The AIDS Conspiracy In Africa

Michelle Kenneth---you are so far wrong that, if the subject wasn't so tragic, you'd qualify as a comedian. I actually LIVE in Africa (although I am an American) and have black African employees and friends.

First of all, the Catholic Church did no such thing: it discouraged the use of condoms because it believed condom use encouraged promiscuity. Furthermore, the Catholic Church has relatively little sway here. A surprising majority of urban and suburban Africans are Christian (the rural people are also largely Christian, but animist religions have more influence there than in cities), but they are more inclined towards the evangelical and pentecostal types of religion (those who are not Muslim...Islam has a HUGE presence here).

Secondly, you refer to African blacks as if they were rural savages who still dress in skins and reed skirts. They don't, except for ceremonial occasions and for tourists. Nobody wears "headdresses" unless you count the scarves that married women wear to mark their status. Furthermore, no parent, African or otherwise, would mark their daughters for rape by putting a special headdress (or anything else on them). African parents love their daughters just as much as Americans do.

You are correct about the myth that having sex with a virgin cures AIDS, but that myth is not of African origin. The Western world, both Europe and America, has long had a myth that sex with a virgin will cure venereal disease which, before the advent of antibiotics, could be a death sentence. The myth fell into disrepute with the easy availability of penicillin. But not everyone here believes AIDS is incurable (I'm sure a lot of Americans don't know that the sought-after vaccine will prevent but not cure AIDS, either), only that they cannot afford the ARV treatments or that the treatments are not available. When modern medical technology fails us, don't most of us take a step or two into the direction of belief? Some of us believe praying will cure us, some go for quackery, others put renewed faith into old wive's tales...the belief about virgins falls into the last category.

Your ignorance about Africa and Africans is appalling, particularly in view of the fact that you present your collection of misinformation and slurs as fact. Please check your information with unbiased resources before you publish such ignorance again. We're having enough trouble getting the first world to take us seriously without myths of savagery and ignorance being promoted by comments such as yours.

Thank you.

SV

I think local governments really need to do more, it's all nice and good to come up with conspiracy theories, which true or not, does not address, as mentioned in this video, the alarming AIDS infection rate in so many African countries...

The spreading of contraceptives, abstention, and refrain with at risk partners, has obviously had very little effect, leaving a generation of orphans cared by a diminishing population of elderly caretakers...

Western countries need to step in with aid and cheap drugs, but ultimately, the best and most reliable help must come from within their own governments and communities in terms of awareness, even if it must become something always like law, it's an emergency.