Time for new direction in fight against AIDS

Seize the Moment commemorates World AIDS Day with a call for a new direction in the fight against the disease:

‘Today marks World AIDS Day. This is always a particularly sad day for me as I remember the people I have lost to the disease over the last fifteen years or so. However, this a new day in a different year and I am flipping this thing on its head. I need to think positive, and stand in solidarity with those infected and affected...

‘My thoughts and my actions can make a difference in this fight. And the same applies to you, dear reader. An easy way to start transforming our thoughts and behaviour is by changing how we talk about HIV/AIDS.

‘We gain nothing by labelling it a disease sent to punish promiscuous and immoral people… I know there is a push to have HIV/AIDS accepted a long term illness akin to diabetes or cancer, so as to remove the negative stigmas attached to it, and this is a good thing. However, this is not license to become reckless and immune to the messaging about prevention and care…

‘As we live our lives day-to-day, let us not forget the important lessons:

‘KNOW.YOUR.STATUS
GET.TESTED
STAY.FAITHFUL
AND
HAVE.A.POSITIVE.OUTLOOK’

Constitutionally Speaking commemorates World Aids Day by revisiting the South African Constitutional Court’s decision in the landmark case, Hoffmann v South African Airways:

‘Today is World Aids Day. It’s a time to remember all the people in South Africa and elsewhere in the world who have died needlessly because of the greed of pharmaceutical companies, the ignorance, hatred, prejudice and fear of people and the willful stubbornness and cold-hearted arrogance of politicians like former President Thabo Mbeki. It is a time to reflect on whether one is in a position to be tested and to go for voluntary counselling and testing if one is indeed in a position to do so.

‘Earlier this year as I re-read the Constitutional Court judgment in Hoffmann v South African Airways which was handed down in 2000 by the present Chief Justice ‘Sandile Ngcobo, it struck me that at the time when then President Thabo Mbeki was questioning the link between HIV and AIDS and the efficacy of anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs to treat HIV, our Constitutional Court definitively came out on the right side of the argument. While the President was tilting at windmills, the Constitutional Court made a definitive finding that should have put a stop to the President’s questioning of the science of HIV and AIDS. Unfortunately it never did.

‘Legally at least, President Mbeki’s wild goose chase was irrelevant. Unfortunately for hundreds of thousands of South Africans who died of AIDS related illnesses during this time, it was not.’

WhiteAfrican urges African innovators to find the voice and tell their own stories rather than leave it to others to do so:

‘I was 2 years old when I moved to Sudan, back in 1977. In that time in the South, we had to hunt for our meat. There was this tall elephant grass that grows near the Nile that made it hard to see. I remember going hunting for meat with my dad and his colleagues and having the hunters sit on top of our old Landcruiser in order to see over the tops of this growth. Here’s something that most people don’t know, for hundreds of years the Southern Sudanese have created rafts out of this same grass and reeds to move themselves, their animals and goods down the Nile for trade...
Don’t let the world direct the narrative of poverty, corruption and coups, instead own the narrative, be proactive in showcasing your successes, even when it’s not you that directly benefits. For, until we own this narrative about our continent, we will forever be slaves to those that do.

‘The organization that I co-founded with 3 other Kenyans, Ushahidi, has had quite a lot of success globally. I remember in the second year one of the other founders saying to me that they were surprised with our success, that they hadn’t believed we could get this far. I was surprised too, since I had never thought there was a limit to how far we could go.

‘This is about what I’m starting to refer to as the African success complex, where we don’t always believe that we can stand on the global stage toe-to-toe with our global peers. Many times this can take the form of tearing down the people in your own community because their success is somehow seen as your loss. It’s exactly the opposite. The more successes that we have, the more likely we all are to benefit. It’s much like a shopping center, where one store alone is hardly a draw for customers, but many together bring them in hordes.’

Bombastic Elements posts an excerpt of an article from the Zambian Post which challenges the argument that the Somali teen who planned to bomb a tree-lighting ceremony in Oregon felt alienated in his host country, just like other Somali teens who have become terrorist recruits:

‘It seems that every time stories like this hit the news, we hear about how so and so didn’t feel connected in this new country he/she was living in, and how that anger simmered for years until finally spilling over. If only the schools had paid more attention or if the larger community at hand had been more inviting and welcoming, etc. Granted, some of these arguments are valid but when did personal responsibility end? I find it quite irritating when people make excuses for their inability to make it when they stack the odds against themselves. What do you gain from living in your own insulated community, refusing to speak anything but your native tongue all at the same time pointing fingers at your host nation for not doing enough to make you welcome? It’s a give and take relationship, my brothers and sisters. We need to assume responsibility for our own happiness, successes and failures and not fall into negative mindsets that keep us trapped. What are you doing to ensure your survival and that of your family? Are you making efforts to understand the culture and customs of the new land you now call your own? You were courageous enough to seek a new life outside your home country for whatever reason, why throw it all away by inattention or the lack of will? Nobody owes you anything no matter how much you pay yearly in taxes.’

Kumekucha is annoyed with foreigners, particularly former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who waltz regularly into Kenya to give lessons on democracy and corruption:

‘Kenya is choking with imperialists demanding every pound of her flesh. If it is not the US envoy Renneberger hogging the local political scene with his diplomatic incitement of Kenyan youth against their own government, we collectively get painted with that broad brush as a stinking SWAMP of FLOURISHING CORRUPTION. Well, if that is the accolades from a friendly country I guess we need not search for true enemies.

‘Forget that fat lie that the international community saved us from ourselves. We have always butchered each other in five-year periodic cycles since 1992. Annan is better advised that his determination to remain relevant and in employment since leaving the UN is selfish at best and overbearing at worst.

‘The ex-UN boss must leave Kenyans to run their own affairs in ways they know best. Now Kofi is in town breathing fire on our necks threatening brimstone if we derail implementation of the new constitution which has proved to be the elephant ready to evict us from our own house.

‘The stakes are too high to leave this hydra-headed monster set of new laws to grow legs of its own lest we all get consumed by it. Kenya is the largest economy of both East and Central Africa and the REAL ENTREPRENEURS who make us tick must not be harassed with fictitious tales.’

The Moor Next Door analyses Burkina Faso’s rise as a regional super power in Northwest Africa:

‘Dusty, landlocked and poor, Burkina Faso is classically pragmatic. Its southern policy is designed to give it access to the sea and pull inland some of west Africa’s mineral riches; its northern policy is designed to help maintain internal stability and procure financial support. The country has aggressively moved to expand roads and air port capacity to encourage investment and trade, and establish itself as a relevant patch of land. Ouagadougou’s close relations with Libya, which have cooled somewhat in recent years, have made relations with the United States difficult at times. But Compaoré’s role in routing out Charles Taylor and Dadis Camara (who is, of yet, still in Ouagadougou) have eased those tensions. Unlike many of its neighbors, it deals with Taiwan, rather than the PRC, and receives substantial economic aid and infrastructure assistance as a result. When Kosovo announced its independence, Compaoré announced his intention to recognize the new country — likely a low cost way of trying to get his hands on still more aid money. Assisting Libya in moving arms from north to south during times of crisis has given Compaoré extensive contacts in the region’s underground. He wields enormous influence throughout west Africa to the point where one can reasonably argue that if rebellion were to break out in northern Ivory Coast it would have been impossible to start to stop without him.’

Sahel Blog comments on the uncertainty surrounding Sudan’s forthcoming secession vote:

‘In thirty-nine days, Sudan will vote on the question of Southern secession. No one seems certain about what will happen before, during, or after the vote.

‘Internationally, concern about the potential for violence and instability in Sudan remains high. Yesterday, participants at a joint EU-AU summit in Libya adopted a resolution urging all parties in Sudan to accept the results of the referendum. This statement suggests that Europe and Africa are watching the run-up to the vote with trepidation. The resolution responds indirectly to the ruling National Congress Party (NCP)’s warning that it might not accept the results because of its objections to the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM)’s actions. The NCP’s rhetoric is making other players nervous too...

‘Politically, different groups of voters in Sudan are reacting to the referendum’s approach in different ways, and some groups feel uneasy about what will happen to them after the vote. In Southern border towns like Renk, some residents fear that their region will become ground zero for a new civil war. Northern residents of such towns debate whether to stay or go if the South secedes. In the North, many Northerners seem indifferent to the possibility of Southern secession, while Southerners living in cities like Khartoum seem to be taking a “wait-and-see” approach. Relatively few Southerners who live in the North are bothering to register for the referendum. Some Southerners are already leaving for home. Throughout the country, if the journalists’ reports linked here are any indication, Sudanese expect the South to secede – but they do not know whether that will happen peacefully.’

Alex Ngwete thinks that the Obama Administration’s plan to disarm Uganda’s Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is unlikely to succeed:

‘For all intents and purposes, however, the Obama Plan seems thin, impractical, unimaginative, and may as well be therefore deemed dead on arrival. For it bears, firstly, all the hallmarks of any number of those stillborn grand ideas on behalf of Africa the denizens of the continent are accustomed to seeing churn out sporadically and randomly over the years from successive "planetarchs" at the remove of the Oval Office.

‘Secondly, if Obama presented his Plan to Congress in the hope of securing its funding, the hard fact remains that there's no way the new Tea-Party-prone (and therefore domestically-inclined) Republican Congress would entertain the fanciful notion of adding to the federal deficit by disbursing taxpayers' dollars to fund a plan so far afield of the traditional Republican purview and constituency of the US national security interests.

‘Is the Prez really willing to waste so much needed precious political capital on these elusive "Killers Without Borders" (Gérard Prunier) moving in tiny predatory bands deeply burrowed under the canopy of a "vast swaths of jungle the size of California," as one analyst recently described the Central African region? The answer is a resounding no.

‘Thirdly, since the LRA has gone international, why make Uganda the cornerstone of the Plan, thus reinforcing with US taxpayers' dollars an everlasting autocratic regime?’

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Dibussi Tande blogs at Scribbles from the Den.
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