Pieterson can help HIV/AIDS struggle
Every year around June, even the most ignorant of youths who couldn’t care less about the 1976 Soweto Uprisings and the origins of the freedom they now enjoy, see the photo of Mbuyisa Makhubu carrying a dying Hector Pieterson, with his sister running beside them.
Pieterson was one of the first people to die in what should have been a peaceful march against the use of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in public schools. This picture makes you take stock, no matter how many times you have seen it before. Its poignancy reaches out to whoever is looking, and they see, in that single image, the brutality of those times.
Now imagine a new version of Sam Nzima’s photograph, but in this case, a youth of today carrying a child dying of HIV/AIDS, with a distraught relative holding up her hands as if she’s saying “No, no!” The tag line to this photograph: “Is today’s youth battle any less heroic?” What a powerful image.
Clothing giant Levi Strauss is planning to use Nzima’s famous struggle image in an AIDS-awareness campaign, but the idea has been slammed by relatives and others on the grounds that the original image shouldn’t be used for economic gain. Levi Strauss is taking a leaf out of rock star and AIDS activist Bono’s Product Red campaign which was launched earlier this year. Product Red is a global brand comprising of companies such as Gap, American Express and Armani, which will promote “Red” products. A share of the profits goes towards fighting the pandemic in Africa. Bono said Product Red was not philanthropy but rather a commercial venture that will earn hard cash for the fight against AIDS and also be profitable for the companies concerned. The trend towards going commercial to raise funds for AIDS-awareness campaign seems to have taken root.
The African National Congress Youth League spoke out against this proposed campaign. In a Sunday Times article on June 10, ANC Youth League President Fikile Mbalula said:
“People should not use national symbols, including the picture, for their own profit-making interests and insult our history, our moral integrity and the integrity of our struggle. If they want to be educative to the youth about HIV/AIDS, there are better ways to do that.”
I disagree. So many HIV-awareness campaigns have been launched, but the message still has not been fully received. Perhaps it is time for something controversial, and what better way to reach into people’s hearts and heads than using an iconic image that symbolised the courage of the 1976 youth.
Nzima’s son has also slammed this campaign, saying that he was “uncomfortable” with the photo being reshot and that heritage should not be compromised for economic gain. That this should be the main argument against this campaign is ironic. South Africa has exploited Nelson Mandela’s name time and again to further its interest. One example that comes to mind is the World Cup Soccer bid in which we secured the privilege to host the event in 2010. Was that not the exploitation of a national hero for economic gain?
I’m humbled at the way Pieterson’s sister, Antoinette, realises the need for something like this campaign to educate the youth about HIV/AIDS. This is the woman who has to see herself crying on posters every year around Youth Day; she knows the impact of the Pieterson imagery.
The campaign has already been successful before it has even started. It has got people talking, people taking note, and the media reporting on it, and essentially that is what any HIV/AIDS-awareness campaign should strive for. – Akhona Cira
July 6th, 2006 at 3:41 pm
You know, I was born in the South Africa and now live in the UK and I’ve seen where all this consumer driven riff raff goes. Yes a certain amount of money from this campaign does go to relieving ‘AIDS in Africa’ but rather than bieng a part of the profit it is already a cost written into the price of the garment.
I mean look at the companies your talking about. Gap? American Express? Armani? These are companies that all put together probably earn more every year than the poorest countries in Africa. After all, isn’t something fundamentally and morally wrong with a an awareness campaign that is mainly purchase driven? And is this really the best they can do?
But then as you say, issues such as the AIDS epidemic need a fair hearing in the press, and I agree with you that Product Red and Levi Strauss have got people talking - but I wonder if they have introduced a particularly high quality discussion. Even pre-Bono, I think most people already knew that ‘AIDS in Africa’ is a problem, and did the campaign really expand on that and bring into question much we know about and discuss the solution (and what our role is in that solution) beyond the concept of donating money?
I would put it to you that our role (or rather the role of the West) in this Epidemic is not to donate money but to curb the impact of our economy on Africa and other ‘Third World’ countries. After all, the fact is that the majority of Africa’s need for monetary contributions – legal or illegal - are created by us.
My favourite example in this respect is the World Trade Organisation, who refuse to give South Africa and other African countries the right to produce IRV’s. My knowledge of other African countries is a bit rough but I know that before the WTO began to play a hand in South African politics it was against the law to refuse the state the right to produce IRV’s. Today however, rather than allowing the country to produce it’s own drugs at a lower cost, the WTO force the government to buy these essential medicines from Western drug companies at well over ten times the price - governments usually taking out loans from more affluent countries to do so. And thus where Third World Debt came from. All this in the name of ‘Fair Trade’, yet think how many lives could be saved.,
But this is the tip of the iceberg, Afterall, how much of that do you see in the media? How much of that is investigated and published and discussed? How many concerts are held in the name of this injustice?
I wish more effort went into understanding the fact that the only people who can solve the social aspects of this problem and stop the spread of this disease is ultimately those who are affected by it, and that our role as Westerners is merely to contribute what scientific knowledge our way of living has afforded us and curb the impact of our consumer society. Perhaps if we put more research into those two grey areas perhaps we could come up with a better, more insightful solution than selling t-shirts only to buy drugs from drugs companies whilst ultimately doing nothing but fuelling our own economy.
And as for Fikile Mbalula’s comment I have to disagree with you. I applaud him in finding something in his history that belongs to the enigma of his country and not to the mass market. It’s the kind of political comment you would never hear here in the UK and I was refreshed and even somewhat relieved to hear it. Congratulations Mbalula. There are other solutions.