America Speaks

After work on weekdays I usually do some pushups and situps while listening to the Voice of America on my shortwave radio. The program I listen to is called "Africa News Today" and it usually features a decent blend of news and stories on topics like brain drain in Africa, small businesses development, and environmental issues. A world conference on AIDS just concluded (I think), so many of the stories lately have been related to the HIV/AIDS problem in Sub-Saharan Africa.

 

Today VOA interviewed a journalist from the Boston Globe who was critiquing the way international donors are spending their money to fight AIDS. His main argument was that fewer resources should be spent promoting condoms because it undermines the fight to promote abstinence. He claimed that the proliferation of condoms in Africa and media campaigns promoting safe sex encourage people to have more sex. He advocates using money to promote healthy lifestyles, the main component of which is abstinence. His naiveté is astounding, as evidenced by his plan for promoting lifestyles that will ostensibly win the fight against AIDS: "We can hire coaches for kids, build soccer fields, a few basketball courts, and maybe a few buildings. Unemployment in many places is so high that we need to give people something to do with their time." (More or less a direct quote - no exaggerations.)

 

I personally think this man is an alien robot from outer space. At the very least I doubt that he's spent any time in Africa unaccompanied by state officials. And he certainly hasn't done his homework. C'mon, man, wake up! Building soccer fields?! "Maybe a few buildings"??? I think it's great to encourage kids to live healthy lifestyles, give them the opportunity play sports, and promote the idea of mentorship, but this is NOT the way to fight AIDS. Teaching abstinence doesn't even work in the US. (It's been proven that kids in American high schools, including those in NC, my home state, who take abstinence pledges are more likely than others their age to engage in unprotected sexual activity.) And you expect kids in Africa, where the proliferation of sexuality is much greater than that in the US (the average ages that boys and girls lose their virginity is something like 13 and 14 respectively), to abstain from sex? He must be joking. Seriously. People will stop having sex when monkeys fly out of my butt. Someone is probably doing it on a soccer field at this very moment.

 

Furthermore: "We also need to encourage the enforcement of underage drinking laws because people, especially young people, are going out, getting drunk and having unsafe sex." A good idea, but impossible. Police forces in Africa not only lack the resources to spy on kids, but I think there are more pressing issues for them to attend to than underage drinking. I agree that drinking is a problem; I have seen that it creates huge problems for many communities in Namibia. If you read about my night at the club in Tsintsabis, you know what I mean.  It just seems terribly misguided to send policemen out to fight AIDS. Sending community health workers might be a better idea.

 

This guy is just avoiding talking about sex at all costs. If he spent a couple hours reclining with Freud, he might get over his fixations and see it the way most public health experts (and most well-adjusted people) see it: the simplest and most direct way to prevent the spread of AIDS is to promote condom use. We all know the mechanics of how STDs spread... doesn't teaching save sex make sense? I dare say it makes more sense than building soccer fields. Knowledge is power. If you want a hungry man to eat, teach him to fish. Give him a rod, some bait, and a hook, and then show him how to use them. Don't tell him to ignore his hunger and think satiated thoughts. He wants to eat and is going to find a way to do it. Maybe in a few years your philosophical advice will help him learn to suppress his hunger and live with less food, but in the short term he wants something in his belly.

 

So this guy is a kook, right? I certainly think so, and I'll bet that you'd find others who listened to the interview who share my opinion. What they may not share with me, though, is the knowledge that there is a lot of dissent in the US about how money should be spent in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Not everyone toes the government line like the Globe reporter. Unfortunately, in the end, the "Voice of America" does not represent the Voices of Americans.