Africa is a continent with dueling realities. In one sense,
it is a place of unparalleled beauty—one seemingly untouched by the modern world.
The diverse wildlife that roam the vast plains of the Serengeti,
the tips of Mount Kilimanjaro that grace the stunning horizon and the sheer
enormity of Victoria Falls all speak of Africa's natural splendor.
But a more heartbreaking image exists, that of an African child,
skeleton-thin and half-naked, cradled in the arms of his malnourished mother.
Too weak to swat the flies that litter his face, he lies deathly still, casting
his eyes—pained and vacant—to the sky.
This, too, is Africa. At once, it is a landscape painting in motion—a
place so rich in color and grandeur that it seems created by the paintbrush
of God. But given its present anguish, Africa seems forsaken by God as well.
HIV and AIDS, famine, drought, war and apathy have all joined forces
to rob Africa—and its struggling people—of a future.
Welcome Home
If you were born today in Cape Town, South Africa, because
of minimal availability of antiretroviral drugs, you would probably not live
to see your 40th birthday. You might be one of the roughly five million people
who suffer from HIV and AIDS.
Other countries in Africa fare no better. According to the joint
United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), in Botswana, 323,000 of its 1.7
million people are afflicted with the disease.
In Malawi and Mozambique, experts say that, by the end of this decade,
life expectancy will fall to age 40. By that same year, Zimbabwe's life expectancy
will plummet to 31 years, and in Swaziland, 30.
Simply put, Africa is ravaged by AIDS. Seventy percent of cases
reported worldwide are from Africa, while the United States has less than three
percent of the world's cases. To make matters worse, AIDS is joined by an efficient
and deadly accomplice: famine.
If you lived in Eritrea, for example, starvation and rainless skies
would be as familiar to you as the blistering sun and charred soil. One million
of your people—out of more than three million—are on the brink of starvation.
Last May, Stephen Lewis, the UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa,
spoke of the link between the AIDS crisis and the food shortage before the Global
Health Council's conference in Washington, D.C.
"For millions of Africans already infected by HIV, the onset of
full-blown AIDS and the rapid descent to death is the inescapable finale of
a shortage of food. And the shortage of food, in its turn, opens up new pathways
for the virus to spread."
The United States, consequently, has made a monetary pledge, albeit
a restrained one. President George W. Bush recently signed into law a plan
to donate $15 billion over five years—a figure that critics believe falls short,
given Africa's escalating hardships.
Although $15 billion is a good start, it isn't enough, not
for a continent as diseased and malnourished as Africa.
‘We Are the World'...Even More
Poverty and disease this extreme are foreign to us. Our country,
which is about three tenths the size of the continent of Africa, is touched
by AIDS, but we are not crippled by it. We see poverty in our streets, but we
are simply not as poor.
Compared to Africa, we live in an affluent society—rich in wealth,
in opportunities, in material goods. Although our economy has taken its share
of hits, our basic survival is secure.
Granted, we are not without our bruises. In a post-9/11 era, many
live in fear of future attacks and the repercussions on our economy and freedom.
But Africa is afflicted with its own terrorists: AIDS and starvation—faceless
and brutal aggressors that launch devastating attacks every day.
Africa relies greatly on developed nations. The dying Sudanese child,
collapsed in his mother's arms, is the wounded man on the other side of the
road in need of a good Samaritan. The question is, will we cross the road in
empathy or choose to walk on, eyes blinded, hearts hardened?
One Family
As children, we were taught to share. As adults, that message
is no less valuable; to the poor, it is no less timely.
There are ways that we can help. Visit Catholic Relief
Services at www.catholicrelief.org
or the Global AIDS Alliance at www.globalaidsalliance.org
for information and charitable opportunities.
It is our moral duty as the fortunate to care for those with less.
As members of the human family, it is our task to give hope to those in despair.
The song lyrics written to benefit starving Africans in 1985 border
on cliché now, but they still have within them a lining of truth: We are, indeed,
the world. —C.H.
