10 May 2003

Dear Friends,

The 2003 Parliamentary session opened in mid-February to much fanfare. For days before, whenever I walked past the Houses of Parliament, I saw bands, choirs, dancers, and military battalions rehearsing in preparation for the Big Event. In the days of minority rule, the official opening of Parliament was an excuse for much pomp and circumstance designed to demonstrate the authority and might of the apartheid state. With the transition to democracy, the annual start of the parliamentary session became a slightly more muted affair. In the last couple of years, it has again become an occasion for greater pageantry albeit with a more cultural, less martial, bent.

In the end, however, the official festivities were eclipsed by a more dramatic event. The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), a large grassroots movement pressing government to commit more resources to the fight against HIV/AIDS, organized a march to Parliament to highlight its demand for a national prevention and treatment plan. The South African Council of Churches was one of many religious, labour, and community organizations that endorsed the action, so I spent the day wearing an “HIV POSITIVE” T-shirt alongside the South Africa Council of Churches General Secretary, a gaggle of religious leaders, and the 20,000 or so other people who converged on central Cape Town for the demonstration.

In spite of these victories, the virus continues to kill as many as 600 people a day, and the vast majority of people still do not have access to medicine that could prolong their lives and reduce their vulnerability to opportunistic infections.

Last year, TAC and the 1.7 million-strong trade union federation, COSATU, opened negotiations with the government and business to formulate a comprehensive national HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment plan. The parties eventually arrived at a draft agreement, but the process stalled around a handful of disputed points.

In the weeks following the demonstration, the government dug in its heels, announcing that it was already doing what TAC had asked, so there was no need for it to sign an agreement. TAC stepped up the pressure, launching a nationwide campaign of civil disobedience. Last week, TAC suspended this campaign in the hope of allowing the government to announce new initiatives without appearing to do so in direct response to TAC’s demands.

The delay has been prompted in part by concerns about the costs of implementing a comprehensive treatment plan. Throughout the late 1990s, the government’s austere approach to economic management has diminished the amount of money available for spending on social programmes. For the third year in a row, the SACC, COSATU, and the main national coalition of nongovernmental organizations, SANGOCO, produced a critique of national economic and spending proposals, known as the People’s Budget. The People’s Budget was launched in late February to coincide with the unveiling of the annual national budget. The document calls for increased spending on health, education, welfare, and land redistribution and proposes new initiatives to combat poverty and create jobs. It also explores ways of raising the additional revenue necessary to finance such programmes.

Among other things, the People’s Budget calls for dramatically increased spending on HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment and the introduction of a Basic Income Grant (BIG). I have written before about proposals for a BIG: a small monthly grant payable to everyone in South Africa, to reduce economic inequality, stimulate local economies, and eliminate extreme poverty. The grant has won growing support from churches and other bodies including an expert panel appointed by the government to consider how it should meet its constitutional obligation to provide social security for all South Africans. Although the BIG proposal has been met with skepticism by some government officials, it has not been dismissed altogether. In fact, delegates to the ANC’s party conference in December made a commitment to continuing the dialogue about BIG. Recently, the Minister of Social Development told Parliament that government was still considering the grant. Next month, Parliament will hold hearings on the social security proposals made by the government's task force, including the BIG.

Although the specific proposals in the People’s Budget have received varying degrees of attention from government officials, one thing is clear: during the three years that we have been producing a People’s Budget, the government has allocated more and more money to social programmes. This year, for the first time since the mid-1990s, spending on public health and welfare is set to increase at a rate well above inflation. The People’s Budget has also become an important vehicle to enable church and labour representatives to discuss economic policy and development priorities with government officials on a regular basis. The People’s Budget Coalition recently produced a companion guide to budgeting and economic policy to assist churches, trade unions, and community groups to participate more effectively in debates about the allocation of public resources.

Next week, Parliament will reconvene following an Easter recess prolonged by additional national holidays. The national agenda will be full of issues of concern to the SACC: final reparations from the Truth and Reconciliation process, social security, property tax legislation, religious education in the schools, and a rather alarming anti-terrorism bill. Shortly before Easter, I commented to a friend that I have always had difficulty in getting into the spirit of Easter and Christmas in South Africa because the seasons don’t match my American expectations. “Well,” she remarked sagely, “in the northern hemisphere, Easter is a springtime festival. In the southern hemisphere, it is a harvest festival.” Please join me in praying that all in South Africa and around the world may reap a harvest of justice and dignity.

In peace,

Doug Tilton

The Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 51