"MEN MAKE A DIFFERENCE" SPEECH BY MINISTER OF TRANSPORT, DULLAH OMAR

Church Square, Pretoria, 1 December 2000

Fellow South Africans,

In the name of the Government of South Africa, and in the name of all our people, let me welcome you all to Church Square, Pretoria, today. Thank you for being here in your thousands. Thank you to all the organisers of this very important event. We know how hard you have worked to make today's march and rally a reality. Thank you to all those who are contributing to today's festivities: to our distinguished guests from overseas, to our professional experts on HIV/AIDS, our media people, our musicians, our dancers and our sportspeople. And most of all, thank you to all of you who are neither in the public eye nor famous, but who have marched and sung and joined together here today, to show your determination and commitment.

The Theme for World AIDS Day 2000 is "Men Make a Difference". Of course we are all here today to make a difference. But today our focus falls on the contribution that men can make in fighting the scourge of HIV/AIDS. When I make public speeches I usually make them as a Minister of Government, or as a local politician, or as Dullah Omar. To be speaking specifically as a man is not something that is normally at the forefront of my mind. But today I am put in the position where I have to think about this. And this is a good discipline. If I am going to talk about the role of men, if I am going to ask questions of other men, then I had better be sure that I am asking myself the same questions.

Since this is World AIDS Day, let's start at the international level. Why has the United Nations AIDS Campaign decided on this focus on men? And why are we in South Africa following this lead? There are many good reasons. Let us look at some of them. Let's put our heads together and make a list.

Here is the first point:

Men's behaviour puts them at risk of HIV.

While HIV transmission among women is growing, it is men - including adolescent boys - who continue to represent the majority of people worldwide who are living with HIV or AIDS.
Men are generally less likely to pay attention to their sexual health and safety than women.
Men are more likely than women to use alcohol and other substances that lead to unsafe sex and increase the risk of HIV transmission.
Men are more likely to inject drugs, risking infection from needles and syringes contaminated with HIV.

Here is the second point:

Men's behaviour puts WOMEN at risk of HIV

On average, men have more sex partners than women.
HIV is more easily transmitted sexually from men to women than vice versa.
In addition, HIV-positive drug users - who are mostly male - can transmit the virus to both their drug partners and sex partners. A man with HIV is therefore likely to infect more people over a lifetime than a woman with HIV.

Third point:

Unprotected sex between men endangers both men and women

Most sex between men is hidden. If men don't talk about it openly, they are either not facing or not sharing their experience of the dangers of unprotected sex.
According to surveys from across the world up to a sixth of all men report having had sex with another man. Think about this: nearly 17% of all men. Look around you. Look at yourself. Don't waste energy on shouting about what's "normal" or "abnormal". s is reality, whether you like it or not.
But look also at the consequences. Many men who have sex with men also have sex with women - their wives or regular or occasional girlfriends. Hostility towards homosexual sex helps nothing. Its only result is to leave us in the dark, without adequate prevention measures in place.

Let me go on to the fourth point:

Men need to take responsibility for their behaviour - urgently, now.

We must make sure that every father and future father thinks very carefully about what their actions are going to mean for their partners and their children. It's no good crying afterwards, when we are filled with shame and guilt and sorrow. It's no gocrying when we leave this world knowing that we are leaving behind our wives or partners as HIV-infected AIDS widows; when we know that our own beloved children will soon be left as AIDS orphans.
We as men are often desperately short of the courage that women show as a matter of course. We turn our backs on what we don't want to see. We run away from emotional pain and suffering. Being tough as men is OK. There's nothing wrong with if it leavesace for caring. But most of us find it difficult to mix the two things. We need to work hard to find something deeper, kinder and more decent in ourselves. We need to learn to take a greater role in caring for family members with HIV or AIDS.

And then we must look very hard at the question of power. Power between ourselves and women, between ourselves and young people - boys and girls, daughters and sons.

Women find themselves at special risk of HIV because of one simple fact. They very often don't have the power to decide where, when and whether they will have sex with us. As men, let's be honest with ourselves. Isn't it a widespread belief that when we as men want sex that's all that counts? Let's get even more frank about this. How many of us have joked about rape? How many of us have said that women like it that way? How many of us think - though we may not say it - that when we want sex, any young girl - or any young boy for that matter - is fair game?

I'm not trying to be shocking for the sake of shocking. The statistics on rape and child abuse in our country are there for all to see, and they are deeply worrying. But the first step is to admit that there are deep problems amongst us, and to talk about them. Silence is not going to make them go away.

It's difficult to say why so many men behave in these ways. But if we feel disempowered in our daily lives, if we feel angry and full of revenge, let's talk about it openly. Let's put things in their proper places. Maybe we spent long years separated from our wives and families as migrant workers. This is pain. Maybe we have lost our jobs and feel bad, feel humiliated, because we can't find employment. This is pain. Maybe we are tired of living on top of each other in matchbox houses. This is pain. Maybe we think the pace of change in our country is too slow, or maybe we wish that we could return to traditional ways, as if the world hadn't changed all around us. If we speak of Ubuntu, we need to take a long, hard look at what it means for us today, after 46 years of apartheid, in a tough industrial world and an international economy that takes no prisoners. Are we really behaving as people who only become full people through our respect for other people?

Our constitution guarantees all of us the right, irrespective of HIV status, to health care, to liberty, to employment, to freedom of movement and to social security benefits. But we come from a terrible past of oppression and inequality. We have to fight every day to make these constitutional rights real. We have to fight through our new democratic structures, through our organisations and through our own effort and hard work. What we can never do, and what we should never accept, is to infect and destroy our women and children just because we don't know how to stop destroying ourselves.

As South Africans gathered here today, we are able to identify closely with the theme of "Men Make a Difference". AIDS kills breadwinners and destroys families. It is a huge threat to all of us as individuals, and to the restructuring processes that are under way in our country.

At the very least we should start to change our behaviour as men because HIV/AIDS is a direct threat to us as men. By the end of 1999, 10 million African men were living with HIV, as compared to 7.5 million infected men in the rest of the world put together. Our young men are particularly at risk. About one in four people with HIV in South Africa is a young man under age 25. But the truth is that AIDS specialises in attacking those who are the most vulnerable.

This means not only young men, but all young people, women in general and migrants in our country.

There is only one way to win this battle, and that is to overcome all our divisions, treating no one as a second-class citizen, treating no one as an alien or as a person of an inferior gender. We cannot allow ourselves to think that we can solve our own problems by picking on those who are weakest. Like a chain, we are only as strong as our weakest link. Now, more than ever before, we must bind together as one people, to share experiences, knowledge and information, so that we can defeat the silent enemy of HIV/AIDS that is in our midst, and in the process build our new society, our new democracy, and change ourselves for the better.

Men can and must play a crucial role in this process, not a violent and oppressive role. If we as men can learn to talk openly about what hurts and frustrates us, we will already be taking the first steps towards getting back our pride and self-respect. We will be taking the first steps towards becoming men again, in ways that we can once again be proud of.

Welcome once again to Church Square. Let us reaffirm and celebrate our differences as we build our unity and pride as South Africans. Let us join together to drive back the virus that has caused us so much suffering and grief. Let us turn its attack on us into an opportunity to rediscover our basic values of Ubuntu and to remember what makes us special as a people. Let us remember how much we have achieved in overcoming our painful past and carving out a new space for freedom and dignity in our region and in Africa. We have set high standards, and we need to work hard to remain worthy of them.

Once again we are being tested, and severely tested - this time in ways that we may never have fully worked through before. We need to dig deep into our reserves of courage, honesty and determination to win this particular battle, because it asks each and every one of us to account for our most personal and intimate behaviour, not just for ourselves as individuals, but for the hope and future of our children and our country. We cannot and will not fail.

Let us now turn back to our entertainers and musicians, to take us into the early evening and round off a day that I hope we will all remember for years to come.

Thank you all again for being here and showing your strength. Enjoy your summer holiday break. Love wisely and well. Arrive Alive.