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What happens to society when the abnormal becomes normal?
By Dr. Derek von Wissell, posted in the Times of Swaziland, June 2007
(Dr R. Von Wisesell leads the National Emergency response to HIV and AIDs.)
SWAZILAND recently celebrated the Day of the African Child.
Thousands of children gathered in each region to dance, sing and perform. Many of the messages were about protecting children - from abuse, violence and being alone. Their voices echoed in the ears of parents, teachers and government officials in attendance. But were those voices really heard?
It is common knowledge that there are more than 70 000 orphans living in Swaziland; that there are more than 60 000 other children who are vulnerable because of sickness, poverty or food insecurity. The ranks of these children grow by more than 10 000 each year. Soon, more than 10 percent of our nation will be orphaned. This will be a first in history. No nation on earth has experienced this massive population of parentless children: not through famine, drought or war.
This is not a normal society.
But these statistics rarely raise an eyebrow anymore.
This ‘epidemic of orphans’ is simply accepted. Children are forced into parenting siblings and poor communities are required to care for other people’s children, deepening their own poverty. But nothing changes. Parents continue to become infected. People continue to remain ignorant of their HIV status. What will our society look like in 10 years time if we continue to treat this shocking situation as normal? If we do nothing, with hands folded, shaking our heads and simply mumbling ‘shame’? History will hold us accountable if we fail to fulfill our obligations to children, not just by feeding and clothing them, but by caring enough to stay alive and be present in their lives.
Swazi society has transformed. We have the highest HIV rate in the world. An estimated 16 000 people die as a result of HIV each year - that is 45 people each day. Life expectancy has dropped from nearly 60 years old in the 1990s to just over 30 years today. Each weekend people are buried. Too many households care for someone who is sick.
All of this is accepted as normal, as if these same things are also happening in the rest of the world. They are not. Our country’s health system is overwhelmed because of a lack of capacity, personnel and resources. Doctors work under pressure with poor equipment, sometimes lacking even basic supplies. People accept long queues at hospitals and clinics as a part of life.
They wait patiently for help or medication they may never receive. After hours in line, they are told there are no medicines and should come back another day. The suffering of some is simply unbearable and yet the system asks them to bear even more.
People who are desperately ill are sent home to suffer and die in the hands of people who have little knowledge, little medication and little idea of how to cope. Instead of insisting our loved ones get care in a hospital by professionals who can alleviate their suffering, we ‘accept’ home-based care as normal, travelling home to watch relatives suffer needlessly before death.
The Ministry of Health does not have the resources to cope with the massive demand. But rather than put resources in the right places to get things done, rather than mobilise resources to build capacity, we throw up our hands and accept things the way they are. Roads and buildings are funded, but somehow hospitals and medical staff, and alleviation of suffering are not. Is this normal?
People live in extreme poverty and silently accept that this should be so - normal. Nearly 70 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. Many have to scrounge for their next meal. Many have to drink water from the same stagnant pools as animals, or walk for many kilometers to find water that is only slightly more potable. Households have exhausted savings and are selling capital items they will need to produce food in the future. The last breeding animals are being sold. Poverty is stripping the dignity from our once proud and independent people. Violence associated with sex has become a norm. Sex with innocent children causes outrage, but sadly only among a few. Men believe they can own women just as they own property, treating them as disposable goods. Young girls are abused with impunity. Rape makes the headlines and slogans are printed on t-shirts. But sexual abuse and violence continue unabated, as though normal.
Systematic corruption and plundering of public funds and the abuse of privilege is quietly accepted. Nothing can be done; it is the way it is. These abnormal situations now seem normal. We have come to accept the unacceptable. Society has been turned on its head. How will our children know right from wrong when nothing is as it should be? We are no longer a normal society. The time has come for us to do abnormal things to turn our society back to a normal one. We must think about the children and their future.
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