In the” Mask in the Face of Death” Sezler calls upon the government refusals in the words of foreign tropical rites like carnival and voodoo. Sezler uncovers the truth on how the Aids pandemic ravages the Haiti as the government watches helplessly. Here, he tells to his audience the truth about the official refusals of the cruelty of the AIDS pandemic as well as how he sees the reality underneath the mask. This article is in line with the privileged eye witness account whereby the writer is a stranger in foreign land whose depiction of AIDS pandemic in the developing counties is authenticated by its claim to be purposeful, a scientific explanation of phenomenon viewed or first hand. In this article Sezler depicts the AIDS epidemic as an economic issue rather than a health one. The article shed some light on a number of truths like AIDS pandemic is more prevalence that government admits. His visit to the health care facilities also tells us. The public health system has rotten completely and as such incapable of taking care of those infected by the AIDS.
The author observes that the government is aware of the AIDS epidemic numerous effects on our culture and society as well as its impacts on conceptions of disease. The AIDS epidemic has turned to be an industry, with a carelessness and irrational attitude within the ranks of its promoters (Ian, 1999). Regardless of considerable failures to advance the health of people, lack of vaccination and the various toxic prescriptions which are popularly misreported in both the health and conventional press, the HIV/AIDS hypothesis has taken on a life of its own driven by huge funding from the governments and pharmaceutical companies. The HIV/AIDS theory is shielded by a system which fights and endeavors to demolish all those who dare to challenge it (Hiram, 1994). In a nut shell Selzer portrays Haiti as sexual victim devastated by western capitalists.
The AIDS pandemic shifts along the weak lines of our society where it turns into a symbol for understanding that society.
To support my thesis statement I will discuss how the Haiti government masks the truth about the high rate in spread of AIDS among the poor urban population. I will also explain how the AIDS pandemic is turning out to be social problem rather a health one. I will also provide an explanation based on the article by Selzer on how deep rooted social codes and cultural stories shape our understandings and depictions of AIDS. Finally, I will examine the reciprocity between science and culture, between the AIDS pandemic and its social perspective.
Richard Selzer was shocked when he found out the problem of AIDS in Third World countries. He decided to explore this problem more precisely. He thought that a problem could be explored only in its environment. So he travelled to Haiti and stayed there for three weeks. During his trip he made some notes of what he had seen there. He noted down as the facts and stories he heard from local population and saw with his own eyes, as interviews with local officials, prostitutes and managers of hotels, etc. when he came back into USA his notes were published in well-known magazine Life in the article under the name “A mask on the face of the death”. This name was rather provoking as it implied the fact that government reduces the range of the tragedy of Third World. His article is written in a brilliant calm language in form of narration.
The article begins with the description of Selzer’s arrival: “It is 10 o’clock at night as we drive up to the Copacabana, a dilapidated brothel on the rue Dessalines in the red-light district of Port-au-Prince” (p. 59). Outside the Bar Sezler is importuned by men and women offering a variety of sexual pleasures, inside he interviews three female prostitutes from Dominican Republic, who describes AIDS as an Economic problem but a health problem. Each of them was dressed in red – a kind of sign of prostitutes. This great number of women with promiscuous sexual relations shocked the physician. Next morning he went to local hospital to talk to local physicians. There he gathered information of registered number of HIV-infected people in the region. Selzer also examined several patients with apparent HIV-related infections and noted that too little treatment was available for them.
Selzer took up a rather argued attitude, as he blamed First World in HIV and AIDS spreading in countries of Third World and Haiti in particular. He said that the virus appeared in the country due to careless and pervert First World travelers. “Could it have come from the American and Canadian homosexual tourists, and, yes, even some U.S. diplomats who have traveled to the island to have sex with impoverished Haitian men all too willing to sell themselves to feed their families? Throughout the international gay community Haiti was known as a good place to go for sex” (p. 64).
Selzer was disappointed that in this country there were too little places to work, so men and women were almost forced to make money by selling their bodies to foreigners. He represented Haiti as a sexual victim of capitalist countries. He said that the country was exploited to satisfy the desires of pervert tourists. In his article he described an interview with a hotel manager of one of the hotels for foreign tourists. This hotel was owned by two Frenchmen, though they were not present at that time. According to Selzer’s words this man was desperately ill, though he had to make his living to bring money for his family. “Tottering, short of breath, he shows us about the empty hotel. The furnishings are opulent and extreme—tiger skins on the wall, a live leopard in the garden, a bedroom containing a giant bathtub with gold faucets. Is it the heat of the day or the heat of my imagination that makes these walls echo with the painful cries of pederasty?” (p. 64).
To Selzer’s mind, northern capitalists raped Haitian people just like as HIV-virus raped the country. “As AIDS ravages Haiti, Selzer finds a taboo against the truth” (Michael, 1990, p. 320). He was deadly sure that the country was affected by exotic customs which attracted deadly sexual practices.” Ultimately, for Selzer, AIDS in Haiti is an unambiguous mor(t)ality tale about the evils of sexual excess ” (Fee, & Fox, 1991, p. 380).
Selzer wrote his article as a firsthand report, so it is quite easy to imagine what was going on when the author was traveling around the country. It’s easy to see the pandemic situation which flooded the country.
In his article Selzer wrote several reasons why AIDS was spreading so quickly around the country. The first reason was that the countries of Third World are countries of fallen society, some “opposition between capitalists and communists” (Fee, & Fox, 1991, p. 380), where government doesn’t take care of citizens though it cares only about surviving. This society denies industrialization and modernization. The second reason is the culture existing in the country. Specific religions and rituals such as voodoo religion and other helped spreading HIV—infection as they include rituals where blood and sexual intercourse are necessary elements. As it was said in of the interviews provided in the article voodoo is “a demonic religion, a cancer on Haiti” that is “worse than AIDS”(p. 62).
Selzer’s article is full of interview with informal sources. He was sure that only informal sources can be trusted as government tried to reduce the pandemic situation.
There are some interviews in his article taken from street prostitutes. He asked them whether they didn’t afraid to have sex with great amount of men without any fear of getting a new victim of HIV. And he got shocking answers. “AIDS!” Her lips curl about the syllable. “There is no such thing. It is a false disease invented by the American government to take advantage of the poor countries. The American President hates poor people, so now he makes up AIDS to take away the little we have.” The others nod vehemently” (p. 60).
Selzer finished his article with words: “This evening I leave Haiti. For two weeks I have fastened myself to this lovely fragile land like an ear pressed to the ground. It is a country to break a traveler’s heart. … Perhaps one day the plague will be rendered in poetry, music, painting. But not now, not now” (p. 64). That is a good metaphor of what he was thinking of. He represented a whole country as a patient and he was a doctor trying to find out what was going on and how to cure the disease.
Selzer was the first in the First World who depicted the trouble of AIDS so deeply. He pointed that it is not the problem of health, though a problem of society. His article was followed by pictures that he had taken during his traveling. There were rotting bodies near local clinics, smiling prostitutes dressed in red and dirty children in shabby cradles.
These pictures showed the social side of HIV and AIDS spreading all over the country and all over the world. The percent of infected people grows in the countries with poor economy where it is not taken enough care about human health and social status. Countries, where jobless people, prostitutes and drug-addicts are outsiders, though not the members of society who need help.
Why do people still spread HIV/AIDS today, when antiretroviral medicine is available? There are several reasons for this fact. The first and the main reason is that antiretroviral therapy costs a lot and thus it is available on for people who can afford it. But “even in wealthier countries, such as America, many individuals are not covered by health insurance and cannot afford treatment” (“Why Do People Still Develop AIDS Today?”, n.d.).
The second reason is that some of people could be infected many years ago, when there was no antiretroviral therapy and till today they can be unaware of their infection giving to the virus the opportunity to spread. And here comes the third reason – as this group of people infects another, these individuals can also have no idea of their HIV-virus, even if they were infected nowadays.
And the last reason is that some people cannot strictly observe the rules of taking antiretroviral therapy treatment thus giving the virus the opportunity to survive. Or they have some allergy to components of this therapy or simply they cannot bear the side effects of the therapy.
HIV/AIDS is a great problem of contemporary world. It doesn’t matter whom to blame as Selzer did, it matters how to struggle with this problem. In 2008 nearly 3 millions of people were infected and in this year nearly two-thirds of all deaths from AIDS were in Africa, especially in its southern region.
AIDS is dangerous because it reduces immune powers. In fact, people die not because HIV virus, though because of infections which follow it. HIV grows into AIDS when an infected person has too many co-morbid illnesses. As it was mentioned in Selzer’s article, the most popular of these satellite diseases is tuberculosis. This infection is easily spread in countries with warm climate such as Haiti, etc.
“Selzer’s article does not define maladi-a or tell us whether tuberculosis is counted in Haiti as a disease that signals AIDS or is, like AIDS, simply one of many wasting diseases; nor is it clear that the woman in the photograph has actually been diagnosed with AIDS. But reproduced months later in the Canadian newsmagazine Macleans, the identical photo, no longer ambiguous, is captioned “Haitian AIDS victim: a former playground for holidayers” (Fee, & Fox, 1991, p. 384).
In First world countries, the most commonly spread opinion is that HIV/AIDS is disease of Third World people, though in Selzer’s article Haiti’s local population called this disease “white man’s disease” (Fee, & Fox, 1991, p. 384).
Today is high time to gather our forces and struggle with this terrible disease together, helping those who is for some reasons unable to join it as a full member.
Reference List
Fee, E., & Fox, D. (1991). AIDS: The Making of a Chronic Disease. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hiram, C. (1994). The AIDS mirage. Wales: University of New South Wales Press. Web.
Ian, Y. (1999). The Stonewall experiment; a gay psychohistory. New York: Cassell Press. Web.
Michael, C. (1990). Surviving AIDS. New York: Harper Collins. Web.
Sezler, R. (2001). Mask in the Face of Death. New York: Picador. What Is AIDS: Why Do People Still Develop AIDS Today? Web.