Nancy Sihlwayi: Activist’s spirit lives on in centre
THE official opening of the Ernest Malgas Treatment Centre in New Brighton this month brought a necessary reminder of the pillage caused by substance abuse in our society. We could not have found a better embodiment than veteran civic leader Malgas in representing our resolve to win the struggle against this scourge.
His political and personal life was marked by a commitment to adherence to discipline and hard work. This highest priest of the “Red Location school of politics” has earned great respect from fellow prison mates like Ebrahim Ebrahim as well as from the ordinary folks who bought fish from his hawker stand in New Brighton.
While his own life was marked by massive hardship, Malgas immersed himself in the struggle to extricate others from the clutches of repression. It was in the congress movement where his loyalty to the cause was emboldened.
His story of adversity could not have found better representation than in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission proceedings in 1996. It was the testimony of an aged and wheelchair-bound Malgas which reached out to TRC chairperson Desmond Tutu.
It was Malgas’s touching testimony, marked by his stroke-marred speech, that caused Tutu to weep. Malgas broke down while narrating the horrific torture he was brutally subjected to by the security police.
The Arch was overcome with emotion, burying his face in the table before him and sobbing.
During the numerous interactions that the Social Development Department had with various stakeholders and the Malgas family, it became apparent that the doctrines for which Malgas stood for were what the “doctor ordered” for the naming of our provincial rehabilitation centre in New Brighton. His courage of conviction and the level of principled involvement that was witnessed in his political practice is what we aim to instill in the work of the centre.
We are aware that those tribulations and values cannot be easily imitated. All that is possible is to advance our drug rehabilitation interventions in such a manner that the lessons from the name of Malgas can reach the new generation of youngsters at the centre.
The South African Community Epidemiology Network on Drug Use (Sacendu) indicates that alcohol is the most common primary substance of abuse in most treatment sites across the country and causes the biggest burden of harm in terms of “secondary risks”, including injury, premature non-natural deaths, foetal alcohol syndrome and as a potential catalyst for sexual risk behaviour and hence HIV transmission.
In a study conducted by the Department of Social Development through the Nelson Mandela Bay metro, it was confirmed that indeed substance abuse is a major problem in this area.
Earlier this year, the Eastern Cape Liquor Board revealed that if nothing was done within a period of two years, the prevalence of under-age drinking at schools would rise to 32%. The liquor authority said research showed that about 24% of pupils in grades 8, 9 and 10 had tasted alcohol.
Furthermore, a liquor board’s fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) prevalence study, released by the Foundation for Alcohol Related Research early this month, found a FASD prevalence rate of 130/1 000 or 13%. FASD, the most severe form of fetal alcohol syndrome, is caused by alcohol consumption during pregnancy by the expectant mother.
The research was done among Grade 1 pupils in Bethelsdorp and Helenvale. This fact, that Nelson Mandela Bay has been identified as having a high FASD prevalence, paints a worrying picture.
Therefore it is opportune that the Ernest Malgas Treatment Centre found its location in the same city where pervasiveness of substance abuse is taking a foothold. The unrelenting spirit of Malgas has never been needed more than now.
