From Rogue to Vogue

Just noticed that yet another story has been posted on the Internet alleging that a cure for Hiv/Aids is imminent. I used to send such news to a couple of Hiv-positive characters that I’ve known for many years…one in Thailand and the other in England. Both of them eventually asked me not to send any more. They were sick and tired of reading claims that soon became dismissed by the medical community. In short, they were sick enough with the virus and the accompanying treatments not to be further afflicted with false hopes. Nevertheless, odds are that a genuine cure will eventually be discovered. I intend to hazard a prediction with regard to what sort of phenomenon will take place when that happens. Stay tuned…

Not long after the end of World War Two, an increasing number of people claimed to have been members of the French resistance movement to undermine the occupation of their country. In a few years it became clear that if even half as many French men & women had actually done so, the Nazis would have been ousted from France in a matter of months. An admission that would have been a death sentence during the war had become fashionable. That issue was admirably addressed in a 1969 documentary by Marcel Ophuls entitled ‘The Sorrow and the Pity’. The scores of French and Germans that he interviewed made it obvious that a relatively small number of brave souls risked their lives to sabotage the Nazi occupation. The vast majority collaborated with the Vichy government which, in turn, shamelessly collaborated with Hitler’s henchmen. That was the fashion at the time. Needless to say, Ophuls’s film was a huge embarrassment and not favorably received. It was banned from French television until 1981.

During the 1960s, U.S. military involvement in Vietnam became more and more unpopular with a growing number of Americans. Protest rallies and marches broke out across the country. Military personnel returning from the conflict were spat upon and called “baby killers”. That was the fashion back in those days. However, strangely enough, the fashion changed. Rambo happened! Sylvester Stallone movies glorified U.S. military veterans who fought in Vietnam. Oliver Stone’s movie, ‘Platoon’, also furthered the cause. Although most Americans remained opposed to the Vietnam conflict, they became much more sympathetic to the American young men involved in it. By the time I settled in Southeast Asia in the early 1990s, guys my age were boasting about their military service in Vietnam. It was a badge of honor. Never mind that in some cases the boasting was entirely bullshit. Guys who would have been ashamed about it all 20 years earlier were telling lies in order to enhance their stature. The fashion had changed!

And so, on to my prediction regarding a cure for the scourge of Hiv/Aids…

My guess is when that happens; the number of people claiming to have the virus will skyrocket. In lieu of the current worldwide estimate of 40 million people with Hiv/Aids, the numbers could double. Why? Because it will become fashionable to have endured and prevailed…to have endured the suffering of being a social pariah, suffering for years the ill-effects of the expensive and highly toxic medicinal treatments and suffering from having few, if any, personal confidants who you’d trust to provide solace for that suffering and then, having some of those confidantes betray your trust as happened to the guy in England. He suspects they did so believing it would enhance their stature and garner sympathy for themselves by claiming to have a relative with the most dreaded illness of the past half century. Go figure!

T-shirts will be emblazoned on front with the slogan “I Suffered & Survived the Plague” and on the back "Pat Me Here". My two friends would never wear such a t-shirt and, yet, I have a small inkling about the misery they have endured…the misery that all Hiv/Aids patients have endured. For their sake, I hope a cure comes soon and that they accept it gracefully; not with fashionable bravado.