A few weeks have passed since the core characters of Health Care in South Africa shook a nation to its foundations.

The Deputy Minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge was fired because she was not enough of a team-player. Her admirers, fans and supporters were found outside the arena of politics, in the field. Nurses, doctors, activists, scientists. They loved Nozizwe. She wrote the new aids-policy that South Africa announced in March to get rid of its reputation of acting on “the lunatic fringe” regarding the epidemic – and it was praised as “an example to Africa”.

Her boss hated her, and promised years ago “to fix her”, which meant as much as “to make sure she would be sacked”. Her boss was Manto Tshabalala-Msimang – also known as Doctor Beetroot and Doctor Garlic. And Manto is closely associated with president Thabo Mbeki – Mbeki and Manto are comrades who go back a long time and can count on each other’s unwithering support – no matter what.

Manto And Nozizwe are opposites, and they do not attract. They have never liked each other. Manto is the kind of politician and bosses everyone around, and announces her visit to a hospital months in advance so the walls can be painted, the curtains replaced and equipment can be “borrowed” from hospitals in the neighbourhood so all looks fine when she visits, and she can compliment herself on her outstanding service delivery to the poorest of her flock.

Nozizwe comes unannounced. So she can get a feel of what is really happening. What is really wrong, and what really plaques an overburdened health care system.

Nozizwe has her feet in the mud. Manto’s feet stroll nothing but marble and granite.

The fact that Mbeki choose to fire Nozizwe and not Manto – despite an ever stronger chorus of people pleading and begging for her dismissal – shows which way Mbeki wants the political culture of his country to go.

“Collective responsibility” means as much as no one in government criticises no one. It means that eyes are shut for the real world out there, so “the collective” can sing its own praises. “Collective responsibility” means that lone voices need silencing.

That culture now is slowly trickling into the state-broadcaster SABC, which has announced its departure from a national forum of editors. “Shame on all of you”, Dali Mpofu (SABC boss) wrote in an open letter to all print media, “especially those who have turned their backs on your own cultural values for 30 pieces of silver, pretending to be converted to foreign, frigid and feelingless freedoms. (...) In our culture, a person as young as the [Sunday Times’ editor-in-chief] Makhanya should not call somebody as old as the Health minister by their first name. That is foreign to our culture. It doesn’t matter that you disagree with somebody, you don’t disrespect them.”

What started out as a fundamental difference of opinion on aids and HIV and on how to tackle the epidemic has deteriorated into mudslinging and power play.

And Nozizwe’s new aids policy? Many experts fear it will die a slow, silent death – tucked away in one of the drawers of Manto’s desk.

“I will fix you!”

Lo and behold.

A minister has spoken.