A photojournalist who has revealed the lives of HIV/AIDS sufferers to the world, Andrew Petkun spoke Wednesday night in the Wisconsin Union Theater about the common humanity of these people and media portrayal of them. He has worked for the State Department and has lectured extensively in Africa and elsewhere. Before Wednesday's lecture, Petkun spoke with The Daily Cardinal about his experiences.
You've photographed nine African countries. Could you describe the daily environment at their HIV and AIDS clinics?
There's a lot of very patient waiting ... waiting for attention, waiting to be seen, waiting to be helped. ... Some of these people are afraid even to be there because of the terrible stigma of the disease. They're concerned about being seen, they're concerned about being identified and as a result of that, being shunned by the community.
Do you see that stigma as an obstacle to AIDS prevention?
I see stigma as an obstacle to everything. ... I see it as an obstacle to getting people to be tested, to find out what their status is so they can protect themselves and others by not having unprotected sex. I see it as an obstacle to governments to address the issue in the ways they need to and make it a vital part of their national interest and national security. I see stigma as the key factor in allowing this disease to continue to spread in the extraordinary numbers that it is spreading across the world.
How do your photographs help to reduce that stigma?
First of all, my photographs are intended to give credibility and dignity to the people who are suffering, to give them a sense of value as human beings, ... to make a permanent record of them.
The second thing I try to do in Africa is to use the photographs I've taken to provoke behavioral change to get people to understand the need to act responsibly.
The third thing I intend by the photographs I take is to get people in the West ... to understand that there are millions upon millions of people who are not only dying from disease but who are living with it, who deserve and are entitled to not only our compassion but our support and our resources. Unless and until we give them our support and resources, they are going to die like flies in a bushfire.
Forget the reasons why we should, from the moralist's perspective, do something about it. Just deal with the fact that we are dealing with a world that becomes increasingly unstable, and poses a significant threat to our own security-not simply here, but throughout the civilized world, the ordered world, world where there is structure-there's an enormous threat to that.
If you care to repeat it, what was the most harrowing moment in your photojournalism experience? Was there ever a time when you said, \I won't do this anymore?""
Whenever I come in contact with people who are close to death [but] still have enough strength and they reach out to me ... grab my hand, and ask, like a person sinking in quicksand, ""Help me! Help me!"" That's always very disturbing.
The most vivid image I have is of three children. ... The youngest was very cruelly, very badly diseased and looked like he was a lot younger than he was and couldn't walk. The eight-year-old girl was not only sister, but 'mother' to this child and not only holding him, but holding a child that was clearly going to die very soon! Their father had died a year before I came to see them ... and their mother died the week before the photograph was taken ... they were sitting on her grave, a mound of fresh dirt. That was something which has never left my mind.
What do you think people can do in their daily lives here?
The first thing they can do is take responsibility for themselves. That's number one. People have got to understand this is not a disease ... a long way away from where they are. This is a disease which is here. This is a disease which does not respect any boundaries of any kind. If they think it's not here because they live in relative comfort with good medical systems, they're full of themselves.
They also need to understand that this is not a chronic disease ... which you can just take pills for every day and you'll be OK and someday there'll be a cure ... and that'll be the end of that! This is a life-threatening disease for which there is no cure. ... It is in our enlightened self-interest to do something to stop this disease, because it is on our doorstep.
We must mobilize; we must get angry! We must get up and say, 'I am not going to take it any more!' We must do what we need to and what we have to in order to stop this terrible disease from killing off so much of humanity and infecting so much of humanity before it becomes totally uncontrollable. ... We could see a hundred million people infected with this disease within the next ten years. Can you imagine that?
That's incredible.
It is incredible. I believe we're going to see more than that in deaths over the course of this thing. More than that-far more than that, in numbers people won't be able to comprehend.
