Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Lillian Holt: Oh, I don't know. What do you mean by ‘how big is responsibility’? I don't suppose -- in some ways I don’t think you can quantify responsibility. I'm very aware of AIDS. I just wonder sometimes, why it is so big in Africa. And why it hasn't been aided in that sense to the extent that -- is this a question of race and culture? Is it Africa the dark continent? Why is it so rampant in Africa? I know there's a lot of physical poverty there. Would adequate action have been taken if it were somewhere else? If it was [inaudible]. I'm not too sure. I think there's a Pandora's Box relation to AIDS in Africa. There's a question of South Africa and the way it approaches AIDS also. So this is really out of my field or it's out of my sphere. I've never really thought about the question how big is our responsibility. When we're connected to one another of course we have to care. But in terms of responsibility, I can only help. I can make a donation to charity or something like that. I'm not too sure -- this is an interesting question. As I said, I think I have to have the humility to say that I actually don't know the answer.

by Lillian Holt

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Livingstone Maluleke: AIDS is in Africa. Everybody is taking responsibility presently. One will also forecast on what happened in the past. Of course, this epidemic came very quickly and is a surprise and because of the reason that it is a disease, which is incurable. It came as a shock to the whole of the world, not only in Africa, but in the rest of the world. But then the question will be, what responsibility are we taking in dealing with this epidemic? Of course, today in Africa the responsibility that is being taken is that of making aware of the presence of this epidemic and the responsibility only encorpers the fact that the poor have to take precautions. Precautions in the sense that since we don’t have the medicine to cure AIDS now, we have got their responsibility of making people aware to take precautions and, as such, we have to be very responsible in dealing with this epidemic. Make the young generation aware of the presence of this epidemic and also deal with other factors. AIDS is brought about by many factors. There is possibility of taking of alcohol, the intake of other elements, which are not conducive for the human consumption. So therefore, this is just another set of issues that we need to take in order to be responsible in terms of how we uphold this issue of HIV and AIDS. So therefore, we are responsible enough. But it is not only Africa which is confronted with AIDS, because there’s a lot of interaction of communities and global interaction from one country to another, which is an easy transfer and transmission of this disease. Therefore, it is important that it be regarded as a global issue. Not only a thing from Africa, but a thing which is approached globally. Not only for question’s sake, it is not only in Africa where we find AIDS. We can find AIDS elsewhere because here I’m sitting in Germany. If I’m AIDS infected and I practice sex irrespectively, then I would be able to transmit AIDS.

by Livingstone Maluleke

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Mae-Wan Ho: AIDS in Africa concerns the whole world. In this day of globalized travel, you cannot protect yourself because it is an infectious disease and it is rampant in Africa. It will spread to the rest of the world. So obviously, it is our responsibility and we have to also ask -- the question of AIDS is very complicated because it’s not just one disease due to the HIV virus. It is a disease of an exhausted immune system. It is a disease of poverty because when you are malnourished, when you do not get enough to eat, you get micronutrients and micronutrient deficiencies, then your immune system is compromised and there is a lot of evidence that poverty accounts for the susceptibility of the African populations to traditional diseases of the poor. And again poverty is our responsibility. It is the responsibility of those in the developed world who over consume the earth’s resources.

by Mae-Wan Ho

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Mahsa Shekarloo: AIDS in Africa, well, it’s huge. Africa in general, I think, is huge, and I think it’s everyone’s responsibility. I think Africa, in a way, encapsulates so much of what has gone wrong in the past 500 years, encapsulates so much of what has happened in the past 500 years, modernity, capitalism, colonialism, slavery. These are our responsibility. These are everyone’s responsibility. AIDS is just the latest, and AIDS is linked to so many of these other issues in Africa, like poverty, like lack of sovereignty, like civil wars. We can’t say that slavery happened long ago, colonialism happened long ago. These are all linked. And AIDS now, with millions of dying children and parents dying, people have to contend with the ramifications of what’s happening today for generations to come. It is just ethical, and a moral imperative for us to make AIDS in Africa everyone’s responsibility.

by Mahsa Shekarloo

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Mark Benecke: I don't see why AIDS and Africa is disconnected from AIDS in Brazil or AIDS in the Philippines or even AIDS in economically more wealthy countries. I would say our responsibility to fight all diseases is very big and it is as bigger as more prevalent the disease is. Now since AIDS is very prevalent, our responsibility is to try to fight it on a very basic level. I guess the question refers to the fact that medication and drugs against AIDS are very expensive and if we should distribute them to countries that do not have the money to pay for them and yes, we do have a responsibility to do so. But at the same time, development of the final drug that will finally fight AIDS viruses or the AIDS virus, this will cost a lot of money, so it needs structures who have a lot of money to develop the vaccine or whichever type of drug it's going to be. So, if we would spread all the money evenly, then maybe we would help to just get some syndromes killed off, but maybe we won't have the necessary means and money and structures to find a final drug that will for all times get rid of AIDS. So yes, of course, we have a responsibility as for every illness to help to fight it all over the world. But we also have a responsibility to find a final solution and to gather enough money and structures to do that.

by Mark Benecke

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Martin Almada: We are all responsible for what is happening in the world. With regard to AIDS in Africa we have to call for the World Health Organization of the United Nations to take on the responsibility and provide financial and scientific help in the fight against this evil, which devastates the African population and the entire world. There are so simple models, easy to carry out and effective, like tho one of Amnesty International, that forces down the national and to the international authorities by letters of protest. They have to be sent to the governments and to the United Nations. In this way the conspiratorial silence can be broken, it´s an effective method. For political reasons I was imprisoned in Paraguay and with the help of Amnesty International sending a letter of protest, I was set free in 1977. Returning to our subject "AIDS", it has to be said that this horrible pandemic shouldn´t make us to forget other deseases caused by poverty: tuberculosis and chronicle malnutrition. I repeat that we are all responsible as individuals, as society members and on the level of global organizations like the United Nations.

by Martin Almada

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Masami Saionji: Yes, this is our responsibility. Each of us, every human being has a responsibility for this problem. Why is it? This problem is caused by our apathy. Apathy... People concern only one's own interest and lack of interest in the rest of the world and the situation of others. An attitude of indifference gives AIDS free rein and we are not properly responding to it as soon as possible. Poverty and backwardness in education are some reasons for the spread of AIDS. We should have given the patients with AIDS treatments. For the backwardness in education, we should have provided education. Because of the apathy of each of us, we relayed solely on NGO, UN or governments for offering humanitarian supports to persons with AIDS and this allowed the spread of AIDS. Therefore, each of us must tackle the issues of AIDS. If many people get the same feeling to combat AIDS, I think, the spread of AIDS stops by itself.

by Masami Saionji

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Masuma Bibi Russel: AIDS, it's a big responsibility for every human being because it's not in Africa, it could happen to your own country. Now, it's spreading in other part of the world. I think that its awareness, it's that people have to understand what is AIDS. Education system making people understand in the school level and making people understand, your health is so important. I mean it's so sad so many people are dying in Africa, I mean it’s coming to Asia too, India is a big hit of AIDS. So, I think this is a disease -- AIDS. We have give awareness to everyone, everyone other part of the world also be aware of this. I think it could happen in Africa, it could happen in anywhere in the world. I think it's a big responsibility for every human being, especially all these children are dying, they don't even know, they are born with this disease. I mean it's incredible that people are not taking seriously about it. I am worried about because it could come to Bangladesh too, it could come to. So, I think it's a big human responsibility to give awareness. Introduce this to countries where they have somebody, not educations, so they don't know what to do and give enough education about the sex and make people understand please, please, please, I mean save, I mean I am so sad that what is happening. How many childrens are dying and people are keeping quiet, I think about time we should all get together and it's a big responsibility for everyone, everyone, everybody and it could happen to you too.

by Masuma Bibi Russel

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Mayank Mehta: I think it’s a big responsibility. Big in two ways: Number one, we should do something about it much more seriously than we are, and big in the second way which is there it’s not an easy problem that can be fixed, merely by more money or more medicine. It’s something we have to make sure that the whole thing stops, it doesn’t spread too far, and it’s not just limited to Africa. It’s spread to many other countries in the world and its devastating many societies. So simple answer, yes, it is huge responsibility. We are all, we should be responsible because it is hurting everyone. And it’s not an easy problem to solve, so the answer is going to take a long time is to how and why? How do we share resources? So is that, we took care of these things that will take way too long to figure out, we will have to worry about the profits of corporations which are selling drugs at very high value instead of helping people. How do we arrange things so that those corporations and the governments which protect them will allow the medicine to be sold to this people? How do we make sure the day is enough resource to educate people? How do we make sure the culture is changed so that people are taking more responsible view of these things? All of this will take a very long time and definitely not in the short-term.

by Mayank Mehta

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Michael E. Tigar: Judith, our responsibility is this big. It's this big. It's this big. It's as big as this table. It’s as big as this building, and I’ll tell you why. Because the solution to the AIDS crisis lies in great measure, in the hands of pharmaceutical companies that had to be forced to begin to open their hearts and their pocketbooks to provide the drugs that are necessary. My goodness, in the country where I live, because of these wrong social policies that we hope to change, there are 8 million children who are without health insurance. The majority of Americans don't have adequate access to medical care, and if that's the case in United States, the so called richest and most powerful nation in the world, then what does that say about the attitude of the people in my country, and I don't know what it is in yours, about the health needs of people in Africa? Moreover, it is our responsibility because the AIDS crisis and the reaction to it is also products of our own misguided, silly, but culturally determined attitudes toward sexuality, toward sexual orientation, toward sexual conduct, as though the people who somehow contracted AIDS are the other; and beyond the reach of our compassion and our help. Unless we confront this greed, this egoism, this refusal to recognize all people as part of the human family, we’re in for a great deal of trouble. Thank you very much for asking that question. There is something we can do about it right here and in our own countries.

by Michael E. Tigar

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Michael P. Totten: No, it does not. We have an industrial era education system that was based upon not bringing curiosity into the process and real lifelong learning, but an assembly line learning. The object of the education system was to cut up the -- just like in assembly line -- the curriculum, feed pieces into the student, who fed back on to test, which were graded, stamped approved or disapproved. You either then move to the next level in the assembly line or you fell out of the school system and marked a reject. It entirely closed out any discussion of, curiosity, or other than a very quantitative, logical, mathematical answer. There wasn’t time as far as the classroom instruction was concerned. As a result, we have kids going through the school system and finding lots of these classes configured to be totally disembodied, and not related to their everyday lives, let alone the issues that we face this century. As some educational critics have pointed out we need to bring narrative stories back into education as a way of providing the context that children can relate to story telling as a form and fact of cognitive learning, as Roger Schank has pointed out in "Tell Me A Story." I think that children can use their creativity, whether it’s arts, or humanities, or science in a story telling form to learn just abut any topic there is. I think another aspect that has been left out of the curriculum is kind of a hands-on, getting kids out of the classrooms. I think of gardens as biological textbooks where children can learn everything from science and math, to geography, history and become much more conscious of the world issues around food and sustainability. Gardens provide inherent feedback, over water, under water, you can do collaborative learning with other kids, why did that garden do so well, and that garden did poorly. These skills give children a sense of accomplishment and well-being that they can carry on as a life-long hobby or even profession. But it also allows the community to get more involved, two thirds in the United States of Americans garden, three-fourths of science teachers garden. That's an entirely positive way to engage parents, as opposed to kids coming home with computer input, output work that is alien to many parents.

by Michael P. Totten

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Mohammed Arkoun: Yes, AIDS is only an element that relatively occurred lately and that is shattering all societies of the world where prevention and healing possibilities are practically non-existent. AIDS is bringing an additional upheaval to societies that have already been upset and submissive to untenable regimes for a long time and the responsibility which it is necessary to talk about is the one that took Europe by colonising the whole African continent and that has created in the African continent situations like the one is South-Africa that lasted so long with an apartheid, with an ordering of societies according to the race and according to the colour; but this matter also stretches over other white colonised countries. North Africa is white, north Africa is Mediterranean, north Africa participates in a culture that is very close to the one of Europe and however north Africa saw the setting up of the native code that settled a legal distinction between the status, the legal status of natives of every country and whole citizens who are colonists who came from the metropolises and who nourished during a long time the colonial system. And therefore it is necessary to absolutely consider the problem itself in a larger way and not to crystallize solely on AIDS which is of course a disaster of which it is necessary to take care, but unfortunately one cannot take care efficiently of the plague that AIDS is if we don't correct the economic, material, cultural general situation, politics of the African populations and it is therefore a report of responsibilities infinitely bigger which should be taken in consideration in order to finally; while installing another report with the governing who took the power after independences and who accentuated the situation we have spoken about.

by Mohammed Arkoun

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Mohau Pheko: The HIV AIDS virus in Africa is the responsibility of all of us because it is a scourge that not only destroys the way that we live as societies and communities, it destroys our economic systems, it destroys some of the most brilliant minds throughout the world, throughout the African continent, it destroys opportunity. Because, if we accept the fact that we are becoming more interdependent, interdependency requires that we take the good with the bad. And it also requires that because a number of the pharmaceutical corporations are in the North and they are the ones who set the price for drugs, who manufacture drugs, and medications for HIV AIDS, it becomes essential for all of us throughout the world to demand free access to HIV AIDS medicines, to require that our governments apply pressure to multinational corporations in the pharmaceutical industry to utilize their resources to ensure that we fight this scourge. And for me, HIV AIDS is really the scourge of our planet and we have to fight it with the same force that militaries are used to destroy countries like Iraq, military forces are used to destroy countries like Afghanistan. And it's the same might and it is the same social power that is on our streets that must be used to fight this scourge. So, I think that it is the responsibility of all of us to join in this fight.

by Mohau Pheko

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Monira Rahman: Well, AIDS in Africa is not only a threat for Africa; it's a threat for this planet. It’s expanding in every country and every society at an alarming rate. Obviously, therefore, it is the responsibility of this world to tackle this problem; otherwise our future generation will be in great danger. The world economy will be in great danger; and the resources, the human resources, will be in great danger. So it's important that we consider this AIDS not an issue for Africa only. It's an issue for this world, everyone to be responsible to address this issue; to raise awareness against AIDS and not only that, to support the victim of this AIDS in Africa and in other country the same way. And you have seen how it is expanding in other countries in the world, and if we are not able to prevent that now, it will be a big danger for this world, for this planet.

by Monira Rahman

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Nadja Halilbegovich: Our responsibility is immense I think and not only because we as citizens of more developed countries can, but also because we should feel morally and humanely compelled to help millions of our fellow human beings who are dying of this treatable and preventable disease. So, I definitely think that the world’s responsibility to end AIDS in Africa is huge and we have so many ways that we can help people of Africa. One would be to just give more funds so that we can create more AIDS prevention campaigns that include education programs and media campaigns. People just need to be educated about contraception and ways that they can prevent getting that disease. Another one is for pharmaceutical companies to work on lowering the prices of these drugs. Africans have proven that they are using the drugs properly and they are creating an incredible effect on the people with AIDS. They are capable of returning to their jobs, returning to normal life and having their families supported by them and living a normal life. So there is no reason that we shouldn’t keep helping them and keep the drugs from being too expensive for them. So definitely I think pharmaceutical companies should work to lower the prices, yet raise the availability of the drugs because so often the drugs can sometimes be a dollar -- bit more than a dollar or much more than a dollar, but I think often times Africans save up enough for this drug, but then the lower price drugs are not available, but the more expensive ones are and then they can’t afford to pay for this much needed medicine. Also, debt cancelation, if debt was canceled, Africa and African countries would have more funds to pour into their health services, AIDS prevention campaigns, education and that again would help AIDS. Another one fair trade, because fair trade would allow Africa and the people to grow, to join in on the economic industrial development. To simply grow as nations of people and again that would help. So, I think when we look at Africa and our responsibility, it should be so clear to us that we have to help in so many grounds. If we have to look further than just our morally and humane grounds then we could look at just instability anywhere in the world affects all of us and we want a stable world. We want a world where we all feel safe and healthy. And I guess at the end I just want to say on moral grounds alone we should be looking to help them and we should stop thinking of African people as sort of “the others,” they are our family and we need to help them.

by Nadja Halilbegovich

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Neela Marikkar: I think our responsibility is great. AIDS is not just in Asia and Africa, it's in India, it's in [inaudible]. And, I think AIDS can be really addressed through poverty alleviation, through better education, better healthcare. It’s not just a question of the necessary drugs, those are important, but I think till you have a good program of poverty alleviation in country in the countries of Africa and in countries like South Asia, this problem will be very difficult to be addressed. I think that the reason being that this disease is mainly [predominant] and mainly affecting the poorest of the poor. Perhaps, if it had been an epidemic in Western world, things might have been very different as to the way the disease would have been addressed. But unfortunately, it is the poorest of the poor countries and the poorest in those countries that seem to be more affected by the disease. It’s encouraging to see Bill Clinton and Bill Gates take strong initiatives to raise awareness of AIDS and the work that The Gates Foundation is doing is incredibly good, very positive. And it is only by raising awareness of the tragedy of this disease and the impact it is having on these continents that they can hope to change the perception and to get more and more people wanting to do something about it, to get more engaged in trying to resolve this issue. So, I think yes, it is a very great responsibility; all of us have to do something about it.

by Neela Marikkar

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Oliviero Toscani: Our responsibility, it is big, not just for AIDS. AIDS is a consequence of a lot of other problem which we are responsible. We are also responsible now to do something to solve the problem. Probably, the responsibility is more of the fact that we don’t really do much for AIDS. I don’t know, it seems to me that AIDS has gone out of fashion, it is not anymore fashionable to deal with AIDS, to talk about AIDS, and to do something for AIDS, but the problem is bigger. And Africa is a major surviving and probably our responsibility is the fact that we don’t really care anymore so much lately about that major African problem. Well, we are to make AIDS fashionable again problem is for the media and for the communication and without communication we won’t really proceed.

by Oliviero Toscani

Sep 9, 2006 11:05:00 AM cite

Oscar Olivera: Responsability of whom? Of us? The people? The plain workers? Of the people who have AIDS? Or of that whole economic and political system, that is oppressing and that is contributing to the worldwide spreading of disasters like AIDS? I think the responsibility is not ours, the peoples’. It’s the responsability of the system, of the economic model, of the political model of exclusion, of racism, which has been designed and implemented by the huge economic and military powers of the world. It’s there responsibility. Our responsibility is to change this world, this model of a structure of [], of disease, of exclusion, of famine, in order that AIDS disappears.

by Oscar Olivera