stammer magnified by tearfulness. At the interview, he looked back on Barcelona with decidedly mixed feelings. He is concerned that the community of people living with
HIV will never have the same political clout ever again.
"I've spent much of this conference emotional and frustrated,"
he tells me, saying it may be the last one in which he takes a large role.
"Many positive people remember their first Aids conference as a turning
point. When I went to my first one in London in 1991 I felt myself turning
from victim to victor."
The same thing happened at Durban in 2000. "That was when the World
Conference came to the epidemic. It made sense, it had great leadership
under Professor Jerry Coovadia, who said 'hands off, the community can
organise itself,' it had confidence, it had soul. It gave people hope
and affirmation."
But Barcelona? "Unfortunately, I think this has been a conference
without a soul. It's not had good leadership from its chairs - and that
includes me. And I think there's been a lack of understanding as to who
really is this 'HIV community' who should be represented.
"The Spanish organisations have done a great job in bringing themselves
together, and the stuff outside the main conference - the skills building
workshops, the cultural programme - have worked. But it's been symptomatic
that the Aids Quilt has not appeared inside the conference centre. There
has been no recognition of the lives lost.
"I worry that the World Aids Conferences have been hijacked,"
he continues, warming to his theme. "The big bodies - the Centers
for Disease Control, the International Aids Society, the US National Institute
of Health, even UNAIDS - and now the new International Aids Trust, now
that Bill Clinton wants to do something with HIV - all these are usurping
the positive community.
"The International Aids Society is completely taking over the organisation
of World Conferences in future. The IAS are not allowing an independent
community foundation to co-organise Bangkok, where there has always been
one before, and the Thais have got very upset."
But who are you to say that you represent the 'community', Shaun? Bluntly,
aren't the Aids lobbyists that jet-hop from one global shindig to another
also just careerists and freeloaders themselves?
He takes my rude question very seriously. "GNP+ went through some
very difficult times facing that question. International lobbying networks
cannot and should not represent people with HIV and Aids.
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All they can say is that they represent their concerns.
