Aids denialism (II)

A reader points out that my post two days ago suggests that Mbeki did not deny that HIV causes AIDS, but only that there are other issues that affect immune deficiency. I would contend that this is mere semantics.

Most South Africans would not make this distinction and would believe Mbeki to have denied the link and would have acted accordingly. Also, there is evidence to suggest that Mbeki did question the link between HIV and AIDS specifically. Moneyweb has published an interesting article relating the whole saga and concludes:

It was on July 9 that Mbeki first publicly questioned the causal link between HIV and AIDS. In his address to the International AIDS conference in Durban he stated that it seemed to him that the phenomenon of immune collapse among black Africans could not be blamed on a single virus.

In an interview with Time Magazine, September 4 2000, Mbeki stated that, "the notion that immune deficiency [AIDS] is only acquired from a single virus [HIV] cannot be sustained." When asked whether he was prepared to "acknowledge that there is a link between HIV and AIDS?" he replied, "This is precisely where the problem starts. No, I am saying that you cannot attribute immune deficiency solely and exclusively to a virus."

Over the following days various ministers were asked whether they believed HIV caused AIDS. Most refused to answer in the affirmative - clearly out of fear of being seen to contradict Mbeki. Tshabalala-Msimang, Kader Asmal, Trevor Manuel and Essop Pahad himself, were all reported to have evaded answering the question directly. It was only on September 13 that Labour Minister Membathisi Mdadlana broke ranks to publicly state, "Yes, of course HIV causes AIDS."

In his written reply to a question posed to him in parliament on the September 20 Mbeki reiterated his position: "There is no doubt that there are many factors that result in the breakdown of the body's immune system. Repeated infections, malnutrition, lack of access to clean water, impact negatively on the immune system." For Mbeki the contention that HIV contributed to this immune deficiency was an unproven one, although he was keeping an open mind on the matter. "There may well be a virus that also results in a breakdown of the immune system", he added.

In his spoken reply he answered derisively to the question of whether HIV caused AIDS: "When one asks a question: does HIV cause AIDS, the question is: does a virus cause a syndrome? How does a virus cause a syndrome? It cannot, really, truly....I think it is incorrect from everything that I read to say immune deficiency is acquired exclusively from a single virus."

On September 28 Mbeki addressed the ANC caucus in parliament behind closed doors. Howard Barrell reported in the Mail & Guardian the following week that, in the meeting, Mbeki had spoken approvingly "of a conference of about 60 dissident scientists held in Uganda in September; quoted from a document from that conference challenging the view that HIV causes AIDS; said (again) that the HI virus had never been isolated." (The declaration of the conference can be accessed here.)

He also "told ANC MPs that it was their duty to inform themselves so that they could counter the huge propaganda offensive that was being mounted to say that HIV caused AIDS."

He also, "repeated his view that if one agrees that HIV causes AIDS, then it must be treated with drugs, and those drugs are produced by the big Western drug companies; these drug companies therefore need HIV to cause AIDS, so they promote the thesis that HIV causes AIDS."

He also, "said the CIA had become involved in covertly promoting the view that HIV causes AIDS; as part of the same effort, the US government was ignoring what the dissidents' conference in Uganda had demonstrated...."

He also said it was not "clear that members of his Cabinet supported him on the HIV/AIDS issue; he wanted to know where they stood". At this point, apparently, "there was some muttering in the caucus from some MPs who pointed accusingly at, among others, Membathisi Mdadlana."

The report was so accurate a number of ANC MPs canvassed by Angela Quintal for Sapa "discounted that the information was acquired by way of routine leaks by ANC MPs, and insisted their caucus had somehow been bugged." The week after it was published the police swept parliament for bugs.

On October 4 in Business Day the head of the ANC presidency, Smuts Ngonyama, took issue with an article in which the newspaper's parliamentary correspondent, Wyndham Hartley, had called for the pressure to be kept on cabinet ministers to acknowledge the causal link between HIV and AIDS. Ngonyama (or Mbeki) stated that:

"Hartley should read President Mbeki's speech at the Durban international AIDS conference and his comments in the recent issue of Time magazine. He will see that, among other things, what the president is challenging is the assertion that AID AIDS without S is the exclusive fault of a single virus. To substantiate his opinion, Hartley must produce evidence that HIV is the sole cause of AIDS."

If AIDS is not solely caused by HIV, it suggests other factors also causes AIDS. This is not the same as saying that, say, bad nutrition hastens the onset of AIDS in individuals who are not treated with ARV's. It is saying that the link between HIV and AIDS is not as clear and direct as scientist believes and suggests that to treat AIDS patients may require something different from ARV's - like garlic, olive oil and lemon. This seems like classic denialism to me.

Sunday Times advert circa 1985. . .

If only Ronald Suresh Roberts had seen this TV advert for the Sunday Times made in 1985 he would have had more to say about the sexism, racism and deeply obnoxious prejudice of this newspaper. Particularly shocking is the headline: "Exclusive picture interview with South African dying Aids victim..." Almost as bad as a headline in Huisgenoot several years ago: "Seuntjie met die pers gesig: kleurfoto's".

¨Them¨ and ¨Us¨ mindset primitive

Ok, I promise this is the last word on the topic. I have now finished the tome by Ronald Suresh Roberts on the train back from Machu Picchu and a few things strike me about this vigorous defense of President Thabo Mbeki.

According to the unlikable Mr. Roberts, President Mbeki is always right and his detractors always pig headed settlers from the colonial tradition - no matter what the topic. This seems rather simple minded and unbelievable. No person - no matter how well disposed to the President - could believe every word of this book. It is just too over the top.

It is also interesting that Roberts, who often lauds Mbeki for his subtlety, and obviously thinks that subtlety is a virtue, does not do subtle himself. The most grating and intellectually problematic aspect of the book is the duality set up between ¨them¨ and ¨us¨.

He argues that one is either a native (a sort of state of mind that flows from one never criticising the President) or one is a settler (which means one criticizing the President or one has family who once slept with somebody who criticized the President).

Of course, anyone who has read any 20th century Continental philosophy or who has some common sense (native or otherwise), would cringe at such a simplistic dichotomous analysis. Surely we know that there are always far more than two sides to any question or controversy.

He does a disservice to the President by arguing in this way because it suggests the President is not subtle at all, but is a bit of a paranoid bully, who sees the world in stark terms but hides it from time to time to outfox the settlers. If this is true, well, then rather Jacob Zuma.

Mr. Roberts refuses to see issues as complex and refuses to admit that one can criticize the President without being a racist colonialist pig. He often goes on an entertaining riff about the colonial or imperialist mindset and I cheer him on. But then, in a lazy sleight of hand he links the critic of the President to this analysis to prove the bad motives of the critic, sometimes in the most tenuous way.

But what is lacking is an engagement with the actual critique. A settler´s arguments is invalid per se.

This kind of them or us arguments are insulting to the intelligence of the reader and will discredit the good points made in it about the often implicit racism and assumptions of white/European superiority that forms part of our public discourse.

Having said all this, I am intrigued enough to want to spend a night at a dinner party with a lot of red wine and Mr. Roberts as an adversary. It will be highly entertaining. It will also allow me to question him on those passages in his book that suggests that he might have a bit of native homophobia in his bones.

On colonialism and Ronald Suresh Roberts

It is the most disconcerting experience to be reading Ronald Suresh Roberts´book on Thabo Mbeki while also reading the Rough Guide to Peru. Roberts talks at lenghth about the way Western discourse has infected our world view and at times he is actually quite interesting.

I like the fact that he is trying to create an alternative intellectual universe in which Thabo Mbeki always makes perfect sense and is really an intellectual hero. When he talks about the ways in which what we see as normal is really situated, he is rather good.

The problem is that he often argues like a little boy. For example he points out that Tony Leon (not his favourite man!) quotes Lord Acton. He then argues that Lord Acton was a dreadful man. Then this must inevitably mean in his book that Leon is also a terrible racist pig. Nee what, this is lazy reasoning of the worst kind.

The book also gives the impression of a rush job. It is not clear whether this is because he knocked it off in the past few months when the sponsors started asking questions about the million Rand they gave for the project or whether it is because he has such a busy mind that he cannot fix on one thing for long enough to actually build a sustained and coherent argument.

In any case, to read Suresh Roberts and then the guidebook makes the colonial mindset of the guidebook jump out at you. White people from Europe invariably ¨discovered¨all the great tourist attracions - as if locals did not live here and actually built the very same attractions. It is deeply irritating and almost puts me off travel.

The guidebook us aklso deeply patronising about local culture and politics. When pointing out some problem with Macchu Picchu they add that the authorities are aware of the problema nd claim to be doing something about it. The guidebook would surelñy not say the Italians are aware of the fact that the tower of Pisa is falling over.

The scary political logic of declonisation

Ivor Chipkin gave a very interesting talk about his book Do South Africans Exist? Nationalism, Democracy and the Identity of "the People" at the Cape Town Book Fair last week that might be quite relevant as the ANCs´Policy Conference starts.

Focusing on a remark by Christine Quanta that Nadine Gordimer is so irritating because ¨she has always seemed so smug in her role as observer, interpreter and final arbiter of our struggle¨, he argues there is a political logic behind many transitions from colonialism that is not easy to endorse¨.

Money quote:

Firstly, the "we" whose anti-colonial struggle is "ours" is nothing less than people itself. Secondly, this "we", the people, is authentic only when it is either in or sanctioned by the nationalist movement. What has happened here is that the political space has come to be conflated with the space of the movement. Hence the ambivalent relationship of the nationalist movement to the democratic process.

To the extent that the movement wins a democratic election, the results then merely confirm what the movement already assumes: that it is the authentic voice of the people. In the same way, democracy is valued to the extent that it is possible to pursue "the people’s" agenda through its mechanisms and institutions.

When uncertainty enters the political scene, things look different. What does one make of a political opposition if "the people", “our people”, are always by definition unified in and around the nationalist organisation? Whom does it represent – if not "reactionary" forces (former colonisers, foreign interests, ultra-leftists). Moreover, if the nationalist movement is by definition the people’s own, then electoral loss can mean only one thing: sabotage by the enemies of the people.

In which case one pursues "the people’s" agenda by other means ("states of emergency" and so on). Is this not the brutal logic at play in Zimbabwe today? If so, then it is time to ask: Is not the condition of democracy today the weakening of nationalist organisations in the body politic?

This strikes me as a very interesting point and serves as a counterweight for the argument put forward by Ronald Suresh Roberts that those who get nervous about the ANC´s commitment to democracy are really just channeling the worst kind of racism and anti-nativism.

Not all the leaders of the ANC embraces this logic, but surely this logic is evident in our political culture and is amply demonstrated by remarks such as those of Jacob Zuma that the ANC will rule until Jesus comes.

There clearly are ANC leaders who beleive only the ANC could possibly lead South Africa. They see the ANC as having an almost mystical destiny to lead us and can also tell the poor to shut up because whatever the ANC is doing is in the interest of the country. They call for unity - which often means the unity only of the movement itself. That is why the break up of the tripartite alliance will be a huge thing and will ultimately be good for South Africa.

Once a break-up occurs and South African politics becomes more ¨normal¨, it will be more difficult for the racism liberals that Suresh Roberts hates so much to make noises about the anti-democratic tendencies of the ANC (and implicitly, black people).

Now Mangcu puts in the boot

Xolela Mangcu has a scathing column about the new Thabo Mbeki biography in today's Business Day entitled, Roberts’ shallow ode reflects obsessions of the age of Mbeki. He hits Roberts where it hurts most, accusing him of being obsessed by what whites think. In effect, he says Roberts is a prisoner of colonialism and therefore not a free man. Ouch!

Money quote:

The problem of course is that Roberts is spending so much time convincing white people that he ignores the people who really think his subject is not fit to govern — the natives within the ANC. I suppose white people will always be a convenient diversion for racial populists.

I always feel heart sore when people misappropriate and distort Biko’s message to defend their racial chauvinism. It was perhaps in anticipation of this that Biko wrote his thoughts down.

Biko had a message for black people in his brilliant essay, Black Consciousness and the Quest for a True Humanity. This is what this intellectual and political giant said: “Blacks have had enough experience as objects of racism not to wish to turn the tables.

“While it may be relevant now to talk about black in relation to white, we must not make this our preoccupation, for it can be a negative exercise. As we proceed further towards the achievement of our goals let us talk more about ourselves and our struggle and less about whites.”

Interestingly this mirrors the critique both myself and Johnny Steinberg has leveled against Mbeki himself.

Unlikeable Mr. Roberts fit to write a biography?

I bought Ronald Suresh Roberts' biography of President Thabo Mbeki today. Called Fit to Govern: The Native Intelligence of Thabo Mbeki, the book contains a spirited defence of Mbeki and even more spirited or even vituperative attacks on many of Mbeki's (and Roberts') critics.

I am very much looking forward to read the book because I am rather confident it won't be boring. It would be refreshing to read another view on Mbeki and to see how successful Roberts is in defending some of Mbeki's most controversial (and in my opinion disastrous) policies, such as the HIV/AIDS fiasco.

I am not a great fan of Mr. Roberts and have written on this Blog about his unfortunate defamation case, but I suspect he is correct when he predicts that the liberal white establishment is going to pull the book to pieces for all the wrong reasons.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Alliance aligned James Myburg has already weighed in with a kind of review or debunking of the book in his Moneyweb column. He reminds us that Essop Pahad lied to Parliament when he denied that the Presidency facilitated a R1.5 million grant from Absa Bank for Roberts to write the book.

Myburg conclude his "review" as follows:

One oddity of the book is that very little of it is taken up with documenting and elucidating Mbeki's own views, which do not seem to be of particular interest to the author. It is divided instead between "a theoretical dogfight in ideological outer space" (as Rian Malan put it) and vindictive attacks on Mbeki's critics and opponents. At one stage Roberts writes (p. 125) that The Discourses by Niccolò Machiavelli's are what really "illuminates Mbeki's statesmanship." Yet, in that work Machiavelli advised:

I hold it to be a proof of great prudence for men to abstain from threats and insulting words towards any one, for neither the one nor the other in any way diminishes the strength of the enemy; but the one makes him more cautious, and the other increases his hatred of you, and makes him more persevering in his efforts to injure you.

"It is the duty", Machiavelli continued, "of every good general or chief of a republic, to use all proper means to prevent such insults and reproaches from being indulged in by citizens or soldiers." This is advice the presidency has clearly chosen to ignore. By supporting this project, in the way that they did, the presidency were clearly hoping to buttress Mbeki's position, both morally and politically. Yet they may find that this book - which manages to direct "harsh sarcasms" against so many different people - has precisely the opposite effect intended.

After reading more of the book, I will weigh in with my own two cents worth. I suspect the book will become the talk of the town and that many words will be written about it. Sadly, I am not so sure much of it will be interesting or relevant. Let's see.