[lbo-talk] Re: Genocide, Holocaust (Chris Doss)

Patrick Bond pbond at sn.apc.org
Sun Jun 1 12:08:05 PDT 2003


----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Doss" <itschris13 at hotmail.com>
> I've asked this before, but have yet to get an answer that strikes me as
> plausible. HIV is hard to contract. This being the case, where do these
huge
> HIV-infection rates come from? Is this all heterosexual sex, or are IV
drugs
> involved (in Russia, almost all cases of HIV are the result of
> needle-sharing). Are there very high levels of promiscuity?

Mostly hetero transmission, and sure, high promiscuity. There are SO many factors (and I'm no expert on this, so just take this as a quick spin):

* migrant labour systems -- leaving the man to go to the city for work, and the wife/children at home in the rural areas -- are still largely intact (this was the basis for 'apartheid-capitalism' but continues unabated because of what a generation of marxists here called 'articulations of modes of production');

* desperation-induced prostitution at truck-stops on major transport routes, and in SA's several major red light districts;

* massive problems of rape and domestic violence;

* ghastly US-style lifestyle marketing, which includes also the AIDS education scam lobbyists ('loveLife') who play into the hip-hop (here, 'kwaito') culture;

* stigmatisation of HIV+ people is so fierce that ordinary people are scared to get tested, to declare their status, to talk about AIDS, or to do activist work;

* some reports of dry sex traditions which cause much worse vaginal abrasions;

* some reports that disreputable traditional healers and various hucksters still claim, 'sex with a virgin cures AIDS'; and maybe most importantly,

* life here is hell of a cheap, what with unemployment having risen from 15% to 30% since liberation in 1994, and with black incomes down 19% in real terms according to official gov't stats (and white incomes up 15% thanks very much), leading to worsening crime and various social pathologies... and so, incentives to have safe sex, and indeed, to even just live, are not so attractive these days.



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