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Hart & Soul

Since 1999 heterosexual sex has been the most common route of new hiv infections in the uk. With the rise in the numbers of those who acquired infection heterosexually there has been an increase in the number of women diagnosed. Women are now the fastest growing group of people who are newly diagnosed with HIV.

Early diagnosis and developments in hiv treatments have dramatically increased the life expectancy of those living with the virus. Hiv is still a potentially life threatening and stigmatising illness. Many other factors can add to the isolation and social exclusion often experienced by women living with HIV. (information courtesy of www.positivelywomen.org.uk)

Here annie lennox talks about her work with hiv charities and two women tell it like it is living with HIV

Iconic singer-songwriter annie lennox was so moved and shocked by the stigma and treatment of people living with hiv/aids that she put body, heart and soul into inspiring 23 female artists from madonna to celine dion to perform an hiv anthem raising money to help the aids crisis in africa. David taylor met up with the singer to find out more about her inspirational project.

ast year saw iconic artist Annie Lennox release her new album, Songs Of Mass Destruction. The album includes the poignant track Sing, which will be used to raise money for people living with HIV/AIDS in South Africa. The HIV anthem features the vocals of 23 top female artists including Madonna, Shakira, Celine Dion, Dido, Gladys Knight, KD Lang and Joss Stone, not forgetting, of course, a choir made up of activists from South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign, known as The Generics.

It was a CD of music recorded by The Generics that first inspired Annie to make Sing. The charity single is intended to increase awareness about HIV/AIDS, raise funds for the Treatment Action Campaign, and also to call for the national implementation of a programme to prevent mother-to-baby HIV transmission.

DAVID TAYLOR: What first drew your attention to the AIDS crisis in South Africa?
ANNIE LENNOX: Well, I got an invitation to perform at the inaugural 46664 Concert; that was Nelson Mandela’s prison number when he was in Robben Island, and he agreed to use it for his HIV/AIDS foundation. That concert was held in Cape Town with Peter Gabriel, Bono, Dave Stewart, Beyoncé, The Corrs and a whole bunch of people. It was a very special event and it gave all the musicians the opportunity to appraise the affect of HIV/AIDS in that country.

DT: When did the point come when you just knew you had to take action?
AL: I‘d heard there was a pandemic in Africa, so I had a sense of it, but it wasn’t until I was in the country myself and I had that opportunity to hear what Mandela had to say that it really shook me. Madiba [Nelson Mandela] stood in front of his former prison cell and made a speech about HIV/AIDS. It was so shocking because he said: ‘We are facing a genocide’. You see figures and we hear statistics - and they’re horrific - but until you get that ‘Aha!’ moment it’s just too abstract to comprehend.

DT: When you visited the communities hit by HIV/AIDS, what was the reality?
AL: I was recently in the Eastern Cape, which is one of the poorest regions in South Africa. I went into a supermarket that’s very near one of the hospitals I visited and they’re selling different sized coffins next to the gardening tools. I’ve seen the holes that they’ve dug for the babies; every orphanage has got a graveyard and every hospice has got a place where they have to bury people. There are funerals taking place all the time, and still people are in denial.

DT: Because of the stigma attached to HIV?
AL: There is huge stigma. People get sick, and they don’t want to talk about it. What baffles me is that I don’t understand President Mbeki’s approach of denialism, and I don’t understand the Health Minister’s response. He says that AZT (the drug that fight HIV/AIDS) is so toxic it will kill you sooner than an AIDS-related disease will. It’s absolutely mad. It’s terribly ironic that they’ve come out of the battle of the apartheid regime and now they have a whole other kind of invisible war going on that is killing people like flies.

DT: How did the brutal reality measure up to your preconceptions?
AL: It’s funny that the whole thing was so impactful on me it’s hard to remember what I was thinking before I went there. It was vague - that they have a lot of problems and HIV is just one of them. Like malaria is one of them, like TB is one of them, like dysentery is one of them, malnutrition is another one. They have the lot all served up to them. Women are often raped, or forced into sex and that’s how they become innocent victims. It’s not about choice, it’s not about choosing safe sex. Men don’t believe in safe sex. Using a condom is an anathema to them. Many men still believe that if they have sex with a virgin they might even be cured of the disease – it’s that mad. So they need education. Then you have the background of stigma and silence. 4

DT: You said in one interview that you hadn’t fully processed the experience yet.
AL: You are entering into a zone where the value of life and the quality of life is on a very different level. It does take time to adapt and it does take time to process. It’s very heart-wrenching when you go to hospitals and they’re so short-staffed, so under-funded, they don’t have the right kind of treatment and they don’t have the right facilities. These hospital staff, to me, are such heroes. They’re working 24-7, against all the odds, and they tell you ‘sometimes we bring food in ourselves - just to help’. Moment-by-moment people are wandering up and they’re like skeletons. You see a battle going on, and you know they can’t win it.

DT: As a wealthy Westerner was it hard not to come away from South Africa with some sense of guilt?
AL: I wasn’t born with money. I come from a poor background. My father worked in the shipyard and the railways, so we knew the value of the pound that he earned. He worked damn hard for it. So I know about not having much. It just so happens that I’ve been fortunate. I didn’t start to have money in the bank until I was about 29 and I had been making music for quite a long time. There were a few rip-offs on the way. I have made a lot of money it’s true, but then you take your turn to be accountable. You take responsibility.

DT: By giving something back?
AL: You try to give a lot back. I have my own charitable foundation – the Annie Lennox Foundation. So I can look myself in the mirror. I don’t think I’ve exploited anybody and I don’t feel too guilty. Being wealthy doesn’t exempt me from saying poverty should be made history, and I’m better situated to can contribute to that. I enjoy flying First Class, I enjoy affording good hotels that are comfortable, but I don’t want to live in a castle and I don’t want to have a private jet. That’s my own decision. I live within my means and I try now to use some of the money I’m making to benefit other people. I think there’s the balance.

DT: You’ve been quoted as saying your ‘blood and bones’ are in the new album.
AL: Metaphorically. It comes from a very deep place. It’s visceral for me. I pour my heart and soul into it.

DT: Is the creative process a painful one?
AL: No. I like the creative process. It’s a wonderful thing once it starts. What a beautiful thing to be able to do. I won’t say it’s easy. It is challenging, but I’ve put myself in that position.

DT: Do you ever feel that it’s too raw and you’ve exposed too much of yourself?
AL: I think that’s what music’s about. That you express something for people, that you make something that everybody can identify with. And they say, ‘Wow, that moved me to tears’ or ‘I know what she’s on about. I feel like that.’ To a point it’s personal, but to another degree it’s broad. It’s about what we all feel: the pain that we feel, the longing that we feel, the loss that we feel. I cover it all because I know it; I’ve been there. I am that person too.

DT: Which songs on the new album are you especially proud of?
AL: They’re all special to me. It’s like a necklace that’s strung with beads of different sizes and colours and shapes. They’re all beautiful. I like to look on it as a collection of songs that take you on a journey. You start with ‘Dark Road’ it carries you along through highs and lows.

DT: Listening to the album I sense that you’ve come through difficult times to a happier place?
AL: I’m possibly more accepting of certain things. It hasn’t been a walk in the park. I’ve had my struggles, and at some points I’ve thought it’s just too much. Happiness comes and goes. I think it’s all about your relationship to gratitude at the end of the day. How grateful am I to be on this planet? There were times when I didn’t want to be, but the one thing that’s kept me going is the sacred responsibility of my two daughters. I have to be here for them no matter what, and I have to be exemplary for them, and I have to make them feel that it’s OK. Otherwise, what the hell did I bring them into this world for in the first place?

DT: When you look back on your career so far, can you actually believe it?
AL: I decided to take stock of it a few years ago. All my awards that were bubble-wrapped and covered in dust in various storage units; I thought maybe I should get them all out and list my legacy, which I’ve done. The project was to take photographs of every single one to put on my website for anyone who’s interested. [Smiles] It’s not like I need to go to the room every day and go: ‘Now let me see, how many awards did I win in 1983!’ It’s a good way of handling it. *

CHARITIES:

TREATMENT ACTION CAMPAIGN
The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) was founded on 10 December 1998 in Cape Town, South Africa. The organisation campaigns for treatment for people with HIV and to reduce new HIV infections. Their efforts have resulted in many life-saving interventions, including the implementation of country-wide mother-to-child transmission prevention and antiretroviral treatment programmes.
www.tac.org.za

46664
Nelson Mandela’s 46664 charity is an African response to the global HIV AIDS epidemic. Their focus is to raise awareness of the fight against the HIV AIDS pandemic and the underlying and associated issues that have such an impact - poverty, education, gender and the denial of economic opportunities for those infected and affected by HIV AIDS.
The campaign is named 46664 (pronounced four, double six, six four) after Nelson Mandela’s prison number. Mandela was jailed in 1964 for 27 years for and imprisoned on Robben Island, off Cape Town in South Africa.
www.46664.com

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