If only we could listen

BOTH Betrand Russell and Charles Bukowski have paraphrased the saying: The trouble with the world is that fools are sure of themselves while the wise are full of doubt. Luckily for South Africa and by extension, the world, have wise men like world-renowned epidemiologist Professor Salim Abdool Karim who do not shy away from calling it as it is. When Professor Karim speaks, we have learnt that it is wise to take heed.

At the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, he emerged as the lodestar in our arsenal against the pandemic. Pity we couldn’t keep him long in the think-tank against the coronavirus as he had to return to his first love and vocation, the treatment of HIV. We quote him elsewhere in our pages today speaking at the 10th Annual Kader Asmal Human Rights Lecture on Tuesday where he warned against the new pandemics the authorities had inadvertently spawned in their well-meaning desire to fight Covid-19. We quote him questioning the wisdom and efficacy of deploying soldiers in our communities as a tool to enforce lockdown regulations. There is no need here to regurgitate the disastrous effect of unleashing the military on our streets.

Professor Karim advises that we should always strive to strike a balance between enforcing the law and safeguarding the rights of the citizens.

Such rights as freedoms of speech and association, enshrined in the Constitution, have been trampled upon as the Union Buildings sought ostensibly to flatten the curve of the coronavirus infections. When burying heads in the sand is the fashionable thing to do, it will take no other man above the eminence of Professor Karim to point out the other pandemic - that of corruption, as Covid-19 opened a new avenue for the corrupt to feed at the trough, stealing funds intended for the purchase of personal protective equipment (PPE).

The good thing is that Professor Karim is not tainted by the smear of our average politician and public figure, with skeletons in his cupboard. He is able to speak truth to power, without fear of favour.

A highly decorated scholar and medicine man, we share the expertise of Professor Karim with the world. He holds senior positions at such world institutions as the United Nations (UN), Cornell University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University, to name a few.

He represents the best of us.

When he speaks out against these new pathologies, the world will also note that we’re not a rapacious society of kleptomaniacs. An infectious diseases specialist, Professor Karim speaks out against the hoarding of vaccines by powerful nations of the world.

He says our role in life is to serve. And that kind of servitude should be contagious, not only here at home, but throughout the world.