AIDS: Africa, Polio Vaccine, Kaposi Sarcoma

[James Heartfield]

In message <NKNANIBMFAFCCAAA at mailcity.com>, matt hogan
<matt.hogan at lycos.com> writes
>REgarding AIDS and Africa: It is a well known fact that when men leave their 
>farms(and families) to look for work in the cities, they patronize the 
>prostitutes there. To blunt the onward march of AIDS in Africa, we can supply 
>condoms, education about transmission, and clean needles--but, I'm afraid, 
>that's it.

Isn't this just the kind of 'well-known fact' that informs the
discussion of AIDS in Africa: a western preoccupation with supposedly
rampant black sexuality? No doubt some men do visit prostitutes, but to
make it into a universal assumption tells us more about the missionary
'we' who try to educate the benighted African.
-- 
James Heartfield