Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - June 11, 2006
Simpiwe Piliso and Thabo Mkhize

Matchboxology, a Johannesburg corporate social opportunity company, is negotiating to re-shoot the famous photograph of slain child activist Hector Pieterson for the campaign.

But Castro Ngobese, national spokesman for the Young Communist League, slammed the planned campaign. "It is wrong to use struggle heroes for economic gain," he said.

The ANC Youth League was also unhappy. Its president, Fikile Mbalula, said: "People should not use national symbols, including the picture, for their own profit-making interests and insult our history, our moral integrity and the integrity of our struggle. If they want to be educative to the youth about HIV/Aids, there are better ways to do that."

Pieterson, a 12-year-old pupil, was one of the first casualties of the Soweto uprising of June 16 1976. More than 500 people were killed in the eight months of protests that followed.

The photograph of Pieterson being rushed to a Soweto clinic was taken by photographer Sam Nzima. Matchboxology hopes to shoot a similar photo of a youngster carrying an HIV-positive teenager through a township.

Those with ties to the iconic image have differing views. In an e-mail to Matchboxology, Nzima's son, Thulani, said he was uncomfortable with the photo being re-shot: "We all have the responsibility to avoid compromising our heritage for commercial expediency. I would, respectfully, decline the offer and trust you understand the national responsibility we both have to exercise," he wrote.

But Pieterson's sister, Antoinette Pieterson, who heads the Hector Pieterson Foundation, said that although she was nervous about public reaction, the image could have an enormous impact on the struggle to educate the youth about Aids.

Matchboxology chief executive Cal Bruns said: "We are still in talks with the various parties concerned ... We don't plan to rush into the project.

"The message we were trying to get through is to tell the youth that while they no longer face bullets from the former apartheid police, boys and girls today face a far more insidious threat: HIV."

Bruns said he had thought long and hard about a backlash from political parties and activists.

"But we realised that the revolution against Aids needs an iconic image," he said.

Mike Joubert, managing director of Levi Strauss in South Africa, said the company had spent more than R30-million in the past 10 years to get the Aids awareness message out: "It may look and sound controversial, but it does send out a clear message."

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