals taking place daily, in the growing numbers of Aids orphans being taken into care.
Another African country took a different path. Uganda, a much poorer country with a less developed infrastructure, decided to tackle the epidemic head on a few years ago. It made prevention a national priority, the responsibility of all its role models and leaders. Every time a leader, from President Yoweri Museveni down, appears in public, mention is made of the pandemic and the need to wear condoms.
In so doing, they have reversed its infection rate, the only country in Africa to do so.
It could be argued that South Africa had no option but to focus on overthrowing apartheid and building a new democracy. But what is freedom worth if the people who fought and worked for it are not even alive to enjoy its fruits?
One of our letter writers this week, Katy Harries of King Edward VIII Hospital in Durban, urges that the condom should be given a new image. As she points out, Britain’s pop stars fought against Aids. Hollywood has had a big impact on attitudes and behaviour surrounding HIV.
Aids needs to be identified as a national priority. It needs to be taken up by our leaders and role models. If Mandela spoke about Aids every week instead of once a year; if religious leaders like Desmond Tutu, sports stars like Lucas Radebe, popular musicians and many different public figures talked regularly about Aids, we would have a chance of repeating Uganda’s miracle.
Values before race
There are a variety of signals which suggest that a severe blow has been delivered to the morale of the judiciary – signals ranging from the resignations of Judge John Myburgh and Judge Piet van der Walt to a poor turn out at the annual dinner of the Transvaal Bench.
As this newspaper commented before on the resignation of Judge Van der Walt, it was not clear whether he was acting out of pique, or principle. The same is true of Judge Myburgh, with the added question as to whether he has not been lured away from the tough assignment of building the labour courts by the prospect of a cushy job in the mining industry. But, whatever the motives, the resignations were clearly facilitated by a sense of outrage on the Bench at recent appointments to, and within their ranks.
Membership of the Bench is a bit like an old-fashioned marriage contract; judges promise a lifelong commitment. Failure to honour it is regarded by the legal profession with much the same distaste as “society” of yesteryear looked down on divorcees. Also, as in the case of divorce, the financial cost of separation is high. Judges do not get pensions as such, but enjoy full salaries for the duration of their natural lives. They do not get a cent of that benefit if they resign.
We have no doubt that, were it not for a lingering sense of duty as well as this financial cost, several other judges would have left the Bench. And it would be foolish if the government failed to recognise that such a danger still exists. Two eminent judges having already undermined the taboo, and with Anglo American having set the unfortunate precedent of head-hunting among the judiciary, it requires only a few more blows to morale to precipitate what could well turn into a general exodus. In the nature of things it would be the talented who would go, leaving behind the general incompetents who took refuge on the Bench from brief-less practices with the help of political cronies in the apartheid regime.
There is no doubt that the judiciary, which is staffed by scores of judges who presided over appalling miscarriages of justice, is in need of reform. But what is of concern is that the increasing emphasis on making the Bench more representative has distracted attention from the real problem with South Africa’s judges: their values.
It is often said that transformation is a painful process, mainly in reference to the fate of the old guard. But for transformation to be a truly successful process, some of the pain must surely be felt by the new. It also means accepting that the most important criteria in the selection of the country’s new judges should be the candidates’ values – humility, and a sensitivity to human rights and to the social iniquities bequeathed by apartheid – and not their political affiliation.