| SAPLER Population Trust | |
| Splendidly Alive People Within Limited Environmental Resources | |
Will the Rainbow Nation bite the dust?
The RDP has some wonderful parts in it. It would be heaven to live in a society without the constant fear that much-beloved people will be lolled or seriously injured in road accidents.
But to make real progress we shall have to have another revolution - what Paul Harrison calls, "The Third Revolution". In our country both the car culture and the cow culture will have to go. But we might end up just as happy - or even happier. And we would survive.
However, that type of progress would be seriously disrupting to our economy so it seems just not possible at the moment.
Whereas reaching everyone with family planning will not disrupt the economy in any way.
SAPLER is in the same business as the RDP. Our aim is the elimination of gross poverty and malnutrition, and the enrichment of human lives.
By not understanding that population limitation is an essential element in all development - as essential as water - the RDP cannot succeed.
"Talking about population and numbers makes you sound like monsters." Well that's too bad. We are not monsters. We have examined this difficult issue as clearly as possible with the thinking tools available.
If we are going to have a society which works we are going to have to get used to clear thought and analysis.
Population limitation in this country is a particularly easy problem to solve, because very poor women don't want any more children. This is clearly shown in the estimated figure of women who go for illegal abortions 300 000 per annum. And for each woman who goes for an illegal abortion there must be at least one other who is too scared or too ignorant or too passive to do so.
Zanele Mfono, a founder trustee of SAPLER, says that these days she never meets a poor black woman who wants more than two children.
In addressing this issue boldly and immediately we are solving 100 problems all at once: the prevention of children born with damaged brains because their mothers were malnourished during pregnancy, the prevention of unwanted children growing up in hospitals with insufficient interaction with a loved adult for normal emotional and intellectual development - and so on and so on right up to the prevention of future wars.
I have not seen any newspaper articles which suggest that the Rwanda tragedy is due to overpopulation. Rwanda is 90% rural. The Tutsi are herders and the Hutu are agriculturalists. Women have an average of eight and a had children.
Very few children die. They are kept alive with food aid and inoculations. People under enough pressure will find enemies. There is no room in Rwanda for everyone to live sustainably. So these two groups blame each other for the problems.
We can prevent that happening. By reaching every South African with effective family planning we can lower our population growth rate dramatically.
Until this country is healed in every way and a serious start made to alleviating poverty and malnutrition, I would suggest that we have no children at all - or only one child, and that one child only when we are over the age of thirty.
I would also suggest that understanding ecology be made a national priority. It is easiest to teach to very poor rural people - because in their lifetimes they have seen areas which supported ten cows which now only support one goat.
There is an organization in America which wants the human race to die out! I like people too much to want that.
The only good thing to be said for the silliness of the sloganeering non-problem-solvers is that it has united people of all races and language groups and all levels of education against them. The only problem is that we don't shout as loudly as they do. But give us time. You can't fool all of the people all of they do. But give us time. You can't fool all of the people all of the time.
The people who have been leading the way in the sloganizing are deeply ignorant of the harm they have caused, are causing and will continue to cause if they don't think through the consequences of what they say. One problem is that people have reached positions of power through this sloganizing. They will not easily give it up - and they have loyal supporters.
Director/Lobbyist/Fundraiser
Phone Ann in November
(011) 485-1106
(1 - 9 p.m. Mon to Sat)
or write to
SAPLER, Box 51446, Raedene, 2124
There can be no human rights, women's rights or children's rights in a collapsing world.
"Women who have suffered have a right to as many children as they want."
This latest bit of nonsense is called "reproductive rights". It completely leaves out what is economically and ecologically possible.
UBUNTU means, "the preservation and stability of the whole. Let us not put women's rights above Ubuntu, which reflects the right of communities to continuing existence.
Another foolish idea we have heard recently is that some people and some communities can "afford" more children. This astonishing assertion ignores the fact that the children grow up, the area gets overcrowded and people move to other places.
"Horizontal Health" means you throw in every disease and preventive measure and educational measure and "family planning" is hidden in there somewhere.
"Primary Health" simply means, it seems, the people who see you first before you see a doctor, or go to a hospital or die. So you get primary health care mobile clinics in Northern Transvaal treating diarrhoea, impetigo, TB, chronic malnutrition etc. A sister and an assistant nurse and a health educator go out - only sometimes one of these is left out.
There is no family planning specialist there. So if a patient says she doesn't like the symptoms of Depo, well she is put on the pill, and sometimes they run out of one pill, so the next time she gets another one. All this messes up one's hormonal functioning. Many people just give up trying.
Since this new fad of "horizontal health" was introduced in 1992 there is far less family planning done than there was before. All those diseases are preventable, given clean water, good nutrition - and the family planning to ensure both individual’s health and to ensure that everyone - and this really does mean "everyone" gets the means to fresh water and good food.
The RDP cannot succeed if the poorest part of the population continues to grow rapidly. In Themba Hospital in Northern Kangwane 600 babies are born every month. This means one new primary school has to be built every month. Even supposing this could be achieved, how can excellent teachers be trained in time?
Private schools are mushrooming in that area. They cost R250 a month per pupil. The people who can afford those schools have a strong incentive to limit their families. They also have access to, and understanding of, family planning.
What about the others? They are mostly not being reached with FP motivation, FP information, FP services, and support in persisting in using these services.
'We do a hit-and-run operation,' said one nurse. "We go into a village, throw information at them and leave them confused."
At Ecolink nearby they are models of ecological excellence, as evidenced by their many prizes. They teach trench gardening and fuel-tree replacement and the way to use solar ovens. But when it comes to population, 'We waft for people to come to us."
It is irresponsible not to tell people the truth in this vital matter. The babies born in the Themba/Ecolink area will grow up and walk away and will overflow into other areas.'
Economics was considered too important to be left to the sloganizers - perhaps because of the immediate, life-threatening effects d South Africa got it wrong.
But ignorance of ecology and population is even more life-threatening in the long term. Mozambique's economy is in tatters - much worse than ours, but the countryside is relatively unharmed. Kenya was highly successful in its free-enterprise policies. The country thrived. The population grew. Now the marginal land occupied by the overflowing population is being irrevocably damaged.
A major programme for SAPLER next year must be to reach all leaders - editors, politicians, director-generals, and directors of organizations like Race Relations and the institute for the Study of Violence (who are studying the symptoms and neglecting the causes).
Many of their children know what is going on. Many of the general public who have watched a series like "Race to Save the Planet" have a good grasp of the overall problems and possibilities.
But the Star relegates "the environment" to the bottom right-hand corner of the middle page of its Saturday edition as n ecology is a hobby, like antiques or stamp collecting. We are spreading acres of single-unit housing over the veld, when we should be designing sustainable communities, where we all live and work in sun-filled rooms and we can walk or cycle to work or school or to visit friends.
The former homelands swarm with every sort of helping groups - from people teaching brick-making to church organizations to Primary Health Care groups.
They do not help in the one way which would ensure future viability: family planning. This is because of the three taboos: the Catholic church, traditional tribal culture, and the liberal, politically correct doctrine of "We don't impose."
The chiefs are coming round and many black Catholics put commonsense before the Pope. We are left with the liberals, still heavily confused and unable to exercise leadership. They are weighed down by a highly conformist ethic which equates leadership with racism.
Where they should be confronting the chiefs with the consequences of old-fashioned attitudes to family planning they hold back. And their organizations, for the most part, do not do family planning. 'We leave that to the health services."
This has left millions of very poor, very isolated, very depressed women with large families which they cannot feed.
All over our land people have taken to solving their own problems. In Natal women walk miles over the hills to reach a mobile clinic to get their family planning, and if the mobile clinic is not there on the right day they walk miles again on another day.
In Lebowa the mobile services are so poor that women take taxis into Pietersburg on a Saturday morning. There are two family planning clinics in Pietersburg, one for adults and one for adolescents.
The one for adolescents is called the Youth Health Centre. Mrs Saasa, who counsels adolescents at this centre does not get into futile debates about whether adolescents should be given contraceptives or not. She counsels each one privately. Those who have not yet become sexually active she encourages to stay that way. The others she helps with contraceptive advice and STD-prevention. "You can't reverse."
Mpho Maunye in Gazankulu has formed a club for young teenage girls which meets in break on Wednesdays. Out of a mixed class of 60 about half the girls belong to this club - 15 girls. One tiny pre-pubertal 13-year-old has on a T-shirt which says, "AIDS IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY".
The girls talk about their problems with the boys who worry them. "They say we are stupid." "They say we won't pass our exams if we don't have sex. "They say we will get very sick d we don't have sex."
Mpho asks them how they reply. "Just wait for me. If you really love me you will wait for me. I want to get educated."
Outside the classroom the boys ask Julian for, condoms.
In Sekhukhuneland Frans Temba (Operation Hunger) talks to thousands of women. He meets the fatalistic women who live in well-built houses with 6 to 10 malnourished children. The children are mostly too tired to attend school regularly. The women say, "Why should I worry with taking pills all the time when my husband only comes twice a year, and then I don't know when he is coming."
Frans intervenes, prescribes, tells, teaches, shows - call it what you will he has a buoyant personality and he changes her from being passive to being active. I wonder how many women he has empowered in this way?
Frans brings condoms. He shows them how to confront their husbands. When they get it right there is much rejoicing.
Every year that we put off tackling population in a direct way is a year lost to the RDP.
Above all we need national leaders with high credibility to recognize this.
Leaders who have spoken out include Archbishop Tutu and Professor Mokgokong, principal of MEDUNSA.
SAPLER was hoping that Nelson Mandela would open the International Conference on Population in Cairo, as he was invited to do. When the exiles returned, Gertrude Shope said on Radio 702 that Africa was."under-populated". Dr Motlana heard this and told his friend and patient, Nelson Mandela. Mandela then phoned Gertrude Shope and explained to her why she was wrong.
He could have told the whole of Africa just what the benefits would be if we had strong population policies. Everyone would have believed him. This is his year of being believed.
But Foreign Affairs told him he could not appear at his first international conference on this issue.
So who is ruling us?
Between "image-building" and "waiting for the people" we seem to have lost the way.
Most of the ANC leaders privately give support to the concept of a population policy. Tito Mboweni spoke out about it in public before he became a minister. Cyril Ramaphosa is cautiously giving it his blessing.
Joe Slovo said on Radio 702, just before he became Minister of Housing, "South Africa could support three or four or even five times its present population once we organize everything properly."
Albie Sachs just back from exile said, "it's quite obvious from driving through our beautiful land that South Africa does not have a population problem. Look at the density of population that Holland can support!"
Two years later I met him at a conference and gave him SAPLER material. He glanced at it impatiently and said, "Yes, yes we know all that."
"So?"
"'We are afraid of the women."
For next year's outreach to lift South Africa above its current preoccupations and allow ft to triumph we do already have excellent material - material which shows just how a combination of in-depth understanding of the issues plus human ingenuity and positive co-operation can bring about real solutions.
We can also show the sadness brought about by "waiting".
In the "African Initiative" series on Crossover this year there is a film in which the camera shows us Kenya's ever-smaller hillside plots and then comes down to one Kenya widow and her 6 malnourished children. The eldest child, a girl of about 1 0, is giving one spoonful of food at a time to her siblings - to be fair - out of one small tin.
The widow, whose degraded hillside plot can no longer provide enough food and who tries to find work elsewhere, says, "if only someone had told me about family planning!"
Another video we have is from the Zero Population Growth organization in America. It is only five minutes long but ft can be watched 100 times and teach you something new every time. It is a map of the world from 1 AD to 2020 AD, and a light goes on every time a million people is added. As the millions grow you see an historical symbol in the, right-hand corner representing the plague, the industrial revolution, modern medicine etc. At the end the entire map is white except for the deserts.
We have also ordered a John Cleese comedy on population - for those who find population "boring".
We meet Mankuba at ITHUSENG ("help Yourselves") in the village of Lenyenye, outside Tzaneen. The Ithuseng Health Centre was started by Dr Mamphela Ramphele when she was exiled to Lenyenye after the death of her partner, Steve Biko.
We tell her Mitchell Warren's observation that, "South Africa is the most over-politicized and overresearched country in the World." (Mitchell Warren works for Population Services International, who sell good quality condoms at below cost.)
Mankuba has a huge laugh over Mitchell's observation. When the room fills up with other Ithuseng workers she tells the joke again and the whole room laughs. We realize that to South African problem-solvers everywhere this is a tremendously empowering joke.
Mankuba says, "Of course we must talk about population. By talking about it we understand it and we get used to it." Ithuseng has 3 to 5 nompilos in each of 70 villages. This is funded by the Kaiser Foundation.
Mankuba says yes the idea of specialist FP nompilos is a good one but she adds, "Our ladies have been handing out pills for years."
Mankuba says her only problem is contraceptive supplies. The old Lebowa was hopelessly inefficient and she was frequently out of supplies. At this very moment she is out of supplies again.
The week before she had been to Tzaneen to ask for supplies. "But you are from Lebowa!" "Not any more. This is the new South Africa!" She came home without her supplies.
When we reached Pietersburg ft was World Population Day. I thought "What better thing to do than to get supplies for Mankuba!" We could simply go and fetch them at the Pietersburg medical supply centre and then drive back to Lenyenye.
I phoned Mankuba. She laughed. "I've had a breakthrough. I went to Tzaneen again and this time they gave me my supplies."
Shirley says, "Don't expect agreement - they all say no the first time."
HSDU, for whom Shirley has been working, is the Health Services Development Unit of Wits Community Health, which operates in a trailer behind Tintswalo Hospital.
Tintswalo Hospital often has to close down for 3 days at a time because of water failure. Shirley herself has no running water at home.
Shirley says that the situation is crucial: 500 apply for 25 bursaries so people do want to "move up" - but the applicants are the "too many", children of the women who were fatalistic and traditional.
Shirley accepts our RESA-nompilo scheme. (A "RESA-nompilo" is a community health worker who specializes in family planning.) However, she does not want to leave out the men. She suggests we use the Londolozi men to talk to the men who are reluctant to use family planning.
Londolozi is a prize-winning "sustainable living" organization which has now started to operate outside their game reserve. John Varty and Sister Siphiwe are members of SAPLER.
All along the side of the game reserves are the very poor villages of Gazankulu. These people can now be reached by our combined scheme.
Shirley Ngwenya has now left for New York to do an 18-month course in Public Health. We wish her lots of luck - and we will be ready for her when she returns.
Ask not what you can do for the people but what the people can do for themselves
Beryl Botha of Port Shepstone has been converting the chiefs in that area to the concept of limiting population growth. She says it takes her two hours to convert a chief. These days some chiefs don't even need conversion, because there are too many out-of-control kids, and these kids are stealing the pensions of their grandparents.
But in that area there are only 3 clinics, all of them Catholic - so there has been no family planning service at all. So we have asked Made Slopes International to get a mobile family planning clinic there as soon as possible. They think they can do this by January next year.
We are fund-raising for RESA-nompilos for that area and getting a very good response. A RESA-nompilo is someone in a community who accepts the idea of family planning. She learns about the different methods, and then ensures that her family and friends who WANT family planning get to the clinic on the right day, are helped to persevere when problems arise, and above all are fully informed about side-effects and after-effects.
If all this works it can be repeated in every PDP centre in South Africa.
ISAIAH 9.2
Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy.
This newsletter was written and edited by Ann Cluver Weinberg and published by SAPLER.
Sapler thanks the Goldfields Foundation and SANF for the grant which enabled the background research to be done.