State of the Nation

Last Thursday night, President Zuma gave his State of the Nation address to the South African people. Coincidentally, his speech fell on the same day as the twentieth anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from prison on Robben Island. Mandela attended the ceremony and was mentioned numerous times throughout the seventy minute long speech.

Mandela is ninety-two years old and has lived through the most tumultuous time in South African history. He managed to make an incredible impact on the country, despite being imprisoned for twenty-seven years. At the Apartheid museum in Johannesburg, a special exhibit on Mandela's life took me two hours to walk through - he has accomplished so much! So, in recognition of the anniversary of this momentuous, watershed moment in South African history, I was expecting an equally moving and insightful speech from Zuma.

Unfortunately, Zuma's speech did not have the immaculate stage presence of a typical speech by President Obama. In fact, at some moments, I thought he was reading the speech for the very first time! The majority of his address was focused on listing the goals of his administration. He mentioned setting climate change goals, expanding hospitals, increasing broadband speed, and several other issues. He addressed unemployment concerns because of the current crisis in the country - the unemployment rate is as high as 40%. In Bushbuckridge, it is a shocking 80%. But, his statements drew audible groans from the audience because decreasing unemployment had been his main campaign platform - and so far, nothing has changed for the better.

I was particularly disappointed that Zuma only briefly touched upon the HIV/AIDS issue. South Africa stands in a unique position where it is the country that receives the most financial support to treat HIV/AIDS, yet continues to have the highest infection rate. South Africa, as a regional economic power, confronts additional problems because it struggles with both communicable disease, often associated with developing countries, and noncommunicable disease, often associated with developed countries. With a huge divide between the public and private sectors, limited access to healthcare in rural communities, and general economic inequality, the country has many challenges ahead in order to provide adequate healthcare for all of its citizens.

An interesting context to the State of the Nation address, is the recent scandal surrounding President Zuma and his polygamous marraiges. I have already lost count of how many wives he has! In the few weeks since I have been in South Africa, the news headlines have announced that he has even had children outside of his many marraiges. The count is currently at 22 children, and increasing every day as more information is uncovered. Public health officials are concerned about what kind of message his practices are sending to the general public, especially in relation to the HIV/AIDS epidemic and other problems associated with unsafe sex practices.

Some of the students on my program have selected to use the current events surrounding President Zuma as a case study in health behaviors. It should be interesting to see how that turns out. I have chosen to do a case study on how youth obtain health information. Does their knowledge about health, particularly sexual health, conflict with other sources of health information such as their family, school, peers, church, or the media? I will keep you posted on what I find!