By Greg Arde

Ambling through the halls of power, one wonders if our esteemed president, Thabo Mbeki, remembers the children's story The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen. Chances are Mbeki's mama read it to him, and perhaps this week he heeded the wise words of the Danish storyteller.

Just when we thought he was actually mad, Mbeki found a fig-leaf - an iffy acknowledgement that his stance on Aids has led to confusion.

Remember the emperor story? Two swindlers conned the chief into parting with heaps of dosh with the promise that they would weave him a magnificent suit of the finest thread. They said only those "unpardonably stupid" would not see the fine thread. In fact, it didn't exist.

But, anxious not to be seen as dumb, everyone marvelled as the emperor paraded through the streets, showing off his new suit. It took a child to shout "the emperor doesn't have any clothes" before the people realised their folly.

Pressed to inject himself with infected blood, he declined

Epainette Mbeki, 84, probably told her children the story. After all, this is what she recently told radio talk show host Tim Modise: "He (Mbeki) should forget about himself ... about the ego. He should also be prepared to listen to the next man, no matter whether his ideas and yours agree."

With a mother like that, the president could go places. But, like the emperor, Mbeki is surrounded by too many "yes" men.

Nailing Mbeki and his cabinet down on whether HIV causes Aids has been an absolute circus. When the world's top specialists gathered at Durban's Aids Conference recently, and unequivocally said HIV causes Aids, Mbeki kept flirting with dissident scientists. Mbeki sycophants rushed around doing the most amazing contortions, trying to explain the president's inability to commit himself on the issue. The government placed adverts in national newspapers to try to clear the air.

The ads declared that neither Mbeki nor his cabinet colleagues had ever denied a link between HIV and Aids. But they hadn't confirmed it either.

The adverts waffled on about Mbeki's remarks being "conflated" in a Time magazine interview, "in a way which could give rise to a misunderstanding over his use of the word 'no'."

With a mother like that, the president could go places

Mbeki told Time: "Clearly there is such a thing as acquired immune deficiency. The question you have to ask is what produces this deficiency. A whole variety of things can cause the immune system to collapse. It is perfectly possible that among those things is a particular virus. But the notion that immune deficiency is only acquired from a single virus cannot be sustained."

Now, the ANC government's health programmes are actually based on the conventional premise that HIV causes Aids. But enormous confusion has arisen from Mbeki's refusal to commit himself to this; and his eccentric stance on the matter. In parliament this week he was pressed to inject himself with a cc of Aids-infected blood to prove his scepticism about the link between HIV and Aids. He declined.

Confusion has generated controversy in the weird comments of his cabinet ministers when they are drawn on the HIV link with Aids. So weird, in fact, that health minister Manto-Tshabalala Msimang started talking about whether it was "raining outside" when pressed by journalists!

Last week each cabinet minister was asked whether they thought HIV caused Aids. Most, like naughty school kids, ducked the question. Others referred to the ambiguous newspaper adverts. The rest didn't know the answer and made it up as they went along. The fig leaf Mbeki offered to cover himself with, in the absence of a new suit, came in the form of this line: "Perhaps all of us, the way we handled this, may have resulted in that confusion." Not exactly cut and dried, but a start.

One might despair about the type of democracy being forged in the Mbeki era, when independent thought plays second fiddle to loyalty to the boss.

But hope emerged via a leaked report compiled by the ANC's national health secretariat: "We have identified the cause (of Aids). The infectious agent is HIV, a retrovirus. The predominant scientific view that HIV causes Aids is the view that the ANC, its leadership and its membership has to publicly express."

At least some have the guts to say the emperor isn't wearing any clothes.

Published on the Web by IOL on 2000-09-23 17:55:12