Media Watch

Death and a Funeral

The newly appointed Minister of Home Affairs, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s public grieving over the suicide of a young man who took his own life after the Department of Home Affairs refused to issue him with an ID, has made for truly moving copy this week.

But there is something disconcerting about this ministerial display of empathy. If only Dlamini-Zuma had been this moved by the deaths of the some 180 000 South Africans who perished from AIDS-related illnesses during her tenure as Health Minister, the South African epidemic may have taken a much less dramatic toll.