Freedom Day is an annual celebration of South Africa's first non-racial democratic elections of 1994. Peace, unity, the preservation and the restoration of human dignity hallmarks Freedom Day celebrations on the 27th of April of each year. I dedicate this Freedom Day to President Jacob Zuma as I reminder of how "Un - Free" we remain in this country.
"Un -Free" from full truth, sexually responsible educational messages and consideration of reaction to actions.
Consider what the average man thought when waking up to front page news this morning that announced with national pride the HIV status of our President- purportedly negative. This is a President who naively showered after alleged non coercive sexual penetration with an HV + woman. A President who is a loud-and-proud polygamist plus unashamedly engages in extra - polygamist affairs.
Researchers work tirelessly to answer the question as to why the skewed increased incidence of HIV+ women in Sub Saharan Africa, particularly South Africa. Their research clearly indicates it is due to "sexual networking", or "concurrent " relationships. This means South African men -and women- are sexually greedy: they indulge in more than one sexual relationship simultaneously. In this way the virus spreads.
Back to President Zuma. According to these research results he is a high risk candidate of contracting and transmitting the HI Virus due to his concurrent sexual partners. Plus we know he does not use condoms. Back to the SA man who woke to this news- it has to be the most permissive sexual news given out in this country in a long while. I see it as the President himself coming off his throne and telling the populace:"Go forth and have multiple condom-less sex concurrently and you too can test negatively."
I understand that this might have been spin doctors weaving what they see as an HIV/AIDS positive message from the President: let's show the country that this President is not in denial about HIV/AIDS. I am all in favour of this message. We know presidential support of HIV/AIDS turned the tide- momentarily- in Uganda and Botswana. But I object to the context - think of implications of this statement. It offers no freedom to us - rather has the possibility of throwing the incidence of HIV/AIDS/STI's to a higher level.
I celebrate Freedom Day. I feel the sincerity of it at a very core level. I feel honoured to have lived through the darkness of Apartheid and now am in a different kind of struggle to hold up the light given to us 16 years ago. Which is why I dedicate this Freedom Day to JZ. He is the officially appointed "light keeper" of our country. Which is why I urge him to consider sexual freedom as a right of all people in South Africa- the right to correct information, to responsible sexual messages, to access to sexual health services. These rights are so well integrated into our Constitution - we now need a President who thinks freely AND responsibly about his own sexuality and relationships.
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