Protesting Stupidity: AIDS Demonstration in Cape Town

This time, I couldn't help but get riled up.

I've been to protests before, though most of these were of the ultimately trivial "uninformed-college-students-angry-against-the-world" sort. For the most part, I've approached these kind of gatherings with a decidedly positive (in the Milton Friedman sense) approach: go see what people are mad about and find out whether their specific concerns are borne out "in the data".

The protest I attended in Cape Town was completely different from these past experiences. This wasn't the kind of demonstration where both sides of the issue had some credibility. Rather, this was a protest against sheer stupidity on the part of elected officials, all of whom should know better.

In particular, demonstrators were protesting the dubious dismissal of South African Deputy Health Minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge. The suspicion surrounding the incident lies in Nozizwe's support of aggressive anti-HIV/AIDS policy, which stands in contrast to her superiors' - which includes South African President Thabo Mbeki and Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang - essentially anti-science stance (they've gone on record with gems like HIV doesn't cause AIDS, garlic may be as effective as ARVs in treating the disease, etc). You can read about the whole story here, here and here. For a more eloquent account of AIDS politics in South Africa, check out some of the older posts at James Hudspeth's blog. He's a medical student who spent an academic year in South Africa and writes like...well, a real writer. For future reference, you'll find him hanging out under links.

A little bit more about the protest: it was, in a word, electrifying. The atmosphere plus the really obvious cause turned this usually casual observer into an active participant. While it was sad that the whole affair had to come to this, it was uplifting to be able to believe - at least for that one moment - that the protesters would ultimately succeed in their fight against AIDS and all the 'dubborn' (thats dumb+stubborn) people who stand in their way.

The affair was organized by the NGO Treatment Action Campaign, and was filled with singing, dances, and speeches by a variety of different activists (labor union reps, women's rights advocates, and so forth). My favorite speech was by a Quaker gentleman (that's what he introduced himself as), who looked completely out of place up on the dais as he was a good deal older and whiter than his counterparts. He went up on podium and, in a soft, calm voice, clinically annihilated each of the justifications put forth by the government for Nozizwe's dismissal.

The response he received was as loud as he was quiet: completely deafening. "Speak softly and carry a big stick," said Big Teddy R. Indeed.

I'm not good enough a writer to really describe in words how electric the atmosphere was at this protest. Instead, I'm going to let the event speak for itself. Check out this video and soak in the sounds and atmosphere. Even at 0.2 megapixel or whatever, its still pretty moving.