Who is (South) African? A re-reading of Thabo Mbeki's ‘I am an African’ speech in the context of the banned (later unbanned) Nando's ‘diversity’ television commercial

Abstract

In 2012 flame-grilled chicken company, Nando's, released a 52-second advert showing people of various races and ethnicities vaporising into thin air, one after the other, leaving a lone San Bushman wearing a xai who declares: ‘I'm not going anywhere. You f*#@ng found us here.’ Broadcasters SABC, DStv and etv initially banned the advert, citing fears of a xenophobic backlash. In 1996, former South African president, Thabo Mbeki, who was deputy president at the time, delivered what has become known as the ‘I am an African’ speech at the adoption of the South Africa Constitution Bill. In the speech Mbeki appears to codify ‘Africanness’ into a consciousness not just of history, but a shared history. The conceptual reach of his speech seems to imply that everyone who may share South Africa's history is somehow South African and African. This article argues that the Mbeki speech and the Nando's advert, taken together, draw attention to the simultaneous richness and poverty of citizenship in South Africa, and the potential benefits and contradictions of claiming citizenship in the sense preferred by the two texts. The context is supplied by a sampling of 22 randomly selected online comments centering on the censored advert.     

‘Just kidding. I'm white!’ knowledge,perceptions and attitudes of white and Indian male university students towards HIV prevention

This article reports the findings of a qualitative study that explored what white and Indian students at a South African university felt and knew about HIV prevention. The study explored the knowledge, perceptions and attitudes of white and Indian male students at the University of KwaZulu-Natal's (UKZN) Howard College towards medical male circumcision (MMC) as an HIV prevention procedure. The study was prompted, in part, by a cynical tweet by Justine Sacco, which implied that HIV is an exclusively black disease. More substantially, the research aimed to fill a gap in studies of non-black student demographics with regard to HIV prevention. The level of knowledge and the attitudes of white and Indian male students were explored to establish the acceptability of HIV prevention amongst these two demographics. To what extent do non-black students care about HIV prevention and prevalence amongst themselves? The prevention method selected for the study was MMC - a choice informed by UKZN's formal adoption and roll out, in 2013, of MMC as its latest HIV prevention strategy for students and staff. The study, which sampled 40 students, was rooted in the Health Belief Model, which explains health behaviour change in terms of barriers, benefits and cues to action, as well as the Social Ecology Model, which recognises the interwoven relationship between individuals and their greater environment. A qualitative, interpretive, exploratory research design was employed. Data were collected using semi-structured interview questions, and analysed thematically. The findings suggest a relatively widespread perception that white and Indian students are not at risk of HIV, demonstrating that the association of HIV with a specific race is both a sad fact and a sign of enduring prejudice and stigma.