Killing time waiting for a delayed flight last month, I browsed through a copy of the Citizen newspaper and learnt that 1,300 young South Africans are still being infected with the AIDS virus every week.
The crisis of new infections is especially acute in KwaZulu Natal, the newspaper revealed, on the eve of the 11th SA AIDS conference in that province.
So, I read further, expecting to learn what we are doing to curb the rapid spread of this sexually transmitted disease.
Judging from the article, the answer is: Precisely nothing.
South Africa still has the highest AIDS epidemic and infection rate in the world, despite having the world’s largest ARV treatment programme. The reason is simple: we refuse to deal with the problem at source.
Health Minister, Dr Joe Paahla was quoted in the article saying the solution to the crisis is to expand the treatment programme. Not a word about stopping the rapid spread of infections.
Although we all know the truth, we refuse to speak it: Our horrific infection rate amongst (often very) young people, especially girls, is a result of a widespread culture of intergenerational, unprotected sex between multiple concurrent partners.
As Helen Epstein pointed out years ago: this sexual culture creates an “AIDS super-highway” which drives infection rates in geometric progression (ie very rapidly and from multiple, overlapping points).
Instead of being lauded for this crucial insight, this eminent scientist was excoriated by the virtue-signaling thought-police, who accused her of insinuating that the sexual culture of black people in Southern Africa was driving the pandemic.
Of course, she never mentioned race. She was pointing to the enormous dangers of unprotected inter-generational sex between multiple concurrent partners, irrespective of their melanin count. But because this practice is particularly common within specific cultural groups, the conversation was immediately described as racist, and shut down, to the great detriment of the very people who need to know the truth.
And so, while Science remained unspoken, the Myths multiplied, such as the pernicious belief that an AIDS-infected man can cure himself if he has sex with a virgin.
We could not tell the truth because it would be “racist” to impose Western sexual and cultural norms on other groups (ie requiring grown men to control their urges in order to prevent risk to young people [mostly girls], through lethal sexual practices, that often amount to statutory rape).
And so, as usual, those who dared speak the truth were “cancelled” while the self-elected, politically correct elite enforced the cover up with dire consequences.
The vocal rejection of Western cultural norms was, unsurprisingly, accompanied by shrill demands for the West to fund widespread ARV programmes, at the cost of billions, while SA was unable even to discuss its own core problem.
Our President’s recent reprimand to the West for supposedly treating Africa like “beggars” is profoundly ironic, in this context. If the United States’ generous PEPFAR funding was withdrawn, South Africa’s ARV programme would collapse, and millions more would die.
The only thing worse than being a beggar nation, is being a beggar nation whose rulers steal money meant for the poor.
Having looked in vain for courage or honesty in the words of our Health Minister in that article, I was encouraged by the Citizen’s own editorial comment on the matter.
Noting that South Africa, a single country, is home to almost one quarter of people living with HIV/AIDS in the world, the newspaper described these figures as “A ringing condemnation of both failed education programmes and a lack of sexual discipline in our people”.
At last someone, however tentatively, is beginning to speak the truth to the brutal power of the bullies who seek to label them racist.
Source: www.facebook.com/helenzille
