Who are our heroes and heroines?
On 8 August, I wrote to the then Deputy Minister of Health, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, relieving her of her duties in government. In this letter I said: "This letter serves to inform you that, acting in terms of the provisions of clause 93 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, I have decided to relieve you of your duties as Deputy Minister of Health with effect from today.
"All of us who serve our people through the national government took an oath or made a solemn affirmation to respect and uphold the Constitution. This same Constitution calls upon us to, among other things, work collectively to develop and implement national policies.
"I have, during the period you served as Deputy Minister of Defence, consistently drawn your attention to the concerns raised by your colleagues about your inability to work as part of a collective, as the Constitution enjoins us to. For the same reason, I have also discussed this matter with you as Deputy Minister of Health.
"You travelled to Madrid despite the fact that I had declined your request to undertake this trip. It is clear to me that you have no intention to abide by the constitutional prescriptions that bind all of us. For this reason I suggested to you that you should resign.
"It is clear that you do not accept my advice. This leaves me no choice but to relieve you of your duties."
A hue and cry
Ordinarily, I would not make any further comment on this matter. However, some, both within our country and internationally, have raised an ill-founded and ill-intentioned hue and cry about the dismissal of Ms Madlala-Routledge. As part of this, all manner of fabrications have been peddled that relate to a whole variety of issues that bear on the work both of the ANC and our government.
Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge also chose to convene a press conference to give her the possibility to 'tell her side of the story', during which she claimed that all she had ever done was to "speak truth to power", presumably to present herself to the media as part of the so-called Fourth Estate, which is fond of using this phrase to define its social role.
In her comments, among others, she chose to make various observations about the functioning of the Ministry and Department of Health, the government in general, the meeting the Deputy President and I had with her on 7 August, and the kind of leaders the December 2007 National Conference of the ANC should elect.
With regard to this last issue, a journalist asked Ms Madlala-Routledge why in the last two years she has expressed her seemingly dissenting views publicly, rather than within the structures of the ANC, which our movement requires of its members. She responded more or less precisely in these terms: "The fax I sent to the President to say I am not resigning I sent from Luthuli House, (the ANC Headquarters building). Albert Luthuli, Oliver Tambo, Govan Mbeki, Archie Gumede...Lilian Ngoyi, Dora Tamana, and the Freedom Charter taught us the values I uphold. The ANC taught us to speak out!...As we go towards December, I am going to be campaigning hard to get a leader or leaders (elected by the ANC National Conference) I think will be brave to stand up for the truth, for the values my organisation, the ANC, stands for...I am going to work very hard in my branch, in my district, my Province (KZN), and all over, to make sure that we succeed to unite the ANC, that is very important - to unite the ANC - and choose a leader who the country will support."
Naturally, members of the ANC have asked what Ms Madlala-Routledge meant when she made these remarks. They have asked why she has suggested that the current leadership of the ANC has divided the ANC, and why she suggests it does not have the courage to stand up for the truth, why she suggests that our leadership has no regard for the values of our movement, and why she suggests that the leader of the ANC is not supported by our country.
Undoubtedly the ANC will deal with this matter as prescribed by its Constitution, its normal procedures, its conventions and traditions, and our current challenges.
Who's in, who's out?
We have, in the past, dropped people who had served in government in ministerial positions. This has also happened at the level of Provincial Government. In no instance have the members of the ANC thus affected ever decided that they should engage in a media and public campaign, as Ms Madlala-Routledge has chosen to do.
And indeed, none of the similar interventions affecting other members of the ANC serving in government, including local government, have aroused the media frenzy generated by the dropping of Ms Madlala-Routledge.
The strange and disturbing assertions and developments we have heard and seen, since the dismissal of Ms Madlala-Routledge, strongly suggested that we must make some comments in this regard, which explains the reason for this Letter. I began the Letter by citing my letter to Ms Madlala-Routledge.
The question at issue is therefore very simple. As I said in my 8 August letter, the central matter I raised with the former Deputy Minister is the issue of the collective responsibility of everybody who serves in the National Executive. I would never have raised this with Ms Madlala-Routledge when I spoke to her on 7 August and in the 8 August letter, maliciously, with no factual basis.
I am certain that Ms Madlala-Routledge will recall the instances when I spoke to her while she served as Deputy Minister both at Defence and at Health, to assist her to understand and respect her obligation to honour the fact that she was part of a collective that has a responsibility to abide by the decisions of the ANC and the government.
In this regard, I must also say that, of course, government can detail the many instances when Ms Madlala-Routledge wilfully ignored or defied this obligation.
The Spanish trip
To justify her trip to Spain, Ms Madlala-Routledge, supported by some in the media, has argued that some Ministers and Deputy Ministers have travelled out of the country without receiving authorisation, written or otherwise. The fact of the matter is that Ms Madlala-Routledge has absolutely no way of knowing this. In any case, the point at issue is that Ms Madlala-Routledge defied a written decision that she should not travel to Spain.
If she was looking for a precedent to argue that she should not have been dismissed from the National Executive, she would have been better served if she provided even one example of a Minister or Deputy Minister who travelled even after permission to travel had been denied, as she did. Personally, I know of no other such incident since 1999.
Because the ANC has always sought to build rather than destroy, for many years our leadership agreed to keep Ms Madlala-Routledge in government, determined further to develop her as a true cadre of our movement, committed to serve the people as a disciplined member of our movement. It is clear that in this specific case we failed.
I refer to our leadership because like others who have decided to campaign on the basis of the concocted assertion about "centralisation of power in the Presidency", Ms Madlala-Routledge may entertain the illusion that she stayed in government as long as she did on the basis of decisions taken by the President, solely and exclusively. If this is the case, she, and everybody else, will have to learn the basic lesson that the national democratic revolution cannot, and will not be advanced on the basis of fabrications.
There is nothing exceptional about the Constitutional requirement for members of the National Executive to act as a collective. This applies even to the lowliest of community-based organisations. Defiance of this very elementary rule would expose any organised social formation to chaos and anarchy. This includes the ANC. If it were tolerated in government, it would inevitably lead to a slide to the disastrous condition of a failed state.
Some in our country and others elsewhere in the world, including the media, have acclaimed Ms Madlala-Routledge as a great heroine, before and after her dismissal, on the basis that she seemed to demonstrate intellectual and personal "courage" by defying the obligation to speak and act as part of a collective. In this regard, in her 10 August press conference, she made a point of emphasising her obligation to be accountable to the media.
Collective responsibility
With regard to all this, I must make the point absolutely clear, without equivocation or qualification, that while the ANC serves as government, in any of the three spheres of government, freely elected by the people, it will ensure that its members respect the principle and practice of collective responsibility.
None of the members of the ANC deployed in government will be treated by our movement as heroes and heroines on the basis of "lone ranger" behaviour, so-called because of their defiance of agreed positions and procedures of our movement and government.
In the 95 years of our existence as a movement, no member of our organisation became a hero or heroine because of actions that would condemn our movement to the plague of chaos and anarchy. At the same time, throughout its history, to date, our movement has insisted on the need to respect the right of every member freely to express his or her view within our constitutional structures.
Indeed, during her press conference, even Ms Madlala-Routledge stated that when she has attended meetings of our National Executive Committee (NEC), she observed that members of the NEC, and other participants, enjoyed the freedom to speak their minds.
Contrary to what some have suggested, Ms Madlala-Routledge, like other members of the National Executive, has never been denied the right to speak her mind both in the Cabinet Committee and the Cabinet meetings. This also relates to instances when Deputy Ministers have differed with their Ministers. Any suggestion to the contrary would be, to speak plainly, a blatant lie.
Similarly, we must underline and emphasise the point that government policies are government policies. There is no government policy that belongs to individual Ministries or Departments, or even the Presidency. Our government is not made up of a federation or coalition of ministers, or a Presidential autocracy.
As prescribed by our Constitution, and in terms of the practice we have entrenched since 1994, all government policies are approved by the Cabinet. This includes the legislation that the National Executive submits to the National Legislature. Accordingly, the President and the rest of the Cabinet take full responsibility even for some of the contested draft legislation currently being considered by our National Parliament.
In this context I must also emphasise that there is not even one important policy and programmatic initiative that our government has taken since 1994 that has not been based on decisions taken by the constitutional structures of the ANC. During these years, to date, the people of South Africa have elected the ANC to serve as the ruling party. Members of the ANC deployed in government have consistently worked in a manner that respects the popular mandate given to their movement.
HIV, AIDS & super-heroines
In the determined effort to market Ms Madlala-Routledge as some "super-heroine", her admirers have attributed our government policy and programmes on HIV and AIDS to her. Thus the extraordinarily absurd claim has been made that her dismissal from the National Executive threatens the very survival of the government (and ANC) programme on HIV and AIDS.
In this regard, and as an example of what I am talking about, the British newspaper, "The Independent", even felt entitled and obliged to tell a litany of blatant untruths to promote a deliberately negative agenda about the ANC and our government, which Ms Madlala-Routledge, consciously or unwittingly, has seemed very determined to advance.
Among other things, the British newspaper, "The Independent" wrote, (on 10 August): "Thabo Mbeki's stance on Aids has left South Africa with the world's worst HIV epidemic. Yesterday, he silenced the woman fighting to end the suffering of millions... The fight against Aids in South Africa, the epicentre of the global pandemic, has been dealt a devastating blow. President Thabo Mbeki stunned and outraged campaigners yesterday by sacking the country's deputy health minister, the woman credited with ending a decade of Aids denialism at the heart of the South African political leadership...
"The sacked minister, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, is an outspoken critic of President Mbeki and his Health Minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and the way they have handled the epidemic. She was the co-architect of an ambitious new five-year plan to accelerate the rollout of free, life-saving Aids drugs, tripling the numbers on treatment by 2011. That plan could now be in jeopardy...
"'He (Mbeki) has once again shown his contempt for those seeking scientific approaches to Aids,' said Professor Nicoli Nattrass of the University of Cape Town. 'This is a dreadful error of judgement. It indicates that the President still remains opposed to the science of HIV,' the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), South Africa's biggest Aids advocacy group, said yesterday.
"'It's an absolute disgrace," said Mike Waters, the opposition Democratic Alliance's health spokesman. 'The fact is for the first time we had a deputy minister with a clear direction in the fight against Aids. Both the President and the Minister are denialists, while the deputy minister has her feet stuck in reality.'"
In an article in "The Independent", Ms Madlala-Routledge said: "I can't say what reason the President had for dismissing me. But I know that the Health Minister, back in the driving seat, wanted to reassert her ideas. We have made progress recently, and I would be saddened and disappointed if we were now to be taken back to a time when people were confused about Aids treatment.
"I am certain now, that if our Health Minister goes back to talking about garlic and beetroot, she will face only ridicule. I am not, I must stress, attacking the traditional African medicines that she is keen to champion. They have a place in health care.
"But we are dealing with a modern disease. And as with any modern disease, we have to subject whatever we propose as a cure, to the most rigorous scientific testing... It is also important for us to hear Mr Mbeki's voice, encouraging people, leading, and showing them that HIV/Aids, with treatment, can be managed."
South Africa, HIV & AIDS
The principal journalist responsible for the many shameless lies told in "The Independent" seems to be one Katherine Butler, the newspaper's Foreign Editor. It is perfectly obvious that she did not even bother to study our government's 2000-2005 and 2007-2011 HIV/AIDS/STD Strategic Plans, (NSPs), and their implementation.
Had she, and her Editor, done so, they would, for instance, have found this comment (in the 2007-2011 Plan), which she would have been free to challenge with facts, that:
"In 1992, the National AIDS Coordinating Committee (NACOSA) - (led by the ANC) - was launched with a mandate to develop a national strategy on HIV and AIDS. Cabinet endorsed this strategy in 1994... Much was done to implement the recommendations of the NACOSA Plan review. These include the appointment of provincial AIDS coordinators, the establishment of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on AIDS, launch of Partnerships against AIDS by the Deputy President in 1998, development of the Department of Education HIV and AIDS policy for learners and educators, development of other national policies, including the Syndromic management of STIs, the establishment of the South African AIDS Vaccine Initiative (SAAVI) in 1998, the establishment of SANAC, the establishment of the national interdepartmental committee on HIV and AIDS, as well as the development of a Strategic Framework for a South African AIDS Youth Programme."
The 2000-2005 Plan said: "The development of this strategic plan was initiated by the Minister of Health, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang in July 1999 in response to President, Mr Thabo Mbeki's, challenge to all sectors of society to become actively involved in initiatives designed to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It began with a meeting in July 1999 to review the current HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and care efforts in South Africa.
"The meeting was attended by representatives of faith-based organisations, people living with HIV infection and AIDS, human rights organisations, academic institutions, the civil military alliance, the Salvation Army, the media, organised labour, organised sports, organised business, insurance companies, women's organisations, youth organisations, international donor organisations, health professionals and health consulting organisations, political parties, and relevant government departments.
"After priority areas for future efforts were discussed and agreed upon, a committee was charged with developing a five-year HIV/AIDS and STD Strategic Plan. Task teams were established to review current goals and objectives for the designated priority areas. The priority areas are prevention; treatment, care and support; legal and human rights; and monitoring, research and evaluation.
"In addition, the Minister of Health held bilateral meetings with several important sectors including traditional leaders, faith-based organisations and business to obtain their views and to discuss ways to facilitate their active participation."
Further, the 2007-2011 Plan says: "The HIV & AIDS and STI Strategic Plan for South Africa (NSP), 2007-2011, flows from the National Strategic plan of 2000-2005, the Operational Plan for Comprehensive HIV and AIDS Care, Management, and Treatment (CCMT) as well as other HIV and AIDS strategic frameworks developed for government and sectors of civil society in the past five years. It represents the country's multi-sectoral response to the challenge with (sic) HIV infection and the wide-ranging impacts (sic) of AIDS."
Despite all the foregoing, and strangely, including the financial resources our government and parliament have provided to give substance to our NSPs, all of which stand up to any and all international comparisons, one of the journalists at the Madlala-Routledge press conference, who, we must assume, is not familiar with any of the history we have indicated, said our country is faced with an 'international PR crisis with regard to HIV and AIDS!'
Vavi, Waters & Madlala-Routledge
The fact of the matter is that personally, Ms Madlala-Routledge had very little to do with both the NSPs we have mentioned, regardless of the fabrications that she and her admirers choose to manufacture. These driven admirers include the General Secretary of COSATU, Zwelinzima Vavi, who, not surprisingly, joined the chorus of the praise-singers of Ms Madlala-Routledge, boldly saying (according to the SABC), with absolute contempt for the facts, but absolute loyalty to a particular agenda: "I think the firing of that minister - who everybody in the country accepted was one of the most efficient, hardworking ministers we have in the Cabinet - sends a message...that we know of so much dead wood that remains untouchable in government as ministers, many of them dying on duty...says basically, if you're working hard and are an independent thinker, you will get the chop."
(As Head of State and Government, I know of no Minister or Deputy Minister, with which echelon of South Africans I interact virtually everyday, who is not an independent thinker and a hard worker, who behaves like a sheep and a mindless sycophant. Given my constitutional and political responsibilities, defined by our Constitution and statutes, I am quite ready to listen to any contrary view in this regard, regardless of its origin. On the various occasions I have met Vavi formally and informally, he has never raised this issue. Neither has COSATU, a genuinely valued ally of the ANC, which Vavi has served as General Secretary for some years, ever raised this issue in its numerous interactions with the ANC and government! Basing itself on its experience about Vavi's many public and negative statements, which I assume he will continue to make, the ANC, a devoted ally of COSATU, must surely come to the conclusion that its historic ally, COSATU, has determined that it will principally communicate with us, the ANC, through public statements made by its General Secretary!)
The "Mail and Guardian" quoted Vavi as saying: "In the absence of any other convincing explanation, we then conclude that she (Madlala-Routledge) was fired because of her views on HIV/Aids, which were not shared by the president and Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. It is very sad because this means the sheep mentality of following the leader will persist. It will deepen the culture of sycophancy among government ministers and officials.
"But all we can do is pay tribute to her. Thanks to her, government now has a five-year comprehensive HIV/Aids plan. Thanks to her there is unity between government and civil society and it is also thanks to her that we no longer have the mixed messages, and the spirit of Aids denialism is behind us."
Again not surprisingly, the Democratic Alliance (DA) backed what Vavi said. In a statement on 10 August headed "Madlala-Routledge fired for speaking the truth" - speaking truth to power? - Mike Waters, DA spokesperson on health said: "The far more likely explanation (for her dismissal) is that (Ms Madlala-Routledge) was fired for speaking the truth. The former Deputy Minister has been outspoken on the following issues:
- Government's performance with regard to HIV/Aids;
- The nature of government's response to the HIV/Aids pandemic; and,
- The situation at Frere Hospital."
The Endgame?
In its 12 August edition the "Sunday Times" dramatically presented on its front page a story about how Minister Tshabalala-Msimang allegedly behaved while receiving treatment in a hospital in Cape Town, a few years ago. Through her lawyers, the Minister has threatened to take legal action against the newspaper. Accordingly we cannot comment on this matter.
However, the government Presidency has issued a statement to say that this newspaper report does not justify dismissing the Minister, as some have suggested. Among other things, the statement said: "The Presidency notes that the latest allegations levelled against the Minister of Health appear to be consistent with attempts by some in the media and elsewhere, to demean the person of the Minister...
"The Presidency would like to reassure all South Africans of the integrity of the public health system as led by Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and the Cabinet collective."
In the recent past the ANC, the government and our people as a whole have had to contend with elaborate and sophisticated disinformation campaigns intended to destabilise the ANC, the government, our democracy and country, not disconnected from similar anti-ANC campaigns during the apartheid years. The more recent campaigns presented themselves through the "hoax e-mail" and "browse report" incidents.
Time will tell what happened that gave the "Sunday Times" the right to tell the story it told, whether right or wrong, about what might have happened in Minister Tshabalala-Msimang's "private space" in hospital. All of us, up to now, assumed that we had a Constitutional and common sense entitlement to treat this "hospital space" as being subject to the "privacy and dignity" human right and privilege to which all our citizens, including Ministers, are Constitutionally entitled.
Whatever the endgame in this regard, we, and the overwhelming majority of our people, will have been painfully alerted to the fact that not everybody in our country and abroad, is happy that the ANC enjoys the confidence of the masses of our people. Equally, others are unhappy that, contrary to the predictions of the doomsayers about African countries, we have managed the transition from white minority rule to non-racial, democratic rule as well as we have, thus making the statement in practice that cannot be disproved with facts, that categorically, there exists no genetic fault that condemns Africa and Africans forever to be defined as a failed continent and civilisation.
Is it the case that to win the approval of the loudest voices in the world of the contemporary global communication system we must behave in a manner that is consistent with their stereotypes? Who will determine who our heroes and heroines will be?
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