|
Pickett Fences:
Casualties of War
by Jim Pickett
It’s four days into the war
against Iraq as I write this.
It’s over 21 years into the
war against AIDS.
The Sunday before the war
started, I attended a peace rally in downtown Chicago with
thousands of other people—all ages, all stripes—some representing
a broad array of organizations, some simply representing themselves,
some wearing two or three hats. Rallies, demonstrations and
protests such as this have been happening for months now,
mobilizing millions and millions of people here and around
the world, in cities big and small. In high schools, colleges
and churches, in parks, squares and plazas. Millions of phone
calls have been made, millions of faxes and millions of e-mails
been sent. Millions have signed their names to petitions and
letters.
The outcry is not disproportionate
to the horrors of war.
Last year, three million
people in the world died due to another war, AIDS. That’s
like a city the size of Chicago—emptied. That’s like one thousand
repeats of the devastation of the World Trade Center attacks
on September 11, 2001, in which three thousand people died.
Remember how we felt the week of those attacks. Multiply that
by one thousand. Roughly, the amount of deaths worldwide due
to AIDS last year is like three 9/11’s every single day of
the year. That’s how many people three million looks like.
That’s how awful it is.
As I stood in Daley Plaza
that beautiful spring-like day and listened to the impassioned
speakers, surrounded by so many people who cared about injustice,
by so many people who cared about human suffering and devastation,
so deeply and with such conviction, I got a lump in my throat
more than once. The first was from the overwhelming beauty
of being in this milieu, of being in a country that allowed
me to dissent, of feeling the love and energy and intense
concern in the crowd.
It almost made me cry.
The second lump has yet to
leave my throat. And while I want to cry, while I need to
cry, I find I cannot. It’s not the only thing I can’t do lately—can’t
sleep or concentrate either. This second lump comes from a
terrible frustration and an overwhelming sadness. And not
a little jealousy. Over 21 years into the worst human catastrophe
the world has ever seen, over 21 years after the most ruthless
and wily terrorist ever to be unleashed started wreaking havoc,
decimating lives, families, societies and cultures around
the globe... where is the response from everyday people? Where
are the rallies? Why aren’t there protests in the streets
of London and Madrid, Tokyo and New York and Omaha?
Where are the coalitions?
Where is the civil rights movement? Where are the churches?
The high school and college students? Where are the labor
unions? Where are the soccer moms and the crusty old lefties
from the 60’s? Where is everybody?
To be sure, there are many
people here and far fighting this uphill battle every single
second of every single day. But the numbers just aren’t there.
The mass outrage just isn’t there. The compassion is missing
in action.
Tell me, was there ever a
time that over 100,000 people took to the streets of New York
to say “No more AIDS?” That’s how many were in the streets
on Saturday, the 22nd of March, to say “No war.” By all accounts
it was a pretty amazing and powerful display, all that diverse
energy unified on an issue of such great importance. Interestingly,
it just so happens that more than 100,000 New Yorkers are
HIV-positive, and about half of those are diagnosed with AIDS.
With three percent of the country’s total population, New
York is the epicenter of the epidemic in the United States,
accounting for 16 percent of the country’s AIDS cases. I bet
that every single marcher in that antiwar protest in New York
was touched by AIDS themselves—be it through friends, family,
coworkers or their own infection, whether they knew it or
not. Tell me, how many in that march knew someone in or from
Iraq?
The night the war started,
around 10,000 people in Chicago blocked traffic on Lake Shore
Drive, one of the city’s main thoroughfares. It made international
news.
In Chicago, over twice that
many are living with HIV. More than that number have already
died from AIDS. And we have a hard time getting the press
to cover the story. “Where’s the angle?” “What’s new?”
How many more faggots, niggers,
junkies and ho’s around the world and here at home—you and
me—must die? How many more poor, disenfranchised, disconnected,
stigmatized and marginalized people around the world and here
at home—you and me—must die? Are you next? Am I? Will anyone
notice? Will an editor be able to find a “news peg?”
The war on AIDS deserves,
and yes, needs, millions in the streets and millions burning
up the Internet, millions firing off letters to legislators
and editors. That would be a proportionate response to the
unparalleled disaster of three million people dying in one
year. Any less is immoral, amoral, subhuman.
|
