In my last post I wrote about the African social justice activist Rhoda Kodalie, whom I believe is the most courageous, inspiring, and effective person I have ever met. I have since learned that she is a former Human Rights Commissioner and the founder and CEO of Impumelelo Innovation and Awards Trust. It is a NGO that identifies projects that alleviate poverty in SA and gives annual cash awards to further the projects’ work. Its web address is www.impumelelo.org.za.
Rhoda is the kind of person who fearlessly speaks truth to power and in SA there are powers that don’t take kindly to her kind of public opposition and identification. She said every day she takes a different route to work for safety reasons. As an activist, newspaper columnist, and author, her approach is to publicly identify political, social, and economic problems, and become so visible and vocal that anyone silencing her would face the wrath of her considerable public following. Her book, which is a critical look at SA, is appropriately titled In Your Face. What a lady! Tomorrow night, the eve before our arrival in Cape Town, she will be speaking about the problems facing SA. For those of you who find my blog a little negative, it may not be an enjoyable read.
Today in our Global Studies class, we received some more less than cheery news about the aids situation in both Africa in general and SA in particular. Here’s the grim story:
•By 2010, 100 million in Africa have had aids and 26 m have died.
•3m die yearly and graveyards can’t keep up
•In Zimbabwe, the average life expectancy is now 40 because of early aids caused deaths
•In Mali, it is 30
•Aids victims and their families are shunned and banned from villages because of misinformation about how aids is spread
•For 7 years, SA’s Minister of Health denied the reality of how aids is transmitted and suggested victims eat beets and honey to affect a cure
•Adult farm workers and their wives die and their children are left without parents
•Construction managers hire 4 people for a job that requires one because workers die before projects are completed
•Women are more likely than men to understand how aids is spread, but in Africa’s patriarchal societies, transmission continues as men have many sex partners.
•Because many men believe that having sex with a virgin will cure their aids, it is common for sugar daddies to entice young girls into bed with a payoff of clothes, electronics, and other goodies and aids is spread.
•The Catholic church continues to prohibit the condoms which exacerbates the situation
•Infected people avoid finding out they have the disease because it is a death sentence both literally and socially
•If villagers discover you have aids you are banned from the village
•It is spread by sexual contact and is thought to have originated in chimps but no one knows for sure.
Here are more facts about SA from the mouth of Rhoda:
•On paper, SA has one of the world’s best constitutions but in reality corruption prevents its proper implementation.
•SA has more women in the legislature proportionally than any country in the world but the women are characteristically rendered voiceless and ineffective by their chauvinistic and corrupt male colleagues. This is done by offering women legislative posts and ministry heads to buy their compliance.
•Men appoint all legislative leaders and women are beholden to men.
•SA has the worst statistics in the world regarding violence against women.
•Rape is rampant, rarely are rapists prosecuted, and victims are often additionally raped and beaten by the police on the way to or at the police station after reporting a rape.
•Jacob Zuma, the current president, has at least 3 wives and a new girlfriend.
•Rhoda said that “at the moment there isn’t a place for good in our government.”
Rhoda said she would like to become a minister in the government so she could bring about some of the changes she speaks and writes about. I asked her, “Why not run for president?” She said she is not political but in later remarks she seemed to me to waffle some. Hopefully she will change her mind. And hopefully my next report from somewhere in the Indian Ocean east of Africa will be more upbeat.
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