Smokescreen

We do not all have AIDS (Keynote, NI 346) and although such a slogan sounds like solidarity, I fear it is a smokescreen - to avoid looking at root causes. Not only do we not all have AIDS, but we are not all going to get AIDS mainly because we (in the rich world) are well fed, do not live with chronic infections and our immune systems are functioning.

Prevalences of over 25 per cent in sub-Saharan African countries cannot be compared with prevalences of 0.1 per cent, often less than 0.01 per cent, in rich countries. An epidemic of gigantic proportions is taking hold in Asia, home to an even larger number of poverty-stricken people.  

Notwithstanding racist stereotypes about sexuality, are we seriously expected to believe that in high-prevalence countries, people have 250 or even 2,500 times more unprotected or unsafe sex?  

The devastating effect of malnutrition, undernutrition and specific nutritional deficiencies on the immune system has been known for decades, as has the effect of co-infections, in particular parasitic infections which affect over a quarter of the world's population, overwhelmingly in developing countries. Co-infections exacerbate each other: for example active TB increases the level of HIV virus in the blood. In populations which are chronically undernourished and chronically infected with other diseases of poverty, susceptibility to HIV is very high, and once people are co-infected, they are very infectious. The result is high transmission rates.

A return to the 'basic needs' approach (food, water, sanitation, basic healthcare) is nothing more than proven public-health wisdom. The World Bank and the Washington Consensus carefully restrict the debate (and the response) to condoms and safer sex in order not to address the structural factors determining poverty and in turn poor health.

Rosamund Russell
Aire, Switzerland

Hizbullah's other side

Along with discussing the social work of Hizbullah and its fight to drive out Israeli forces from southern Lebanon ('An Honourable Marriage', Letter from Lebanon, NI 346), the other work of Hizbullah needs to be mentioned. Hizbullah also launched over the years thousands of Katusha rockets at northern Israeli towns (within recognized Israeli borders) and other civilian population centres. Indeed, even after the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon, these attacks continue.

Nadaav Soudry
London, England

Have faith

How to crush AIDS was excellent, but incomplete. I was surprised and disappointed to find no reference to efforts being made to recommend the most obvious way of avoiding the disease - to be faithful to one partner for life.

Michael Flowers
Leeds, England

Small difference

Abdelwahab El-Affendi's article about lack of democracy in Muslim-dominated countries (Islam, NI 345) omits this lack, as judged by European standards, in some so-called western democracies.

Look at the US where half the electorate do not vote, the gerrymander is firmly in place and the President is appointed by the court; and Britain where there is no constitution and no proportional representation.

The writer concludes by setting up Malaysia and Indonesia as examples to look to for democracy - this in the very same edition as a brilliant poetic exposé of oppression in Malaysia - while he ignores the world's second largest Muslim country of India where there has been no military rule in 50 years.

In the issue we read no comparison of Islam's capture by reactionaries with the obvious corruption and violence of Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism and Christianity or of political movements or corporations. The result is that Islam is kept in its place as something different from other 'isms', while in practice the differences are slight.

Ricky Ward
Nan, Thailand

Women in Islam

Amina Wadud's article on women's rights within Islam (NI 345) was a useful addition to the current debate and her references to the rights of women enshrined in the Qur'an help reduce uninformed prejudice. The only problem is that she is very selective in her references. Verse 34 in Surah 4 (Picthall's translation) reads: 'Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret what Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, seek not a way against them.'

It is true that other religious texts have similarly misogynous verses, but since Muslims believe the Qur'an to be the divine word of God (Allah), any re-interpretation of verses like these that condone domestic violence seems to be forbidden. Wadud's final quote that the Qur'an is 'the most trustworthy and reliable source of Islam itself' does not inspire much optimism.

Gary Bonar
Melbourne, Australia

First World debt

Jubilee 2000 concentrated on getting the debts of the poorest Third World countries cancelled, with emphasis on the impossibility of their ever being repaid. Other groups are campaigning against the First World's bullying and massive cheating on trade. But none of these campaigns, so far as I know, has focused on the massive debts owed by the First World to the Third. May I suggest the formation of a 'First World Debt Campaign'.

The first stage would be to establish criteria as to what should properly be included as First World Debt (FWD), and what should rightly be set against it (ie genuine contributions helping the Third World). The criteria should cover items which can probably never be costed, like cultural destruction (for the FWD is not only monetary).

The second stage, tabulation and assessment, would inevitably be complex and controversial, though that does not make the FWD any less real. A few suggestions: theft of land, labour, mineral and other resources; destruction of native industries; genocide and death squads; structural-adjustment policies; protectionism and domestic subsidies, stealing markets; ecological damage; the arms trade.

The third stage would be bringing all these together in readily grasped perspectives and using them to mount a campaign against the present unjust corporation-controlled 'world order'.

A fourth stage could be the setting up of a World Debt Tribunal.

Ken Pinches
Townsville, Australia

Backyard solution

Reem Haddad's article 'The Ring of Security' (Letter from Lebanon, NI 345) caught my attention since I have always been on the lookout for ways to help people in my small town find ways to raise capital. After reading it, I realized that the system she was describing is something that is already being practised in several parts of the Philippines - small groups (of mixed ages and gender) in rural and urban communities pooling together their resources for mutual benefit. This has been going on for as far back as I can remember and in one region the system is called 'Pahulugan' which literally means 'a place where one drops something'. Funny how sometimes one finds the solution to a problem in one's own backyard after having searched high and low for answers.

Chito Mandia
Boac, Philippines

AIDS and the elderly

'AIDS Orphans' (AIDS, NI 346) gives one example of an orphan looked after by his great-aunt, an older woman living on a small pension with a family of 10 to care for. This is part of a wider picture of changing family relations, placing new burdens on older people who are already struggling to maintain their livelihoods. Older people are not recognized or supported in current policy and interventions on HIV/AIDS and there is little acknowledgement of the important role they play in their families. Although accurate figures are hard to obtain, HelpAge International's research and development work in a number of countries, including Mozambique, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Thailand and Cambodia indicates that already impoverished older people, especially older women, are frequently caring for adult children dying of AIDS and bringing up their orphaned grandchildren. This places often intolerable strains on older people, physically, emotionally and economically.

As an infected group, older people are largely ignored. People over 50 are generally excluded from national and international statistics on the prevalence of HIV/AIDS. Information and education programmes focus on under-49s. Lack of knowledge affects older people's ability to protect themselves and to give information and guidance to children in their care. NI rightly emphasizes how poverty and gender inequalities have influenced the spread of infection and the distribution of treatment, but the effect on families, including the impact on impoverished older people, is an issue that deserves further attention.

Mark Gorman
Director of Policy Development,
HelpAge International,
PO Box 32832,
London N1 9ZN,
England.
http://www.helpage.org