True heroines & heroes - our health workers

Not long ago, our Minister of Health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, was cared for and underwent a highly successful liver transplant operation at the Johannesburg General Hospital and the Donald Gordon Medical Centre. This has succeeded to restore her to full health and enable her to resume her public duties.

On behalf of our movement, the ANC, in all humility, I would like to thank all the surgeons, the physicians, the technicians, the nurses and the general staff at the Johannesburg General Hospital and the Donald Gordon Medical Centre for everything they did which has made it possible for a tried and tested cadre of our movement, a true and devoted servant of the masses of our people, to resume her place in the frontline of the noble struggle to build ours into a caring and people-centred society.

Excellent medical practice

Some among the highest qualified and experienced medical practitioners in our country have communicated the important message that the success achieved by the doctors and staff at the Johannesburg General Hospital and the Donald Gordon Medical Centre is a bright star that shines as an outstanding achievement in the practice of medicine throughout the world.

Contrary to the false and negative propaganda that some have striven very hard to propagate in this regard, we should, as a nation, celebrate a brilliant achievement of our medical practitioners which, anywhere else in the world, would be acclaimed and promoted as cause for the open expression of genuinely unqualified national pride.

This relates to the success of the delicate and complex operation to accomplish the liver transplant, the post-operation hospital care, and the attendant full recovery of the patient in a relatively short time, especially in the light of her age. It also relates to the professionalism of the heroes and heroines at Johannesburg General Hospital and the Donald Gordon Medical Centre who have resisted the contemporary disease to market and popularise themselves through the media as the outstanding achievers they actually are, instead responding in a dignified and appropriate manner to the unprincipled attacks unjustly levelled against them.

All this confirmed both the excellence of our medical workers at all levels, and the unquestionable professional competence within our health system, driven by unwavering devotion to the ethics that attach to the practice of medicine. It also demonstrated the unqualified confidence of our political leader in the area of health, the Minister of Health, in the capacity of our public health system, as a consequence of which, when need arose, she entrusted her life to the members of the Johannesburg General Hospital and the Donald Gordon Medical Centre.

The values of ubuntu

I was born and grew up in a culture steeped in the ubuntu value system. Among other things, this culture valued and values the sanctity of human life. In this culture, one of the expressions used to convey thanks to an individual for doing good things says - ukhule, ukhokhobe! - may you grow old until your back bends, as befits the truly elderly!

Translated into the English language this means - we wish you a long life! Accordingly, the value system that has informed my world view has always taught all of us that the ill health experienced by anybody is cause for common concern.

Our traditional greeting system, as in other cultures, includes the formal inquiry - how is your health?, how were you when the sun set? - which enables the interlocutor in fact, and legitimately, to talk about his or her health and the relevant social conditions, which many of our older people do, to this day.

However, the hospitalisation of our Minister of Health will have taught us that our value system is changing towards an ugly and inhumane direction. In this regard, views were expressed and a campaign waged essentially to convey the brutal message that everybody concerned, including the doctors who treated her, should have allowed Manto Tshabalala-Msimang to die.

Various propositions were advanced in this regard by and through the media. One of these was that the Donald Gordon Medical Centre carried out the liver transplant when it did because I, as President of the Republic, had obliged the medical centre to do so. Alternatively, the medical centre had treated her as a priority patient, because she is the Minister of Health.

Consequently, as another proposition, allegedly the doctors at the medical centre had compromised all ethical medical principles to enable Manto Tshabalala-Msimang to jump the queue, displacing other patients who should have been treated first.

The unadorned truth is that the allegation about our intervention with the medical centre was entirely false. Similarly, the accusation that the doctors at this centre had given preference to the Minister of Health, ahead of other and waiting patients, responding to our pressure, was also a complete fabrication. Equally, the suggestion that, unprompted, the medical centre unethically broke some rules, to enable itself to admit the Minister of Health as a priority patient, is an unadulterated concoction.

It is obvious that those who deliberately manufactured and peddled these lies did so to argue that Manto Tshabalala-Msimang should not have been treated, and should have been allowed to suffer and die. They were enraged that the Donald Gordon Medical Centre saved her life, whereas they wished and wish that her health condition should and could have been allowed to kill her.

Clearly, there is something radically wrong within our society, that anybody could have the audacity publicly to argue that nothing should have been done to attend to the health of another South African human being, allowing her to die instead, as some in our society have argued with brazen assurance.

Shining through, and mediating all this horrible, frightening and anti-human experience is both the outstanding excellence of our compatriots, the medical workers and the administration at the Johannesburg General Hospital and the Donald Gordon Medical Centre, and the dignity which Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, her husband and children have displayed in the face of a sustained and merciless propaganda assault, bereft of all sense of humane feeling and human solidarity.

Some in our society, and elsewhere in the world, seem determined to applaud this truly frightening behaviour, which, in reality, belongs to wild animals, celebrating it as an excellent example of the true meaning and expression of the democracy for which Manto Tshabalala-Msimang fought throughout her life.

Cadres of the revolution

I knew her and of her more than 45 years ago, when she was a student at Fort Hare and a member of the ANC Youth League. I went into exile with her, in 1962, when we, young adherents of the ANC and militants of the national liberation movement, obeyed the command of the ANC to go abroad to study, which was conveyed to me personally by Walter Sisulu, Nelson Mandela, Govan Mbeki and Duma Nokwe.

In exile I served in the leadership of the then ANC Youth and Student Section, part of whose task was to ensure that those of us deployed as students, to acquire qualifications that liberated South Africa would need, honoured our obligation to equip ourselves with knowledge. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang (neé Mali), together with the rest of the ANC students in the Soviet Union, where she qualified as a medical doctor, faithfully carried out the mission our movement had given to our students.

On completion of her studies, like many of her ANC Youth League and student colleagues, she returned to Africa to serve the ANC and our people, in exile and at home. Among others, the ANC deployed her in Botswana, Tanzania and Angola in various capacities, to advance the struggle and serve the people of South Africa.

In our tradition as the ANC we do not normally celebrate our heroes and heroines publicly, such as Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, until they have died. This is based on the understanding that all those who join the ANC and therefore our continuing struggle, have a duty to promote and defend the ANC and the struggle it leads. There is therefore no need to acclaim members of the ANC simply because they act as true, rather than paper members of our movement.

Violating this tradition, I have now written about Manto Tshabalala-Msimang as I have because some, at home and abroad, who did nothing or very little to contribute to the immensely difficult and costly struggle to achieve our liberation, have chosen to sit as judges over who she is, what she has done for the welfare of our nation, and what she represents, today, with regard to the pursuit of the goal of a better life for all our people.

All genuine members of our movement are greatly inspired and moved that the ANC, our struggle and people have, for fifty years, had the support, involvement and dedication of Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. It is because of her and other cadres like her, including her contemporaries, members of the Mkhonto we Sizwe Luthuli Detachment, that the ANC has lived to celebrate its 95th anniversary, as it did on January 8th this year.

Equally, we are greatly inspired and moved that there are many, professionals within the profession she chose, medical care, who, whether they know her or not, are, in practice, following in her footsteps in terms of their commitment to serve the people of South Africa.

A genuine patriot - Johannes Dreyer van Niekerk

Among these are those who took her life into their hands at the Johannesburg General Hospital and the Donald Gordon Medical Centre. Also among these is another medical doctor, whom almost all South Africans have never heard of, Johannes Dreyer van Niekerk.

Dr JD van Niekerk works in a public health hospital in Nababeep, Namaqua District in the Northern Cape. He was born and grew up in this district. The doctor is a specialist in Internal Medicine and worked at the Kimberley Hospital Complex (KHC) as a Principal Specialist and Head of Cardiology.

Visits he made to Namaqua in his adult years convinced him that the best way for him to put his professional expertise to the people most in need of his services would be to relocate from the provincial capital, Kimberley, to the district of his birth, Namaqua. In good measure, his resolve in this regard was driven by his deep-seated devotion to the Christian faith and its humane prescriptions.

Naturally, the Kimberley Hospital Complex management was unhappy that it would lose its Principal Specialist in Internal Medicine and resisted his departure. When it was finally agreed that Dr van Niekerk could move to Nababeep, he had to confront the reality that he would lose his status as Principal Specialist and could not even be given a position either as a senior specialist or a specialist. At Nababeep he would be paid as a Chief Medical Officer, which would entail a significant salary reduction.

Nevertheless Dr van Niekerk was determined to leave Kimberley, the better to serve the poor of our country. He therefore accepted the salary cut. He found later that fortunately, his remuneration remained the same as in Kimberley, thanks to the rural allowance provided by the Department of Health and lower tax obligations.

Dr van Niekerk opened his Nababeep Specialist Clinic on 15 January this year. Operating from the public health hospitals at Nababeep and Springbok, he is providing excellent service in Internal Medicine to the entire population of the Namaqua District. This makes it unnecessary for Dr van Niekerk's patients in this District to undertake the 800km journey to reach the referral Kimberley Hospital Complex.

In this regard, Dr van Niekerk has written: "I strive to deliver a one stop service wherever possible, doing all the examinations within the first consultation to arrive at a final diagnosis and the appropriate correct treatment. When the patients leave my clinic they are well informed, motivated, and take back with them a letter to their referring doctors and clinics to put in their files. Ambulances transport the patients from all over this vast district to our clinic.

"In this way 1st world medicine has arrived at the doorstep of the poor and underprivileged people of Namaqua. Even traditional shepherds have access now to almost the best of first world medicine." (In addition, Dr van Niekerk is acting as a tutor or mentor to junior doctors and other health personnel in Namaqua to improve their capacity to attend to the health of our people.)

To do his work Dr van Niekerk required various equipment, staff, and the necessary premises both for the clinic and his residence. When she was approached, the Premier of the Northern Cape, Dipuo Peters, understood the need urgently to supply the required equipment. She therefore found the necessary resources, outside the health budget, which had been exhausted, to supply some of the equipment that Dr van Niekerk requires.

Remarkably, Dr van Niekerk also used a substantial portion of his own savings to obtain other equipment. In addition, because Nababeep Hospital had not budgeted for these posts during the current financial year, he has used and is using his own savings to pay for the receptionist and nursing sister he needs to run the Clinic and carry out his overall work!

Champions of the goal - health for all

Dr van Niekerk has also written: "My vision for the District of Namaqua is to establish a Diagnostic Training Centre. Here doctors can enter a course of special training in applied Internal Medicine, using modern apparatus like sonar, fibre-optic scopes, treadmills and different biopsy techniques...The question remains whether other specialists like myself will venture to do the same as I did. I was and is driven by a vision and by passion. I believe we must at least create the best circumstances we can in our hospitals, and then invite them...some will respond!"

Some in our country are determined to communicate the most negative stories about our country, essentially to entrench the false understanding that ours is a democracy in crisis, offering no hope to the masses of our people. They do this to pursue a political agenda driven by a single-minded determination to ensure that they, rather than our movement, determine the future of our country, in their interest.

For this reason, they will continue to hide from our people the excellence of world standard, demonstrated by the surgeons, physicians, technicians, nurses and staff at the Johannesburg General Hospital and the Donald Gordon Medical Centre who cooperated to carry our Minister Tshabalala-Msimang's liver transplant and restore her to full health in a relatively short time.

They will continue to deprive our people of all knowledge about a truly remarkable South African, Dr Johannes Dreyer van Niekerk, a doctor in our public health system, who continues to show all of us what it means to be committed to serve all our people, and what the Afrikaner people are doing, working with other South Africans, to contribute to the achievement of the goal of a better life for all our people.

They will continue to do their best to denigrate a principled fighter for a democratic, non-racial and non-sexist South Africa, who has dedicated her entire life to the achievement of this outcome, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, whom history will honour as one of the pioneer architects of a South African public health system constructed to ensure that we achieve the objective of health for all our people, and especially the poor.

About Dr van Niekerk, Northern Cape Premier Dipuo Peters, has said: "Dr JD van Niekerk is one breed of rare South African doctors who is not driven by money but by the need to serve the people of his country, and that informed his decision to relocate to Namakwa rather than to emigrate to Canada or Australia. Instead of 'greener pastures', he looked for the floral carpet and starlit sky of Namakwa where diamond magnates and sheep shepherds need his services."

As South Africans we have much to celebrate and emulate, especially the nobility of human spirit that inspires many of our people, both black and white, including those working in the health sector. We will not allow that those with other agendas succeed to deny us the possibility to celebrate and emulate the example set by our genuine heroes and heroines.

A fundamental revolutionary lesson:
The enemy manoeuvres but it remains the enemy / Part II

A silent mood of trepidation?

"A silent mood of trepidation, fear and helplessness seems to be stalking the land; things seem to be getting out of hand": is this what the national democratic revolution has produced?

As our readers know, the words alleging "a silent mood of trepidation" etc., and as we reported in last week's first article of this series, (Vol.7 No.33), were written by the editor of the Financial Mail, Barney Mthombothi. In that article, we said: "By merely reading the limited text from the Financial Mail we have cited, without exposure to the rest, any normal human being would begin to experience a sense of great unease about the future of our country. The central question that would vex the very soul of the citizen - and others in the world interested in the future of our country -would be, will the South African democracy survive!"

One of the central challenges facing the ANC, the leader of the national democratic revolution, is to defend the gains of this revolution. This includes rebuffing the sustained ideological and political onslaught that seeks to denigrate the political and socio-economic advances we have made, to discredit the governments our movement has led since 1994, and to propagate the notion that the democratic revolution is in crisis, presaging its failure.

The good news

A year ago, on 1 September 2006, "South Africa: The Good News", published an article entitled "A start-up with lots of potential". The article said: "Swedish internet entrepreneur Stephan Ekbergh has entered the South African market with one-stop travel portal Travelstart.co.za, and plans to move his operational headquarters to Cape Town.

"Ekbergh is regarded as a pioneer of the online travel business, having started Mr Jet in 1998 and the original Travelstart site in Sweden in 1999. The South African operation is his first outside of Scandinavia, although he sees it as the first of many across the globe.

" 'I can't think of a better place to have headquarters than Cape Town,' Ekbergh says. 'South Africa is a great country. In many ways it reminds me of my company; it's a start-up with lots of potential and great people...South Africa is a good place for us both strategically and culturally,' Ekbergh told Fin24.co.za."

Twelve months later, on 15 August this year, "South Africa: The Good News" published another article entitled "Upbeat forecast for SA economy". This article said: "Despite the recent spate of industrial action, worse than expected inflation figures and higher interest rates, the Stellenbosch-based Bureau for Economic Research (BER) came out with an upbeat economic forecast for the third quarter on Tuesday. Upgrading its forecast for South Africa's real gross domestic product (GDP) growth over the short term, the BER projected strong fixed investment growth, robust exports and continued employment growth in the third quarter.

"The BER's Hugo Pienaar said in a statement that the bureau's optimism was based to a large extent on 'the relative ease with which the consumer has so far been able to cope with a more challenging macroeconomic environment.' Expectations that South Africa's employment growth would remain robust 'should help to shield the disposable income of households against the negative impact of higher food costs and interest rates,' Pienaar added."

Three months earlier, on 25 May, "South Africa: the Good News" had published an article headed "Most South Africans think race relations are improving". It read: "More than half of South Africans believe that the relationship between various race groups is improving, according to a Markinor survey carried out to mark Africa Day...

"According to the latest World Values Study, carried out by Markinor in November last year, at least three-quarters of South African adults (77%) either strongly agree or agree that they see themselves as citizens of the African Union or Africa. The survey also found that just under half of adult South Africans (47%) had a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the African Union...

"The results of the survey did however show different opinions among different racial groups. White and coloured South Africans are more critical of the relationship between race groups in this country than their black and Indian counterparts.

"About 7 in every 10 black South Africans (70%) believe that the government is performing very or fairly well in uniting all South Africans, with the majority of Indians feeling the same way (58%). A third of white South Africans (35%) and about 4 in every 10 coloured South Africans (43%) feel that the government is uniting the nation very or fairly well."

These three "Good News" accounts communicate what our movement and the overwhelming majority of our people know about our country.

Substance and fiction

The opinion about our country expressed by the Swede, Stephan Ekbergh, reflects the view of the overwhelming majority of the human family, including the millions who visit our country as tourists in ever-increasing numbers. Critically, we would agree fully with Stephan Ekbergh that our democracy is "a start-up with lots of potential and great people".

We can also see even with the naked eye that indeed our economy is performing very well. We have broken free of the despair of the apartheid years when our economy was in terminal decline, condemning our society as a whole to a condition of hopelessness. The Bureau for Economic Research is correct when it says that while we must recognise the hardship which the poor will experience, generally our population will be "able to cope with a more challenging macroeconomic environment".

Similarly, we know this from our experience as a movement that interacts with the masses of our people everyday, that the sense of national cohesion has strengthened throughout the 13 years of our democracy, signalling a gradual progression of our country away from the long years of racism and racial division.

We therefore know that the Markinor finding is correct, that "more than half of South Africans believe that the relationship between various race groups is improving". This signifies that the democratic revolution is making good progress towards the entrenchment of stability, social cohesion, the reduction especially of racial conflict, and the building of a non-racial society.

However, the Financial Mail would like our people and the peoples of the world to entertain a radically different view of our country and what the historic victory of 1994 has meant for the masses of our people, both black and white.

According to the text we have cited, Mthombothi imagines that the masses of our people are cowering behind high walls, terrified that "People aren't safe. Government can't protect them." Further, he argues that: "Though the 6% growth target may still be attainable, the longer-term sustainability of the economy is eroding with the fear of crime."

Will the democratic centre hold?

Arguing that "the centre cannot hold", Mthombothi writes that, "If Mbeki had got into the habit of firing ministers who weren't performing, perhaps Zuma's dismissal would not have turned out to be the headache it is for him. An act which falls within the president's remit has turned into the biggest crisis in the organisation since its unbanning. It has led to Mbeki's isolation within the ANC and the erosion of his authority, which have consequences for both the ANC and the country. There's a sense of paralysis at the centre of power. His perceived diminishing authority has thus emboldened his enemies, especially within the tripartite alliance."

Questioning the democratic credentials of our leadership, which he says pose a threat to our democracy, he argues that "The exile mentality is dominant in the upper echelons of government...In a paper that received little publicity a few years ago, Mamphela Ramphele, former vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town, drew a distinction between the exiles and those who had stayed and fought apartheid at home, referring to what she called 'unacknowledged cleavages' between the two groups. The risky exile environment, she said, demanded total loyalty and obedience to authority from members, thus entrenching an 'authoritarian culture' in the organisation."

In addition to all this, Mthombothi denounces the democratic revolution for its alleged failures on such issues as crime, education and foreign affairs, commenting on the latter with regard both to Myanmar and Zimbabwe in a manner that would be music to the ears of the Western powers.

Mthombothi also thinks that the ANC is trapped in a "leadership succession crisis" which, apart from anything else, is impacting negatively on our country's governance. He therefore offers the opinion that, "Standing down from the (ANC) leadership contest at least would free (President Mbeki) to focus his considerable skill on ensuring the country's growth and stability - as well as his legacy."

Essentially the three other articles in the same edition of the Financial Mail, which seek to substantiate the thesis that "the centre cannot hold", serve to elaborate Mthombothi's arguments.

A disturbing national sense on unease

For instance, in their article entitled "Business and the Economy: Just a hint of doubt", David Williams and Sven Lünsche say, "(Business leaders) are disquieted by the friction over policy within the ANC alliance and the possible outcome of the presidential succession battle."

After mentioning a number of worrying factors, not different from what the BER report quoted earlier says, they, contrary to the overall optimistic outlook of the BER, say: "All this adds up to a business environment that is not as stable as it was two or three years back. An element of doubt is starting to creep in."

In his own article, Mthombothi wrote in this regard: "Though corporate SA continues to support government's economic and business programme, a sense of disquiet is creeping into the business psyche as the fractious struggle for power within the ANC threatens to undermine the economic and commercial gains of the Mbeki years."

In similar vein, in his companion piece, "Politics: Reflections on a split psyche", Prakash Naidoo tries to rate various national departments of government, and the relevant Ministers, on the basis of opinion polls that sought to address these matters. Naidoo writes:

"Public opinion is often seen as the bedrock upon which democracy is built. In May, a Markinor survey of adult South Africans found that three out of four were happy with President Thabo Mbeki's performance, and more than three out of every five trusted him to do what was best for the country. But the same respondents expressed strong dissatisfaction with several spheres of government...

" 'Despite having strong institutional mechanisms in place, there is still creeping corruption, and unless it is brought under control, it threatens to overwhelm society,' says ("political analyst") Peter Kagwanja.

"The fault, says ("professor of political studies") Roger Southall, lies not in a shortage of formal measures, but in the lack of political will to combat corruption. He suggests that one reason corruption has been allowed to gain ground is mixed messages from the ANC leadership.

"Interestingly, when presented with the statement that Zuma is innocent of corruption charges relating to the arms deal, respondents to the Markinor survey appeared split: 33% strongly agreed or agreed and 35% strongly disagreed or disagreed."

In the last article in the Financial Mail presentation, entitled: "Crime & the State: A sickness of the soul", its author, Peter Honey, says: "crime is not a virus that attacks from without, but an expression of faults and fissures that run within society."

"So long as a significant portion of the population finds little value in the law or its first cousins, civic morality and governmental trust, the social matrix will provide a haven for criminality. Since the police and justice system are part of that milieu, they will always struggle to make lasting headway.

"There is evidence that South Africans - or at least enough of them to make a difference, along with a significant number of resident foreigners - have so little respect for the law or government here that they will commit crimes, petty or serious, with blithe impunity...

"The police service should be encouraged to continue its transformation into an effective crime-combating agency. But overall responsibility for crime should rest more squarely across the functions of government. That way, people may in time learn respect for governance and the value of law."

Related to this, in a radio interview Mthombothi also said: "Well my view, and it is my view, I think that business needs to speak up...I think on matters that are critical as crime and stability in this country, I think they actually need to make their voices heard. I really don't think the strategy they have taken up to now of actually cooperating with government is actually going to work because it means basically them in a sense, the government taking a lead and we know that the government in that area up to now really has not actually been that successful."

What do the apartheid and democratic rulers represent?

In an opinion piece in the 3 August edition of the Financial Mail, headed "They don't govern", Mthombothi wrote: "Listening to senior government officials, including President Thabo Mbeki, making excuses for lack of service delivery and appealing for patience from those who have lost it is like hearing a replay of a broken record. It's déjà vu. We've been here before.

"Isn't this the language that apartheid ideologues honed to a fine art? They would come across in mellifluous tones, reasonableness personified, portraying the other side as irrational, if not totally bonkers. We were once equal, under apartheid. Not any longer. It's stuff straight out of Animal Farm. We good, they bad.

"What's worrisome is the pernicious tone that's creeping into official language. Words like reactionaries, agitators and agents provocateurs are being bandied about; words which only a few years ago were a death sentence to anybody so described. Shades of Louis le Grange, (an apartheid Cabinet Minister). Communists under every bed. People can't think for themselves. Agitators are making them do it...

"It is one thing to pontificate about liberation and the joys of freedom from far-off lands; it's another to govern a country with our deeply divisive history, taking tough, and at times unpopular, decisions and alienating the very people who viewed you as heroes. Suddenly you don't walk on water anymore.

"It must be a culture shock for the ANC, vanguard of the struggle, to suddenly transform from hero to villain; to get a dose of its own medicine as it were. It's now copping insults just as the Nats used to. There is real unhappiness on the ground. No amount of propaganda will fool people. They feel the pinch. They're wearing the shoe. And they have the right, if not the obligation, to protest; to hold their leaders accountable."

We have cited these extensive extracts from the Financial Mail not because this journal is unique, but because, together, they constitute a reasoned, coherent and comprehensive attempt to falsify our national reality and consciously encourage opposition to our movement and the governments we lead in all three spheres of government.

Openly, for instance, the journal urges the business community to break ranks with our government on the issue of crime and stability, which it identifies as one of the strategic issues that defines the success or otherwise of the democratic revolution and our evolving society.

To elevate the significance of the demonstrations that have taken place in a minority of our residential areas, all of them attracting a minority of the citizens concerned, and as we have already reported, the journal says, "No amount of propaganda will fool people...And they have the right, if not the obligation, to protest; to hold their leaders accountable."

To drive its point home, which centrally is about discrediting the ANC and the democratic revolution, which includes projecting the fiction of a mass uprising against our movement and government, the Financial Mail goes so far as to suggest that our movement and government are little different from the erstwhile National Party and apartheid system, against which we waged a costly but victorious struggle.

Through the mouth of its editor, Mthombothi, the journal makes the outrageous and insulting claim that what the ANC has been saying to the masses of our people is little more than "a replay of a broken record. It's déjà vu. We've been here before. Isn't this the language that apartheid ideologues honed to a fine art?"

Further to emphasise this insult, which has made him a hero among the forces of reaction, Mthombothi writes that the democratic government displays "Shades of Louis le Grange. Communists under every bed. People can't think for themselves. Agitators are making them do it...It is one thing to pontificate about liberation and the joys of freedom from far-off lands...Suddenly you don't walk on water anymore."

An integrated opposition agenda

We can find many other examples of what we have quoted in this article, throughout the 13 years of our freedom, which are intended to discredit the democratic revolution by denying its achievements, and presenting its leader, the ANC, in the most negative light, such as comparing it to the National Party and even the German Nazis. The entirely false idea that our democracy is characterised by "a silent mood of trepidation" etc, is but part of this offensive.

Some of the central propositions of the political and ideological assault against the ANC and the national democratic revolution, as advanced by the Financial Mail, and others, are that - the political centre cannot hold; we suffer from a split psyche in our movement and the national polity; there is growing lack of confidence in business circles; we live in an intrinsically sick society with an incompetent police service; and the leadership of the democratic revolution is showing its true colours, demonstrating that as a representative of repression, it is not different from the leadership of the white racist regime.

All this constitutes part of the attack that the democratic revolution and its organised leader must expect, and combat in an uninterrupted, principled and unapologetic political and ideological struggle. In its crudest form, this reactionary onslaught even goes so far as to "discover" black people it represents as saying that 'life was better under apartheid'.

The more the democratic revolution succeeds in its objectives, the harder will its opponents argue that it amounts to nothing more than a revolution that has failed. This is intended to create the atmosphere within which it would be possible to defeat the political leader of the democratic revolution, the ANC, and reverse the gains of the national democratic revolution.

As recently as 28 August, a few days ago, StatsSA reported that during the second quarter of this year, our economy had recorded a healthy 4.5% growth rate. StatsSA said: "The unadjusted real GDP at market prices for the second quarter of 2007 increased by 5.0 percent compared with the second quarter of 2006. The corresponding increase for the respective quarters of 2006 were 4.6 percent, 4.4 percent , 4.7 percent and 6.2 percent. The estimate of GDP for the first six months of 2007 compared with the corresponding period in 2006, is 5.2 percent."

By any standard this confirms that the democratic revolution continues to be characterised by a further expansion and strengthening of the material base that will enable us to accelerate our advance towards the achievement of the goal of a better life for all. This is happening despite some negative developments in the economy, such as higher interest rates, an adverse balance of payments, and worrying rates of growth in the consumer and producer price indices.

The positive development with regard to GDP growth, even in the context of the negative features we have mentioned, will inspire the opponents of our movement and critics of the national democratic revolution to devise new strategies to communicate the message that the positive, correctly reported by StatsSA, means nothing. The more we succeed, the harder will our opponents work to convince our nation that we have failed!

Defend the Revolution!

The ANC has an historic responsibility to defend the democratic revolution and carry out continuous work to communicate its achievements to the masses of our people, supported by the direct experience of these masses. This must include the resilience of our economy, as reflected in the statistical report issued by StatsSA on 28 August. In this regard we must bear in mind that we already confront such negative comments about the future of our economy as reflected in the Financial Mail assertion that, despite our strong economic performance, we are experiencing "a business environment that is not as stable as it was two or three years back".

Our historical opponents have the task to convince the nation that under our leadership, the democratic revolution has failed. The revolutionary duty of the ANC is not only further to accelerate the process of social transformation, but also to conduct the political and ideological struggle to ensure the cohesion of the masses of our people as a united force engaged in the long march towards the creation of a truly non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous democracy.

This must include a principled struggle against the wolves in sheep skins who present themselves as members of the ANC and the rest of the democratic movement, whereas, through their actions, they demonstrate that they are opponents of the democratic revolution and its vanguard movement, the ANC.

** Part III of this series will be published in our next edition.

What the media says

Nutrition, AIDS, health, politics and profit

Sections of the domestic and international media continue to wage a determined assault against our government on the issue of HIV and AIDS. As in the past, they have not hesitated even to resort to outright disinformation to ensure the success of their campaign. In this context, in the last few days the issue of nutrition, HIV and AIDS has been given some prominence.

On 22 August this year, the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSA), published a report dealing with the issue of the relationship between nutrition, HIV and AIDS, and tuberculosis (TB). In its press statement preceding the release of the report, among other things ASSA said: "There are many important issues in the report. One of our most important findings has been that nutrition is important for general health but is not sufficient to contain either the HIV/AIDS or the tuberculosis epidemic. Panel member Dr Dan Ncayiyana, editor of the South African Medical Journal, said. 'We need a well-nourished nation. But a well-fed population on its own is not going to resist HIV/AIDS without anti-retroviral drugs.'"

Poverty, nutrition and health

There is nothing particularly remarkable about this conclusion. Even babies know, instinctively, that to live they must eat. The most traditional societies everywhere in the world, with minimal contact with modern science, have known for millennia that nutrition is critically important for good health.

The ASSA press statement also says: "Professor of nutrition Esté Vorster, director of the Africa Unit for Transdisciplinary Health Research at North-West University (Potchefstroom Campus), said that malnutrition and poverty remained a contributing factor in many infections, including HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.

"'Neither poverty nor malnutrition is the cause of HIV/AIDS or tuberculosis,' she emphasised. 'South Africans need to eat a healthy diet with a variety of daily fruit and vegetables. But if you've been tested for HIV/AIDS and you know your status, you need to also know that supplements cannot compensate for eating healthily. In the same way, eating healthily cannot compensate for anti-retroviral drugs when indicated by a doctor. For both HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, we have to rely on the appropriate medical drugs.'"

Again, there is nothing about these observations that should evoke media headlines. It is common knowledge, requiring no medical training, that the AID Syndrome of diseases and TB have specific and known viral and bacterial causes, and that neither poverty nor malnutrition are viruses or bacteria.

What our movement has argued, including all our representatives, such as Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, is exactly what Professor Esté Vorster says, that "malnutrition and poverty remained a contributing factor in many infections, including HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis."

In this context, our movement and government, led in the field of health for many years, to date, by a collective that includes Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, have argued that this reality, confirmed by Professor Esté Vorster and the ASSA study, must translate into practical interventions to integrate the fight against malnutrition within our programmes against HIV and AIDS.

Consistently, and with no sense of shame, some in our country and the rest of the world have waged a determined campaign to falsify and otherwise vulgarise what the ANC and our government have been saying in this regard, Among other things they have claimed that we were arguing that poverty and malnutrition cause HIV and AIDS, and that, medically, the AID Syndrome could be addressed by tackling poverty and malnutrition, without resort to therapeutic interventions specific to the clinical indications manifested in each patient.

They have acted thus, in a determined manner, to ridicule, discredit, defeat and completely exclude from all medical practice relating to HIV and AIDS, all arguments about the critical importance of good nutrition and other non-pharmaceutical interventions.

Science and the truth - a struggle the death

Accordingly, they have deliberately falsely presented the arguments of our Minister of Health about the known nutritional (and micro-nutrient) value of olive oil, lemon, beetroot, garlic, and other foods, as well as the efficacy of traditional medicinal prescriptions based on herbs and other natural plants, as an argument against the use of modern drugs and medicines, including antiretrovirals (ARVs).

In this context, it is not at all surprising that the scientifically ordinary ASSA report has been used as an instrument in this war of disinformation. As we would expect, once again sections of the domestic and international media have used the report further to intensify their offensive against our movement and government, and specifically our Minister of Health.

The British newspaper, The Guardian, published a report by one Clare Nullis of the Associated Press news agency, which brought together many of the elements that have served as part of the integrated architecture of the deliberate falsehoods and hostile propaganda constructs that have been used to mount an offensive against the ANC and our government. In part this article said:

"A study by South African scientists said Wednesday there was no evidence that foods such as garlic and beetroot were a substitute for AIDS medicine, disputing claims by the country's health minister.

"The report - confirming what experts worldwide have said - was likely to increase pressure on the minister (of health), who has been ridiculed for promoting olive oil, garlic, lemon and the African potato for people with AIDS and for questioning the effectiveness of anti-retroviral drugs.

"Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is also under fire because of the dismissal of her deputy and over newspaper allegations her liver transplant may have been needed because of alcohol abuse. Recent news reports also said she was banned from Botswana for 10 years in the 1970s after being accused of theft at a hospital."

The New York Times published a report by Michael Wines which said: "In an implicit rebuke to the Health Ministry, the Academy of Sciences of South Africa said its studies had found no scientific basis for the use of nutritional supplements as a first-line defence against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The country's health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, has been widely criticised for questioning the safety of anti-HIV drugs and promoting nostrums like garlic, beetroot and lemon as effective agents against the disease."

Peter Biles of the BBC reported: "Scientists in South Africa say they have found no evidence that healthier eating is a substitute for medical drugs when treating HIV/Aids and TB. This follows an exhaustive study on the links between nutrition and treatment. South Africa's health minister has faced ridicule in the past for stressing the benefits of beetroot, garlic and potatoes in fighting HIV...

"The report by the Academy of Science of South Africa concludes that no food has been identified as an effective alternative to appropriate medication in fighting HIV/Aids and tuberculosis. It acknowledges that nutrition is important for general health, but is not sufficient to contain either the HIV/Aids or the TB epidemic. It says a well-fed population on its own will not resist HIV/Aids without anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs. Controversial Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has been criticised for over-emphasising the importance of nutrition, and under-playing the role of ARVs."

Some of these views were reflected in our own national media. For instance, in its 22 August edition, one day ahead of the release of the ASSA report, the newspaper The Citizen, led with the headline: "Bad day for Beetroot: Nutrition solution slated".

On the same day, 22 August, the Cape Times led with the headline - "Good food no substitute for ARVs - scientists". Again on the same day, the Cape Argus reported the ASSA story under the headline - "Scientists say beetroot diet won't cure Aids".

As background to the story it published, the Cape Times reported that on 30 June 2005, the Minister of Health had said: "Nutrition is the basis of good health and it can stop the progression from HIV to full-blown Aids, and eating garlic, olive oil, beetroot and the African potato boosts the immune system to ensure the body is able to defend itself against the virus and live with it."

In a letter to the same newspaper, published on 24 August, Professor Gerard van Noort of Stellenbosch University said: "As a food scientist with a special interest in human nutrition, I couldn't believe the slant the report 'Good food for no substitute for ARVs - scientists' (August 22), places on the interaction between good food and the use of drugs for treating body-debilitating diseases such as HIV/Aids and TB infections.

"Good food nourishes the body and builds up the biological defence mechanism, ie. the immune system...The headline could have read 'ARVs action enhanced by good food', and would have been closer to the mark and would have left a better taste in the mouth."

Science and double talk

In his letter Professor van Noort quotes two paragraphs from the ASSA report, one of which says, "Nutrition is a difficult science because everybody can be an 'expert'...while even the most learned and experienced authority cannot easily cope with the enormous extent of human (group and individual) variation in the composition of the regular diet, in the detailed genetic make-up, and in the particulars of the life situation."

Further, Professor Noort quotes a paragraph from the ASSA report which reports the late leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Soviet head of government, Nikita Khrushchev, as having said something relevant to the proposition that the intelligentsia, including those organised in ASSA, do not have armed battalions to impose their views on society. Referring to all these comments in the ASSA report, Professor van Noort concludes his letter by asking the question - "Scientific double talk or political science?"

Stripped of all pretence, the violent hostility to our movement, our government and our Minister of Health on the issue of HIV and AIDS derives and is centred on our deliberately careful approach to the use of antiretroviral drugs.

Pharmaceuticals and the interests of the people

It is our sustained opposition to the fundamentally wrong proposition that in our response to HIV and AIDS we must rely almost exclusively on ARVs, which is driven by our deep-seated concern for the health of our people, and which we will not betray, that has resulted in the demonisation of our Minister of Health and the wilful propagation of all manner of disinformation.

The disinformation campaign has included the studied effort, over many years, to pretend that our strategy against HIV, AIDS, TB and STDs, which includes ARV treatment, does not exist. It has also sought to black out of public knowledge the fact that our government is devoting truly immense resources to confront the challenge of these health conditions.

It has also included a deliberate and dangerous propaganda campaign to convince our people that ARVs can "kill the virus and cure AIDS", as well as educate them to underestimate the complex and detailed process that must attend the dispensing of ARVs to each patient.

The naked, brutal and painful truth is that many of us, particularly in the developing world, because of the severely restricted range of our choices, deriving from our poverty, have fallen victim to three pernicious influences. One of these is the medicalisation of poverty. Another is the politicisation of disease. The third is the commercialisation of health care, in all its elements.

As a revolutionary movement we have fought against all these, and must continue to do so. As we engage in this difficult struggle, which is an integral part and an expression of class divisions within countries and human society across national boundaries, we must expect to meet the most determined resistance.

There will be more among us who will be subjected to the same amoral and no-holds-barred offensive to which our comrade, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, has been exposed, and worse. Hopefully, we will muster the same revolutionary resolution, courage and loyalty to the truth that she has shown.

Recently, in August, the US Secretary of Health, Mike Leavitt, visited our country. During this visit, among other things he said: "It is my view that the South African government has adopted a very good (HIV and AIDS) plan. They need to implement it. We'll do all we can to be supportive of it."

As we would expect, our media made every effort to avoid or minimise reporting these comments, for the simple and obvious reason that they contradict the negative fiction about the ANC and government policy and programmes on HIV and AIDS our opponents are determined to propagate, including about Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, consistent with their overall political agenda.

The WHO and nutrition

The World Health Organisation (WHO) held a "Consultation on Nutrition and HIV/AIDS in Africa" in our country, and specifically in Durban, on 10-13 April 2005. As it concluded its proceedings, it issued a "Participants' Statement" which, inter alia, said:

"HIV/AIDS is affecting more people in eastern and southern Africa than the fragile health systems of the countries afflicted can treat...The HIV/AIDS epidemic is increasingly driven by and contributes to factors that also create malnutrition - in particular, poverty, emergencies and inequalities.

"In urgent response to this situation, we call for the integration of nutrition into the essential package of care, treatment and support for people living with HIV/AIDS and efforts to prevent infection...

"We, the representatives of 20 countries in eastern and southern Africa and other participants, from organisations in the United Nations system, bilateral agencies, regional groups, nongovernmental organisations, academe and other bodies, recognise that (1) far-reaching steps need to be taken to reverse current trends in malnutrition, HIV infection and food insecurity in most countries in the region, in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals; (2) adequate nutrition cannot cure HIV infection but is essential to maintain a person's immune system, to sustain healthy levels of physical activity, and for optimal quality of life...

"Based on the foregoing scientific conclusions, (specified in the Statement), we urge all concerned parties to make nutrition an integral part of their response to HIV/AIDS. We make the following recommendations for immediate implementation at all levels...

"Use existing, and develop new, advocacy tools to sensitise decision-makers to the urgency of the problem, the consequences on development targets of neglecting the role of nutrition and not including it within the overall care and support package and the opportunity to improve care: advocate increased resource allocation and support for improved nutrition, in general, and tackling the nutritional needs of HIV-affected and infected population: include appropriate indicators for measuring progress towards integrating nutrition into HIV programmes and the impact of nutritional interventions in reporting the results of clinical and community-level surveillance and reporting of progress at national, regional and international levels."

A scientific paper written by Daniel J Raiten, Steven Grinspoon and Stephen Arpadi for the Department of Nutrition for Health and Development of the World Health Organisation, entitled "Nutritional considerations in the use of ART (anti-retroviral therapy) in resource-limited settings: Consultation on Nutrition and HIV/AIDS in Africa: Evidence, lessons and recommendations for action", was presented at the Durban Conference. Among other things the paper said:

"Chronic malnutrition continues to be a major contributor to the burden of disease worldwide. It provides the baseline setting on which the HIV pandemic has been imposed in many areas of sub-Saharan Africa. Consequently, an enhanced appreciation of the potential interactions between nutrition and ART is critical for the promulgation of relevant evidence-based practice guidelines. The interaction of HIV/AIDS with nutritional status has been a distinguishing characteristic of the disease course since the earliest days of the epidemic."

Government, nutrition and health

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang's mortal sin in the eyes of our opponents, in which regard she has faithfully represented the convictions of the ANC and the ANC directive to those we had deployed in government, is that she upheld this view, insisting that it must constitute an important and integral part of our national response to the serious challenge of HIV and AIDS.

US Secretary of Health Mike Leavitt had the courage and honesty to acknowledge this reality, fully understanding the need to respond to the health needs of our people, liberating our health care obligations from the dictates of partisan political and commercial interests.

The positions taken by the WHO on nutrition and health, and other multilateral formations, such as the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and the World Bank, constitute a critically important advance in terms of responding to the important challenge of HIV and AIDS, in the interest of the poor billions in our country and across the globe whose life conditions are described by poverty and malnutrition. (If necessary, ANC Today can cite the specific FAO and World Bank documents that address the issue of the relationship between poverty and malnutrition on one hand, and all elements of HIV and AIDS on the other.)

In reckless disregard of all this, the ASSA report and unrelated events in our country, are being used to roll back this advance, to impose, certainly on our people, the regressive and highly dangerous understanding that, as stated by Clare Nullis of Associated Press, we must accept the allegedly almost magical "effectiveness of anti-retroviral drugs".

Together with the most junior medical doctors, we know that even to have healthy minds, all human beings require healthy bodies. The ancient Romans, without access to modern medicine, expressed this in the words - mens sana in corpore sano - a healthy mind in a healthy body.

The body cannot attain that health unless it benefits from regular and proper nutrition. However, the contemporary reality is that political and commercial pressures are leading some to insist that all the body needs to guarantee its health are the marketable drugs without which no commercial pharmaceutical corporation could exist or prosper.

Our movement, the ANC, as part of its commitment to serve the people, is determined to achieve the critical objective of health for all. As we have done in the past, we must and will resist all efforts to compel us to subordinate this objective to political and commercial interests, however powerful and vocal these may be.

Health, heroes and heroines

We are perfectly familiar with the many challenges democratic South Africa faces in the area of health delivery, including the deficits in terms of human, material and managerial resources in the public health system. We are working and must work continuously to respond to these important challenges, which are an integral part of our continuing struggle to eradicate the overall centuries-old legacy of colonialism and apartheid.

However, nobody, and nothing whatsoever, will persuade us to change our conviction that our two Ministers of Health during our years of liberation, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, are genuine heroines of our people and our democratic revolution. Our movement is fully conscious of the fact that because the health portfolio in any government deals literally with matters of life and death, it is one of the most difficult, challenging and controversial in all governance systems.

We will, constantly and without equivocation, with no exceptions, combat the evil attempt to present our Ministers of Health, past and present, as legitimate targets of personal vilification by those who made a minimal contribution to our struggle for liberation, which cost the lives of many of our people, and have made and are, at best, making a paltry contribution to the complex task of building a non-racial, non-sexist, prosperous and peaceful South Africa.

Recent events have brought to the fore the obligation our movement faces, to choose between either ecstatic media adulation, or the defence of the truth as it understands this truth. The decisive factor in this regard has been whether we would fight for the health of our people or sacrifice this to gain media popularity. In obverse, we confront the challenge whether to enhance our media approval or persist on a scientifically based pursuit of the goal of health for all.

All of us must draw great pride from the fact that the ANC, a true representative of all our people, and the leading architect of our non-racial and non-sexist democracy, chose to uphold the sanctity of human life and all-round human health, rather than court ill-founded media popularity. In this regard, we continue to face the central challenge to liberate all our people from poverty and malnutrition as a critical element in our continuing struggle to achieve the objective of health for all.

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