I disagree with mbeki that the anc is a 'post-modern' liberation movement. Yes, it is a 'broad-church' in practice in the sense that it has members coming from different, and often contesting ideological backgrounds. However, as an organisation esp when one looks at its history, and fundamental tenets, the anc is in essence nationalistic. It adavance a particular nationalistic agenda i.e the liberation of Africans and blacks in general.

@the original..., I think your take on 'post-modernism' is rather simplistic. Yes, postmodernism presupposes subjectivity in all truth-claims. However, that does not mean that we do not have 'truth categories' within the postmodern frame of analysis. People still speak of truth (local truths) within their own cultural group or community frames of engagement. I think the mistake the mistake you make is to tend to cast 'truth' exclusively in universal terms. This does not need to be so, necessarily. Think of a scientific communities which openly and losely speak of 'the truth', even though they are well-aware that their truth claimss do not necessarily extend beyond their disciplines.

@ Timeslive please write what Mbeki said, he did not say ANC is a "post-modern liberation movement" what he said is that it is "the very first modern liberation movement"

Even if it is taken as 'truth' being classified within a social structure, that would still indicate that 'truth' is subjective. Unless 'truth' is a universally agreed principle then it has to be classified as subjective. i.e. it is 10:26am but that is subjective to my position on the earth's surface. It is the 'truth' to me but it is not the 'truth' to someone in Moscow.

The scientific community doesn't have 'truth' in it's lexicon. It relies on repeatability to produce confirmation of theories. Any person in the scientific community who says that something is 'truth' is not a scientist. There are no definites in science. (ironically enough, 'post modernist' was counter to the scientific (modernist) framework whereby nothing was believed unless it could be conclusively proven)

You make very valid, insightful points. Personally I have no problem with all truth being subject. I am very suspicious of teh the so-called universally agreed principles/ universal truth etc. Usually what is described as 'universal' is just a reflection of a particular powerful grouping(s)

... meant subjective.

yes you cannot define knowledge as true or false, but the info given, resulting in knowledge, can be. So ill/false/misinformation may have led to end to Gadafi's rule

Thoks25

.... and it may well have NOT been 'false'.

The concept is that we are all made up of our knowledge and our history. If information becomes available to us, we interpret that information within our own parameters. It was called a paradigm in the 1970s - not sure if it still is. Its the 'lens' that you see the world through. (something we see daily on the comments here).

My questioning of Mbeki was not suggesting that his (Mbeki's) 'truth' is incorrect but rather that he should know (as a post modernist) that his 'truth' does not necessarily make the 'truth' of others incorrect.

Could you please point us to the graves of these people?

350 000 lives ended prematurely..really. Of the said figure, how many lives were forced to be infected by Mbeki. ''Charity begins at home''

Asking to be shown the graves or asserting that charity begins at home is callous - reminicent of Mbeki's denialism itself. His pseudo-intellectual guff about the link between HIV and AIDS was and remains both pathetic in an academic senses and disgusting in a moral sense.

Mbeki has nothing other than his ego to offer - the man is flirting with the callow youths who danced on his political grave, so relentless is his desire for the limelight. His spurious defence of Ghaddafi's brutal 40 year rule is as craven as it is wrong. The only thing he's right about is Twitter - from what I've seen it's the biggest load of rubbish, gossip and rumour mongering on the Net.

There is no way that one can establish a causal link between 350 000 lives that ended prematurely and Thabo Mbeki. Life's decisions are about trade-offs, and so are government decisions. Governments all over the world spend many on defence even when there is no obvious enemy, and yet there are millions around the world living in abject and grinding poverty, with many straving to death. Western governments for instance, will not take responsibility for millions of death in the developing world, which may well be a result of inequities in the internnational order. The point I am making is that the problems we face as mankind are complex and usually cannot be attributed to one cause. It is thus simplistic, naive and disingenuous to try and blame Mbeki for 350 000 premature deaths. What if the root cause is apartheid and those who supported it?

@realafricandemocrat

Let us not forget that Mbkei chose to willfully DENY - not ignore, but deny - an unfolding catastrophe in South Africa. Trying to draw parallels between defence spending and healthcare only gets you so far: in my opinion, a more apt parallel would be to look at the response of a government to a black plague outbreak or mass starvation caused by floods or crop failure.

I absolutely agree that governments have trade-offs and priorities: Mbeki's denial of antiretrovirals for HIV sufferers, his support for Mugabe and Ghaddafi and his denial of rampant corruption in South Africa illustrate clearly to me that the people of South Africa and Africa were the lowest of his priorities.

to say 350 000 people died as a result of mbeki' s questioning of the causal link between hiv/ aids, is like saying millions of black south africans died as a result of white racism and apartheid. the link may not be direct, but indirectly, it holds.

@neoblack - spon on.

... it is like saying white people DENIAL of black people's basic human rights, and inequitable distribution of resources which led to massive poverty, hunger and diseases is responsble for many black deaths that happend before 1994. Again, no direct link, but a strong argument could be made in support of this grand conclusion.
So before we can begin to clear or proecute mbeki for this immesurable genocide, we have to deal with whiteness for the genocide (direct and indirect) it had launched on black people over hundreds of years.

Why should we forgive or treat as less serious the errors of whites vis a vis those of black people? It simply should not and cannot happen.

@neoblack:

Isn't that what the TRC was supposed to facilitate, certainly at one level. And land restitution, BEE etc to redress the economic iniquities of apartheid and before that colonialism? I'm not saying that they're perfect mechanisms in any way, but they are there. There is such a long way to go to redress those systems, it's actually difficult to know where to begin. I do know one way to NOT do it: Nationalisation. It will kill this economy quicker than other form of intervention.

Neoblack, please explain to me what rights blacks had before the whites found the mostly uninhabited land called South Africa. If my knowledge serves me right, you had no rights in your tribes and were often subjected to the brutal suppression of dictators like King Shaka.

Keep in mind, it is the west that introduced democracy to Africa. Bottom line is you never had and would not have had democracy if the 'colonialists' did not find this continent.

So be grateful you dumb ass or go back to your oppressive tribal system.

Nkosipeter - Mbeki killed 350 000 of his own people, he should be charged with genocide.

@PE Rulez,
there is no law in the world that says people should only be charged if and when they are killing 'their own people'. you need to do better than that.

@Jamesnaker,
where does one begin with idiotic minds like yours? certainly your 'knowledge does not serve you right'.
First, a point of correction, there was no democracy in south africa before 1994. This is despite white people whom you mistakely consider to be intrinsically 'democratic' having inhabited what came to be called SA for hundreds of years. So there were no 'rights' to speak of i.e in the democratic sense of the word in the first place. 'Tribal' (im not comfortable with using the word) groupings including groups which later came to be collapsed under the catergory 'Afrikaner' were in the mid seventeenth to early eighteenth century largely inward-looking and their livelihoods were to a greater extent informed by what one can call 'folk practices'. None of the groups in SA could claim 'vivility' or civilisation at that time. Familiarise yourself with the early lives of the early dutch arrivals at the Cape, and later the 'afrikaners' lifestyle towards and immediately after the formation of the boer republics inland. Their ways of life and thinking would befit what you losely define as 'tribal'.
It was with the discoveries of minerals (diamond and gold) and the subsequent industrialisation that south africa began to move towards what one could call a rights based society. It was at this experimentation with some aspects of democracy that blacks especially Africans were DENIED rights as fully human, and were made not to fully enjoy the collective wealth of the country. I say collective because blacks played a critical part in building modern day south africa. They contributed massively to the building of wealth (mining & industrialisation) and yet when the time to enjoy came, they were excluded.
Only an idiotic mind, is ignorent of this important part of our history.

Neo-black - if you can read, you will notice that i said he SHOULD be charged with genocide, which claims a matter of opinion or a normative approach of what ought to happen in a situation like that.

Whether there are laws are not, Mbeki claims to be an intelligent man yet he seems to let his pride cloud his judgement on a permanent basis.

Defend Mugabe and claiming there is no crisis in Zimbabwe is a perfect example. African pride over common sense at its best!

@PE rulez,
would you make a similar submission that George Bush be charged with manslaughter in both Iraq and Afghanistan? That de klerk should be charged with the killings of ordinary civilians in the period leading to elections in 1994?

Neo-black -> George Bush must be hanged, he does not deserve to live. But at his defense, the wars in the middle East were not wars that had the objective of deliberately killing ethnic groups or Iraqi's in general (most of the deaths in those wars were attributed to suicide bombers who killed civilians).

Whether Mbeki has the intention of killing 350 000 people or not, any fool knows that a fatal desease like aids means, if you dont treat it, you die, Mbeki knew aids was fatal, why deny the anti-viral? His African pride got the best of him, blamed the West for aids, that it was a Western scam for companies in the US and Europe to make billions out of the agony of Africans, yet in the end, his own decisions killed more Africans.

Jamessnaker.......I think you are the type of idiot (I normally refrain from name-calling but for you ill make an exception) that we dont need in this country. For you to think that everything we have in this country is because of white people and forget that its actually because of the wealth that they stole, [the use of black labour to build roads and bridges and buildings (in some or most instances, especially in bridges hundreds of ppl loose their lives), the use of black ppl to mine all the resources and their use to look after the madams little spoilt brats whilst their own kids were unattended], is actually STUPID and IGNORANT.

You are exactly the reason why we needed to overthrow the apartheid regime. To suggest that there was democracy in SA pre 1994 when 85% of the country were not allowed to Vote is like you spewing bile and then re-drinking it all over again.........you are what is written about in this article......"a serious knowledge-lacker". Go and ask your parents (if still alive) to recover their school fees. You were brainwashed!!!

Maybe we shoul say "did,nt stop", to say it ended lives is a very unproved judgement.

Nice one Daffy &:>

King_Biko, you've refused to respond on several occasions when your points have been proven incorrect or, at worst, blatant lies. With this in mind, I hardly see you as a paragon for "advancing knowledge" or combatting inaccuracies in the media.

I should also point out that the fact that you instantly look to shutting down differing opinions speaks poorly of your approach to "advancing knowledge." There are more productive ways of engaging an opinion you disagree with, such as finding avenues to share your own thoughts.

@King biko, JUJU still haven't found the "twitter Off" button. It's because unlike China and some of the Muslim controlled countries, the people on the ground at grass root level can still raise their opinions without fear of prosecution like in our neighbor Zimbabwe...

And it's exactly that voice that the red faced leaders, caught with their hands inside the cookie jar wants us to loose with tools like secrecy bills and silencing the media. This also involves making "examples" of whistle blowers.

Thabo Mbeki regularly cast doubt on the link between HIV and AIDS - he regularly, personally and through his health minister - refused to allow treatement of AIDS using the best medicines available at the time. African potatoes and garlic anyone? The reason I dislike Mbeki intensely is because his policies invariably trampled on the poorest of the poor and most vulnerable - whether in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Myanmar or other places, simply because the evidence at hand did not fit with his world view.

Mbeki's 'involvement' in the AIDS deaths of his Presidency is explicit - he refused to allow ARV's for HIV positive people and relied on a lunatic fringe like Raath for advice. I'm afraid it Mbeki supporters who need to read up on their leader and stop indulging in his favourite pasttime - denial and obfuscation.

"...false knowledge resulted in a "fictional swine flu epidemic" that saw billions of taxpayers' dollars spent in response. This, Mbeki said, benefited dominant global pharmaceutical companies."

Unlike others, who prefer the uncontroversial easy route, Mbeki continues to take his principled position on the influential pharmaceutical conglomerates. These are the same companies who use poor Africans as guinea pigs for their research, and try to flood South Africa with their overpriced drugs. Mbeki is to be applauded for his stand of "Not on my watch!" against these capitalist-first/humanitarian-second leeches!

Baas Frik i agree that Gadaffi was a tyrant who killed his own people, then who would you call late PW Botha when he killed innocent people in Lesotho, Botswana, Mozambique and Swaziland. What about Bush in Iraq and his nuclear weapons myth. Therefore as much as UA is in capable of sorting out problems so is the NATO which is used to colonise Africa in a disguise of protecting innocent lives when it suits them.Lastly Baas Frik it is true that there is a lot of False knowledge being distributed and if there was none you too would'nt hide behind a pseudonym when raising genuine issues.

Thandoti
As far as I can establish this article is about Gadaffi and Mbeki. I merely commented on it. If my neighbour is wrong it doesnot mean that therefore I am entitled to be wrong. So what is your point?

As the mighty intellect beneath the silvery nap stirred and shifted the small man with the large pipe clenched and released the the pressure on the toes of each short ( yet extremely broad) foot.

"If only convict Selebi had secured several pairs of those handstitched marvels from Agliotti the Cobbler perhaps my mood would not have darkened so dramatically in the last several months" he pondered relevantly in the post modern manner.

Of course there were many a reason for the huge spirit of Africa's most diminutive great statesman to feel bowed (yet staunchly unbroken).

The death of Brothers-in-Ideas, Kim and Momy, the resilience of Showerhead, the sticky and odious mutual toadying with that appalling Malema yardboy, the cutting of ex- Presidential Airtime with its damnable impact on his duty free Blue Lable stocks. Certainly there was much to disturb that finely tuned intellectual engine he considered the Bugatti Veyron of human minds.

Yet these musings on how falsely life had played him were merely the tongue tip explorations of a new dental cavity compared to the challenge that lay before.

How was he to secure Controlled Utopia in Our Lifetime for the human race ( except the Americans, Europeans and all the other swine who'd denied Malume Bob a shopping visa,).

His calculated blow against the infernal Twitter was but the first stroke in a master plan to advance the revolution. The next target was even more ambitious and it made him slightly giddy in anticipation. To remove the sting was a mere precursor to rooting out the nettle. Yes that manger of every neoLiberal anti-African thought. That seedbed of counter-evolutionary pseudo philsophy that spawning ground of oppressive laws, grammatical and otherwise would be brought to ashes. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE WOULD BE GONE. FOREVER.

HAGAFGAHAGAHGA. He wheezed gently with excitement

And then. And then in the spirit of dear fallen Momy he'd be declared, by the intelectually awed, yet indeed liberated, masses ,KING OF THE INTERNET - THABOB MBEGABE THE FIRST AND ONLY.

.....................to be continued

Guffaw, guffaw at BokFan!

The haters will not silence Africa's greatest statesman in his quest against the capitalist-first, humanitarian-last pharmaceutical companies.
Healthcare is not a luxury, but an essential for humanity - why do we allow greedy pharmaceutical multinationals to hold us at ransom with their overpriced drugs?

The drugs that were being offered to South Africa were the same ones bieng used to treat AIDS patients in the West... More to the point, they were also being developed in Brazil and India - and South Africa was being offered generic alternatives. That is, drugs manufactured in developing, fellow BRICS countries, without patent payments to 'Western' pharma companies. I know it's not convenient when you have a conspiracy theory to uphold and advance, but please do join the rest of us in the 21st Century.

Have a look around Africa and tell me who the key investors today are. OK, I'll do it for you: China, India, Brazil, (multi-sector activity) South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Indonesia, China (land - yes, African governments are given vast tracts of land to these countries to grow and export food to their own populations, not ours!) Canada, Australia, South Africa China, India, Brazil, (mining) UK, USA, Brazil, China, India, Norway, France, Italy, Indonesia (oil and gas). In the last decade their has been a seismic shift in the sources of new investment in Africa, much of it from Asia, Latin America and from within Africa itself (Dangote Cement being a prime example). Try to look at these issues dispassionately and you'll see it - if you simply carry on banging the outdated, fearful and simplistic 'anti-Western' drum, you'll be left behind wondering why the staple diet of Gauteng is noodles, not pap.

Because their comments are irrelevant to the contents of the article. People just jump and talk about HIV & AIDS....of which none was mentioned in the article. People should start learning to debate relevant issues instead of just spewing hot air.... debate what is discussed in the article, don't just be attention seeking... or are you scared that if people discuss the relevant issues you won't be able to spew your hot air...?

thandoty - see my reply above regarding the 'West' and current and future trends in Africa's wealth creation and investment. The 'West' is old hat. We live in a multinational world today and that is reflected in the variety of countries investing in the continent. However, the model has hardly changed - the Chinese are investing to take the minerals to China, the Indians to India, the Brazilians to Brazil, the Swiss to Switzerland. Plus ca change...

In terms of AIDS, death certificates usually cite pneumonia or other such related causes. The global community (not the West, the global community) knew the extent of Mbeki's mindlessness regarding these issues, and his utterances denying the links are well documented. My comments regarding Zim, Libya etc were aiming to illustrate how disconnected Mbeki is from reality and how callous his policies were - entirely relevant to the article and debate.

thandoty - Mugabe was using aid from Britain to fund his party and not to redistribute income, and the Lancaster agreement was that Mugabe was to use aid to redistribute land, which he was not doing.............his country was fed up with being poor, he lost a referendum in his own parliament in 2000 then under took destructive policies to save his own skin.

Mbeki defended Mugabe's bloody regime, just like he defends all bloody regimes in the name of this fallacy called neo-colonialism.

Honesty, if you're taking advice from Thabo Mbeki on HIV/AIDS then I suggest you have some further reading to do - HIV (the virus) / AIDS (the resulting SYNDROME) CANNOT and WILL never be listed as the cause of death for anyone infected by the virus as neither are capable of causing death on their own...

You are NOT the only one. I am the former Mohale on these pages. If you are the Momma I had many a debate with in the past, you might recall that this was one of the things I was decrying with his exit of politics!!!

I remember those debates Mohale :)
Its sad that debate has made way for insults and misdirection now. Its so very un-productive

If Mbeki was still around, there would be none of this silly ANCYL wag-the-dog shenanigans going on - he kept the creche firmly in their place (unlike this president, who "owes" them!).

Not to mention the frugality of the ex-president having a single tax-deductible dependant - as opposed to one who is trying for a world record of wives and children to be on the presidential dependancy list (all at the taxpayers expense).

Yes! Perhaps it pionts out to the level of leadership in the country in general as well. I guess the level of exchange here mirrors that of society!

Momma Mbeki was a useless and racist President. During his tenure as an AU envoy he has been totally useless in resolving any of the conflict resolution activities he partiscipated in.

Frik,

In all fairness, he was from the AU. A toothless organisation at best. What was he supposed to do in those conflict areas? Threaten them into submission?

Mbeki was many things but he was NEVER without direction or an opinion and he never acted like a thug or a camelion. Gotta give him that, if nothing else

What specifically in my comment are you objecting to? My point is that if the AU were an efficient and credible institution then they would have solved the Lybia Gadaffi proble. Because they are not the west stepped in.

Mbeki has been an AU envoy for years and have been unsuccessful in every conflict resolution exercise he lead. He is without a shadow of a doubt useless. Show me Africa's leaders with integrity and a successfully track record. I doubt you can count them on the fingers of one hand.

Dear Baas Frik
You first have to fully define a solution within a context of troubled nations, sending in troops and war planes and bombing a country in pursuit of controlling its natural resource can hardly ever be called a solution, theft and murder yes but definitely not a solution!

Africa is troubled and that's for sure but thinking actions sponsored by selfish agendas will resolve Africa's problems is a complete fallacy!

Only Africans alone could resolve their problems led by well meaning mediators with the people's interest at heart, SA is a case in point where its people defined its own discourse without interference from external forces, this process was led for decades by the self same individual you ignorantly refer to as "useless", he is simply exporting this approach to our fellow brothers and we shall patiently wait and pray they buy into this model!

Frik, personally I think whether the African Union was there to solve the Libyan crisis or not there the result would've been the same: REGIME CHANGE. This is what the West wanted and mind you that was the end game. The fact that the West went in guns blazing to kill him and his family, including bombing his grandchildren indicates that they wanted him gone. Now whether we want to believe the west's version of the story or not, one must always remember that there are always 3 sides to a story; "his side, their side and the truth"..........

thank Or africa

bis-k'hallawaya Botswana for one is a success story and secondly South Africa if there are no persimists like you who are hellbent on discrediting every effort that we as Africans are doing. Today in Seventeen years ANC is expected to Address the problems of Apartheid that were created well over hundred years. The person diverting the the attention from the issue are those who would stop at nothing to defend white supremacy and its atrocities. Remember if it was not the West who stuck its nose in the issue of Zimbabwe by not honouring the Lancaster agreement there would be no need for quiet diplomacy, if there was no Italy, Britain France and the others who befriended Gadaffi because of Oil there would be no bloodbath in that country.
Close at home if it was not apartheid's divide and rule system we would not be addressing shortage of housing, service delivery if that influx was not created by that evil system. Take for example now how long were the squatter camps of Winterveld in Pretoria, Red location in Port Elizabeth, Cross roads in the Cape have been there yet all that you turn to blame it on the ANC government. Look the white man brought a bible along when they came to colonise us, therefore i advise you to look at the scriptures and repent, because it says ' you cannot point a splint in one's Eye whereas you got the whole branch in yours. It also says the one with no sin must cast a first stone.

..thandoty must read the whole article below:

""Spineless sheeple deserve to be fleeced (Ben Trovato)
WITH the podium awash in cake and catharsis, deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe raised his glass and proposed a toast. "THE LEADERS WILL NOW ENJOY THE CHAMPAGNE, AND OF COURSE THEY DO SO ON YOUR BEHALF THROUGH THEIR LIPS." Later, the leadership drove off in luxury cars on behalf of those who had no transport and stayed in expensive hotels on behalf of those who lived in shacks. Welcome to the year of living vicariously.""

......and keep the scriptures for church time......

She must also read:

"""It is important to remember what bar we set ourselves in 1994 when we all came together after decades of apartheid and centuries of colonialism. Nelson Mandela, the first president of our democratic republic, ushered in our new country by saying: "We must, constrained by, and yet regardless of, the accumulated effect of our historical burdens seize the time to define for ourselves what we want to make of our shared destiny."""

""Andries Tatane died standing up for his community; to get the services it deserved. Is this what we fought for - a police state?

Olga Kekana died doing what young people do everywhere - going out for a night on the town. Did we fight so that every young black driving a car could become an automatic suspect - to be shot and killed on sight?

No political, government or university leader has fallen on his sword for these travesties, or others. It has become okay, here, today, for ordinary people to die to get their children into university."" (Small lives, big lessons - Justice Malala).........

Bis-k'hallawaya what i was trying to point out here and said it is that do not stereotype the blacks for the faults of those implicated in wrong doing, i know and understand the frustration of joblessness, corruption and self enrichment, but it is wrong for you to point the finger solely at Africans as if that is an African thing hence the saying there are two sides of the same coin. For example the now so called DA, it has been a DP, PFP and was in the then parliament and has never been this vocal about the atrocities of apartheid and it was never labelled an apartheid vehicle.
And it has never long after apartheid was gone encourage whites who are currently its base support to apologise for the apartheid which they so upheld and assisted and benefitted from its evil deeds, instead anything black was not good and seemingly a fault must be found to pass a wrong judgement based on race. Even then there were corruption actions that were practiced such as the training of the so called KOEVOET soldiers, financing of the reign of terror by De Kok and his Ascari's, Financing of Dr Death on his chemical warfare against those opposed to the system.

........thandoty must also read all my comments in this column and point out where I referred to as "africans" or "blacks" in general instead of ANC in particular and a third world country dominated by a corrupt elite........Those are your words my dear, not mine.........

Actually the only scientists questioning the link between the two, were dissidents amongst the scientific community - the majority of their "findings| dismissed as ridiculous by the mainstream community as they flew completely contrary to empirical evidence gathered over the last 30 years...

Bottom line: HIV causes AIDS and taking medical advice from an ECONOMIST makes about as much sense as removing vital organs to lose weight...

DID Mbeki kill 350 000 people due to his "aids denailism"?

My answer is Mbkei did not infect anyone with HIV himself nor encouraged people to be unfaithful, not use condoms and so forth ...

infact what h said was: "

HIV/AIDS programmes of this government are based on the thesis that HIV causes AIDS,” “There is absolutely no confusion about what to do.”

So event if he had his perosnal views about whether there is direct link between HIV and AIDS but our policies were base on the premise that there is a Link. So, why argue?

Urgency to buy drugs: i think we should also be cognisnace of the fact that the likes of NKosi Johnson died irrespective of using ARVs and as alluded by OR_Africa above, there is a lot of people who died in Africa due to resistence to these drugs. So, why don't we have stats on this? can we have a balanced critique?

Furthermore: Mbeki was worried about the fact that there are lot other deases /challanges that are killing africans at higher speed that Aids - talk about TB, Cancer, Heart problems and poverty. why should we spend more money of AIDS if we can focus more our attendtion preventative mechanisims? If we do this, we will be able to focus our resources on poverty, educating young africans and so forth...

@staren

it was not an advise ... it was an opinion of an individual. The point is .... it was debated at the time.

@ staren
their told you that and you believe that... HIV doesn't cause AIDS...
false media again.

Well Maputle, considering that Hitler himself never murdered a single Jew, would you also argue that he wasn't responsible for the death of 6 million Jews?

@Maputle

"it was not an advise ... it was an opinion of an individual. The point is .... it was debated at the time."

Apologies I meant in general, not you in particular J

...At the time he was in charge, he delayed the implementation of effective measures to contain the epidemics. He was dilly-dallying with philosophic arguments and entertaining real quacks instead of being clear and defined and determined. His minions in the Dept of Health from the head down even punished professional people attempting to treat sick patients.

"Mbeki Aids denial 'caused 300,000 deaths'
South African president's refusal to accept medical evidence of virus was major obstacle to providing medicine, say Harvard researchers (guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/26/aids-south-africa)

""In South Africa, former President Thabo Mbeki's embrace of AIDS denialism resulted in an ineffective governmental response to the AIDS epidemic that has been blamed for hundreds of thousands of AIDS-related deaths.[198][199]""...wikipedia...

...Racism or not there is no worse blindness than the voluntary one.....

@Duzula

Honestly, I'll take the advice and opinion of 99.9% percent of the medical and scientific community over that of an economist any-and-every day as to what causes AIDS...

The difference is Hitler orchestrated the battle with Jews. He was the man behind the struggle … wheras Mbeki did infect anyone with HIV nor forced people to be irresponsible.

What are the similarities between the two? Make me undertand …

Maputle, the point is that words, and words alone, are more than capable of forming mindsets and opinions - and as we all know, an opinion is all that is required for people to act (or not act) in a way that would otherwise defy belief or logic...

@ Bis

See vatiekakie's comment below .... in additional, what about the fact that there are a number of deases /challenges that are killing africans at a spead higher than AIDS that needed attention? What was the rush for?

now that ARVs were rollod-out, did the infection rate go down? no, the infection rate in SA is increasing fyi. These proves that we should have focused on preventative mechanisms ...

did AIDS stop killing people?

@Bis'

Spot on, as always...

Staren - does HIV alone cause AIDS? if yes, how?

enlighten us ...

@Maputle

Off of wikipedia:

"HIV infects vital cells in the human immune system such as helper T cells (specifically CD4+ T cells), macrophages, and dendritic cells.[9] HIV infection leads to low levels of CD4+ T cells through three main mechanisms: First, direct viral killing of infected cells; second, increased rates of apoptosis in infected cells; and third, killing of infected CD4+ T cells by CD8 cytotoxic lymphocytes that recognize infected cells. When CD4+ T cell numbers decline below a critical level, cell-mediated immunity is lost, and the body becomes progressively more susceptible to opportunistic infections."

And in case you werent sure, someone is said to have "AIDS", once their CD4 T cell count drops below a certain level (around 50 I think it is, but the exact number escapes me) as a result of the above described reasons.

Secondly, your argument that the infection rate was not influenced by the rollout of ARV's means absolutely NOTHING.

ARV's, such as Combivir will only prevent the transmission of HIV, if used a Post-Exposure-Prophylaxis (PEP), and that only if taken with 72 hours.

ARV's themselves, and not within the context of being used as a PEP, are used to TREAT the infection of retrovirus, not prevent their transmission...

....A politician does not need to be a doctor or an architect or an engineer to understand the related issues. That is why the president names a COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL in the area, so this professional advises him/her not to open the mouth and put the foot in it and advises him/her to the best plan to follow....but those are the ideal conditions, not the tragic reality....

The program was only started after TAC took Manto to court and won a court order that forced her to start the roll out.

The problem is that people listen to leaders. That is why they are called leaders - they lead. If you then get conflicting messages coming through, the majority of the population will trust the head of the country over a doctor. That is why so many people blame Mbeki for the resulting deaths.

@bis-k'hallawaya, you missing the point of my argument completely. I am not arguing that Mbeki needed to be a scientist to understand the link between HIV and Aids. My point is that the meadia and activists elevated his opinion to those of scientists. George W Bush Jr and other presidents around the world have made public opinions that were not backed by facts, but those nations never elevated such opinions to "the truth" and acted on them. they were able to descern individual opinion from government policy position, which many of us are failing to do regarding Mbeki's pronouncements. as I said earlier the Aids treatment programme was at a pilot stage when he made the statement, and the health department continued rolling out treatment, to a stage where it was fully implemented. those who were punished for attempting to offer treatment outside the official pilot programme deserved it as that would have led to chaos where anybody and everybody would offer treatment willy nilly, and when there are casualties, the government as a whole would be blamed and not the people who offered this treatment unofficially. no company or government in the world allows its employees to work outside the official strategy and plans (try that at your work place and see what happens).

....sorry, probably cremation stoves were for the boiled ones, for the rest there were the cremation ovens.......ahem...

Hehe, somewhat appropriate I think, given the discussion

timeslive.co.za/world/2012/01/17/mein-kampf-set-for-first-german-post-war-reprint

Re the infection rate, again its a moot point - ARV's will only prevent infection if used as a Post-Exposure-Prophylaxis - they CANNOT and WILL NOT prevent infection in any other situation which means they will have virtually no impact on the infection rate...

except in the case of mother-to-child transmissions... apologies for the omission..

Staren i Know but the point im traying to make is still i can argue that we are not better off ...

we still leave with this epidemic

i will alos be interested to hear your argument re other deseases

No, you have a fair point.

I think though, that HIV/AIDS has become such an important issue - in our country at least - because of the high infection rate, which at one was the highest, then the 2nd highest in the world...

And I think the issue was really highlighted and a stronger public stance was taken because of the fact that Mbeki, an economist, then proclaimed to the scientific and medical world that he in fact knew more about the disease that they had been studying for the last 30 years, and formulated government policy around that notion.

And I think that marks the big difference between HIV and other diseases in this country - of the others, there never was any doubt as to the cause and subsequent effects of those diseases.

Ultimately, knowledge is power, and misinformation is equally as damaging as information is empowering. Especially if you dealing with a semi-literate population, half of whom take anything the ANC and its leaders say as gospel.

And as much as I admired Mbeki for his intellectualism and statesmen-like manner, he really didn't do the country any favours to that regard...

@staren

Lol

" and formulated government policy around that notion"

Mbeki did not formulate any policy based on his opinion. There were government standing policies when he expressed his opinion. he merely expressed his opinion in a debate ... we need to get that right. the media simply purposefuly coded him out of context ... and that is the false knowledge we talking about.

Staren, i can almost gurantee you that in this country if you have TB/Cancer/heart attacks you are on your own. these deseases are deadly than aids, there is just lack of awareness around these

you can take as much ARVs and use condoms for all you like but the day stomach cancer attacks you, you will die within weeks. a lot of people don't know that they have TB or heart problems until the late stages ... at that time things will be beyond repair.

why should you focus on something that can be prevented. condomise and stay faithful .... infact i seem to believe ARV got people to belief its okay to have aids because ARVs will contain forever. why is this rate of infection increasing?

@bis-k'hallawaya, Mbeki had no policy, the ANC government did. yes the roll-out of ARVs in public hospitals was delayed (and as head of government, he should be blamed), but the delays were not as a result of his opinion. Cabinet affirmed the policy that "HIV causes AIDS" in 2002, which was an official government statement and in August 2003 Cabinet voted to make anti-retrovirals available in the public sector. as for your "offers to tokoloshes", well I don't want to stoop that low, so will not engage you any further on this issue.
For the record, I disliked Mbeki (still do) for his arrogance and lack of concern for domestic issues and the welfare of SA citizens. But disliking a person does not mean that we have to twist some facts here and there to feel good about ourselves. I have and will continue to correct false facts on this forum about anyone irrespetive of my opinion of them, including guys like PW Botha, FW De Klerk, Robert Mugabe, Jacob Zuma, Eugene Terreblanche et al.

vatiekakie

.......read w w w.hivsa.com/v2/node/8.....about the "efficacious" ANC HIV policy.....the "tokoloshes" point was a metaphor............

@ Leh...

You assume too much.

Mbeki was and always will be a failure. He undermines democracy and judged by the so-called lecture referred to in the above article, he definitely confuses concepts and himself.

What one prefers to ascribe his failures to is a matter of perhaps a silent courtesy.

In case you wonder, you obsessed Hotty for Mbeki, the consequences of Mbeki's failures are matters of public knowledge and observation.

@ Leh...

I repeat: You assume too much.

You are so infatuated with your idol that you fail to see others' views and arguments.

You fail to deal with the arguments.

I repeat: Mbeki's failures are a matter of public record and personal observation.

"South Africa has 500000 new cases of HIV EVERY YEAR....may be this is not impressive to you..........."


My point exactly .... the epidemic is growing despite ARVs. So, don't you think we should have focused more on prevention mechanisms than cure? there is a lot of people that believe AIDS is not a problems because there are ARVS .... false knowledge spreading

.......correction: Mbeki's policies allowed the epidemics to run out of control today. That is the main issue. His "truths" and beliefs he is entitled to were not effective then.

The measures adopted AFTER he left, have not been enough to curb the prevalence nor have been effective to change the attitude of the population who still believe in the lies and fakes seeded by TM and his minions and quacks he "debated"with.

If you don't spend in ARV, you won't treat the sick and the ones becoming sicker, and the epidemics worsens........

Leaders are only credible to their followers, and it is virtually impossible for everyone in any given country to follow one leader. This is not unique to Africa, however - even in America, most Republicans and even some Democrats don't find Obama to be a credible leader.

No!!!

Then what are you saying? how can you make such a general statement? you sound like a bitter person.

Mandela, Phutuma Nhleko (MTN CE), Terrence (AG), Madonsela (public protector), Barney Pitjane, Loyiso Nxoxwa (Wits VC), Kgalema Mothlante, Mbeki Thabo, Mbaki Moeletsi, my traditional Chief there in my Village .... just to name a few Frik

OK so tell me why our country is going backwards rapidly. The SAPS is virtually an extension of the crime syndicates. The last three commissioners are dirty. I have spent the entire day with them and if I tell you that their organisation is totally useless then if you want the true picture multiply useless by one thousand. You may have pockets of people with potential as you mentioned but if they don't stand up and be counted you can hardly call them leaders.

Give me one country that is perfect. We are not as bad as you think ....

here are reasons why our country is going "back ward" as you claim:
- over forty years of white domination and apartheid;
- during this time infrastructure was created for the minority - Joburg is over populated because Group areas act was dismandled and now we have a problem
- balck rural communittees were ignored by the white governemnt over forty years
- black people could not attend certain universities in SA ... sunstandard education was offered to blacks over decades
- etc

Post 94

- Black middle class emerged;
- Infrastructure was extended to black communities - the first time i had electricity in my village was in 1996 (white credible leadership ignored me for some time)
- south africa experience economic growth in general terms
- and etc

For sure we are not going backwards .... as a black person who had to hunt everyday in order to have supper (lol). i can gurantee you frik ... we are progressing just well

I am truly happy that your life is better than in the past. I travel in rural South Africa regularly. Although poverty is everywhere I have seen and experienced poverty which is criminal. Nothing has improved for these people. If you talk to them like I do you will hear that their lives and poverty increased over the past fifteen years. I put it to you that notwithstanding the criminal and unjust apartheid regime their lives should have been improved but the so called leadership of the ANC only enrich themselves at the detriment of their own people they are supposed to represent. This brings me back to my original point. Africa has no credible leaders.

You are clueless my friend.

The problem that Mr Mbeki is refering to can be found right here on this comments, lack and ignorance of knowledge, its painful(shameful) People whom are expected to know also dont know. Hai! mxm.

Personally I find it strange that Mbeki should articulate his views on the world order after leaving the right platform “Presidency” I have always regarded him as a very strong and against the norm kind of a guy. Yes we know that whoever has knowledge will always be better-of and that’s the only reason why Africa is still trapped. Europeans came to Africa and the first thing they assaulted was knowledge and we cannot blame Africans as we thought the new information was of benefits to the continent, even today we still do.
The secrecy bill which has just been passed is because of the realization that with more info out the any Country can go down ‘I mean the USA, UK, UAE, and Israel in fact the whole of Europe, has a high degree of the secrecy. You look at the WIKILEAK founder fate - he is being wounded by the so called democratic countries which are supposed to be the front runners in freedom of speech.
Knowledge is “what you don’t know won’t kill you” knowledge is control, control is power and power is the politics game. I am not sure if I make sense but I don’t want to make sense. “We as Africans are going to be screwed for a long time, until someone with only Mugabe’s guts, Mandela’s wisdom, Idi's courage and Hitler’s foresight.
And Gaddafi its true was overthrown, by does without knowledge led by the evil wise ones.

On May 24, 2000, South African President Thabo Mbeki attended a ceremony honoring him at the Fairmont Hotel in San Fransico. The meeting was sponsored by The Commonwealth Club of California and The World Affairs Council of Northern California. Mbeki answered questions, below the one on AIDS.
QUESTION: There are many, many questions related to AIDS. I suppose the broadest way of putting this question is: Could you clarify your position on the cause of AIDS and explain how you hope to address this growing problem?
PRESIDENT MBEKI: I'm not sure. I have sometimes, wrongly, a rather high opinion of myself -- quite wrongly. But one of them I have never had is that I am a scientist.
The matter of cause is something that science has been dealing with for a long time and scientists continue to be engaged with this particular question. But this I can say: There is a serious problem of AIDS, a serious problem of AIDS in South Africa, a serious problem of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa generally which requires a very strong and a very determined response.
In South Africa we're taught, like the rest of the world, nothing new. You need to conduct and wage a strong campaign of public awareness focusing on matters of safe sex, use of condoms, those kinds of questions. As a consequence of that, there is really quite a lot of work that has been done as part of that process. We thought it would be necessary not just to have government only address this matter, but that we build a whole series of partnerships. Partnerships against AIDS, which exist. Partnerships with business, with the labor unions, with religious communities, with youth, with women, and so on, to make sure that everybody actually takes up this campaign wherever they are.
We decided also this year that we needed to set aside some dedicated funds in the national budget to address this particular question. That would be in addition to whatever the government departments -- national, provincial and other government structures -- would be spending, but to set aside these dedicated funds. We also contributed funds to work that must go on with regard to the development of a vaccine, government has also made that kind of contribution. The Medical Research Council in South Africa is working with other organizations, including U.S. organizations, on this particular question. I am saying there is a whole range of matters that have been done with regard to this.
But because of the scale of the problem, many, many of us in government tried, without being scientists or anything like this, to understand this challenge as closely as possible. What, indeed, has happened is that some of us have had to be reading lots and lots of material on this question with a view to ensuring that we understand as well as we should so that we should respond with the necessary vigor given the scale and size of the problem.
Now there are some issues that arise which require some answers. We need those answers so that we can make sure that we wage a more effective campaign, to make sure that we respond in focused way to the incidence of AIDS. Let me give you an example of one of these problems.
In 1985, the New England Journal of Medicine published what I think is the first report on the incidence of HIV in South Africa and southern Africa. That same report was published later in the South African Medical Journal. That report said that HIV was not endemic in southern Africa -- that's 1985. It went on to say that the incidence of HIV they found, these medical people and scientists, was among male gay people. Now that was middle of 1985. Five years later, six years later maybe, this had changed radically where it was now said, whereas in 1985 HIV was not endemic in this region, five years later the report was that it was. Secondly, whereas in 85 it was said that this would be homosexually transmitted, five years later it was heterosexually transmitted.
So the question we then asked was: Why this change? The profile in the United States in 1985 was the same profile as in South Africa in 1985, yet the profile in the United States has remained substantially the same. There is a growing incidence in the United States, looking at the CDC figures, of heterosexual transmission. The last report I saw from the CDC, which was up to December 1999, was that there was a 10% incidence of heterosexual transmission in the United States, 90% was homosexual. So we asked the question: What happened between 1985 and 1990? The question, we believe, is important because it would help us to address the focus of our response. Some of the answers I've had is that there is a different strain of HIV in our region of the world which is why you had this change from 85 to 90.
Let us say: Fine. If this is the reason, if this is what science says, this is OK. It's good information because then it enables us to respond to the specific manifestation of this condition in our situation.
Another scientist has said to me -- I must say it is only one scientist, a European scientist -- he thinks the reason is that there are biological factors which affect Africans and don't affect people in North America or Western Europe. Biological factors. He said this was a hypothesis he was following. Now, it would be very important for us to find out what this is because, indeed, if there is a different biological set of circumstances affecting Africans then it would be necessary for us in the intensification of the campaign against AIDS that we take into account those differences.
Fortunately, scientists managed to meet in South Africa at the beginning of this month, around the sixth of May, representing different opinions with regard to this debate that has been going on about these issues for fifteen years or more. Dissidents and orthodox people, as they are described in the literature, discussed some of these questions. One of the decisions they reached was that indeed there were unresolved questions which impact the kind of work that needs to be done to get on top of the problem. The consequence of which they agreed that they would then meet -- both orthodox and dissident -- under the auspices of the Centers for Disease Control as well as the South African Medical Research Council. They would bring all of these scientists together to address these outstanding questions. We look forward to that because we want to make sure that our response is effective, is specific, is focused, and produces results.
So I am saying I hope that process which the CDC will coordinate will help us get to these sorts of points. The other matters that have been raised, of course, about this include the matters of the antiretroviral drugs. In South Africa, the estimate for the HIV positive is something, like, four million. Our minister of health has had discussions last week with UNAIDS and WHO in the aftermath of the announcement by the UNAIDS that they had reached agreement with five pharmaceutical companies to reduce drug prices. The consequence of that reduction in cost terms would be that we would then have to spend the entirety of the public health drug budget on antiretrovirals only. What do we do?
These are the real, actual, practical questions that confront us. We have to intensify the campaign against AIDS. We've got to get results. We've got to make sure that we understand all of the specifics that pertain to this so that we do, indeed, achieve the sort of progress that is needed. Unfortunately, it seems that as a French professor said to me, my professor of medicine and science, part of the problem here is that there is a lot of dogma that attaches to this particular area and it is difficult to deal with it. Even scientists have said to me that to debate the real questions becomes difficult. I think some movement is taking place and I was very happy that the CDC in this country said that instead of all the scientists standing at different ends, let's interact so that, indeed, we can focus on these outstanding issues.

....all this blah-blah-blah-blah-perhaps-blah-blah-blah-blah-maybe-blah-blah-blah-blah-who-knows-blah-blah-blah........was Mr Mbeki's characteristic.....

""""Mr Editor you are truly ridiculous. God knows what your agenda is. Twit""""

Editor Goldberg allows this kind of news worth of commenting:

-"Sexy Kelly to wear panties"......presumably because "sexy kelly's" pics displaying her genitalia are debating topic.......

- w w w.timeslive.co.za/world/2011/09/22/killer-caption-contest: it may be my imagination, but it seems judaic followers/educated have deep issues against catholics in particular. This "caption"related to a mockery on the Pope didn't attract followers, but it was "open" for comments........

Therefore blah blah is what Thabo Mbeki describes in the same speech and using his actual words,

"I believe that in this context, the theme of this ‘Knowledge Management Conference’ presents the distinguished participants and delegates with the challenge, among others, to answer the questions:


■ is there an objective social existence described as “objective reality”, which exists independent of and outside individual human consciousness and cognition, and is therefore, in principle, freely accessible to all who seek to access “knowledge”;
■ in reality, does everybody have the “freedom to access” this “knowledge” about this supposed “objective reality”; and,
■ does the possibility not exist that some in society could have such control over the ways and means and possibility to access this “knowledge” so that they determine both who knows what, and what society in general knows, which it would believe constitutes an accurate appreciation of the ‘objective reality’ to which we have referred"

Some call it blah blah blah..... I guess ????