HIV awareness

Although HIV has become a very topical subject matter, it is still difficult to raise awareness about its prevention and its detection. As Florent pointed out during his presentation, a significant number of people have been infected with HIV and just don’t know it.
As most diseases, the earlier it is identified the better chances it has to be cured. But how to reach a significant part of the population when it truly seems impossible to make everyone get blood tests?
Prevention is the key word, but it necessarily is not enough. Some people will still contract the highly destructive virus and infect others.
Florent also stressed an important point: when individuals donate their blood, samples are always tested in order to ensure that they don’t put other people’s life in jeopardy. However, if the test is positive, doctors have no obligation to tell their patients that they contracted the virus, but merely have to mention the fact that they have a highly contagious disease. Therefore if patients don’t literally ask them what the disease is they must not tell them that they are infected with HIV.
Florent therefore asked the following question: In your opinion do doctors have the moral obligation to inform theirs patients about their infection with HIV?
The conventional view is that doctors should not keep information from their patients and should do everything that is in their power to save them.
One may argue against it and claim that individuals should have the right to lead the life they want and if they do not wish to know what ill is slowly killing them, well, it is their problem.
Let me give you three reasons why I do not abide by this second clause:
First of all, no need to remind that AIDS is tremendously deadly. It kills hundreds of thousands of people each year in developing countries in which they have no efficient means to fight the virus.
Since in our developed nations we do have the capacity to cure the disease, patients should quickly overcome their fear to deal with it and come down to earth: the sooner you start fighting against it, the greater your chances become to completely end the combat.
Secondly, it is because of its highly contagious nature that the HIV causes such stunning casualties. Therefore anyone HIV positive must be aware that they can unvoluntarily (the point is not to harass them) endanger others’ health safety. By keeping these information from HIV positive people, we are therefore endangering their own life and those of their potential sexual partners for instance.
Thirdly, getting to know about your disease does not mean you have to go through any cure. It is still up to individuals to decide on their future and to lead the kind of life they want.
Last but not least, it is important that doctors respect their patients’ privacy. In some cases, people have the right to keep their illness for themselves.

Harmony and nuclear diplomacy (got the joke? No? Wait for it ...)

Last week (well not exactly last week, but I have to pretend to be a good student, so …), Armonie (now you get the joke) introduces us to an article from The New York Times about nuclear diplomacy (totally a mess for me but I won’t go astray) and more specifically the new START treaty. Signed by two ancient enemies (USA and Russia), the new START treaty drafts a plan to shrink the bulk of nuclear weapons of both countries to 1500 warheads. The document was signed in a very fickle domestic and international background, recalls us Armonie. Indeed Obama was facing a lot of international setbacks, so he was trying to have a real diplomatic success here. In the United States, a debate about whether to ratify the treaty took place during the lead-up to the 2010 midterm elections and in the lame-duck congressional session afterward. While some polls have showed public support for its ratification, there has also been organized opposition (notably Republicans).

Here come the questions ...

• If one of both signatories wage war against the other, could the treaty manage to avoid the conflict?

Everyone on the class agreed to say that a war between Russia and USA was very unlikely (maybe Armonie wants to revive the ancient conflict, but I don’t think so … she seems to be a nice girl). But if such a conflict happened to strike, I don’t think the treaty would avoid the conflict: there are others weapons that can be used. Moreover today, nuclear weapons are a deterrent mean. They shall never been used. Their unofficial goal is to create fear so that any country which has it won’t do anything stupid with (the game theory in International Relations). So if a war is waged, the nuclear treaty will limit the damage. The international community has draft rules about war, and most of the countries abide by the international law. So to my mind, the treaty wouldn’t manage to avoid the war but the use of nuclear weapons (which wouldn't have been used anyway).

• Does this nuclear treaty better the relationship between Russia and USA?

I don't think it will. Seriously, after a cold war, some disinterest and a spy scandal, the relationship of the US and Russia seemed undermined. At least with the nuclear treaty they won’t fight each other with nuclear weapons and kill us all, but both ancient ennemies won't be friend overnight ... Of course a nuclear treaty is better than nothing, it could be a first step to a long walk together, hand in hand. I mean the countries don't even look alike.They don't have the same culture and the same political regime (is Russia a democracy by the way?), so they could be "acquaintances with benefits" but not "friends".

I love the cartoon.

Mugabe's vision of sharing

The 3rd of October, Marthe presented us an article from the Guardian about the situation in Zimbabwe. Mugabe, the Zimbabwean dictator, has ruined his country and has expropriated White landowners on racial criteria. According to Mugabe, they were expelled because they were acting like colonialist. For David Smith, the author of the article, on the one hand Mugabe and is allies own 40% of the land seized from the Whites farmers. On the other hand, the rest of the Zimbabwean people are dying of starvation.

Marthe asked us two questions after her presentation of the article:

• Do you think that the presence of multinational companies is necessary to develop the economy of a country?
• Do you think that it's better for a country to keep family production or to get a whole market production system?

If we agreed on the fact that multinational companies and a market production system could make the country more competitive, we also agreed on the fact that most of the time, the wages were too low to survive decently. Joseph insisted on the fact that Africa has been able to feed herself for centuries so that it should still be the case. If we obliged African people to accept the developed countries help to be more competitive, it would be neocolonialism.
Alizée raised a polemical point: she thinks that Black poor people don't have the skills anymore to rule their country and its economy on their own. She thinks that we should protect them some time from corruption and teach them how to rule Zimbabwe.
To the others' mind, the western model brought to them has created so many troubles that they should be allowed to make their own mistakes. Finally, everybody agreed when Arnaud said that the problem was the brutality of the expropriations. If they had been slower, Black people could have learned how to rule a farm for example.

According to me, Mugabe did the mistake Mandela avoided: he said that Zimbabwe was only for Black people whereas Mandela said that South Africa was the country of both White and Black people. This is the main point because now Zimbabwe is going to refuse any help from White people, even if it’s totally free. Surely one day Zimbabweans will know how to rule a country, feed a population… but this will not be before a long time and the whole population will still die of starvation during this time.

The march of the atheist movement

Last week Mathilde told us about an article published last year on the independant website and entitled « The march of the atheist movement ». It deals with the place of atheism in english society.

We learn that we are assisting to a revival of this philosophy for a few years, in a society where religion takes a central place. The atheist movement is leaded by organisations like the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies, wich is acting in universities; and by scientifics like Richard Dawkin, who writen the book The God Delusion. It benefited from a great publicity with an advertising campaign on buses, carriying the slogan: « There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life. » This campaign was initiated by Ariane Sherine, a young comedian. At the begining her aim was to raise £5,500 to run 30 bus ads across London for four weeks. But her idea was such a great success that she received more than £150,000 to realise the project, supported by Richard Dawkin. The result was more than 800 buses in the whole country, and similar initiatives in America and Spain.

This campaign had the interest to put the emphasis on the issue of religion in today's english society. In fact, the influence of religious organisations is very important, and some atheists tend to feel rejected by them. The aim of the campaign was to decrease the hold of religion on society,

We discussed about how we perceived this campaign, and about its impact. According to everyone, it had a spectacular effect, considering the number of people who see this slogan. It made them think about the issue of religion in society, and conceive the fact that there could be no god, that was the aim of the campaign. I think the campaign had a big impact because it is very unusual to see this sorts of ads on buses! That must have marked people's mind, and maybe will open a big debate in english society about the place of religion.

It introduces the second question, wich was about the future of atheism. Mathilde reminded us

that there is no separation between Church and State in England. Consequently religious organisations have an important power in the country. Atheists are fighting for more secularisation of society. Of course every one has the right to believe in his religion, and to practice it, but not to impose it to others people. I think atheism is going to develop, because of all the religious conflicts in the world, and all the horros that mens of all religions commit in the name of God. This will move a lot of people away from believing. Morover, the message of atheism is there is no need to have a god to have a sense to one's life, and to be happy. It places human being at the center, and not God, that could seduce numerous people in ours individualistics societies.

Defeating Al Qaeda

Last week, Siwar presented an article taken from the BBC news website published on November 14^th about the difficulties to beat Al Qaeda. The columnist tried to analyse the position of the head of the UK's armed forces, General Sir David Richards.

The latter had said that a military victory neither on the Taliban nor on al-Qaeda was possible. In order to introduce the topic, Siwar recalled that Al Qaeda (meaning "the base") was a militant Islamist group founded in 1988 by Cheik Abdullah Yusuf Azzam and Ussama Bin Laden which operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army. It’s a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad. She also replaced it in a threatening context of the Yemen terror alert, as two suspicious packages found in the UK and Dubai and destined for Jewish places of worship in Chicago appeared to have contained explosive materials. She finally presented Barack Obama’s point of view concerning this issue: according to him, the US should continue to work to destroy al-Qaeda and its affiliates and to root out violent extremism in all its forms.

Siwar then asked the group if an idea could be defeated; Terence underlined that we had to distinguish Al Qaeda from Afghanistan. Louis Vladimir then said that the Afghanistan population has been facing a long period manipulation. The country lives with its ideas but we can’t change them rapidly: it requires a long term process. After this hot debate that inflamed all the class Siwar asked a current controversial question: Is the risk for France to be attacked really serious, and shall we feel afraid about this menace?

According to me the risk France is currently facing seems well-founded, if we take into account the recent hostage-taking of french workers in the islamic Maghreb or the execution of the french ingeneer Michel Germaneau in July 2010. Yet the government use it in a way that afraid people more than necessary. Of course we should take into account the fact that our country is waging a war against terrorism, and this position can have serious aftermath. However if people are aware of it, fear seems useless: being cautious doesn’t mean we should be afraid everyday about our vulnerability. It is still the best way to defend democratic ideas against extremist ones.

Passive smoking

Last week, Quentin chose to make his presentation about the topic of passive smoking, also called second-hand smoking. Passive smoking is the fact that non-smokers can unvoluntarily get exposed to the dangers of smoking, by inhalating the cigarets' smoke. It can be source of several diseases, and causes over 600,000 deaths a year worldwide. It therefore appears as a problem that needs to be dealt with. Scientists have therefore mobilized in order to make people as aware of possible of the dangers of passive smoking, arguing that most of these deaths could be avoided with proper prevention and legislation.

He then asked two questions. The first one was about who was a smoker in the group, but no hands were raised but Quentin's one. In my opinion, this is to be related with some kind of embarassment to be a smoker (i don't think Quentin was the one and only smoker of the class, but he was apparently the only one to fully accept it). The second one was about if smokers were feeling guilty about it, but since there was no other "revealed" smokers in the classroom it encountered little reaction.

I myself am a non-smoker, and always try when possible to promote the rights of non-smokers to breathe free from the disturbance of cigarets' smoke. As Quentin said, smoking disturbance to non-smokers is more accute in enclosed places. A roommate can absorbe one fifth of the smoke inhalated by the smoker himself simply by standing next to him: This should in my view get the smokers to think more deeply about the fact that they deteriorate their friends health.
I think the government has a real will to fight passive smoking, and is aware that the best way to to so is to fight smokers themselves. However taxation on cigarets prices isn't the best solution to me: This can truly discourage some smokers, but it also penalizes tobaconnists, who aren't really responsible for what they sell to earn their livings. After all, smokers do smoke because they choose to do so, and their sector is not to be blamed for it. I therefore think that the government should create a fund in order to allow tobaconnists to diversify their activities, so as to compensate the loss related to the fight against tabagism.

The nuclear train.

In his oral intervention, Joseph decided to deal with a contemporary issue: the ecology. More precisely, he chose an article relating the incident between ecolo-activists and the german police, with a train carrying nuclear wastes on background. Indeed, France sent nuclear wastes to Germany, as they agreed, to be treated (maybe only burried) there.
The demonstrators tried by every means to stop, or at least slow down, the highly dangerous train. Joseph couldn’t explicitly tell us what he thought about these actions, and however, asked the class this simple question : «Do you thing that trying to delay the train is a good solution ? Or only a dangerous action ?»

There was a rough debate about it. Some persons said it was worth trying, at least to attract the world’s attention on the events. Others thought there was too much risks approaching that train, and what if they accidentally (or on purpose) derailled the train ? The consequences would have lasted for thousands of years, as Tchernobyl did.
It was interesting pointing out that the protests were maybe deeper that what we thought. Indeed, there was certainly a will to explain that the nuclear power isn’t the solution, because even if it provides the energetic autonomy to plenty of countries, its wastes are a poison for the nature and their damages are permanent if not treated really cautiously.

I am in the same situation as Joesph is. It is difficult for me to coin a point of view. I see myself as a defendor of the planet (who doesn’t ?) but the nuclear power is still necessary to produce energy, since the «green» powers aren’t developed enough to provide the whole quantity we need.
Moreover, compared to its production, this energy doesn’t create too much waste.
But in the meantime, I remember the pictures of the Ukrainian children, born near Tchernobyl a few years after the explosion of the nuclear power station.
Concerning the means of protests, I think the opinion needs to be shocked in our society. A «buzz» has to be created if you want to make the opinion debate about what you did. The petitions are more democratic than «attacking» a train but they are much more useless, aren’t they ?
I also think that it is no accident that these events happened in Germany. Their environmental conscience is extremely developped, and maybe we should learn from them. Yet, I have to admit that the activists around the train weren’t all German !

To conclude, I think something had to be done about this «nuclear train», but I’m afraid that even that kind of protestation, rather violent, is as useless as a petition or a website.