ANC Today --------------------------------------------------------------------- Volume 1 No 17, 18 - 24 May 2001 --------------------------------------------------------------------- THIS WEEK: * Letter from the President: Sport is a valuable part of building a non-racial society * Parenting: Women and men face many challenges in fostering the country's youth * AIDS drugs: Manufacturers at the centre of continuing controversy * Responding to AIDS: MP highlights the issue of HIV/Aids in the family * SA women's movement #1: The history and role of the Women's National Coalition --------------------------------------------------------------------- LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT Sport is a valuable part of building a non-racial society This week our national cricket team, the Proteas, completed its West Indies tour. Congratulations are due to the team, for the spirited performances in both the Test Series and the One-Day Internationals, both of which we won. We also salute the new players who were selected into the national side and wish them success in their careers. We must also commend the coaches, the selectors and the United Cricket Board. It was also good to see the Windies perform much better than when they last visited us, when, for instance, they were whitewashed in the Tests. On that occasion, it was indeed very sad to see the successors to such great players as Gary Sobers, Wes Hall, Viv Richards and others, do down to a humiliating defeat. As was to be expected, spectators turned up at the various matches in the various West Indian islands in good numbers, to support both their team and the sport, and to use these occasions for purposes of recreation. It must have given the West Indian people immense pleasure to mark the retirement of Courtney Walshe by celebrating his 500th Test wicket and also to pay tribute to Curtly Ambrose, as he also bowed out of first class cricket, both of whom are correctly seen by the West Indians as great national heroes. It was therefore most unfortunate that, as they were concluding their tour, news came out that some members of the Proteas had joined together to smoke dagga. Clearly, this is not a message that any person would like to communicate, especially to the youth of our country, that it is acceptable that people should smoke dagga or indulge in drug and substance abuse. Our cricket players, like others in other sporting codes, are indeed our national heroes, as much as Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walshe are to their own people. They inspire all of us, including the youth, to strive to perform well in sport and in life generally. I am certain that the concerned cricket players would themselves regret the dagga-smoking incident and agree that they have an important role to play as examples to the young and as ambassadors of our country and people. The offending cricketers have been duly punished. The rest of us should consider this unfortunate incident as part of our unhappy history, which should not be repeated. We should welcome Man of the Series, captain Shaun Pollock, and the rest of the Proteas back to the country with all the acclaim they deserve, being the first touring side to win both the Test Series and the One Day Internationals. All right-thinking people in our country will continue to be upset that any of our cricketers were, in some earlier years, involved in match fixing, hoping that we will never experience this again. From the point of view of those who lost their lives or suffered injuries, as well as sport in general and its importance as a form of recreation for the people, the recent tragedy at the Ellis Park soccer match is clearly something that should never happen again. It was therefore very encouraging to see the numbers of people who attended the Sundowns-Orlando Pirates match at Loftus Versfeld earlier this week. All of these matters about sport are, of course, of great importance to us as a country because of the direct relevance of sport and recreation to our continuing common struggle for the reconstruction and development of our country. We must also emphasise the point that among the sports people on whom we must continue to focus are the millions in our country who are disabled, but who have shown us, repeatedly, that they too are as entitled to sporting activity as any other South African. Perhaps more than any other, our disabled sportspeople are our true heroes and heroines. Our sports teams give us the possibility to present a report both to ourselves and to the rest of the world on the progress our country is making towards the creation of a non-racial society. And, clearly, we are making progress not only with regard to the composition of our teams but also with regard to getting our most distinguished sports competitors from both sides of the colour line. The success we are recording is by no means achieved easily. Undoubtedly, vigorous public debate will continue about how we should handle the two matters of ensuring that we have non-racial teams, while ensuring that there is no marginalisation of players who should be selected by virtue of their merit as accomplished athletes. Among other things, this brings to the fore the need for the government at all levels, the private sector and the sports community to continue to concentrate on the issue of the provision of sports facilities and expertise to the disadvantaged sections of our population. We also need to encourage greater enthusiasm among these sectors of our people for their own participation in sports. The latter consideration requires that we should do more work to encourage children at our schools, as well as the young people in our institutions of higher learning and in further education, to get involved in sport. With regard to the former, we will have to encourage both the teachers' and the student organisations as well as the school governing bodies to join in this campaign. In this context, we must also express our thanks to some of our leading sports people in the various codes, including soccer, rugby, cricket and athletics, and the private companies, for the work they are doing to assist in the development of sport in our schools. The old Latin concept "mens sana in corpore sano" - a sound mind in a sound body - remains a very sound objective that we ourselves must pursue with great vigour. In addition to this, we must also recognise the fact that the youth of our country, like their peers elsewhere in the world, are constantly being pulled towards various forms of recreation, some of which are very undesirable. Some of these include drug and substance abuse, crime and early, unsafe sexual relations. Important as they are, moral lectures and youth counselling alone will not succeed to address this challenge. Our society must make a collective effort to engage the youth in other meaningful and constructive activities that are not a mere distraction, but are important in themselves. Sport and healthy recreation belong among these important activities. This is the second major reason that we have to concentrate on this sector, adding to what we have said already about the opportunity this sector gives us to help build a non-racial South Africa. Of course, the increased mass involvement in sport also provides us with a larger pool of sportspeople as we continue to transform our provincial, national and other representative teams. As we reported during the State of the Nation Debate in parliament in February, the national government has directed that, in particular, the Ministers and Deputy Ministers of Sport and Recreation, Arts and Culture and Education should also champion a programme to encourage and promote traditional sport. This leads us to the third reason why sport is so critical to our future as a country and a people. Clearly, the attention to traditional sport would not be at the expense of the Olympic and other accepted international codes, which we must continue to support and encourage. An important consideration with regard to traditional sport is that is that it does not require large financial outlays to create infrastructure and to provide expensive kits for the players. Our government and country face many resource demands, merely to address the urgent question of the legacy of apartheid. Accordingly, we must accept that the issue of expenditure on sports infrastructure, important as it is, nevertheless has to compete with other equally urgent demands for the limited resources our country disposes of. It is for this reason that we raise the question of the cost of infrastructure relative to the development of traditional sport. Apart from the impact that traditional sport will have in encouraging greater numbers of people to be involved in sport, it will also help us to give impetus to a matter central to our rebirth as a nation - the issue of our national identity. Like other peoples throughout the world, we are open to the impact of the process of globalisation. This includes the effect on us especially of the news media, television and the cinema, the Internet and tourism. Everyday, the flood of communications conveyed by all these media help to determine not only how we think and feel about particular events, but also how, generally, we think, feel, conduct and define ourselves. Access to world knowledge and culture is an important part of what we have to achieve in the effort to build a new South Africa. Our commitment to the realisation of this objective was stated in the Freedom Charter, almost half-a-century ago, in the words that "the doors of learning and culture shall be open to all". However, that national goal also assumed and stated the point explicitly, that we would also ensure that all our people would be exposed to our own national cultures and the products of our own learning processes and creative activity. Necessarily, therefore, our correct openness to the rest of the world should not serve to displace and obliterate our national heritage. Simply put, to become citizens of the world, if this is what we seek to be, first of all we must become citizens of South Africa. The reality is that if we are not such South Africans, all we can become is disoriented and dislocated people who try to become an amalgam of cultures from other lands that we have tried to absorb as second-hand or outside recipients. Very often, the products of such processes are not people who experience human fulfilment. Our embrace of traditional black and white sport, played and enjoyed by all of us across the colour line, will help us firmly to define ourselves as South Africans and thus, in reality, give us better capacity to absorb and respond to other cultures, without becoming disoriented as individuals. This would also add immensely to the common non-racial effort to build the sense of African identity, consciousness and confidence that are so critical to the success of the African Renaissance and the accomplishment of the objectives of the African Century. As these Africans, of all colours and cultures, we must seek to excel in all the established international codes. Already, we have made good progress in this regard. Among others, the Proteas, our Paralympic competitors and some individual sports people have served us very well, both as good examples and important sources of national inspiration and pride. These successes have made and are making an important contribution to the sense of African identity, consciousness and confidence of which we have spoken. The further development of our traditional sport can only add to this in important and new ways, with enormous benefit both to individuals and to our society as a whole. The example given in this regard by the Free State province is one that must inspire all of us to act vigorously for the encouragement of traditional sport. In the development of mass involvement in sport and recreation, and the recovery of our national skills in this area, we have nothing to lose and everything to gain. --------------------------------------------------------------------- PARENTING Women and men face many challenges in fostering the country's youth South Africans marked Mother's Day this last weekend with much media hype and gift buying. Such occasions are a cheery reminder of the important role that parents - both men and women - play in developing the country's youth. It is a recognition, however commercial it may be, of the many responsibilities and challenges that parents face today. Forty-four percent of South Africans are under the age of eighteen. Of these children, six out of 10 live in poverty. The development of South African society therefore rests in great measure on progress in eradicating poverty among youth, improving their levels of health and nutrition, and, importantly, increasing levels of education and employment opportunities. While society as a whole is taking up these challenges, parents are at the forefront of efforts to improve the situation of South Africa's children. At the same time, they are most directly affected by the problems children face. Gender inequality remains a prominent feature of social relations, and women are disproportionately affected by the responsibilities of childbearing and child rearing. In practice, these responsibilities contribute centrally to the relative difficulty women have in accessing education, employment, resources and time. Households headed by women are generally poorer than other households. The average annual income of households 'headed' by men is almost twice that of households headed by women. Fewer women than men across all race groups complete secondary schooling. African women workers earn 15 to 28 percent less than men with the same level of education. The challenge to parents is therefore to seek more equitable means of allocating responsibility for the raising of children, making a particular effort to ensure that unequal gender roles are not passed on to the next generation. In poorer households, girl children are often forced to end their schooling to assume some domestic responsibilities, including caring for younger siblings. Since 1994 a number of government's poverty relief programmes have been aimed at children and their care-givers. These include the free health care policy announced in 1994 by then President Nelson Mandela according to which pregnant women and children under six years old receive free health care. Since introduced, this policy has seen more women and children using public health sector facilities. The Primary School Nutrition Programme was initiated to provide a meal a day for young primary school children, to improve levels of nutrition and increase their ability to learn at school. In 1998, the Child Support Grant was introduced to help poor families look after their children. The grant, which is being phased in over five years, can be paid to a mother, father, grandparent or any one else who looks after the child on a day to day basis. It replaces the State Maintenance Grant, which reached about 220 000 poor, mainly white and coloured, families. The new grant aims to reach over three million poor children across all races. Around one million children are currently receiving the grant. The government has established pilot projects for unemployed women with children under five years to provide economic and developmental opportunities. They are targeted at women living in deep rural areas and previously disadvantaged informal settlements. The various pilot projects have different economic opportunities that include activities such as an eating house, overnight facility, car wash, beauty saloon, vegetable gardens, garment-making, poultry and egg production, bread-baking, leather works, offal cleaning, child minding and paper and fabric printing. The programme has developed a creative form of early childhood intervention, which provides developmentally appropriate education to young children aged under five to increase their chances of healthy growth and development. The projects will be used to develop a model so that the number of projects can be increased. While these programmes can support parents and caregivers in poor and vulnerable communities, they cannot replace the role of parents in fostering a youth that is able to survive and thrive in a changing society. In addition to poverty, youth are faced with pressures such as crime, drugs, abuse and HIV/Aids. Parents are therefore not merely providers of food and other material needs. They are also providers of values, guidance and emotional support. They are responsible for inculcating a respect for community and humanity often in circumstances of social dislocation and alienation. Increasingly though, South Africa will need to respond with urgency to the growing numbers of children who are growing up parentless because of HIV/Aids. The number of households headed by children is increasing, posing substantial social and economic challenges to the country. It will require innovative measures by government, society and communities to deal with this problem. --------------------------------------------------------------------- AIDS drugs Manufacturers at the centre of continuing controversy You are unlikely to read in any mainstream South African media what follows below, in much the same way that you will not have read in the same media, material on HIV/AIDS we carried in earlier editions of this journal. Indeed, you would have become even more uneducated on this important subject, if you relied on this media to understand the contents of the important, highly interesting and educative Interim Report of the Presidential Scientific Panel on HIV/AIDS, which you can access on the Internet. What we report in this short article is extracted from an article out of San Franscisco, written by Deborah Josefson, and headed "FDA warning to manufacturers of AIDS drugs", and dated 12 May, 2001. The article begins: "The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a warning letter to manufacturers of AIDS drugs cautioning them to tone down the optimistic tenor of their antiretroviral drug advertisements." It further states that: "Thomas Abrams, director of the FDA's division of drug marketing, advertising, and communications said that current antiretroviral advertisements directed at consumers are misleading as they fail to depict the limitation of AIDS drugs. The FDA letter stated that many of the advertisements 'do not adequately convey that these drugs neither cure HIV infection nor reduce its transmission.' " The article also states that AIDS activists in California, whose actions resulted in the issuance of the FDA letter, asserted that the advertisements may have led to some people thinking that "by popping a(n) (antiretroviral) pill, AIDS can be avoided or completely managed." Further, the article says that "preliminary evidence", produced in a survey carried out by "Dr Jeffrey Klausner, an epidemiologist in the San Franscisco city health department supports the contention that the drug companies' advertisements may alter behaviour by their overly optimistic message." To access the results of this ongoing survey, Josefson directs the readers to the website: http://www.surviveaids.org. She also reports that "the pharmaceutical companies have 90 days to comply with the FDA's directive to modify their promotional advertisements." Most unfortunately, there is little chance that the politicians, corporate, medical, non-governmental and media people in our country, who are involved in a campaign that is not different from the one which the US FDA seeks to prohibit, in the public health interest, will listen and respond to the message of the US FDA. In the consequence, innocent people in our country will continue to suffer, even to the point of death, thanks, in part, to the wilful behaviour of these fellow South Africans. The Josefson article states that "Dr Klausner believes that the advertisements may have contributed to the dramatic rise in HIV infections in San Franscisco over the past four years. Although the number of AIDS related deaths have declined, the number of new cases is rising and drug resistance is emerging." Last week, ANC MP, Ruth Bhengu, whose young daughter was declared in 1998 to be HIV-positive, made an earnest plea that in dealing with the AIDS challenge, we must treat with human beings rather than statistical entities, thus transforming people into victims of various agendas that have nothing to do with their health. The Josefson article states that the AIDS activists in San Franscisco "were angry that billboard and magazine advertisements portrayed sexy and athletic models in the prime of health who were climbing mountains, sailing boats, and riding bikes. These are pursuits which are quite difficult for people with HIV infection, who have to take drugs several times a day that have debilitating side effects." In the San Franscisco example, and perhaps elsewhere in the United States, what the AIDS activists and the FDA are objecting to, fundamentally, is the exploitation of people as objects to be abused for commercial gain. The message from Ruth Bhengu and her daughter, Nozipho, was no different. Will the merchants of the AIDS drugs in our country, hear her heartrending and urgent appeal, which was made in defence of the millions who, like the Bhengu family, are subject to a relentless marketing propaganda onslaught. --------------------------------------------------------------------- RESPONDING TO AIDS MP highlights the issue of HIV/Aids in the family The important role of the family in responding to HIV/Aids was highlighted in parliament this week by ANC Member of Parliament Ruth Bhengu, who spoke of the experience of her daughter, Nozipho, who had tested positive for HIV. Bhengu's story reflects the experiences of many South African families who are having to come to terms with the traumatic consequences of HIV/Aids. "I want to tell you about the feelings and the heavy load that the family of an HIV positive person carries every day." Bhengu spoke of the initial shock of being told by her daughter that she had tested positive for HIV, and the family's efforts to deal with the emotional impact of the condition. She said her daughter's situation was far better than many other South Africans, who lived in poverty and did not have the same kind of support. "A person in the informal settlement - without a plate of food to eat, no warm blanket to cover her body, no psychological counselling; no soap to wash her body and clothes, who is ignorant about HIV and Aids, who cannot access information - is far worse than Nozipho," she said. She cautioned against believing that anti-retrovirals represented a complete solution to the disease. A holistic programme was needed that would take care of the poverty-related problems experienced by people living with HIV. Bhengu's spoke not only on the impact of HIV/Aids on the family, but on the value of family support in tackling the condition. Many people living with HIV/Aids have spoken of the tangible difference which family support, care and understanding makes to their health and well being. --------------------------------------------------------------------- SA WOMEN'S MOVEMENT #1 The history and role of the Women's National Coalition In view of the challenges that a democratic South Africa still faces in achieving gender equality, it is necessary to ask what kind of struggles we still need to engage in and what type of organisations we need to lead such struggles. In doing so, we need to consider the role of the Women's National Coalition (WNC), its history, the context of its emergence, its original objectives, the driving forces behind its formation and how it has evolved since then. These are among the issues which the WNC conference, which is due to take place soon after being postponed in December 2000, will need to reflect on. Background By the middle of the 1980s mass resistance to apartheid had reached its highest levels. Central to this resistance were the women's struggles led by various women's formations especially those aligned to the Congress Movement such as UWO, UWCO, NOW, FEDTRAW etc. Women, both in exile and inside the country, had reached a stage of understanding the notion of a "revolution within a revolution". At the 1987 ANC Women's Section National Conference there was a resolution for the formation of an umbrella national women's organisation against apartheid. The Kabwe Consultative Conference in 1985 made a call for a Bill of Women's Rights that would be similar to the Freedom Charter. A proposal for the drafting of a Women's Charter was later made. All these ideas were further elaborated at the Malibongwe Conference in January 1990, which brought together women activists from both inside and outside SA. The Malibongwe Conference laid the basis for the launch of the WNC, two years later. The unbanning of the ANC and others, the release of political prisoners and the return of exiles changed the character and form of political struggles in South Africa. The United Democratic Front (UDF) and their affiliated structures were dismantled as ANC structures were set up. The relationship between the ANC Women's League (ANCWL) and the UDF related women's structures was not without its own tensions. There was concern that the dissolution of the women's organisations and the launch of the ANCWL could lead to the demobilisation of women and the abandonment of women's struggles for gender equality. The debates begun prior to and at Malibongwe became more urgent. The question of commonality and diversity on the "women's question" was raised persistently and with more urgency. The ANCWL initiated various discussions, workshops, and meetings amongst women of different political tendencies. The central question was: 'What kind of new democratic SA did the women want?' These consultations and debates culminated in the launch of the WNC in April 1992 with more than 100 women's organisation from all walks of life as members. Its main objective was to identify and ensure that women's needs and aspirations were codified. It adopted a programme of the compilation and documentation of women's needs and aspirations that would be integrated into the new policies of a free, non-sexist, non-racial and democratic South Africa. A two-year long consultation process culminated in the adoption of the Women 's Charter (WC) in 1994. The compilation of and the content of the WC helped the WNC find the new collective identity within diversity and a common ground among most, if not all, women of SA irrespective of their race, class, religion, political affiliation, region, language, ethnic origin, sexual orientation and many other women's multiple identities. Among the factors which helped mould and sustain the WNC in its early years were: * The involvement of women in the mobilised mass of South Africans who were driving the transition from authoritarianism to democracy. * The determination of women in South Africa, on the eve of democracy, that a future state would, in a very substantive way with regards to gender relations, be different from the previous state. * The temporary creation of some limited "shared interests" among women across political divides which resulted from women's initial marginalisation from the negotiation process. * The diversity of women, their needs, perspectives and aspirations forced women to realise the importance and need of finding each other and agreeing on at least the minimum common aspirations to be included in a future dispensation. * The political climate within SA promoted a general goodwill nationally and internationally and commitment to support such transformation efforts. This resulted in many sponsors' willingness to provide resources. * The presence, commitment and courage of various women, feminists, gender activists with differing experiences and expertise was part of the cement that held the WNC together at its formative years. From the onset there was recognition of the diversity of women's aspirations, experiences, their organisations and forms of mobilisation, organising and struggles. The WNC allowed different kinds of organisations including churches, service sectors such as health, welfare etc, and women from different political backgrounds, class, race, and cultural backgrounds to come together in unity for women's emancipation. A coalition allowed separate identities, independence and interdependence, organisations tackling specific issues determined by their specific material conditions and lived experiences, while simultaneously creating networks, sharing information, skills and resources and uniting in action around those issues which each organisation agreed upon. A coalition allowed pliable and flexible boundaries between which members moved from time to time with integrity, acceptance and respect of each other. It also allowed for autonomous organisations and co-ordinated programmes avoiding political fragmentation or emphasis on difference while not imposing false universalism or "sisterhood" under notions of a homogenous category "women". After the democratic transition The political landscape changed with the 1994 democratic election. At the centre of this change were the political parties to which most citizens were affiliated. The WNC was affected by this strong political centeredness. Women in parliament, former members of the WNC, disagreed openly on key gender issues. Women's interests were articulated through the political parties' policies. Their allegiance and accountability was first and foremost to their political parties. This affected not only the women in parliament but also the WNC. The WNC had agreed that women members of parliament would not be elected to office. Even in this new environment, the WNC managed to maintain its role. Its main focus was on the constitution making process, new legislation and parliamentary processes. It acted as the voice of women in society, consistently making presentations to Parliament, raising critical questions and firmly demanding and mobilising women to continue to fight for their rights and gender equality. After the adoption of the new Constitution in 1996 there was little to sustain the WNC as it was originally constituted. The adoption of the Constitution with its relatively gendered approach; the setting up of the national machinery with the Office on the Status of Women (OSW) at national and provincial levels, the gender units in each government department, the setting up of the Commission on Gender Equality (CGE), indeed the institutionalisation of the struggle for gender equality is one of the most significant achievements of our democracy. However, this presented its own tensions and challenges. To what extent was the relative "engendering" of the state going to demobilise women's struggles and organisations? Were there possibilities of the absorption of feminists gender activists and women into the patriarchal character of the State? Some of these questions were to impact and continue to do so on the role and character of the WNC and indeed on the Women's Movement in SA. There was no unanimity at the 1997 WNC Consultative Conference on the role and direction of the WNC. The conference decided the WNC should continue to focus on women and the law. This was seen as a continuation of the Women's Charter campaign and a tool to focus on the implementation of the programmes outlined in the Convention for the Complete Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) and in other international conventions. The future Differences of opinion continue. Some expected the WNC to fold up with the adoption of the Women's Charter. Others hoped the WNC could become the critical centre for a Women's Movement in South Africa in a 'semi-permanent' way. One option is to dissolve the coalition. The arguments for this include that: * the mandate of the WNC was achieved with the adoption of the Women's Charter and there is not much that can hold diverse organisations of women together; * the WNC is causing confusion and diverting women from concentrating on building a grassroots-based women's movement; * there is a serious lack of human and material resources; * the new context requires different types of women's formations. Those who argue for it to continue have different versions of its role. Some see it as the beginnings of a women's movement while others believe it should focus on specific elements of gender equality, like women and law, or violence against women. Some of the reasons for continuation include: * the very existence of women's organisations that engage with each other on struggles for gender equality is itself an achievement, and cannot afford to be destroyed; * the networks and infrastructure, limited as these may be, are needed -especially in rural or disadvantaged areas - and should continue to be utilised; * there is a need for an extra-government/parliamentary women's voice that can act as a pressure and lobby group for gender equality while simultaneously collaborating with the government and gender activists within the state. The WNC could then be a specific issue-based network linking its affiliates to each other and assembling and disseminating women or gender-responsive information. It would be a national resource centre for women's organisations countrywide. It could focus on engendering the budget, including rooting the Women's Budget Initiative among women at grassroots level. Most South Africans agree patriarchy permeates all spheres of life and its eradication requires a protracted struggle at all levels. Educating, mobilising and organising society is a critical imperative for the achievement of gender equality. The decision about the future of the WNC can therefore not be left to those who will be attending the WNC conference. It requires participation from all of us. This is an edited version of an article by ANC Deputy Secretary General Thenjiwe Mtintso which appeared in the May edition of Umrabulo, the ANC's quarterly discussion journal. It is the first in a series of articles on the South African Women's Movement. The next article in the series will appear in the June/July edition of Umrabulo and will be summarised in ANC Today. --------------------------------------------------------------------- This issue of ANC Today is available from the ANC web site at: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/2001/at17.htm