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Witness To AIDS (Autobiography)
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Product Description
In his intensely personal account of survival, Cameron blends elements of his destitute childhood with his daily duties as a senior judge and international human rights lawyer, while focusing always on the epidemic's central issues : stigma, unjust discrimination, and, most vitally, the life-and-death question of access to treatment. Cameron's remarkable story of his own survival in an epidemic that has cost millions of lives is at once moving and uplifting, sobering and ultimately hopeful.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #684717 in Books
- Published on: 2005-10-07
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 240 pages
Editorial Reviews
Review
"This book will be a major contribution by a courageous South African towards that quest for a better life for all."--Nelson Mandela
"If truth is beauty, this relentlessly brilliant and hopeful book is beautiful. It is a text to live by, if we aspire to the possibility of a better life for all…in a world widely threatened by HIV/Aids." --Nadine Gordimr, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 1991
"Cameron addresses the taboo questions of race, sexual orientation, poverty and stigma in the context of the HIV/Aids epidemic, writing almost always from a personal perspective, but with an unconditional commitment to social justice." -- Zackie Achmat, internationally renowned activist
"The HIV/AIDS epidemic has produced a few thoughtful and quiet heroes. Judge Edwin Cameron is one of them. His thought-provoking memoir is a breathtakingly beautiful story of our times. Cameron’s stunning prose draws us into the heartbreak and the triumph that is AIDS in South Africa, and his honest confrontation with the moral and physical reality of AIDS and its meaning for his own body and the body politic informs our hearts and minds. It is a true privilege to share this gifted and compassionate man’s thoughts and insights, his gripping exploration of black/white, positive/negative, gay/straight, stigma and compassion. The fearless gaze he casts into his own soul lifts his story beyond the AIDS epidemic in one place and time and makes it a timeless gift for the spiritual renewal of us all." --Susan Hunter, Independent Consultant to world health organizations
"Cameron tells a the story of both his own travail and South Africa's wider plight with the kind of admirable honesty that he urges others to adopt."--Oxford Today, Hilary Issue, 2006
About the Author
Edwin Cameron is a Justice in the Supreme Court of Appeal, South Africa, and an internationally respected human rights lawyer and AIDS activist.
Customer Reviews
A Witness To AIDS In Africa
In WITNESS TO AIDS, Edwin Cameron, a white South African judge discusses the AIDS pandemic in that nation and the world from both the political and the personal for he is a gay man living with AIDS-- and a very brave and compassionate one. Cameron understands totally that he is a lucky man because of the color of his skin and his relatively affluent position. He is able to afford the drugs that keep him alive but are out of the reach of most black Africans.
Mr. Cameron (should I refer to him as judge?) is brave in that he has always spoken out against racism, is not afraid to challenge President Mbeki, takes on the greed of drug companies, makes the comparison between the Holocaust denial and AIDS denial and speaks openly and honestly about his own HIV status. For example, he discusses how he became infected in one unprotected sexual encounter "during Easter 1985."
Altough the writer covers a tremendous amount of ground about AIDS in Africa and quotes many facts and figures, he is best when he makes the disease personal with experiences from his own life or naming the names of others with HIV/AIDS. One of the most moving passages from this fine work is about Cameron's telling his 78 year-old mother that (1) not only was he living with HIV but that (2) he was about to go public with his status. "I brought the conversation around and spoke gently to her. . . After a moment she glanced at me and quietly murmured: 'I thought as much, my boy.'" Though at first distressed by this new knowledge, she soon, however, began wearing the "red, furled ribbon of AIDS solidarity," until her death two years later. Mr. Cameron also discusses with candor his impoverished childhood, his being sent to a children's home, the accidental death of a sister and his father (an alcoholic) attending her funeral, having been given special dispensation from the warden where he was serving a year's sentence in prison for car theft. He acknowledges that being sent to a first rate school changed his life of poverty forever.
The writer's perception of the AIDS epidemic in the United States is a bit rosy. He seems to believe that the disease is kept at bay because of the drug cocktails readily available and affordable here. While certainly no comparison can be made between Africa and the U. S., not everyone here has access to drugs, either because they cannot afford them or there are not enough free drugs for everyone. The book also suffers from repetition. Since Mr. Cameron is an attorney by profession, this is probably an occupational hazard as it is not unusual for barristers to repeat themselves, particularly if they are arguing their case before a judge and/or jury-- in this case, the reader.
WITNESS TO AIDS, nevertheless, contains a wealth of information on the subject of AIDS in Africa and ought to have a very wide readership. Every page comes alive with both the writer's passion and humanity.
