I was studying in New Delhi when a hero from the local courier service dropped by with an invite for the party of the year. It was ten years since 1994 and the South African Embassy was hosting a monstrously huge bash to celebrate our decade long democracy.
Never mind the histrionics regarding the hosting of such an expensive bash at a five-star hotel, thousands of kilometres away from a country supposedly ten years young but some three hundred years behind everything else (surely this is a topic for another time). But for starters, India was an important ANC ally throughout the struggle years and perhaps it made some sort of high-ranking-protocol-endearing-diplomatic-sense to celebrate liberation in style.
It wasn’t long before I buried my pseudo lefty skepticism regarding obese party expense: not with the good food, Hugh Masekela LIVE and wait for this, the presence of Manto Tshabalala-Msimang at the party. And as the music climbed into the night, I watched her throughout: eating, drinking and gently swaying that upper torso like only the proverbial African queen could do.
I waited for the appropriate moment and nonchalantly walked up to her and introduced myself as a South African student in Delhi. She greeted me with that genuine, almost apolitical warmth of a mother from back home interested in her flock grazing in another land (farming metaphor intended). Unfortunately Manto failed to recognise the omnipresent deviant located within me (like every other self-righteous foreign student) and I simply lured her highness into an inexorable mind job.
“Oh, you are a student here … how nice! What are you studying?” she asked.
I answered confidently amidst the din around, “I’m doing my MA in Social Sciences”.
She nodded with approval but seemed to motion for some elaboration.
I took a deep breath, looked her in the eye and smiled, “My primary focus is HIV/Aids and access to anti-retroviral drugs in South Africa”
“Oh … okay”, she retorted forcing an emergent grimace into a lethargic smile.
She immediately gathered her drink and walked away.
Of course, I had only ever done two relatively short papers on ARV drug access in South Africa, so I was no expert on the issue. In fact, I was actually focusing on South Asian media studies at the time. But needless to say, knowing that she was the main villain behind the ongoing HIV/Aids and ARV treatment drama unfolding in South Africa, unnerving her for just a moment was priceless …
And today she is finally gone.
It took a president to resign and an entire reshuffling of the cabinet to get rid of her.
But she is finally gone, and our disheveled Health Ministry can shift gears at last.
A prince with dignity and determination
Prince Ngarambe’s goals are to become Rwanda’s first transgender model and to uplift the country’s youth
The EFF’s principles are unshakeable
Unlike the ANC, the core values of the freedom fighters do not change with each leader it elects
