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***image1:left***This misleadingly beautiful picture (the Aids virus) made the children (from Ethiopia) in the second picture orphans. I will come back to that later
Many years ago I read a story in The Ethiopian Herald about a young man who wanted a witch doctor to assist him in conquering the heart of a girl he loved. The witch doctor gave him a medicine, (mestefaqr) a stick to touch the girl lightly with. The next time he saw the girl, he touched her with the stick: she smiled timidly and told Don Juan how much she loved him. The medicine worked he thought. Later on when he phoned the girl, she screamed and called him names. In surprise he asked, but you were nice to me earlier? Of course, she replied, I was afraid of your savage stick you beast! Mestefaqr is a witch medicine believed by many to make girls swarm around the people who carried it. I had friends from Geza Kenisha who bought the idea of this stupid myth; they believed the medicine was abundantly available in Keren (I will not mention names because I do not want to embarrass them). Pleading against the mestefaqr none-sense didnt sway them. The joke was on them when they were given some Neem-tree roots and weeds from the streets of Keren put in an empty 25-cent shampoo plastic bag. The roots made a yellowish stain on the bag and made it appear as a perfect witchy medicine. They were very happy. Few weeks later, they swore it worked and they wanted more. Situation ruled and the second delivery was never made. Nfyo is another menacing disease, which was the cause of many infant deaths in the third world. In Eritrea, witch mentality believed that the cure was to lock children in a suffocating room with closed doors and windows and feed them with popcorn. Yellow fevers cure was a glass of liquid butter gulped early in the morning for a week. Coughing, mostly caused by smoking could be cured by beating egg yolks with coffee, every morning . The evil eye causes misfortunes, a result of envy by jealous people. Killing a colored rooster and pouring its blood on front of your house could combat it. Incense was supposed to attract customers to whore houses. the story is long. What made me write this is the sad story of someone who thinks he conquered AIDS. My intention is to force a smile for such a sad incident. ***image2:left*** A friend was very enraged when he directed my attention to an article titled, AIDS CONQUERED. 'This is news worthy of celebration', I commented. "No, just read it and be disgusted", he advised me. I did. I was more disgusted than my friend would ever imagine. A doctor who compares himself to Galileo Galilee announced his findings and determined sexual intercourse has nothing to do with the transfer of AIDS! The doctor who wrote the book review is himself the author of the book. I have never seen someone reviewing his own booksure Galileo wouldnt do that. The reviewer, meaning the author promoting his witchcraft, referres to himself in the second person and few lines later he switches back to the first person. He had a problem deciding how to refer to the reviewer: I or He. Never mind that. What I am concerned about is the damage he must have caused so far and the damage he is poised to inflict. The so-called review is all about witchcraft. Galileo faced difficulties because he has to use science to convince witch doctors; the doctor is using witchcraft to convince scientists. That difference made the doctor climb a steep mountain with no tip in sight. In Southern Africa, one of the folk medicines prescription for the cure of AIDS is sleeping with virgins. Many virgins must have been victims of such ignorance. I even heard such rumors are circulating in Eritrea: if the doctor has been educating people that AIDS is caused by Dmu-dmu and Katikala, our local vodka, what is to prevent another such doctor from promoting the virgin none-sense? The doctor is presenting the destructive AIDS menace as a common cold. He further tells us that he was operating a clinic in Dekemhare for ten-years: who else would give such a person a license to operate a clinic if not the equally stupid PFDJ? The irresponsible government has limited its qalAlem fight against AIDS to distributing condoms and placing condom vending machines on different corners of our cities. Our doctors prescription is: dont drink the devils Dmu-Dmu and mount each other like crazy and you will be OK. I couldnt help imagining AIDS victims flocking to the clinic in Dekemhare in desperation. They must have been asked if they had sex before drinking Dmu-dmu or after! Then they would be told to mate like a rabbit provided they stop drinking that wicked Dmu-dmu. Sixteen years of research that presumably started a few years after the discovery of the HIV virus! Hurray, we have an Eritrean Dr. Gallo! Either they must have very influential witch doctors in Malawi or witchcraft is contagious there! The doctor writes in his so-called review, the author spent no time right from the outset to tell the medical profession and the world of his findings he was totally ignored and bluffed at me. His attempts to reach the various medical journals and institutions of research were futile and to avail. I am not surprised. Maybe porn magazines would buy the story if presented with the virgin cure from Malawi and its neighbors. Again the doctor asserts that he ...rejects the conventional dogma, which maintains that HIV causes AIDS and that AIDS is contagious. The book also totally disagrees with the notion that Africa is particularly suffering from the pandemic. Such stupidity can only come from disciples who worship the works of the Nazi Dr. Mengele who committed a crime against humanity by misusing his medical profession. The reviewer/author/doctor subscribes to a misleading idea: AIDS in Eritrea is a new phenomenon and for all practical purposes started in 1998 at the height of the Ethio-Eritrea war. This is a false assertion and it reinforces the PFDJs secretive handling of the epidemic. Eritrea didnt wake up one ugly 1998 morning to discover that 300,000 people are infected. The virus was running rampant uncontrolled until the deaths and exposure of the disease become difficult to hide. That is when the government started to come out slowly and cautiously and when its foot soldiers who considered the disease an Ethiopian property, started to recognize the risk. Religious leaders are implicated for going silent when the society was going awry; their inaction incriminates them. Doctors who didnt defy the regimes secrecy by blowing the lid to inform the public are culprits. Intellectuals who kept silent, save a few, mainly Yosef Gebrehiwet, are accessories to the crime. This articles main actor, the doctor, was busy preaching his witchcraft. We have 24, 000 orphans in Eritrea alone because of AIDS. Eritrea is dying of many causes: a virus disease called AIDS and a belly disease called hunger. That cannot be controlled because we have a bigger menace: a political disease called PFDJ. The doctor might get some solace by asserting that, President Tabo Mbeki came up with his views 10 years after I first trumpeted the idea to the world. But for some reality, please take a glimpse here. In fact, I read what the doctor calls his trumpet in the Internet in 1996. I would sympathize with him if he had told us he invented an AIDS vaccine and there was a conspiracy against him by the medicine manufacturing industry. As I understand it, Mbeks conflict with the West lies in the patenting of medicines and their exorbitant prices. Again check here and who knows, you might find out that herpes is caused by Swa. Tabo Mbekes problem is with the World Trade Organization (WTO) regarding agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) which many Africans believe should not prevent [WTO] Members from taking measures to protect public health. This was a main negotiating point in the November 2001 WTO meeting in Doha Qatar. The request is to prevent legal challenges from countries who hold the rights to the medicines and to secure access to medicine for the poor. Mbeki has not aired a weird theory that Katikala causes AIDS. If he did so or implied that sleeping with a virgin is a cure, I will have to submit that he has gone cokoo. Yes, there are many doctors who are rethinking the AIDS virus and studying it further. They even have Websites. But there are many others who are looking for a short-cut to fame and money or for other selfish ego trips. I would suggest to our doctor to close his clinic and instead go to a laboratory where he should study the virus and not go to a local bar or enda swa to study dmu-dmu and Katikala. He could get some Eritrean gray mice I dont know if we have white mice and tell the PFDJ that he will invent a vaccine and promise them half the returns: their greed will force them to help him; and since they treat life cheaply, they might even furnish him a few human guinea-pigs to test his anti Katikala-caused-AIDS pills. Since we are condemned to laugh at ourselves, it is prudent to laugh at the findings of the doctor and his stupid theory. The problem is we would have to laugh at a very expensive cost: Such stupidity can exasperate the already disrupted lives of our people and far beyond. With little information available and regimes politicizing the epidemic, Third World countries do not only risk more damage by AIDS virus, they risk the establishment of permanent ignorance to it. Students and health care professionals should take this witchdoctor on. One such person just did that yesterday: Daniel M. Negusse, from Tufts University in Boston, MA. I encourage Daniel to take necessary action to stop such stupid campaigns. I also urge our sister websites to differentiate between, education and the spread of ignorance.
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Photo Credits:
Aids virus: AMNH Jim Stoop/Exhibition Dept.
Aids orphans: Andrew Pekun and AVERT |
