HIV/AIDS: ARE WE COPING?

I have always been intrigued by the effort of the media to religiously collect statistics of babies born on Christmas Day and on New Year’s Day, for a host of reasons among which is the rationale of the emphasis on these particular days when babies are born almost daily throughout the year.

The motivation cannot be that babies born on these days are more special than babies born at any other day. That certainly cannot be! Then what is it? Well, I certainly do not know the answer to that question except to hypothesize.  

Perhaps what would be even much more interesting would be a year-round surveillance to determine if the number of babies born either on Christmas or New Year’s Days represents average births per day. Such surveillance may also yield useful information in determining if any day passes by without the kingdom welcoming a newborn and if so how prevalent this is in any given year.

Numbers and statistics are a good source of information generally and especially from the journalistic perspective. And yes, there is a story behind every number and statistic that is waiting to be told. As it were statistics are not just useful but an integral part of planning, policy formulation and budgeting on the part of government and other organisations.

While interning at The Star newspaper in the late 1980s, discussion ensured on the liberation struggle and in particular the war in Angola that had drawn forces from apartheid South Africa and South West Africa (Namibia). This was the battle of Cato Canavale in Angola featuring the then apartheid South African army – it also included the then South West Africa military that was also under the Boers -  alongside opposition leader Jonas Savimbi’s militias on one side, and combatants of the liberation struggle, such as the ANC), SWAPO), etc, alongside Angolan government forces plus a contingent of some 25 000 odd Cuban soldiers, the

Afrikaner government tried hard to manipulate the numbers in respect of casualties that were being inflicted on its military in its favour but eventually without any success. Given stringent censorship laws the apartheid government had on the media, The Star could not publish anything factual on the war though it had correspondents dispatching information daily that, in the circumstances, was only for our ears in the newsroom. The only source of information on the ensuring war was the government itself.

The Afrikaner government’s stratagem was to minimize the number of war casualties being inflicted on its military to families of soldiers serving in the SADF and South Africans at large. This was probably effective in the short term. But the longer the war was drawn out the more the lie became unsustainable since the Boers had not bargained for a long drawn-out war but a quick and speedy conclusion to the conflict. South Africans had also been lied to about their military’s involvement in the Angolan conflict to the extent that families of soldiers serving in the SADF were initially unaware that their men and women, sons and daughters had been shipped out to Angola.

The arrival of the 25 000 odd Cuban soldiers on the battlefield dissipated the speedy victory the Boers had anticipated. The longer the war was drawn out the larger the number of casualties of South African soldiers was piling up. Soon the apartheid regime could no longer contain the situation because the dead could no longer make contact and communicate with the living.

It is now history how the battle of Cato Canavale turned out leading to the liberation of Namibia (South West Africa) and a turning point in the liberation struggle in South Africa and death knell for then President PW Botha – he who in 1986 had failed to cross the Rubicon - and apartheid because it catapulted FW De Klerk into power in the resultant palace coup culminating with the release of Nelson Mandela and the unbanning of liberation movements.

As I see it, as a nation we need to start asking ourselves about the significance of the numbers of babies born on the two dates of the year. What do they mean? In recent years there have been euphoric celebrations of the kingdom supposedly bringing HIV/AIDS under control. That may be so and, without being a merchant of doom, it is necessary to ask ourselves these questions time and again. A cursory glance at the statistics of the babies born on these two days tell us the majority of the new mothers – some are even underage - are single parents.

That, unfortunately, speaks to promiscuity and reckless sexual activity without any protection. Now, if the birth statistics of these two days are a mirror of what is happening throughout the year then the bubble of optimism that we are on top of the HIV/AIDS war is burst. This scenario is further exacerbated by the inordinate increase of rape cases in recent times.

But for a morally bankrupt nation it is easy to be in denial of the obvious to avoid the concomitant embarrassing political fallout. Apparently there is also a story to tell about daily mortality but no one seems to be interested in the dead.

   

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