Social Perspectives on HIV/AIDS.

“ I cannot think about this AIDS business. I could drown tomorrow. There are too many girls here.”

“ Live for the present”

“Every death is a death”

These are some of the attitudes that Barnett and Whiteside noted in Disease, Change, Consciousness and Denial, from people living in countries most struck by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. It is clear that such mental frameworks emerge from a sense of denial, or indifference about the disease, perhaps as a way of providing to themselves some kind of comfort or self assurance by being apathetic. Perhaps it might be a way to pull away from being labeled victims, and rather, to pretend that the problem of HIV/AIDS is not really a problem at all. I believe that such cultural stances on the issue of HIV/AIDS should be dispelled completely as part of prevention interventions that any government adopts to fight the disease. It is one thing to try and promote the use of condoms, or try and encourage people to know their HIV/AIDS status, or try and set up more testing sites, but all of these attempts could render futile if people pretend that HIV/AIDS is not that imperative.

I don't think the issue is so much that people fail to see or realize the impact of HIV/AIDS in their lives, especially in such countries that are most affected. This is very plain in the elderly lady’s lamentation “Abantu Abaafa” – clearly stating what “everybody knows” ( 3) that people are dying. However, I think such statements emerge from a culture of sexual concurrency that people have overtime become overly comfortable with and do not realize that it is time to quit such behavior. Perhaps one place to begin to fight this culture of sexual concurrency is to begin with sex workers. According to Barnett and Whiteside, “ There are numerous records of women who say that they cannot think of the long-term risks of illness and death when they have to undertake commercial sex work without a condom so as to feed themselves and their children” ( 19). Perhaps it might be worth it creating rehabilitation centers for commercial sex workers, where they would be shown that there are other avenues of self sustenance outside of sex trade. Regardless, it still remains very difficult to revolutionize an entire culture.

Kesaobaka Modukanele

The AIDS Epidemic: Biology, Behavior, and Global Responses

Blog Entry 1 (Response to September 23rd class)