UNGASS Youth Wrap

UNGASS Blog 9: From Inclusion to Leadership

I am on my way back to Washington, rolling away from the rollicking clatter of New York City and the seat of international administration at which over the past week, dozens of brilliant young activists have made their presence felt as profoundly as possible. As didactic and occasionally enthralling as the meeting was, I can’t seem to shake the lingering sense of disappointment at the ultimately mediocre strength of the session’s results. The final political declaration to come out of the 2006 UNGASS review was a mixed bag; encouragingly, it included the strongest youth language ever seen in such a document, as well as a demand for national targets (if not specific quantitative nor global ones) and some mention of putting life before intellectual property rights through access to generic drugs.

Paragraph 26 reads: “(Therefore, we) commit to address the rising rates of HIV infection among young people to ensure an HIV-free future generation through the implementation of comprehensive, evidence-based prevention strategies, responsible sexual behaviours, including the use of condoms, evidence-and skills-based, youth specific HIV education, mass media interventions, and the provision of youth friendly health services.”

Though it fails to mention comprehensive sexuality education, which would have undoubtedly been preferable to “youth specific HIV education,” this paragraph at least allows civil society and non-state actors to push national governments as close to full accountability as possible.

On a less positive note, the declaration fails to make explicit mention of specific at-risk communities, including Men who have Sex with Men (MSM), preferring to use the politically ambiguous term “vulnerable groups.” It also makes mention of “cultural values” in a warping of their original use, in order to allow particular regimes to continue to ignore and repress groups based on ideology, rather than public health or human rights. The declaration does not commit states to reaching the necessary goal of $23 billion USD by 2010, merely calling for signed states to “ensure that new and additional resources are made available.” Finally, the document does not make mention of universal access, a visionary step pushed by the UN since 2001 which is deserving of full political support.

Despite these setbacks, and make no mistake, these are definite setbacks whose exclusion will certainly hinder a truly effective response to global AIDS, I have been filled with a sense of optimism that Harriet, the middle-aged fabric designer I met at a diner across from the UN, considers simply youthful naiveté.

It is an optimism that I derived in-part after speaking to a young HIV-positive homosexual man from the South Bronx who got arrested inside the US Mission through an act of courageous civil disobedience, when he told me: “Now I know…I have the right to do this, and I can do this.”

It is an optimism borne from observing and participating in a number of spectacularly intense and provocative meetings of civil society: where immensely influential veteran activists—such as Eric Sawyer of Act Up and Asia Russell of Health GAP—teamed with a range of professionals from throughout the global south, to analyze, critique, and demand more from the bureaucratic process of disappointing compromise that the UN is renowned for, whilst equipped with nothing more than the weapons of tenaciousness, outrage, and moral agency.

An optimism that witnessed fellow youth advocates take media center stage with grace and aplomb, be they Deidre of Memphis, Tennessee on CNN International, or Nino Susanto of Jogyakarta, Indonesia on BBC World, entering the stage of public affairs with a vigor and intelligence that our generation may possess in abundance, but which the world continually fails to fully utilize.

HIV/AIDS is a treacherous, venomous disease, a devastatingly dark pestilence whose life-stealing enormity far outweighs that of any other phenomenon, natural or man-made, in human history. There are numerous countries, some within Sub-Saharan Africa, in which it has already reconfigured and ravaged the natural cycle of our species—robbing societies of an entire generation of young leaders and breadwinners. If HIV is to destroy us in such a way, reversing many centuries of progress in global prosperity, longevity of life, and the struggle for social justice: it will not be because of the superior biological nor mutational ability of the disease itself. It is well-known that we have effective antiretroviral therapy which allows for the prolonged, healthy life of people living with HIV/AIDS, and that such drugs can be produced for less than a dollar a day. In similar fashion, progress in the development of preventive microbicides, which are critical to the empowerment of women and girls, more potent treatments, and ultimately, a permanent cure, is well within the reach of modern medicine as well as society’s final realization of health as a human right.

No, humankind shall not be defeated by the HIV virus, but only by humankind ourselves. If we allow the unfettered greed of the pharmaceutical industry, which spends less on research than it does on advertising, whilst profiting in far greater excess than both combined; or the hateful ideology of discrimination due to sexual orientation, race, or class to persist in modern society; or the myopic trappings of political relations, mainstream apathy, and inexcusable inaction to come between humankind and the conquest of its greatest challenge to date, than it shall be a hellish self-fulfilling descent upon which humanity is tumbling.

I firmly believe that this shall not be the case.

I believe that my generation, in partnership with and in the spirit of past social movements that have come before us, shall not allow a mere lack of political will to defeat us. Over the past week, I have been blessed to partake in a bounty of inspiration and action, as youth summit members rallied their national delegations, excelled on official panels, and led the shouts of protest from within the very heart of the United Nations, the General Assembly Hall. This group of individuals: women and men; lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender, still deciding, and straight; Southern and Northern, short and tall; empowered and impatient, will wait no longer for their leaders to take decisive action to prevent new infections and provide access to treatment immediately.

We are Kuntal Krishna of India, who moved Mrs. Annan to visible effect when sharing the story of a 15-year-old HIV victim from his home, whom asked him to the Secretary-General’s wife with a painting of her deceased relatives. We are Keesha Effs of Jamaica, whose blistering presentation on the feminization of HIV shook UN delegates into congratulatory reverie. And we are Naina Dhingra of the United States, whose unyielding strength of character and mastery of the political process provides young people with a true leader at the highest levels of administration. As Incia Khan, a Pakistani-Canadian coordinator for the Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS so eloquently stated: “We must be the generation of change.”

Jan Eliasson, President of the UN General Assembly, issued the following call to all signatory states during the closing remarks of this week’s meeting: “Take this Declaration, and take the new spirit and understanding of these three days, back to your countries, and implement it.”

It is up to us to make sure that they do just that.