What a profound and thorough Special Report on AIDS (" The Plague Years," Jan. 17)! It was an excellent way to break the silence. We’re proud that Dutch photographer Geert van Kesteren got to show his work so extensively. When we gave him the Zambia assignment, we did not expect such a broad coverage of his message. Chapeaux bas!
Wiebe van der Woude
Amsterdam, Netherlands
“The Plague Years” was the most interesting coverage of the subject I’ve read. Everyone is aware of AIDS and AIDS-related problems, but to realize the full extent of the disease is devastating. Since Africa is unable to help itself, Western countries are obligated to help out. Our business as citizens is to make sure politicians redouble their efforts in this matter, and articles like yours help prod them into action.
Tim Lueninghoener
Ettlingen, Germany
Your complete coverage of the dramatic situation in Africa reminded us of how tragic the day-to-day situation is there. As your articles pointed out, this is worse than famine, and much worse than the holocausts of previous centuries. How can we help this sinking continent, and to what extent is the other world, the safe one, ready to intervene? Thanks, NEWSWEEK–your Special Reports shed light on so many important subjects.
Chafik Khaoutem
Turin, Italy
Geoffrey Cowley covered all the acceptable ways to curb the contagion of AIDS, but he stopped short of offering a foolproof prescription. I offered one–quarantine–to the American Medical Association, but this great organization was afraid to advocate it. The AMA, fearful of lawsuits by various groups, has avoided this as an official position. Perhaps medical leaders will find courage later, driven by frightening necessity. Working in China now, I’ve suggested the same to Chinese authorities as a practical solution. In this form of government, they can take prostitutes who test positive off the streets, require testing of foreigners and restrict the actions of patients. All governments should be so wise. Human-rights groups will carp and oppose it, but many lives will be saved. Such preventive measures will help save the next generations even in Africa. The color line, as you say, is no barrier.
Eugene V. Grace, M.D.
Guangzhou, China
You took a bold step to highlight the unspeakable devastation the AIDS scourge is causing in Africa. However, to confidently assert that the disease began in Africa as if that were a proven fact mocks the sincerity of your coverage.
Peter Simatei
Bayreuth, Germany
Your articles on the current tragedy sweeping Africa drew comparisons with the Holocaust–and so they should. For years, AIDS organizations have known that this tragedy was building toward a climax in Africa. Enormous resources have been available, but bureaucratic ineptitude and hidden agendas–matters of will and choice–have led to criminal neglect. There is a far deeper story here than meets the eye.
Peter Ravensdale
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
In 14 pages of text, the words “casual sex” or “promiscuity” were not mentioned once, even though this is the direct or indirect cause of 98 percent of all new infections in Africa. Nor was the fact that HIV is a sexually transmitted infection alluded to. Still, we must thank the writers and editors for saying, “Not one head of state showed up at the 11th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Diseases held in Lusaka, Zambia, last September.” Like the jolly fellow who pops out of his house in M. C. Escher’s masterly lithograph “Cycle” and does not look where he’s going, the heads of state are not concerned where HIV/AIDS is coming from.
Seth Abrahams
Ramat Bet Shemesh, Israel
I wept as I read your coverage of the AIDS epidemic in southern Africa. I’ve been traveling to Zambia for 15 years and have seen the progression of this terrible disease. Many of my Zambian friends have died, I assume of AIDS. You can’t be sure, since most are not tested and it is a taboo subject. I remember sitting in a church service in a village in southern Zambia and the preacher’s saying that one in four Zambians had AIDS. A loud murmur moved through the congregation, showing their distaste for even a mention of the subject. Although the problem seems insurmountable, individuals are trying to alleviate the suffering. Most Zambian families I know are caring for an AIDS orphan. These people are heroes. I applaud NEWSWEEK for its stories and beg us not to forget the devastation AIDS has brought upon the people of Africa.
Sheryl Ramsey
Liverpool, New York
In Africa, a significant proportion of AIDS cases in mothers and children result from HIV-contaminated blood. The areas hardest hit are those where unscreened transfusions are widely used for treating malaria, sickle cell anemia, pregnancy complications, trauma and surgeries. To help end AIDS in Africa, we must wisely invest hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure hospitals and clinics are safe.
Stephen F. Minkin
Brattleboro, Vermont
Thank you, NEWSWEEK, for the wonderful coverage on AIDS orphans in Africa. Maybe now people will wake up to the fact that AIDS is literally killing off our planet. If people believe that they are far removed from the AIDS epidemic, they are daydreamers.
Leslie Alperin
Pepper Pike, Ohio
In the case of Elian Gonzalez (" The War Over Elian," U.S. AFFAIRS, Jan. 17), it’s amazing that no one has addressed the issue of the mother’s irresponsibility. She lost her life, and her son almost lost his, in her quest for freedom. I can understand that she believed they would have a better existence in America, but to risk his life in the process, without the consent or knowledge of his father and his grandparents, was selfish and sad. If anyone thinks that the boy’s family in the States isn’t trying to win him over with that cute little puppy, presents and trips to Disney World, he’s clueless. The child belongs with his father and both sets of grandparents. These are the people who, for the rest of their lives, will always be there for him. Maybe someday his father and stepmother will try to come to America, when Elian’s older and able to speak and think for himself.
Linda M. Brown
Los Angeles, California
Let’s say a U.S. cruise ship sinks and the surviving kids are taken hostage by Iraq. The Iraqi government decides that it does not agree with U.S. policies and morals because it is unsafe for kids to go to schools where they shoot each other, do drugs and girls get pregnant a few seconds after puberty. Would you allow it to steal your children just because of that difference of opinion? Or would the entire U.S. Navy set sail? Countries and people have the governments they deserve. That is no reason to separate kids from their parents. America has no right to keep Elian, but if it does, get ready to take in a billion Chinese kids: baby girls risk getting killed because they are female, and boys will be brainwashed with communist ideas.
Nelson Santos
Caracas, Venezuela
If you don’t know what to do with someone else’s child, why don’t you ask your own? It’s barbaric to deprive children of their parents. Haven’t we seen enough distorted and broken little lives? Let Elian go home; his dad’s been waiting for him too long.
Vadim Vozdvizhensky
Sarospatak, Hungary
The Florida judiciary and Rep. Dan Burton and the Republican Party have piled shame upon the United States. What could be more humane, reasonable and fair for a boy who has lost his mother to go live with his father, who is, thankfully for him, alive and well?
Leandro Moura
Sao Paulo, Brazil
If young Elian’s father had taken the boy away from the custody he shared with the boy’s mother, and had died in the process as the boy’s mother did, the same people who are now totally disregarding the legal and moral rights of the father to be reunited with his son would have inundated the public with picture after picture of a weeping mother, and Elian would have been back in her arms within hours. Fathers’ rights are a joke in this country, Cuba and everywhere else. This country points its collective finger at Cuba and says the boy cannot be properly raised there. Where was everyone, including all his so-called American relatives, during the first six years of the boy’s life?
Donald A. Bowerman
Branson, Missouri
A father has the right to determine his son’s future. If this were reversed and a U.S. ship were wrecked off the coast of Cuba, and some relatives of a young American boy decided to keep the child and not let him go home to the United States to be with his father, Americans would go ballistic. International law is ideally based on one premise: no country is better than another. I’ll certainly agree that the government of Cuba is heinous. That doesn’t change the fact that our government is holding a child in this country against his legal guardian’s will. It is only arrogance that makes us think that this child should stay here.
DeWitt Gravink
Houston, Texas
As an American, I’m very disappointed with the way my government is handling this case. The situation is clear: Elian Gonzalez was trying to flee Cuba. It has always been the position of the U.S. government to send such people back to Cuba. Why is Elian an exception? If we make an exception for him, we’ll have to do the same for every other Cuban wanting the freedom that the United States has to offer. In a State of the Union address a couple of years ago, President Clinton said, “We are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of law.” If we don’t watch out, we’ll soon end up a nation of exceptions.
Mark Roberts
Raguhn, Germany
Thanks for the Special Double Issue of Dec. 27, 1999-Jan. 3, 2000. A noble effort, it will remain in our family archives. I had searched in vain for a portfolio of memorable pictures of objects in the universe until I finally saw your great pictures.
John Mussell
Harare, Zimbabwe
In Praise of the Ivies Am I hopelessly square, or might a college education be “worth” something more than its future income-enhancing potential (“The Worthless Ivy League?” OPINION, Nov. 1)? My education was not cost-effective. I could have gone to a lesser-known college free. Instead I chose an Ivy League school where I was surrounded by brilliant and creative people (both peers and faculty) who exploded my horizons, nurtured my study and inspired me every day I was there. Forget the credential–if you qualify for admission to a wonderful college, I say you’d be nuts not to go there and seize a learning opportunity you’ll never have again. I’ve never felt cheated by my choice.
Deb Sweeney, Yale ‘89
Eden Prairie, Minnesota
I’ll be graduating from one of the schools Robert J. Samuelson mentioned as not worth the money. The squabbling of statistical studies and the validity of the SAT as a measure of anything aside, I question the assumption that the subsequent earnings of graduates measure their success. When I leave Swarthmore, I’ll live in a world whose possibilities have been opened up to the light of critical thinking. Like my classmates searching for jobs, I’ll focus not on income but on fulfillment, happiness and personal interest. As I receive my degree in economics, I hope to pursue a life of poetry, philosophy and family raising. I may not own many corporations or live the hectic life of the presidential contender, but I also won’t wonder, over a cup of tea or during a nice evening stroll, what those statistical data Samuelson cites have to say about me.
Sean Brennan
Swarthmore, Pennsylvania
It is true that what a student brings to college is more important than where she chooses to study. But there’s a flaw in the research that led to this conclusion. The criterion used for judging the success of a student after college is money, which differs from one career choice to the next. After college, I’ve never earned much money: first I was a Peace Corps volunteer; now I’m a graduate student and teaching fellow. When I finally finish, with a Ph.D. in hand, I will not earn much money, even assuming I find a good job. But that will not make me any less successful than my college friends who are now earning three times as much as I do, because I measure success by job satisfaction. So what did my education give me? The courage and confidence to do what I most enjoy. That is success.
Patty Suppes
Mebane, North Carolina
