The interplay of economics, politics and culture in the prevalence AIDS and overall dire health conditions in Africa

Kaleng, Wong
Jessica Powers
Engl 100
Research Paper
The interplay of economics, politics and culture in the prevalence AIDS and overall dire health conditions in Africa
Since the inception in the 1980s of the endemic spread of the notorious disease we call HIV-Aids we have been alarmed and have endlessly devised various ways to prevent, if not seek treatment from this disease. All throughout the history of this threatening disease, the principal region where it caused the heftiest damage is in Africa. Africa is associated with dire living conditions. With particular images of pitiful hygiene and household conditions surfacing in mind and the projection of information about reeling economies and politics, Africa suffered most in the challenges presented by a grave illness. Thus the economic, political and cultural conditions of Africa provide the very impetus for the rise of the AIDS virus in the region.
AIDS is being contracted about 7,000 times a day and the infamous spread of the disease since its discovery continues to be unabated. In the data of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), almost 30 million have died from this disease and other related causes while short of 34 million people currently have the fatal virus (Ahmed p. 16) In the African region, roughly 23 million are afflicted with the disease. This is the most in any part of the world an actually comprises almost 66% of the global total (Ahmed p. 22). It is no doubt that the African continent deserves the greatest amount of attention if the disease shall be halted from further causing damage in the area. Worse, the existing poverty in the region has also paved the way for the spread and aggravation of several other diseases. Hence, Africa is battling not just with the threat of HIV-AIDS but the general detriment caused by improper health conditions and practices.
In this argumentative paper, I will look deeper at these conditions in Africa, particularly the alarming rate of prevalence of AIDS in the region. I will try to make a case on arguments that could help in pointing out the principal causes of this condition and its furtherance. For this paper, I will dwell on two aspects which I think largely impact the existing health conditions in Africa - the cultural/traditional and the economic/political. In proceeding, I will look at the prevalence of diseases in Africa in two broad lenses. I will attempt to establish the connection of these conditions to the existing cultural patterns and traditional values in the region. Also, I will look for connections of the existing political policies in the region and place them within the context of the world`s larger socio-economic and political set-up in order to prove my thesis. of Before beginning on my presentation of the two sides, I will first lay down my framework in doing this paper.
The Africa we know: stigmatized and colored:
For the framework of this argumentative paper, I deemed it appropriate to consider not just the image of Africa but Africa itself as an actually existing geographical area and our conceptions of and associations with it. This region of the world is the second largest and most populous continent in the world. Africa is comprised of 54 countries with diverse cultures and a wide array of religious beliefs and cultural practices. Beyond the facts however, what else is left for the most of us is a continent that is impoverished, with a legion of malnourished children, grappling with lack of economic opportunities and amenities. As already hinted at the subhead of this part, the African region is both stigmatized and, perhaps wittily, with a clever double entendre, colored. The conceptions about Africa`s "third-world-ness," so to speak, are already an index of stigmatization. Albeit true in a good extent, these ideas are often exaggerated to the point that possibilities of development in economic and general lifestyle in the continent have been robbed of it. Aside from this, there are also the conceptions about the crudeness of culture in the region, owed perhaps to the knowledge of the persistence of the traditional beliefs and practices in the region. With the unabashed aid of mainstream media, notably mostly owned and controlled by Western entities and personalities, the pervading image of Africa for the most of us is one of baseness and deserving condescension.
This also supports the argument on why and how the African is "colored" for most of us. I repeat, what is working here is a double meaning that just aptly maintains the way the continent and its peoples have been laid near us. Our perceptions and comprehension of the Africa and its people have been colored, and mostly negatively so, by the influx of images and texts yielded to us by what we see and read in the mainstream discourses. Made and fashioned by certain people or companies with their own set of biases, these texts and images present the Africans in a twisted manner. As we can attest, what are mostly given to us are bleak, if not totally ugly representations; images that defile the African image in our minds.
Coming from this, I am putting forward Edward Said`s idea on how the West constructs the Eats, or in a more suitable terminology, how the colonizer constructs the colonized (Said 1978, 14). A brief detour to our world history would make us recall how most of the African countries have been subjugated in the past by the esteemed colonizers, mostly European countries. Coming from this, Said posited that the subjugation was intensified by the fact that the colonizers made stories of and about the colonized which are then institutionalized as newfound knowledge. Exemplifying this scenario are the academic outputs under the pretense of researchers and scholarly studies that claim to "study" about the cultures and traditions of the discovered land and its people.
Said, coming from the broad Post-colonial school of thought, forwarded that we have to forge the duel ahead in this realm of narrations and image-constructions. With such proposal, he is simultaneously undermining our common suppositions and assumptions about the African continent and its people. Said`s theoretical formulations showed the flexibility and tacit fabrication of the stories we have heard and viewed about Africa.
In proceeding to my argumentation on the probable causes of the status of the spread of AIDS in Africa, I am primarily backed up by these propositions by Said. Since there appears to be a greater level of agreement in the view that the continuation of Africa being a largely AIDS-stricken region, I would begin with it and see how it could be affected by the "narrations" about Africa. After that, I will look at the economic and political circumstances that might also have significant bearings on the current state of AIDS in Africa.
The principal root of African vulnerability to disease: their traditions?
The Africans have been known for their rich traditions and multiple sets of distinct beliefs and practices that many find obscure, if not eccentric. Particularly defiant in the defense of these traditions, the African continent at large has been adamant at large in the preservation through continuing living of what their ancestors have passed down to them. While an outsider`s perspective might regard their vast cabinet of beliefs and practices as utterly out-of-this-world, the point is that a look from the inside would totally differ and that begets utmost respect. The kindest an outsider might develop as an outlook towards these beliefs is the consideration that their actual inability to live through and live like the ones they are looking into diminishes the credit of their perceptions and opinions. While it is easy to throw away words like "irrational" and "unscientific" to the beliefs and worldviews of others, one should not be too conclusive about these judgments and claim all of their opposite.
Arguably one of the biggest factors being hurled at the African...