Special Hearings — Mental Health Workshop — 1997-11-20

UNKNOWN: As you are aware, the current dispensation is one (indistinct) with transition, because the legislation is being revised.
 We have a Health Profession's Act that is currently under consideration by the National Council of Provinces and it is almost a foregone conclusion that that will be adopted during this session, however, there is going to be probably an amendment to that legislation in February session, because it has been raced through by the State Attorneys and there are grave problems with that legislation as it currently stands, so I would imagine that the Commission and the Health Sectors generally, but more specifically the Mental Health Sector can give some serious consideration to impacting on how that amended legislation can be in February.
 That is one.  The second is that the Mental Health Act is currently being considered for revision.  However, and I don't want this to be looked at as a judgement of the people responsible for the process, this legislation is likely to end up becoming just like the Health Profession's Act which is really the Medical and Dental Council's Amendment Act, it is going to be a patchwork quilt to make the current legislation a little more acceptable in terms of the new dispensation.
 However, it is unlikely to meet the serious challenges posed by Mental Health generally attributable to living in an apartheid society, which is one of the serious problems that the Mental Health sector has not even come to terms with - the serious stress of living under an apartheid society.
 As we know, at least one in two persons going to Doctors' surgeries or receiving or requesting medical help, have a psychological rather than a somatic base to their illness.  This is true the world over.  In South Africa the research shows this but the research is dated to the 70's.
 And given the massive social transformation that has taken place in the interceding years since that research was conducted by the HSRC, we can safely say that not less than one in two persons going for help treatment, suffers from a psychological base rather than an organic or somatic base to their illness.  That poses severe consequences for the whole system of Mental Health delivery, but Health delivery as well because there has been a bias to somatic health rather than look at the psychosomatic and other tenant consequences of living in a highly stresses, highly divided and highly racist environment.
 What it does to both black and white, what it does to people who have been living under this (indistinct) over a long period of time.  In making these submissions, it is noteworthy that the submissions are being made and I am saying this with a smile in my face, that is why I pitched here a little late, being made also on behalf of the professional board for psychology.  It is noteworthy that when submissions are made by various sectors, it tends to be the darkies who come and front for the people who have been responsible for these conditions.
 In the business sector, for Cyril Ramaphosa to be one of the leaders in presentation, is a supreme irony.  For the Mental Health sector, for Sats Cooper to present this, is also another irony, but this has been a late motive that I am sure the Commissioners have taken note of.
 There seems to be a clear cowardice by white benefactors of the past system, to actually confront their benefit during this era under consideration.
 I would imagine that there are very few now, within the Health Sector and indeed specifically in the Mental Health Sector, who would acknowledge participation whether overt or covert for the gross and lesser human violations that have taken place during their period of untrembled control of our society.
 Having said that, I think it is important also to recognise that there are many people who having benefitted from that past, and who have been trust into serious positions of prominence within particular sectors and particular fields in health, are now apparently prepared to make some concession to creating a climate for reconciliation.
 There is no way to test their subjective commitment to this process, but we have to only go on their objective statements to that effect.  I have had certain comments from colleagues about the quaint and particular involvements that they have had and how they have been subject to scrutiny by the previous security apparatus and so on and so on and so on.
 But nevertheless, all that type of witness really amounts to trivialising I think this whole Truth and Reconciliation process.  A position which has not been fully canvassed, certainly not at all with the professional board, but within the psychological fraternity and within SAISA specifically, is one for specific reparations for specific care giving for rehabilitation purposes for those who had been affected directly by gross human violations and a suggestion I would like to put forward, is to consider a particular list of people who could be enabled to get assistance should they have been victims of gross human violations during this period under review, and should they have come forward to so testify and so claim that they have been affected by gross human violations, I would imagine that one needs to look at the kinship relationships.  One needs to look at at least the first degree remove in terms of the victim.
 By that I mean if it is myself, you should look at my parents, if they are alive or step parents or other extended network, because one of the problems with our legislation is it is a narrow (indistinct) christian western one, that excludes the extended family network and the result is a vast number or our people, get penalised.
 For instance in the welfare system, legitimacy begins to be, was the norm rather.  So what I am saying is we must look at the parentage, so it could be a grandmother who is that parent and then below, the children and offspring and other dependants, or people relying on me, that at least those three generations, my generation as an affected individual, the people above me and the people below me, need to get treatment, because it does have very severe effects.
 From my own particular experience with having been a victim of the repressive system in the past, I know that there are very close family and friends, comrades, who even 20 odd years after a detention, and that detention may have been for a very short period of time, and may have involved some verbal abuse and a few slaps, are affected by what has happened to them, because there has been no resolution of that.
 I think all the trauma other torture rehabilitation work that have been done from the, during the period of the 1980's to now, have really touched the surface only of the problem.  So, this method may actually create a window of opportunity for those people who have testified before this Commission, and I would imagine you need to give a period when those people who have not testified because of the cut off date, being in December because people may not have been informed, or many people like I know colleagues who have just said, what is the point.  It has happened, I have been a participant in creating this new society, but why should I come there and cry?
 Why should I come there and seek some restitution.  We should give them a window of opportunity over a few months to actually come and seek treatment.  There is nothing that can be done to impose on them to seek assistance, but that assistance should be given.  An additional point is one that I think the Reparations Commission has been battling with in terms of assisting people to get on their feet.
 A point would be to look at the legislation in some other societies like in India where you have the so-called untouchables, who have been given a particular status in the society.  There is a particular affirmative action status, that they enjoy.  Indeed a court system applies in many states in India for those Hurijans or formerly untouchable groups of people.  My suggestion would be that victims again to those two generations removed on either side, should have a certain preference in the State sector for employment, because that is our tax money.
 It is not asking private businesses to employ them, it is not saying to Sanlam who has come here and talked about we couldn't do anything about Steve Biko's death in our building, nevertheless Sanlam is known to have employed a lot of ex-Security policemen and so on.  It is not asking them, it is saying to this government that controls our tax money, use it to benefit those people who have sacrificed singularly to make this society possible, give them preference.
 So it is a form of super affirmative action, affirmation.  And that should apply for a particular window period.  Maybe over a 15 to 20 year period and it normalises thereafter, but that would be a very positive way of saying to people, when there is a job and the choice has to be Lionel Nicholas and myself, and if Lionel Nicholas but he had been a victim of gross human violations, that example, that is why I can use it, then one of us should get the preference for the job, because there has been that degree of suffering.
 Those are some of the practical suggestions that I would like to make to this process.  The other thing is and this is particularly affecting me.  There are people in society who are being paid by our tax money, who have been responsible for gross human violations, or actively colluded in gross human violations.
 Why should our tax money be used to maintain them in either civil service, in either educational or other capacity?
 For instance Amid Bauer, who is the principal of Natal University, Durban, was the Chief State witness against me in my trial.  Why should he be paid with my tax money?  He has never come to me to say I am sorry, I was a kid at that time, I was abused or whatever, he has never done anything like that.  Why should that, I am giving you merely one example, why should that be?
 Why should our money be used to carry those sorts of people whatever their current political affiliations are?  So, I have covered in a sense some general issues, but also more particular ones which I think that the Commission should consider in its wisdom.