Recently, “Jacob Zuma”, former deputy president of South Africa was tried for raping one of his family member’s wife, knowing she is infected with HIV. He denied the rape charge while accepting having sexual intercourse with the infected woman and when he was asked that how come he dared to sleep with an HIV positive woman without using any protection, he replied:“The risk was not that high, considering the fact that I took a shower afterwards!”
Ironically, apart from being the second most powerful man in South Africa, he was the “Chairperson of the South African National Aids Council” for a considerable amount of time in a country in which five million people are infected with HIV, highest rate of infection per capita in the world!
This is the problem of Africa! And not only Africa, but any poor undeveloped nation on this planet. We can blame it forever on imperialists and colonists and wealthy nations, stealing resources and creating conflicts and toppling national figures and supporting mindless senseless dictators, but honestly are they solely responsible for the never-ending list of problems in poor countries, from war and genocide to hunger and poverty?
When the man in charge of fighting against AIDS, in a country which is one of the rare examples of a real democracy in Africa, knows about the subject less than what a high school teenager should know, do we really need any “Conspiracy theory” to explain why South Africa’s efforts to tackle the most devastating plight of the country have failed? When the second most powerful man in the country, who was supposed to replace the actual president “Thabo Mbeki”, by the end of the three years period, is being tried for sexual assault, is it any wonder why a woman is raped every 26 seconds (yes! That’s not a typo!) in South Africa?!
As long as there is stupidity and prejudice to this extent, those who are abusing the situations shouldn’t be considered the main culprit. Ignorance is not an excuse, or at least, it shouldn’t be!
