N EW INTERNATIONALIST No. 250
THIS MONTH'S THEME
Aids and hiv
Loveinaplagueofhatred 4 Aids is inits second decade. Pratap Rughani looks at how - and whether - we are rising to its global challenge.
Sex,liesandacertainvirus 8 Sue Branford finds out what Brazilian women do when they discover that the virus never lies.
Aidsmythsandtheories 10 Bullshit under the microscope.
Bringingithome
From Zimbabwe. Dr Sunanda Ray tells a story of medicine and morality.
11
Theache ofsensuality 14 An intimate portrait of life and death with Aids by Edmund White.
Childrenandmothers 16 Personal stories from the frontline.
HivandAids- THEFACTS 18 From body to body politic.
Whenlivingisaluxury 20 What experts pronounce from their luxury hotels has little to do with reality on the ground in Africa. Maggie Black reports.
Simply...Healthandhumanity 22 A global look at how countries are responding to the HivlAids crisis.
Bigotstake the temple 24 Moralists are encouraging Hivinfection according to Ashok Row Kavi and Dinyar Godrej.
Positivelives
Life with hiv and Aids.
26
Letters
2
Letter from Lagos
3
Updates
29
Reviews: including Victor Jara classic 32 Curiosities 34 Endpiece: by Luis Sepulveda 35 Country profile: Guatemala 36 FRONT COVER PHOTOGRAPH: KHAJURHAO TEMPLE BY RAGHU RAI / MAGNUM. MAGAZINE DESIGNED BY CLAIRE PALMER.
SFROM THIS MONTH'S EDITOR
ome people say that once you’ve been diagnosed the challenge makes life more vital, better even. On other days the same lips speak of devastation - a holocaust in which lovers and friends are lost, children are orphaned and the future is uncertain. There are at least two different languages about h iv and Aids, public and private. For journalists Aids makes good copy. But editors have their own agenda when turning lives into news. Too often, when reporting h iv , journalists generate panic, then scapegoats. Having built a house of fear they discover a ‘plague that never was'.
They have a flirtatious fascination for the virus, almost an obsession with the pandemic of h iv and Aids, mixing more cocktails of sex and death. In truth both are part of any narrative. They are part of this magazine too. So what am I doing adding to the pulp?
I think there are other stories that don’t get heard; perspectives that don’t turn patients into deviants.
I didn’t go looking for h iv or Aids. Friends had it in their blood. Iwanted to produce a magazine that comes more directly from the experiences and priorities of people living with h iv and Aids. It strikes me that their frequent emphasis on grassroots partnership and social change parallels the forces that are tackling North-South inequality. Responding to h iv and Aids, endemic in North and
South, brings the two together.
I wasn’t prepared for hiv, just as no parent prepares to bury a child. As Adam Mars-Jones says, ‘The virus has a narrative of its own, a story it wants to tell, which is in danger of taking over’.My ‘narrative’is the need to believe that those who escaped the virus can enhance the work of so many who have not. I guess it’s my way of holding on to friends who, of necessity, learned to let go before I could.
This month, World Aids Day is a chance to remember, to celebrate, to contribute. Part of me can’t resist an inward smile at this year’s slogan: ‘Time To Act’.After many years it continues to be Time To Act. This year, let’s take the time.
Pratap Rughani for the New Internationalist Co-operative
DECEMBER 1993 / NEW INTERNATIONALIST 1
