Malibongwe. Let us praise the women.
On 9th August 1956, some 20,000 women delegates marched on the Union Buildings, the seat of government in Pretoria. They were protesting against of the Pass Laws on women in South Africa. As they marched, they wrote a song: “Wa’thint abafazi, wa’thint Makhosikazi” – when you have touched the women you have struck a rock. And the women of South Africa are the rock on which a new country, a rainbow nation, is being built.
On 27th April 1994, the first democratic government was elected in South Africa. The South African Parliament was transformed, at a stroke, from a white, male forum (only one women MP, Helen Suzman) into a truly national Parliament with more women elected than in any other Parliament in the world. The first speaker of this Parliament was Frene Ginwala, whose flowing saris introduced a colour never seen before in the Parliament Building in Cape Town. The South African press latched onto this, but soon discovered that her incisive mind was far more important. The first minister of health was Dr Nkosazana Zuma, who introduced free health care for all children up to the age of six, an inoculation programme against polio, TB and other diseases. Both Cheryl Carolus and Lindiwe Mabuza have served as High Commissioner to the UK. The role of women is being transformed.
What I want to do is write about some of these women, so that you can see why this is happening.
I would like to being with the women who organised the march on Pretoria in 1956 – Helen Joseph, Dorothy Nyembe, Amina Cachalia and Lilian Ngoyi. Helen Joesph was the first person to be confined to her house by the apartheid government. This was because she was white and had helped to organise the Women’s March. A policeman asked Amina Cachalia who was looking after her husband and she replied “He’s had to learn and so should you.” Lilian Ngoyi led the women singing to the Union Buildings and remember that it was completely illegal for them to be there. The only reason why they were not arrested was because there were so many of them. Dorothy Nyembe organised the food.
One of the women who took part in this march was my friend and comrade, Thembi Nobadula. She was an organiser of the African National Congress’ Women’s League for some 30 years, both In South Africa and in exile. She took part in the Defiance Campaign. She was a South Africa Rosa Parks. She led the singing when Nelson Mandela went into gaol and she was there organising the vote in April 1994. She was a role model showing that women did not have to defer to men, that women could get educated, that they could be leaders. And she raised money, through the Canon Collins Educational Trust, to ensure that women got the education that they needed.
One of those women was Lilian Cingu. She trained as a nurse in the UK. When Mandela was released in 1990, she went back to South Africa to help organise for freedom. Lilian had a vision. Most people in rural South Africa did not have access to primary health care. Health clinics and GP surgeries were few and far between. People could face trips of up to 200 miles to get access to medicines. And even if they could walk that far, people could not afford to but the medicines.
Lilian decided that something had to be done. In 1993, when everyone knew that democracy was coming, Lilian approached the South African Railway Board and asked them for a train. The mines in South African were served by an extensive rail network stretching into the remotest rural areas, so that the miners could be transported to the pits. And once she got her train, she asked the railway board to convert it into a clinic and she got hospitals to help with this. And then she went to the pharmaceutical companies and asked them to donate medicines, and they did. And then she approached doctors, nurses and dentists and asked them to volunteer to staff the train. And she got her volunteers. Then she asked the TV, radio and newspapers to publicise the train. And it was done. And so, the Phelophepa, the bringer if health, was born.
The Health Train has now been on the tracks every year since 1993. Optometry students from Glasgow Caledonian University now join it every year. For them, it is a remarkable learning experience and it is a magnificent gesture of solidarity. The Phelophepa has enabled the treatment of hundreds of thousands of people. Minor operations, such as cataract surgery, are performed on the train. Thousands of people have been trained as primary health care workers. Countless children have been inoculated.
I was privileged to visit the Health Train at Idutywa in the Eastern Cape in 2004. People were queueing under the awnings, out of the hot South African sun, for treatment. People were getting eye tests and dental treatment. Pills were being distributed. And this being South Africa, they sang for us. One woman has made this difference.
But let us now turn to another women. A major problem in South Africa is the treatment of HIV/AIDs, and the problem is that the treatment is very expensive and the majority of people simply cannot afford to pay. Nor can the South African Government afford to provide free treatment for the millions of people who need it.
Nkosazana Zuma, the Health Minister, drafted the legislation to make it legal for the South African government to import generic drugs, cheap copies of the drugs produced by the pharmaceutical companies, who took the South African Government to court. They argument basically was that the protection of their intellectual property was more important than the saving of lives, and that they needed the profit margin on selling these anti-retroviral drugs in order to continue research. Nkosazana Zuma asked the South African courts to sub-poena the accounts of the pharmaceutical companies. They withdrew the court action. The legislation was now on the South African statute book and the generic drugs were imported.
The pharmaceutical companies went to the World Trade Organisation. Nkosazana Zume, by now South Africa’s Foreign Minister, represented her country in the negotiations at Doha. The South Africa case was won across the board. Any country can now import generic anti-retroviral drugs. And so, the drugs companies reduced the prices. The number of lives saved is incalculable. One woman has made this difference.
On turning to another health issue, there is the case of Audrey van Schalkwyk. She lived in Prieska, a community where Cape PLC had mined white asbestos for decades. Cape PLC took no responsibility for the environment of their workers. Audrey, at 12 years old, was packing white asbestos into hessian bags with her feet. She, like so many others in her community and in other communities in South Africa where asbestos was mined, contracted mesothelioma. As an aside, the asbestos mined in South Africa was imported into Clydebank. In 1994, Audrey organised her community and the rest of South Africa, into suing Cape PLC for compensation. She found lawyers to take on the case in South Africa and, when Cape PLC moved all its assets to London, she contacted Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA). We, in turn, took up the case in the courts and raised the money to fight the case all the way to the House of Lords. The eventual award was £7,000,000 in compensation. And then the other mining companies, Gencor and Gefco, settled out of court. One woman made this difference.
My final example is Lesley-Anne Foster of the Masimanyane Women’s Support Centre in East London, Eastern Cape Province. Lesley-Anne began by setting up a women’s refuge. Violence against women – especially rape – is a major problem in all sections of South African society. Lesley Anne realised that women have to have a safe haven and that their children had to have security. And for that, children needed food, toys, comfort and shelter. So, she provided it. Then she saw the AIDs orphans on the streets, and so she took them in. Lesley-Anne realised that the only way of dealing with male violence was to confront the perpetrators. And that the best people to do this were other men. Training sessions were set up. Anger management classes were organised. Men are taught the difference between assertiveness and aggression. Self-worth is being introduced into local communities. People are being shown that they can take possession of their own lives. Music centres are being established. Creches are being organised. The only way I know of demonstrating the impact of Lesley-Anne’s work was that she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The women of South Africa have incredible energy. They are changing their country. They are the rock on which the Rainbow Nation is bien built. There is another sone about South African women – Malibongwe. Let us praise the women.
Malibongwe. Igama La Makhosikazi. Malibongwe.
davidkenvyn 
