Kiosque : new publications of interest

Organizing

• APRES (Parisian self-help association for former prisoners). Prison... and then what ? Coming out of prison can quickly become, for some, an obstacle course. APRES proposes to help you with administrative hassles, your search for health care, continuing education, housing, etc. Membership : detainees, one book of 2F80 stamps ; individuals, 50F ; organizations and social services, 100F ; support starting at 150F. Make checks out to APRES (fiscal receipt on demand). APRES c/o MDM, 62 bis avenue Parmentier, 75011 Paris, France. Phone : (+33 1) 42 62 55 12.
• OPALS (Pan-african organization for the fight against AIDS). NGO active in 17 African countries. Its objective : "to facilitate the circulation of information and to support medical, research, and organizational efforts to fight AIDS across the whole of the continent." OPALS, 15-21 rue de l’Ecole de Médecine, 75006 Paris, France. Phone : (+33 1) 43 26 30 86.
• COMEDE (Medical committee for exiles). Health care support group for refugees. Located in the Kremlin-Bicêtre Hospital. Pavillon de la Force, 78 rue du Général Leclerc, 94272 Le Kremlin-Bicêtre cédex, France. Phone : (+33 1) 45 21 38 40. Fax : (+33 1) 45 21 38 41.
• URMED Solidarité ("Urgent Sick Foreigners in Danger"). Collective of organizations formed after the ADMEF (Association for the rights of foreign sick people in France) collective broke up in late 1994. Its objective : to get a law passed to protect foreign sick people from being deported or escorted by force to France’s borders. Contact : Djouher OULD MEZIANE. Phone : (+33 1) 44 52 33 83. Fax : (+33 1) 44 52 02 01.

Periodicals

• ACTION. Report on the internment of HIV+ people and PWAs in Sweden. News on ACT UP’s latest zaps (targetting Elisabeth Hubert, former Minister of Health, to demand the immediate release of all HIV+ prisoners, Gay Pride 95, etc.) Issue 34-35, ACT UP’s monthly bulletin, BP 12, 75462 Paris cedex 10, France. Phone : (+33 1) 48 06 13 89. Fax : (+33 1) 48 06 16 74.
• ALTER EGO. Roundup of 1994 World AIDS Day activities, report on risk reduction in Amsterdam. Many testimonials from residents of Paris’s multi-racial 18th arrondissement. Analysis of the Rapport du Comité Consultatif National d’Ethique and the report of the Henrion Commission, whose conclusions about methadone substitution and IV drug use "disrupt preconceptions." Press review and more. Issue 9-10, Association Espoir Goutte d’Or, 11 rue St Luc, 75018 Paris, France. Phone : (+33 1) 42 62 55 12.
• ASUD (Magazine by former drug users for drug users). Risk reduction : how to "chase the dragon". Responses of French presidential candidates to ASUD’s questionnaire on drugs and AIDS, TB prevention, hepatitis C, etc... Issue 9, ASUD Journal by former drug users for drug users, 23 rue du Château Landon, 75010 Paris, France. Phone : (+33 1) 53 26 26 53. Fax : (+33 1) 53 26 26 56.
• Le journal du sida. A relevant article titled "St. Martin’s island : The epidemic can’t be deported by ’charter.’" Three health professionals who live and work in St.Martin report on the institutionalized racism ("exclusion") of the sole, underdeveloped hospital on the island, and on the consequences of this racism for the health care of "immigrants" living with HIV/AIDS. Issue 79, November 1995. 13 bd Rochechouart, 75009 Paris, France. Phone : (+33 1) 40 70 85 90. Fax : (+33 1) 49 70 85 99.
• KI PUKAAR. Living with AIDS. Introspective look at four years of action by the NAZ Project, a sexual health agency for the South Asian, Turkish, Arab and Iranian communities. Press review of the British and South Asian press. Issue 11, the newsletter of the NAZ Project, October 1995. NAZ Project, Palingswick House, 241 King St, London W6 9LP, UK. E-mail : 100647.3422@compuserve.com
• Regards Africains. An important article by Kanyana Mutombo in this quarterly on African affairs, "Virus targetted against Africa." Should the Continent be closed to the Euro-American laboratories (CDC, Pasteur, etc), when their activity and its consequences are often held secret, beyond the control of ordinary citizens ? Issue 35-36, Fall 1995, 10 Swiss francs. Regards Africains, cp 46, 1211 Geneva 24, Switzerland. Phone : (+41 22)343 8793. Fax :(+41 22)301 1566. E-mail : regaf@iprolink.ch.
• REMAIDES. A study of the behavior of 6000 French youth, ages 15-18, concluded that 55% have already had sex, with or without penetration. 1.4% (women and men) indicated they had had at least one same-sex relation. 85% of those surveyed reported their use of a condom in their first sexual act. This number is up from 57% in 1989. However, 72% of boys and 51% of girls reported having used a condom during their last sexual act. No information about ethnic, national, or religious identity was collected in this survey. Issue 17, newsletter of AIDES Ile-de-France, free, 247 rue de Belleville, 75019 Paris, France. Phone : (+33 1) 44 52 33 79. Fax : (+33 1) 44 52 02 01.

Docume

nts

• Charter of Towns against AIDS. This statement came out of the French Third Meeting of Towns against AIDS, held 6-7 November 1995, which brought together a large group of French mayors in Perpignan, France. It is supposed to contribute to anchoring AIDS prevention and care efforts at the local level. However, this Charter does not acknowledge the gap between its principles and present reality, makes no mention of access to health care for immigrants, and takes no position on the deportation of PWAs. The Charter does, however, cite the necessity of "combatting social, religious, cultural and sexual discrimination which hinder the fight against AIDS," prones the respect of "confidentiality rules" and "reinforces the essential notion of the right to health for all." The Charter also encourages "information campaigns adapted to the people targetted, taking into account social and cultural contexts, with the priority given to the most vulnerable people." Finally, it insists on the importance of "international solidarity."
• Report on the second European meeting for the exchange of information on ethnic minorities, migrants, and AIDS. Focus on human rights and AIDS. Alden Biesen, Belgium, 2-5 June 1994. Editors : Kim Mulji and Oonagh O’Brien. Includes : the use of the European Convention of Human Rights, the role of the World Health Organization, women migrants. Available from : AIDS & Mobility, NYGZ, PO Box 500,

Books

• Le tombeau de la folle and Contes des vies rusées. By Nordine Zaïmi. Paris, L’Harmattan 1995. These two semi-autobiographical novels manage to irreversibly tilt the unfortunately all-too-classic genre of "testimony" of somebody living with HIV/AIDS. Gay Beur author Zaïmi tells the story of his contortedly intimate fight with the virus and with French society. Zaïmi, born in 1963 in Algiers, died of AIDS four years ago, in Paris.
• Une mort africaine : Le sida au quotidien. By Hubert Prolongeau. Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1995. Despite evident good intentions, this self-described "frightening chronicle" combines the worst of self-indulgent tourist ethnography with journalistic-style pseudo-sociology. It slides very rapidly into repetitively pounding in the imagined fatal, essential difference of "African AIDS." Yet, the book left us wondering if Prolongeau, in his "year spent in Africa", ventured beyond the local outlet of Médecins du Monde, the nightclubs, and TASO in Uganda.
• AIDS, Africa and Racism. By Richard and Rosalind Chirimuuta. Free Association Books, London, 1989. In-depth research useful in decomposing the history of Euro-American natural and social sciences’ racist fantasies about "African AIDS" in the 1980s. The book also dissects the role of the media in fabricating the image of an entire continent condemned to death by disease. Finally, this book also helps us to challenge the various conspiracy and denial theories about HIV/AIDS and Africa.