In a July 11th article, the British weekly The Economist recounts the latest grim statistics on AIDS, noting emphatically that the 9,000 people who die each day from AIDS represents three times the number killed in the World Trade Center attacks. “If all men are created equal, all avoidable deaths should be regarded as equally sad,” says the editorial, adding that “common decency suggests that the rich world should do whatever it can to help.” The editorial concludes ominously: “Cynics in the West might write Africa off. Are China, India, Indonesia and Russia to be written off as well?”
Werger?
Afrîkayî feqîr û reş in. Ji ber vê yekê em (Economist) fam dikin, xwendevanê delal, çavbirçîtiya we ya ji bo berjewendiyan bi dîtina wan wekî xerîdar nayê çewisandin. Ne jî dilovaniya we bi dîtina wan wekî mirovek têra xwe têra xwe nahejîne. Lêbelê, hay ji bîr mekin ku agirê ku wê parzemînê şewitandiye, belav dibe û naha gefê li cîhên ku ji hêla mirovên ku têra xwe dewlemend in - bi zor, lê hîn jî li ser sînor in - ku wekî xerîdarên potansiyel û têra xwe zer bihesibînin - bi zor, lê dîsa jî li ser sînor - ji bo hişyarkirina lênêrîna xwe.
Di cîhanek bi dilekî sar de du tevgerên wêrek: Daxuyaniya wêrek ku divê hemî jiyan bi heman rengî were nirx kirin û pejirandina nepenî ku ne wusa ye.
The Economist was responding to the AIDS Conference in Barcelona, held in July 2002, which witnessed protests targeting both the U.S. government and “big Pharma.” The substantial influence wielded by the deep pockets of big Pharma, a fear of setting a precedent that human rights might trump intellectual private property rights, and callous indifference to poor, especially African, life have combined to lead both the Clinton and Bush administrations to attempt to block every reasonable effort by poor countries to obtain generic drugs.
The international disdain for U.S. policy has grown so great that not only was Secretary of Health Thompson booed by protestors the audience gave the protestors a standing ovation — an occurrence made all the more remarkable when one considers that those attending the session were not people from the slums of Soweto or landless Brazilian peasants but included largely government officials and representatives of the elite. While thousands of officials from governments and NGOs, scientists and activists flocked to Barcelona, CNN duly reported a notable absence: “Zackie Achmat, of South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign, was too ill to attend the conference but, in a video address, he said that despite price cuts the drugs that have drastically reduced deaths from AIDS in wealthy countries were still too expensive for people in developing countries.”
CNN neglected to mention the fact that Achmat is too ill to travel but because, putting his body on the line for his beliefs, the HIV positive Achmat refuses to take anti-retroviral medicines until they are available to all South African HIV/AIDS patients through the public health system.
Achmat’s not hard to reach — I dug up his home phone number in about 10 minutes. Though I knew better than to ask about his sacrifice or ask too much about his ailing health — he would simply point out that he was replicating the experience of millions of poor, mostly black or otherwise not-white people on his continent — I asked anyway, and he said just that. The most personal he got was saying that it was a decision of conscience and that he remains quite comfortable with it.
In the movie version of John Grisham’s novel, “A Time to Kill,” a young white attorney from the “deep South”, Jake Brigance, defends a black man, Carl Lee, who killed the two white men who raped and left his daughter for dead. Carl Lee turns down the hot-shot NAACP attorney, deciding to go instead with Jake. He explains that he needs a white attorney if he is to have a chance to connect with the jury: “See Jake, you think just like them. That’s why I picked you. … When you look at me, you don’t see a man, you see a black man.” In his closing arguments, an inspired Jake asks the jury to close their eyes and to imagine a little girl, raped, beaten, mutilated and left for dead. The jury is visibly moved, some are openly crying. Then, very deliberately, Jake asks them to imagine that she is white.
Çav vedibin, ji ber ku endamên jûriyê ji haydariya ku, her çendî ku wan difikirîn ku ew gihîştine kûrahiya tirsa ku dikarin hîs bikin jî dihejin, di rastiyê de wan paşde girtiye. Kesên di sindoqa jûriyê de, û her weha kesên li salona dadgehê, bi vê yekê têgihîştinek bi êş têne ku wan hîn jî ji bo keçikek piçûk a spî rezervek tirsê ya zêde heye.
Yes, that’s fiction. But Jahi Turner and Alexis Patterson are not. Alexis, 7, disappeared on May 3rd and Jahi, 2, on March 25th of this year. To this day, Alexis has been mentioned only six times outside the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and those were all after June 19th, when Elizabeth Smart’s abduction in Utah made national headlines. One of the mentions is in a paper in Singapore and five out of the six are more about the disparities in the coverage between Elizabeth and Alexis — she still functions and appears to us primarily as a black child rather than a missing child. (Oh, did I forget to mention that both Alexis and Jahi are black? And unless you never watch TV or read any newspapers, you already know what Elizabeth looks like.) Similarly, Jahi, who disappeared from a playground in San Diego barely makes the national news, garnering very few mentions outside of California papers.
The disparity in the resources is strikingly clear from even a cursory glimpse of the web pages dedicated to the equally tragic, equally heartbreaking cases. Elizabeth’s page lists two toll-free tip hotline numbers, one toll-free information number, one toll-free fax number, one toll-free number for the search center and one toll-free number for the tips. Alexis’ page, hosted on a freeserver with a pop-up ad, urges you to call the Milwaukee police department while Jahi’s page directs you to the San Diego Police Department. Only Elizabeth’s family has managed to garner the resources to offer a reward — $250,000. Alexis’ page doesn’t mention a reward, and the only offer on Jahi’s page is a gesture to their common tragedy with a prominent link to Elizabeth’s page.
In his statement to the Barcelona Conference, Zackie Achmat said in plain black and white terms: “Just because we are poor, just because we are black, just because we live far from you, does not mean that our lives should be valued any less.” He appealed once again, as activists have been doing for years now, for pharmaceutical companies and the rich governments to stop blocking poor countries from producing cheap drugs. The rich world hasn’t just been miserly and callous, watching a tragedy unfold; we’ve been blocking efforts by the governments of those poor countries and by popular movements to alleviate the situation. The editorial in the Economist exhorts poor countries to emulate Brazil, “which has made good use of the fact that anti-AIDS drugs can now be bought fairly cheaply outside the rich world, thanks to a liberal interpretation of international treaties on patent law (and also to decent behaviour on the part of many drug companies).”
That “decent behavior,” or more accurately behavior that is slightly less egregious than normal for Big Pharma, came only after a sustained and often militant campaign by activists around the world — and it was only last year that the U.S. dropped its complaint with the WTO against Brazil’s insistence on producing its own cheap drugs to fight AIDS and Big Pharma dropped its lawsuit against generic drug imports in South Africa. These lawsuits and threats contributed significantly to delaying the availability of AIDS drugs — which means more deaths, more orphans, and, incidentally, bringing Zackie closer to death.
In a striking example of selective attention of the media, the Dow Jones archival service, which includes the top 50 U.S. Newspapers, many major news publications as well as the the wires, returns 84 hits for the month of July for the word “Toumai” — the name given to the seven million year old humanoid fossil skull that was recently found in East Rift Valley, Chad. Type in “Angola” and “famine”, the keywords for another story from Africa that also broke mainly in July: 57 returns. There were 27 more newspaper stories about a skull than about widespread malnutrition and starvation so grave that Doctors Without Borders referred to it as the worst African crisis in the past decade.
Toumai di zimanê herêmî yê Goran de tê wateya hêviya jiyanê, hêviyek ku ji bo bi mîlyonan zarokan li gelek deverên cîhanê winda dibe. Ew bi zorê xwe bi hebûnek metirsîdar ve girêdidin dema ku cîhana dewlemend xuya dike ku bi domdarî bi korbûna bijartî û dilovaniya bijartî ve girêdayî ye.
Zeynep Toufe li Austin, Texas xwendekarek doktorayê ye. Ew dikare bigihîje [email parastî].
ZNetwork tenê bi comerdîtiya xwendevanên xwe ve tê fînanse kirin.
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