Welcome to the June issue of Positive Nation and my first as editor. I feel extremely privileged to be at the helm of a title that occupies such a unique place in the affections of people living with HIV and Aids.
A couple of recent incidents involving the media have driven home to me the responsibilities every editor has to their readers.
This month we feature a PN reader who has blown the whistle on a tabloid that offered her £15,000 to condemn African immigrants receiving treatments in the UK. UKC chairman Bernard Forbes considers the implications below.
Meanwhile, a story on the looming European Aids crisis in London’s Metro reported there were just 6,400 people living with the virus in the UK. At a stroke, the paper had wiped out the lives of some 45,000 people. Their error exposes the dangerously low levels of awareness of HIV among people who should really know better.
Clearly, we must redouble our efforts to amplify the debate and to ensure people living with the virus are heard and empowered. We must also expose the antics of newspapers that seek to stir up hatred and prejudice.
No debut editorial would be complete without a tribute to my predecessors
Gus Cairns and Rose de Freitas and PN’s team of talented staff and volunteers
who work with such dedication to make this magazine a success. I can only hope
to build on their excellent work and ensure PN continues to campaign, inspire
and provoke in a way that is always informed, sometimes explicit but never
dull.
Amanda Elliot, managing editor
Our cover story exposes the lengths parts of the press will go to set communities against each other. There is no place in civil society for this kind of behaviour. This is supposed to be multicultural Britain where the Home Secretary is disabled, the opposition leader is the son a Jewish, Romanian migrant shopkeeper and a former defence minister was defeated in a safe Tory seat by a gay man.
An African acquaintance has told me about the plight of her sister and her eight-month-old baby recently booted out of Britain and returned to a country the Home Office considers safe and where, they say, she can access life saving medication.
My acquaintance now tells me she has run out of medication and has turned to drink. Another statistic, another Aids death looming, another orphan, and all I can do is ask for a photograph to use as evidence that Britain is sending asylum seekers back to Africa to a lingering death.
Labels of convenience like ‘African’, ‘gay’ ‘straight’ and even ‘negative’ only serve to divide us on issues where we should stand together; issues we all understand like persecution, bigotry, stigma, and hatred. Labels prevent one community living with HIV passing on to others the lessons learned. They also fudge the issue of decreasing services for an increasing number of people living with the virus.
The jailing of Feston Konzani for 10 years last month has reignited the debate
over the criminalisation of HIV transmission. I quote from a letter dated June
1998 from the then Home Secretary, Jack Straw: “ I was pleased to be
able to reassure the group that the Government does not wish to disadvantage
people living with HIV or deter people from coming forward for testing. Our
proposals [for legislation] are intended to catch the most deliberate and calculated
kind of behaviour where the intention is not mutual pleasure, but deliberate
harm.” The proposals got no further than that. Perhaps it is now time
they did - for everyone’s benefit.
Bernard Forbes, UKC chairman
