European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 25, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 columns William Buckley the stars and stripes saturday april 25,1987 it s hot enough to sound pm alarm about aids Stephrn Jay Gould he popular an Learned biologist from Harvard has conic in Wajih a scientific View or the aids virus from which relearn o great deaf but not enough. He begins by telling us Hal aids is simply one More of nature anti human Phenomena or which history records a multiplicity. The last time around it was the flu epidemic of1919-10. Which for a White looked As Hough it was competing to prove i hat nature could kill As Many human being As dumb statesmen. We have had relatively gentle limes since then and also a lot of striking victories for instance against smallpox but All that Lime deadly nature was ticking away and listen to what professor could now says aids is potentially the greatest natural tragedy in human could gets Marc explicit yes aids May run through the entire population and May carry off a Quarter or More of and us As Here used clearly does t mean a Quarter of us ugandans it Means a Quarter of us human beings. A coincidental Exchange with a businessman the Day before the appearance of Gould s essay in the new York times Magazine probed a. Question no widely Dweller upon namely How can we afford to treat aids patients if you take Gould s figure one Quarter of the population round it off 50 million american Sand then round off the per capita Cost of the treatment of an aids patient $200,000you get by the time the disease is controlled or has run us course an expenditure of the one figure times the other which Comet to 110 overhead of $10 trillion added to our present overhead would mean economic chaos or the development of a Black plague convention about aids patients let them die preferably in quarantine. The first development would ruin i As a viable Industrial society. The second would destroy our nation s Toul. So then what it is easy to say. Let us appropriate More Money to attempt to find that wonderful vaccine and indeed we should in veil heavily in a cure for aids while reminding ourselves that we have spent great Deal Over two generations searching Abr a cure for cancer without convincing victories. But cancers not contagious and aids is. Gould lapses into the Catechi Stic Mode Only once in his essay when he tells us that we were indifferently the virus until we discovered that even quite orthodox people could suffer from it if aids headfirst been imported from Africa into a Park Avenue Carl Rowan apartment we would not have dithered As the exponential March that is probably True but it is also True that by Gould s own reckoning at most three years were lost. And awful As the deaths have been those three years have killed approximately 15,000 people and if we Are talking 50 million dead then the delay measured in macrocosm in terms is not heavy 50 million less 15,000 would be an accountant s Ren Dering of it. What professor could has not come up with is any hint Ofsan answer to the social question of How to confine a disease that is an Issue that May rank with nuclear weaponry As the greatest danger of our it is Correct to suggest that the Mills ground slowly in harnessing our laboratories and scientists to the Aid of aids. But our social reflexes Are also very lethargic. Sixteen months ago in a thinking Oul loud Exchange with professor Alan dvrs Howitz i suggested that perhaps aids carriers should be tattooed discreetly to guard Suwal or Needle partners from danger. This proposal reminded everyone of Auschwitz and i have seen in print that William f. Buckley wants to Tattoo All it is As though anyone who found a use for barbed wire was secretly a Concan ration Camp fetishist. Never mind i quickly withdrew the proposal for the simple reason that it proved socially intolerable. " i have Ever since been wailing for a socially Tolera ble alternative to be proposed by such As Gould everyone is supposed to use a condom from now on and clean Needles should repose alongside Public telephones. I am All for thai. Bui surely More much More is needed if Weare facing a greater threat than nuclear weapons. What about people who have the virus Don t know they have in and Are passing it on to others Hal Gould a suggestion whether Tor Park Avenue or forthe other Side of the tracks to h Inder contamination in Hose circumstances ii is one thing to sound the alarm and something else when the Assembly gathers to have nothing to say. Arab voices needed to mute Arab bashing the million americans of Arab descent have been delivering Tome powerful protests against Arab bashing by Hollywood and the television Industry and Arab stereotyping by newspapers magazines and every other element of the american Media. I understand their complaint. I know that the word Arab conjures up in the minds of most americans a vision of terrorists hijacking an airline beat ing women murdering old Myn or of some fiery eyed woman blowing up a bus loaded with children or of bomb throwers Bent on bombing the stadium at a crucial Point in a super bowl game. It is a terrible reality that few Ameri cans think of an Arab As someone who serves in the . Congress makes Loans at a local Bank gives emergency care to a woman with a dangerously abscessed yet ooh or otherwise meets ail the standards of Good american citizenship. It is a tragic reality that the cries against Arab bashing will go Fosnaught and the stereotyping will go on. Because arabs in the Middle East Are perpetrating outrages that justify i millions of minds the tarring of All arabs with a very Broad Brush. In truth the stereotyping will be come More vicious unless leaders among the Large and growing Arab population in America raise their voices louder and louder against the self defeating terrorist outrages that make such headlines that Ordinary decent people of Arab heritage become invisible at Best and targets of hatred and violence at worst. Kidnapping people is a heinous Busi Ness under any circumstance. But the performance of the islamic jihad for the liberation of Palestine is especially revolting even to those of us who know thai the palestinians have been getting raw Deal. The islamic jihad abducted Alann Stern of Boston from the Beirut University Campus held him for two months in Defiance of world opinion and All concepts of human decency and then announced that he was gravely Illand might die within 10 Days. The brutally criminal captors then offered to Trade Steen s allegedly dying body for 100 Arab prisoners in Atlanta Constitution called this a new Low in this grotesque ghoulish be Havior generates hostility and discrimination against Arab americans an the thousands of arabs studying in America that is so Strong it cannot bemused by sermons against Arab Bash ing and i am troubled that i pm hearing Roarab american voices saying loudly and without equivocation that Arab americans Loo Are horrified by the be Havior of the islamic jihad in the Sie encase. Is in that Arab Leaden Are speak ing out and the american Media is not telling you and me is it that Arab americans arc afraid to sound off publicly against this kind of terrorism or that they feel silenced by a belief thai terrorism is the Only meaningful weapon that palestinians possess i have expressed my outrage Over is Rael s bombings of Beirut in which old men women and children were killed. Cannot understand Why an Arab Ameri can would refuse to express outrage Over the Steen Case the abduction of anglican envoy Terry Waite or other despicable kidnappings. I do not pretend thai an outcry Yarab americans will Stop the terror ism or Hall the bashing and stereotyping of arabs. J know better since every Batch of mail that i receive contain letters stereotyping Black americans including me. As oversexed criminal animals i do say that just As Blacks have been Able to reduce the viciousness the universality of the scapegoating of Lack people arabs can Lake Steps to ensure that they Are viewed in the .and the world in a Light far More Palata ble even sympathetic than is the Cas today. Bui nothing will change for the Bette until americans und other Peoples of the world hear some Arab voice against terrorism that we have not heard until now Hurth a Martcil syn Dimoff
