South Africa’s Minister of Health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, has been widely criticised by international academics and local activists for her controversial views on HIV/Aids.
Now members of the public are also expressing their discontent, and the issue has even reached cyberspace, with the website Sackmanto.co.za calling for Tshabalala-Msimang’s immediate retrenchment.
“The Aids debate cannot meaningfully move forward with her [Tshabalala-Msimang] there,” Anton de Waal, the website’s co-founder, told the Mail & Guardian Online this week.
Last month De Waal and his wife, Brigitte, set up the “Sack Manto Campaign” site in their own capacity, as a way to “do something about the issue”, he said. “I think all South African citizens have a duty to look after other citizens, especially since the government is not doing it.”
He said they had closely monitored the country’s Aids crisis for the past six years, and decided to take an active stand following the Toronto debacle, where the Department of Health set up an exhibition of HIV/Aids treatment consisting primarily of vegetables and herbs.
“We couldn’t believe that we were in a situation where the health minister was embarrassing us internationally,” De Waal said.
Based in Cape Town, De Waal is a property developer by profession, but has a background in IT. His wife was also initially trained as a web developer, and this helped in setting up the site.
Opening with a call to the health minister to vacate her current position, the site says: “Please resign today and save hundreds of thousands of lives. You are a national embarrassment! If only you could see what the rest of us see!”
The site includes facts about South Africa’s HIV/Aids situation, a selection of quotes from Tshabalala-Msimang herself, and a section called “Phone and harass” that urges to the public to send petitions, call, fax and e-mail the Health Department and the Presidency, calling for the minister’s dismissal.
De Waal said that over the past three weeks, the site has had 4 700 separate visitors from countries as far as Italy and Australia. “And from October 7 to 17, 300 people signed our online petition,” he said.
Cartoons
Political cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro, better known as Zapiro, has a selection of his cartoons that feature Tshabalala-Msimang displayed on the site.
“I am so angry at Manto for her mixed messages and for the damage she has caused,” Zapiro told the M&G Online.
He feels public campaigns like the Sack Manto site are important as part of a combined effort to bring about change. “This campaign [to oust Tshabalala-Msimang] needs a series of things; this [website] is just one facet of the series,” Zapiro said.
“You have the letter [sent to President Thabo Mbeki by international scientists, calling for Tshabalala-Msimang’s dismissal], this website, the TAC [Treatment Action Campaign] itself; it is all contributing to it,” he added.
Sipho Mthathi, general secretary of the TAC, said although it has nothing to do with the Sack Manto site, it has also repeatedly expressed its dissatisfaction with the minister.
“Obviously we [the TAC] called for Manto to resign … in the health interests of the country,” Mthathi said. “But it’s not about Manto Tshabalala-Msimang as an individual; it’s about the failure of her department as a whole.”
A comment on Sackmanto.co.za says: “Manto is the Minister for Health, but her role in the executive Cabinet is simply to execute the policy of the present administration. You ask people to send faxes to President Mbeki, but she is in effect carrying out the policy of his administration [his policy].
“In other words, you are asking people to send faxes to President Mbeki to fire his own agent who is carrying out his own policy. I don’t see that happening in all honesty.”
De Waal said: “Probably deep down, I don’t think Thabo Mbeki will fire her, but there has to be public awareness about how people are suffering.”
“The health system is in shambles, and has no real leadership,” the TAC’s Mthathi said. “It shouldn’t be just a personalised attack on her [Tshabalala-Msimang], but something that draws attention to the issues.”
Mthathi feels that if sites like these support the issues, instead of simply attacking individuals, then it is a good thing for the public to be involved.
Despite numerous attempts made by the M&G Online, the Health Department was not available for comment.