Is it just me or does it seem like it is only possible for the world to have one major crisis that threatens to destroy humanity at a time? Whatever is the flashiest or is latched onto by the news media becomes the most pressing issue of the day and causes the previous day’s pressing issue to fade into obscurity.
The reason I am bring this up is that I’ve lately been thinking a lot about the AIDS conference that will be taking place starting next week in Vienna. And while I know I’m not the only one I know there are far fewer people thinking about it than thought about AIDS 2006 in Toronto. Though there has been some major progress, especially in keeping people with HIV living longer, healthier lives through the use of more effective drugs and reducing drastically maternal transmission of HIV, it’s not as though the AIDS problem has been fixed in the past 4 years. In the developing world (as much as I hate using that term), AIDS has become increasingly devastating as prevalence rates continue to climb, mortality rates remain ridiculously high because of the inaccessibility of medication (largely due to intellectual property laws designed to benefit large American pharmaceutical firms) and a generation of orphans is doomed to a life of struggle for survival. Even in the developed world, infection rates are increasing again for the first time in many years, especially among youth and women.
Though AIDS hasn’t really gone anywhere, the attention paid to it only 4 years ago has certainly taken flight. But where did the attention go? – The answer is simple. It’s all around us.
Climate change is the issue of today, and has been the main issue for the past few years, ever since the release of the ever-riveting documentary/slide-show An Inconvenient Truth. That the earth is currently undergoing an a drastic transformation of climate (increase in the number of extreme highs, extreme lows and previously unusual phenomena ala hurricanes and earthquakes) has not only put AIDS on the back burner, but may have knocked it off the stovetop of global issues completely – especially once the economic recession hit.
I’m not saying climate change isn’t real and that it’s not something worth fighting for – it is on both fronts. I’m just encouraging everyone to look beyond mainstream topicality and consider the role that popularity politics plays in creating and shaping the global agenda, which can be a good thing or a bad thing.
Personally I can’t put environmentalist blinders on when I think about the issue of AIDS – the millions dying each year and the many millions more becoming infected. I just can’t think about a problem that will destroy us in a few hundred years when I think of the tens of millions of children who are left without parents to care for them, relying on the support of grandparents if they are lucky and themselves alone if they are not – all children robbed of a childhood either way. I’m sorry but I just can’t justify ignoring the lives of millions today to maybe save the lives of millions who will not exist for centuries. Call it short-sightedness or foolishness if you will, but I stand by this principle. There are lives being lost in catastrophic numbers each and every day and what kills me about this issue is that we could quite easily save many of these lives if only half the amount pressure being put on governments to work towards a climate change solution were also being put on governments to act on AIDS. A hundred years ago no one thought that polio could be virtually eradicated in the developed world or that small pox could be eradicated globally – yet it happened. I’m convinced the same can happen with AIDS if only we all stick our heads together consistently and persistently.
See, the thing is, regardless of the issue of the day, whether it is AIDS or climate change it will not be solved in days, weeks or even years. There isn’t a single magical solution that will reverse climate change or eradicate AIDS. There are steps, tiny victories, tiny shifts which can seem monumental at the time, but that are really just some of pieces in the most complex puzzle humanity has ever worked on. These small victories must be celebrated most certainly – it’s the only way to avoid a total energy drain and an overwhelming despair from destroying those working for a better world. But, these victories must be recognized in context. It isn’t enough to put three pieces in a row together, or even the whole outside border together, put the puzzle down, wash your hands of it and move on to the next puzzle without ever revisiting the other one because it’s “too hard” or we didn’t get as much done as quickly as we would have liked to have done.
When I’m feeling really cynical I begin to wonder if AIDS has dropped of
f the radar in the industrialized world because while AIDS doesn’t seem like much of a threat to the majority of economically-stable citizens (those capable of voting with their dollar as well as their ballot), climate change does. While hurricanes don’t seem to discriminate by socio-economic status, AIDS can appear to (as much as this appearance is a fallacy). Self-interested selflessness – an A+ example of an oxymoron. Maybe those years when AIDS did have the spotlight were a fluke – a dry spell for crises with a direct pull on those in the industrialized world? But this is just cynicism talking.
I really do believe that change is possible and that we can find both find a cure and a vaccine for AIDS in my lifetime (I’m 22 now – you do the math). But the operative word is WE. Mother earth needs our help, but so do those affected by the global AIDS pandemic. How about we try to help both at the same time?
So, where did AIDS go? Nowhere. It’s standing right in front of you, an invisible brick wall that is crumbling, but not quickly enough. Now what are you going to do about it?
