Hawthorne, Peter (2001, 10 December) ‘Drugs or guns’. Time Magazine, page 54-55

The article focuses on the rising issue in South Africa that is drugs or guns. The drugs are symbolic for medication that is to prevent HIV positive among pregnant women and guns is symbolic for military reaction. The article covers on the government who have to contend with two controversies that just won’t go away, arms and AIDS. Lately the South African legal teams were locked in a battle with the non- governmental arms reduction organization. The government does not show their effort in preventing HIV positive among pregnant women in South Africa. The government invest a lot of money for weapons but not on medication, which is the content on these articles. The aspect that I think found valuable or difficult is from perspective because it is all about the stance taken from the writers, and sometimes, we did not know what actually the stance of the writer. In this articles, the stance from the writers is negative and condemn the government and describe the issue specifically to the two legal cases that been faced by South African government.

The stance is negative towards this issue because it clearly shown by the fact that South African government misused the power that been given by the citizen by using that money in illegal way and involved in corruption. The government also forget about the welfare of their citizen. The article condemning the government as “irrationally and constitutionally” by refusing to heed the plight of poverty-stricken South Africans. The article also condemning the government as worse than assassins.

Hawthorne describes the government as those who take advantages with the citizen trust by using their money to buy weapons. For instance, in passage shows that A.N.C chief official Tony Yengeni faces for allegedly obtaining a cut- price Mercedes an arms- deal- linked firm. The government position the government as more badly than scams because their action that using the public money for their own benefit.