I had the misfortune to share part of last week in Sweden with our great and good President, Mr Thabo Mbeki, who was in Stockholm visiting with all his centre-left cronies. I say misfortune, because, despite the fact that I had initially felt proud that our president was hobnobbing with the likes of Lionel Jospin, Tony Blair and Gerhard Schroder, yet again I ended up trying to explain to genuinely baffled scientists why he persists in making such a fool of himself, and of our country, to the world at large.
You see, Mr Mbeki obviously got away from his minders, and ended up on Swedish TV for a live interview. He or his spin-doctors had evidently reckoned without the very direct nature of Swedish TV journalists, for he was bluntly asked why the SA government’s HIV/Aids policy was such a mess and he came back with how there was still no conclusive proof that HIV causes Aids (his reply was essentially that “it is still a thesis”)! Just when we thought he’d learned to shut up!
But it went on: the interviewer persisted, and asked why, in the face of so many people being infected and dying, the government persisted with investigations into things that have been answered to everyone else’s satisfaction. And he launched into a polemic along the lines of “Where do you get your statistics from? We are currently investigating causes of death in South Africa, and these questions have not been answered, so it is premature …”
My scientist colleagues were genuinely bemused by his behaviour. So, evidently, was Swedish TV, because they pulled in a very distinguished Swedish scientist to comment on his stance. And all he could come up with as an excuse because make no mistake, behaviour of this sort really does need excuses was that the problem was evidently so big in South Africa, that the leadership was in denial. I could only agree. Despite the fact that they are funding research into vaccines, despite the fact that mother-to-child intervention will almost certainly roll out, this denial has hurt our country badly.
It does not seem to matter what happens in our country; it does not matter how many people try to engage the slippery python that is the president’s policy and thinking on HIV/Aids; it does not seem to matter how many people die of Aids, and how many babies are needlessly born with HIV there remains the stubbornness and wilful failure to comprehend that is leading us into disaster. Mr Mbeki, you make an idiot of yourself, and fools of us all for putting up with your views. Leave health policy alone, or resign. Please. Ed Rybicki, Pinelands