by Lyndall Stein (openDemocracy author and executive director of Concern UK)
The taxi driver worried for us, metropolitan ladies, of a certain age: “Ach lassies, dae ye ken, this is one of the poorest areas in Edinburgh”. He dropped us at the entrance to the shopping arcade - our London uniform of black coats, bright scarves and “good” shoes marked us out as true aliens.
We walked though the bleak and dreary shopping centre that some monstrous urban planner had vomited up on the poor inhabitants of Muirhouse in north Edinburgh. This neglected part of Scotland’s capital was the epicentre, twenty years before, of the HIV/Aids epidemic in Britain. The scars of the poverty which had accelerated the epidemic were still visible, notably the barred and gated shop-fronts - a gathering-place for drug users, the small groups of people hanging around at lunchtime, with no jobs, nothing to do, nowhere to go.
I stepped around a dubious dog deposit on the floor, wondering how we were going to find the arts centre we were going to. “It makes Bradford look like Paris”, I muttered to Amanda (I am allowed to say that, by the way - Bradford was my much loved home town for ten years!). I was a little nervous despite my urban bravado – everything about us shouted “privilege” and “unfair distribution of resources” – from our warm clothes, my smart Parisian shopping bag, our bouncing curly hair, our English accents. We were as out of place as we might have been in Ethiopia or Uganda.
We made it through to the other side – and emerged at the entrance of an unprepossessing building, once again barred and gated, and into the North Edinburgh Arts Centre where we were helping to launch an exhibition: the global photographic project “Positive Lives”. A constantly developing exhibition, it focuses on the human story behind he HIV and Aids pandemic, and has been seen by many millions of people worldwide, in thirty countries - in venues as diverse as refugee camps, the UN building in New York, railway stations, hospitals, galleries, libraries and now this community arts centre in Muirhouse, Edinburgh.
The whole project had, in a way, been born in Muirhouse. The first story from there had been by photographer John Sturrock, whose work portrayed the HIV-led horror that had descended on this impoverished housing scheme. In addition to all the other challenges its people had to contend with - poverty, alcoholism, lousy housing, lack of jobs, drug use - now they had HIV/Aids, a dire prognosis in the 1980s before the discovery of the new anti-retroviral treatments that would have the astonishing effect of bringing people back from death’s door.
I remembered those early photos from Muirhouse - the courage, the pathos, the utter lack of hope before treatments, at the mercy of terrible press stories, the impact of a divesting new disease, and the unceasing stigma:
▪ Vince, portrayed with an armful of pills to alleviate his symptoms, cared for by his partner Hugh, diagnosed in 1989, he died in 1992
▪ Trisha, with her young son Simon, impelled by poverty and addiction into work as a prostitute
▪ Lynn, diagnosed in 1984 - in and out of prison unable to find a route out of the cycle, her father Joe her one link with home, and hope.
That first set of stories set the model for the subsequent twenty, in so many different countries - that those affected would speak in their own voice, that they would tell their stories openly, challenge stigma and isolation. That the photographs would illuminate, illustrate, shine a light, on the struggling, loving and heroic human faces - behind the dreadful statistics.
Now here, today, in this bright and homely arts centre, are portrayed the faces of Rwandan, Chinese, Bangladeshi, Zambian, and Ugandan people, some living and some dying - courageously speaking out from across the globe, to this poor, isolated community in Scotland, who understood so well, these voices calling out from far away.
The pictures hang in the café, which serves cheap but wholesome food to the local people - who despite living so near a wealthy, glamorous, historic city cannot easily buy fresh food. In this colourful place they can eat haggis or humus for just £2 or £3. In the corner is a beautiful children’s play area - silver mirrored fishes sparkling against the sunshine yellow walls. At lunchtime the centre is filled with the people from the housing estate; on the back wall are images of Rwandan people in their villages, in their community, despite everything, still dancing, smiling, loving, caring for the sick, honouring their dead.
Despite the horror of the epidemic in Muirhouse twenty years ago and the painful impact of the epidemic in Rwanda, both are now “better news” stories (Muirhouse even acquired a patina of glamour from the drug-filled novels of its one-time resident Irvine Welsh). In Muirhouse the epidemic declined as local doctor Roy Robertson – who still works in the health centre down the road - explained that “no one really knows why or how” the situation has improved; but certainly it is connected with supplies of clean needles to the injecting drug-users, and increased investment, information, education and (since the mid-1990s) effective treatments.
David Rugaaju, our colleague from Rwanda, adds that education, testing, and fighting against discrimination are also crucial in Rwanda. Now the government there is also able to provide treatments to all its citizens, the result of concerted efforts from community activists, medical professionals, politicians, artists, musicians, journalists and HIV-positive people. They have spoken out courageously, coherently and with absolute conviction - in Rwanda and across the world - saying that all people have the right to treatments, care, and a life free from discrimination.
David spoke evocatively of our connectedness, the people of African origin in Britain who are affected, the importance of people in Scotland and the rest of the UK continuing to raise loud voices on behalf of Africa.
As the great Polish writer on Africa, Ryszard Kapuscinski wrote in describing the impact of war: “we should speak. Because speaking about all this does not divide, but rather unites us, allows us to establish threads of understanding and community. The dead admonish us. They bequeathed something important to us and now we must act responsibly.”
Photograph by Stuart Freedman. Kibayi, Rwanda Narcisse is HIV positive and the president of his local AIDS Association called Girimpuhwe ("Have compasion") works in his field with a neighbour.
