the corner office

Some local politics for a change. Well, not much of a change. DA mal discusses Thabo Mbeki's reaction to a question from the DA's Ryan Coetzee during yesterday's Question Time in Parliament:

I felt anguish, heartache, embarrassment seeing that man, our President, use his podium in Parliament to rail so dementedly about racism. The man seemed paranoid. He was almost confused. He seemed so patently unable to handle his interrogator. He seemed inarticulate. He seemed unable to calculate the impact of his words and phraseology.

Where've I heard that before, I wonder?

Anyhoo. Ryan Coetzee has issued a statement saying that he doesn't believe Mbeki is fit to lead the country. Harsh, but not far off the mark in my view. Mbeki's refusal to confront the HIV/AIDs issue and focus on fundamental problems our society faces is unforgiveable.

The statistics in the DA press release make for thoroughly depressing reading:

Rape statistics

According to government crime statistics, released in September 2004, there was a 17.8% increase in reported rapes between 1994/95 and 2003/04.

An ongoing Population Council survey of 3000 men and women in Gauteng, released in September 2004, showed that 21% of young men between 15 and 34 believe that a flirting woman wants sex. [The Citizen 5 October 2004]

Another survey of young men in Gauteng, released in 2000, found that one in four young men claimed to have had sex with a woman without her consent by the time he had reached 18. [Sunday Times 25 June 2000]

A study of violence against women in three provinces found that between 19% and 28% of women had been subjected to physical violence by a current or ex-partner. [MRC News, vol.32 No.3 June 2001]

A Cape Town survey found that 41% of men reported having physically abused a female partner in the ten years before the study. [MRC News, vol.32 No.3 June 2001]

Studies on adolescent sexuality show that one third of teenage girls experience forced sexual initiation. [MRC News, vol.32 No.3 June 2001]

An Medical Research Council study found that 15% of men reported having raped or attempted to rape their wife or girlfriend during the ten years prior to the study. [MRC News, vol.32 No.3 June 2001]

So common is unwanted sex in South Africa, that research has shown people to confine the use of the word `rape' to use in describing acts of strangers. [MRC News, vol.32 No.3 June 2001]

In a study based on a survey of nearly 300 000 children aged 10-19 in 1418 South African schools, published in the latest edition of the British Medical Journal, it was found that:. [Cape Argus 19 October 2004]
- Raping 'someone you know' was not seen as sexual violence, nor was 'unwanted touching'.
- Just less than half the children believed that girls mean yes when they say no.
- More than a quarter believe that girls enjoy rape.
- About 11% of boys and 4% of girls claimed to have forced someone else to have sex - and of these children, nearly 665 of the boys and nearly three quarters of the girls had themsevles been forced to have sex.
- Children who had been forced to have sex were more likely to say that they would intentionally spread HIV.


AIDS infection statistics

The 14th annual HIV and Syphilis Seroprevalence Survey shows that although infections are not increasing as rapidly as they were in the 1990s, the epidemic has still not levelled off. 27.9% of pregnant women attending antinatal clinics were HIV-positive in 2003, in comparison to 26.5% in 2002. [www.doh.org.za]

The government's plan for HIV/AIDS treatment and care, published last November, estimated that between 400 000 and 500 000 South Africans were at an advanced stage of HIV and would benefit from AIDS drugs. [www.doh.org.za]

Estimates by the Bureau for Market Research suggest that HIV could be responsible for 5m deaths by 2011 and 9-10m by 2021. The total number of AIDS-related deaths was expected to exceed 500 000 a year between 2007 and 2011. [Bureau of Market Research, Unisa: A Projection of the South African Population 2001 to 2021]

If Mbeki spent more time trying to deal with problems like these and less having his little tirades against everyone who doesn't kiss his arse, this country would be a much better place. Mbeki brings up the racism issue every time he's criticised by "white" media or "white" politicians, but by demographics alone, there are many more black women who suffer from this country's tyranny of rape, and many more black people who'll be dying of AIDs in the years to come than white people.