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April 20, 2005
The African Cliff
This started making the rounds around the Internet a couple of months ago, but since I have been a shitty blogger in the last couple of months, I am only seeing it now. One can only think that the reason why this is happening is because this is still in beta.
But seriously, though, if there are so many Christian organizations in Africa wanting to help them, could they also be trying to prevent condom use, especially if they are Catholic? Could this "help" be contributing to the spread of the epidemic? The conspiracy theorist in me can't help but think that perhaps this is deliberate. Keep them ignorant and sick, and they won't be able to take a prominent place in the world. But they needn't worry, especially when they believe in things like AIDS cures that consist of having sex with a virgin.
The beginning of this five-year-old article really tells a story, and it's just numbers. I would like to compare the epidemic in Africa to a couple of other great massacres in human history, ones which we are supposed to actually care about. The Holocaust, caused by war among whites, killed millions and millions of people in six years, six million of which were Jews. We aren't allowed to forget this. Something closer to the AIDS: the bubonic plague killed some 25-30 million people over a generation. In Europe. We remember this 900 years later. What are the chances that people will remember the 1994 Rwandan massacre in which 800 000 people were slaughtered? Or the AIDS epidemic in which, by 2010, 71 million will have died?
I don't mean to suggest that the responsibility rests solely on the heads of, say, Canada. Like I said, it doesn't help that they have some wild ideas about the disease. Most men are not tested there; it is widely seen as a curse from women. Women are more likely to be testred because they are more likely to see a doctor for any reason. Men just don't. People are so poor there that they either don't know what's going on, or that they will believe anything. This is true in any comparatively poor population in the world. Poor people get bad information from within or from without because they aren't educated.
- They say that it isn't AIDS that kills you, but that it's the complications. The complications in Africa are much different than in North America. Here you might die of pneumonia. There, you might get beaten to death if people find out that you are infected.
- The condom access in Africa is pathetic. It equals 3 per man per year. Why is this? There are a lot of reasons, but I can't help but wonder why such a cheap thing isn't free in Africa, and why there aren't very many available. In North America, there are probably 10000 per man-year.
- More about ignorance: The current Marburg outbreak is being fuelled by the assumption that people in astronaut suits come by, take away their loved ones and return them dead. The spacemen are doing funny things, clearly.
Posted by JonasParker at April 20, 2005 1:14 PM
Comments
Condoms aren't cheap, BTW, and shipping them, even in bulk, to Africa would also be "expensive."
Would be interesting to see what the five most populous states in Africa spend on health care and social prgorams as a percentage of GDP. It certainly isn't anyone's fault in the West if they are incapable of coping with the AIDs crisis- but we WILL have to step in before it becomes a pandemic.
And then screw the national soveriegnty of where we have to go because picking up the bill to provide a proper health care infrastructure is expensive enough without an extra 20-50% on top for bribes and kick backs...
Sorry if this sounds jaded, but most African states have been a mess since the colonial powers left, drew arbitrary lines on a map creating countries with two or more historically hostile tribes/groups in them, gave the military to one side, political office to another, and said, "Sort it out yourselves..." I think guilt is one of the main reasons no one wants to get involved in Africa again. It is, unfortunately, politically unpopular.
Posted by: mtlanglo at April 23, 2005 4:45 PM
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