The Nation Spotlights Global AIDS Epidemic

This week's issue of The Nation reports on the global HIV/AIDS pandemic in a feature titled, "AIDS and the New World Order." Below is a round up of the AIDS-related articles appearing in the magazine. Please note that the links are available to Web users only.

• "Global Apartheid": This feature article, written by Salih Booker, executive director of Africa Action, a group mobilized to address social and economic issues related to Africa, and William Minter, a senior research fellow at Africa Action, examines how the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa and other developing nations represents one example of "global apartheid," defined by the authors as "an international system of minority rule whose attributes include: differential access to basic human rights; wealth and power structured by race and place; structural racism, embedded in global economic processes, political institutions and cultural assumptions; and the international practice of double standards that assume inferior rights to be appropriate for certain 'others,' defined by location, origin, race or gender." Booker and Minter state that the HIV/AIDS epidemic is a prime example of apartheid because it "exposes the fact that the distribution of current suffering associated with global inequality ... is clearly linked to place and race." They describe how slavery, colonialism and racism have tipped the balance against developing nations and how the inequality can be rectified (Booker/Minter, The Nation, 7/9). To read the article, click here.
• "Annan's AIDS Crusade": This op-ed by Pranay Gupte, a columnist for Newsweek International, discusses how U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has used his "bully pulpit" as the head of the United Nations to "advance public support for helping victims of HIV/AIDS." Projecting a "recharged image" of the United Nations, Annan will hold several international meetings over the next eighteen months aimed at "get[ting] leaders of rich and poor countries to commit at least modest new amounts of money to tackle the widening problems of poverty" and AIDS. To secure these financial commitments, Gupte writes that "Annan's strategy has been to link AIDS to the broader issues of jump-starting economic growth and insuring environmental security" (Gupte, The Nation, 7/9). To read the article, click here.
• "The AIDS Fund Fight": Although Annan has made an "eloquent plea" for contributions to the Global AIDS and Health Fund, his call for greater efforts to fight HIV/AIDS in developing nations "guarantees neither that the rich countries will provide the needed resources nor that the fund will be structured wisely," Robert Weissman, editor of the Multinational Monitor, writes in an op-ed. Weissman notes that there are still questions concerning the level of money in the fund, its administration and its priorities. He concludes, "Tragically, Kofi Annan's grand vision may well be giving way to a modest resource mobilization and potentially flawed institutional arrangement. Perhaps what takes shape will be just the beginning, but it is also possible that the present political momentum to do something about HIV/AIDS will be lost once the fund is created" (Weissman, The Nation, 7/9). To read the article, click here.
• "ACT UP Goes Global": This piece describes how ACT UP has "rededicated itself" to the causes of racism and poverty "both in local and global contexts, and is part of an international antiglobalization alliance that concentrates on access to health care" (Kim, The Nation, 7/9). To read the article, click here.
• "Stop Global AIDS": A Nation Web exclusive, this article documents the Stop Global AIDS March that took place in New York on June 23 to "rall[y] around ... the three Ds of the global AIDS movement: Dollars, Debt and Drugs" (Kim, The Nation Web site, 6/23). To read the article, click here.
• "Morality Test": Also available on the Nation Web site is a test developed by Africa Action that aims to measure a participant's "Acquired Morality Deficiency Syndrome." The test asks general questions on the impact of HIV/AIDS on developing nations and asks readers whether they agree or disagree with statements such as "Brazil's success in combating the AIDS epidemic is not a good model because they went too far in violating the patent rights of drug companies" (The Nation Web site, 6/27). To view the test, click here.