Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) - October 9, 2003
Matthew Krouse
The government's response to his criticism of President Thabo Mbeki's Aids pronouncements recalled PW Botha, satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys said this week.
Uys was hitting back at scathing statements by government representatives in reaction to an open letter he had written to Mbeki, calling for the president's replacement.
In his open letter of September 27, Uys referred to Mbeki's comments to The Washington Post of September 24, in which he said he personally knew no one who had died of Aids-related causes. Uys wrote: "He lies and so condemns his nation to death."
Uys also noted that "when Steve Biko died the then apartheid minister of justice Jimmy Kruger famously said: 'It leaves me cold'." In the letter he called for South Africa to dump Mbeki, to "replace this failed leader with a comrade of compassion".
On October 2 Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad replied to Uys, calling him a "house clown" whose satire "did have useful influence on enlightenment in the days when there was a total absence of democracy in South Africa."
Nowadays, Pahad wrote, Uys's statements on the government's HIV/Aids programme hinder and confuse the national will to do something about the pandemic. Pahad called Uys's Aids-education schools tours "a well-meant effort to spread awareness" that went wrong when Uys began to confuse satire and serious policy pronouncements.
On October 8, African National Congress spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama circulated a party response, saying it was "unfortunate that Pieter Dirk-Uys [sic] has chosen to insult the president". The press release went on to say: "Pieter Dirk-Uys [sic] must realise that real life is not satire and the country is not amused by his grandiose posturing and attention-seeking comments that do not add any value whatsoever to nation-building. His comments are rather self-serving and belie a malicious agenda that does not have the interests of the nation or the country."
"PW Botha couldn't have written it better," Uys told the Mail & Guardian from London, where he is taking some time out before flying to New York to perform his show Foreign Aids at the famous La Mama theatre. In response to Pahad and Ngonyama, he said, "What can I tell you, darling? You know when history repeats itself it takes tragedy and turns it into farce."
The performer, who lives in Darling in the Cape, said: "First of all I am very offended that they can't spell my name properly. I did spell the president's name properly. The rest of [the ANC response] just makes me celebrate democracy because this is what democracy means: we talk, we have the right to disagree.
"I have no apologies for what I've said. I'm a citizen of the country. I'm also, as a matter of fact, a member of the ANC and I celebrate the freedom of speech given to us by the Constitution.
"It's a very depressing sign that there is no thought up there. There's no sense of commitment to the real battle in South Africa - the struggle is against the virus. The struggle is not against a third-rate comedian living in the town of Darling."
On Thursday, the M&G received a missive from Evita Bezuidenhout, "former South African Ambassador to the Independent Homeland of Bapetikosweti", condemning Uys.
"Unfortunately President PW Botha wasn't brutal enough to end Uys's self-serving and malicious agenda with imprisonment and/or death, and the present government is trapped by a democratic Constitution enshrining tolerance and free speech.
"Pieter-Dirk Uys has insulted me for years through ... tastless impersonation. I sincerely hope that the ANC will do everything in its power to counter Uys's mischievous and blatant opportunism, by focusing on real life and not unwarranted and baseless satire," wrote Tannie Evita.
"I believe President Thabo Mbeki when he says he knows no one with HIV, or anyone who has died of Aids. Nor do I."
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