WTC and AIDS: Making the connection

[Guest guest]

" WTC AND AIDS: MAKING THE CONNECTION "

Ashok K. Rau

September 11, 2001 - the terror attacks in New York and Washington. More than

300 confirmed deaths and over 5000 people missing, presumably dead.

In some way or another, the entire international community was shaken by these

events. The result: " A human tragedy of Global impact and concern, " an immediate

International response to ensure the safety of people affected and, action on an

International scale to address the sources responsible for the loss of human

lives. It is precisely from this response, we can learn and understand what we

areall doing wrong in our global and national responses to the HIV/AIDS crisis,

in which millions of people have lost their lives, that too in miserable

conditions. It also brings into perspective what we should be doing differently.

I have been listening for a while, the rhetorical resolve of many great world

leaders. But I often wonder if they have been matched with sustained, dedicated

and committed action.

Here again, let's look at the response of the leadership of the United States of

America to the September 11 incidents. It has been all-encompassing, bipartisan,

immediate and with a renewed sense of purpose and dedication. Billions of

dollars have been made available from the national budgets, apart from billions

from other sources. The UN has called for global action prompting world

communities and countries to act swiftly in solidarity. (I was witness to almost

every American, as I was in the US for a couple of weeks after the terrorist

attacks, wondering what she or he should or could do to make a difference.)

While the war against terrorism and the war against HIV/AIDS have fundamental

differences, it's the similarities that are striking. Both are unconventional in

nature and will require perseverance, tenacity and commitment from all spheres,

both bring into perspective issues that are controversial and challenging.

What is it then that is responsible for the largely sluggish and delayed

response from leaders of countries at the forefront of the terror that is AIDS?

As I write this piece, I am going back to more than 10 years ago when I sat on

the steps of the ruins of a small chicken coup wondering what am I going to do

about the threat of HIV/AIDS in India. More than ten years have gone by and the

ruins of the chicken coup have grown up to an organisation called Freedom

Foundation. I still sit in one corner of the chicken coup, though I must admit

it does not look like a ruined chicken coup anymore. I have been witness to

untold human suffering as thousands of people, who have been infected and

affected, walking through the doors of the Foundation and its various units and

hundreds of people losing their lives. Many who have lived long enough indeed

touched our lives.

Today I see around me young children infected and many who have been orphaned.

Many have passed away, yet I do not see any urgency on the part of our society

to respond. In fact we are still trying to figure out if we really do have an

issue that needs a National response.

The last time I was attending a consultative meeting, people were talking about

a few states that " might " have to implement programmes on HIV/AIDS. We are still

looking at implementing pilot studies instead of learning from the experience of

others and up-scaling accordingly.

is heartening to know that there are a few committed people at the top but their

numbers are far too few. The burden of addressing the epidemic rests in the

hands of a few people in the Government and a handful of dedicated NGOs and

CBOs.

We must accept that we have an epidemic on our hands and that we are witnessing

more and more people, right from housewives to corporate employees to young

college students, getting infected, not to mention the dramatic increase in the

number of children testing positive. We cannot afford to pretend that the

problem lies only with a few marginalized communities and " target " them (the

unintended prize we pay is more denial, stigma and fear) Maybe, in all fairness

we need to question societies' response. How can any Government respond if its

peoples are not equally responsible and create the necessary pressure of

accountability? Can we attribute this to a couple of celebrities talking about

HIV/AIDS? The need of the hour is a collective response, since the issue affects

every section of society.

One must acknowledge that international HIV/AIDS resources have increased over

the past few years, so too has the depth and magnitude of the epidemic and its

complex manifestations. Increasingly, the seeming inability to address the

complexity of HIV/AIDS care needs in countries dwarfed by this epidemic has

implications for the existing stereotyped prevention, care-and-support and

reduction of stigma initiatives, which are mostly top-to- bottom strategies. For

all too often, international resources are intimately linked to the agendas of

the specific donors rather than addressing the actual needs of the concerned

communities.

Yet, on a more positive note on the battlefields of the HIV/AIDS warfront, be it

in India, Uganda, Thailand, Mexico or Botswana, to name a few, heroes are being

born and cultivated, but the Global and National trumpets need to be sounded

with greater passion and purpose, for this again brings into perspective the

question: are the lives of people in less developed countries, societies, and

communities of less value since they are born into these communities or

countries?

Can any war be more significant than the human devastation called HIV/AIDS; can

any war match the untold havoc to economies and hard-earned development? Yet the

idea of a global or even a national response on a war footing exists only in the

neatly carved words of politically correct expressions and statements. I see the

epidemic and its devastation in some of the hard-hit African countries as the

harbinger of a grim future for India in terms of the impact of the epidemic. I

hope and pray that I will be proved wrong, for it is too frightening a thought.

http://www.youandaids.org/Guest%20Column/Ashok%20K.%20Rau/index.asp

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