Dolina Dowling
A second look
The speculation and furore that has arisen about the ultimate cause of the death of Parks Mankahlana raises some interesting questions.
No one doubts that the explanation given by his wife that he had acute anaemia, which brought about a massive heart attack, is correct. Why he had acute anaemia is the nub of the speculation. I want to sidestep this point and turn instead to the debate that followed this speculation. We are told that the underlying cause of his illness is a private and confidential matter for his family. And at first blush, this seems correct.
There is, and ought to be, a moral presumption in favour of privacy about such matters. On the other hand, we also value transparency in the new democratic South Africa. And the press has a clear public mandate to challenge the government’s tendency to conceal negative and sensitive information.
Furthermore, the Aids pandemic itself is a matter of acute public concern. When it is possible that one of its victims is a public official and someone regularly in the news, this becomes a matter of great public interest. In other words, privacy does have its limits.
The question I want to ask is: is the demand for information about the medical condition that resulted in the death of Mankahlana warranted, or is it an unwarranted intrusion into the private life of an individual? How are we to tell? In general terms, the answer is that the potential for harm to other individuals that non-disclosure will cause provides an adequate moral justification for breaching privacy. Let us consider this.
Firstly, as we have seen recently, Mankahlana was not an ordinary person. He played an impressive role in the liberation struggle and, arguably, an important role in assisting the shaping of our new democracy, first as a media spokes-person for former president Nelson Mandela and then for President Thabo Mbeki. All of this set him above the status of an ordinary citizen. He was in the public arena. And it is argued that in a democracy, the public has a right to information about political office bearers.
Moreover, like any other public figure, by entering public life Man-kahlana chose to forfeit many of the aspects of privacy rightfully enjoyed by the ordinary person. Secondly, and more importantly, in the past year Mankahlana was the spokesperson for a government that publicly doubted – at the highest level – that HIV causes Aids. While HIV attacks people regardless of race, gender and socio-economic status, certain sectors in society are more at risk of infection than others. These are the uneducated that are typically poor and powerless and young people who generally are prone to engage in high-risk behaviour. Given these factors it ill behoved us to have a public debate on something so critical and deadly and which conventional science had long since accepted.
As a result NGO workers in the HIV/Aids field reported that a great deal of confusion was caused and, worse still, the need to practise safe sex was disregarded by large numbers of young people. To this can be added also that Mankahlana was a spokesperson for a government that refuses to supply pregnant women with AZT, and rape survivors with anti-retroviral therapy. If he had Aids, it would be interesting to find out if he had a prescription for anti- retroviral drugs. Such disclosure might lead to credibility problems, and charges of, for instance, moral hypocrisy, if it turns out that the government’s spokesperson died of Aids. Thirdly, and most importantly, one of the most cruel aspects of the struggle against HIV/Aids is the stigma that surrounds the disease itself. It is seen by many people to be something that is shameful. We have been told of the plight of children who, due to Aids ravaging their families, have no means of support and have to rely on the goodwill of their community.
This support is often not forthcoming due to the circumstances that left them orphaned. We are regularly told that in many communities, people who are living with HIV/Aids are ostracised.
The government is aware of this stigma and is trying to do something about it, as is evidenced in its recent policy document.
On the other hand, the way that the Mankahlana/Aids debate has been conducted – particularly by those who deny that he died of Aids – suggests that there is still a very long way to go if we are to overcome the depth of this prejudice. To see this, suppose that Mankahlana had died of cancer, rather than acute anaemia. There are no raised eyebrows when someone dies of cancer. There would have been no calls for privacy and confidentiality, and certainly no one would have called such reports “rubbish” or “vicious”. Or made statements slamming the media for speculating on the cause of Mankahlana’s death. (Loyalty to colleagues in adversity is a commendable virtue regularly found within the African National Congress government.)
Furthermore, it would be nice if the government were to attack the issues its opponents are raising rather than its opponents. But the point is that unless members of the government are open and frank about the death of their own colleagues, their stand against the stigma of Aids will be regarded as inconsistent and, once again, lends credence to charges of moral hypocrisy. We have seen that this case involves a clash between two competing principles: the right to privacy and the public’s right to know if a political celebrity succumbed to Aids.
It was noted earlier that the presumption in favour of privacy and confidentiality applies just as much to the medical condition of a public official as it does to the ordinary citizen. However, where privacy and non-disclosure reinforces the suffering experienced by ordinary people, then an intrusion of this sort seems to be justified.
A much greater good might well be achieved by disclosing the information on Mankahlana rather than withholding it. Dr Dolina Dowling is dean of research and postgraduate studies, Vista University