condoms up the wazungu?

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Sep 07, 2005

Douglas Sylva at The Fact Is says that "foreign AIDS advisors" are mis-representing and sabotaging Uganda's abstinence-based anti-AIDS program out of ideological motives:

Abstinence and fidelity were responsible for the success in Uganda, and AIDS may now increase because Western institutions have insisted that condoms replace abstinence and fidelity training. According to Dr. Edward Green, a Harvard medical professor and an expert on Uganda, "Abstinence and fidelity objectives and indicators have been almost completely removed from Uganda's current national AIDS strategy (which were central to earlier strategies), apparently to appease the wazungu (foreign AIDS advisors)." And so there is the possibility that the West could use condoms to raise AIDS rates while at the same time blaming abstinence, in order to make the case for even more condoms.

Your Uncle Di's Swahili is a little rusty, but he can surmise that "foreign AIDS advisors" is a somewhat euphemistic rendering of wazungu. That doesn't diminish the force of Dr. Green's (or Sylva's) point in the least -- on the contrary, on the basis of those wazungu we've all come into conflict with in the culture wars, we can recognize the bent perfectly well.

Now if we could only get those foreign AIDS advisors out of their bishoprics ...