Speaking Truth to Power

Speaking Truth to Power is about the resurgence of activismin post-apartheid South Africa. A small legal NGO inJohannesburg, the AIDS Law Project (ALP), along with itsallies in the Treatment Action Campaign, fought for morethan a decade for the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS.Today South Africa has the laws that protect the rights ofpeople living with HIV/AIDS and the largest treatmentprogramme in the world. Th is would not have happenedwithout dedicated activism and a commitment to socialjustice. Speaking Truth to Power tells how people used ourConstitution and the law in this struggle.Th e leadership of the ALP was clear as to how they wantedtheir history to be told. Th ey saw the ALP story as the storyof their clients and their cases, which form the milestonesin this struggle. So this is a story about ordinary peoplewho in their own way did some extraordinary things at anexceptionally diffi cult time. Th ey stood up against prejudiceand disinformation because they felt strongly about theirrights. For some it was discrimination against themselves;for others it was discrimination against their fellow citizenswho were vulnerable because they were living with a diseasethat had no cure and they were oft en seriously ill, even dying.To add insult to injury the country's president and, for sometime, the government denied the scale of the epidemic. People's rights were being violated, but the law gave them away to reassert them, generating the fi rst resurgence of civilsociety in post-apartheid South Africa. Th is book is about thepower of people and their courage to speak the truth.

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