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Witness to AIDS
When Edwin Cameron announced to a stunned local and international media that he - one of South Africa's most prominent citizens - was himself living with the HIV/AIDS virus cutting swathes through the population of the continent, the impact was immediate. In Witness to AIDS, Edwin Cameron's compelling memoir, he grapples with the meaning of HIV/ for him as he confronts the possibility of his own lingering death, and for all of us in facing up to one of the most desperate challenges of our time. In his intensely personal account of survival, Cameron blends elements of his destitute childhood with his daily duties as a senior judge and international human rights lawyer, while focusing always on the epidemic's central issues : stigma, unjust discrimination, and, most vitally, the life-and-death question of access to treatment. Cameron's remarkable story of his own survival in an epidemic that has cost millions of lives is at once moving and uplifting, sobering and ultimately hopeful. 'This book will be a major contribution by a courageous South African towards that quest for a better life for all.'
- Nelson Mandela 'If truth is beauty, this relentlessly brilliant and hopeful book is beautiful. It is a text to live by, if we aspire to the possibility of a better life for all...in a world widely threatened by HIV/Aids.' - Nadine Gordimer, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, 1991
- Nelson Mandela 'If truth is beauty, this relentlessly brilliant and hopeful book is beautiful. It is a text to live by, if we aspire to the possibility of a better life for all...in a world widely threatened by HIV/Aids.' - Nadine Gordimer, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, 1991
240 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
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About the author
Edwin Cameron
7 books9 followersEdwin Cameron is a South African Rhodes scholar and retired Constitutional Court Justice. Cameron served on the Supreme Court of Appeal from 2000 to 2008 and was the first senior South African official to state publicly that he was living with HIV/AIDS. He was inspired in this by the stoning and stabbing to death of Gugu Dlamini after her admission on a isiZulu-language radio that she was HIV positive.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 8, 2024
Content wise, this was an absolutely fascinating testimony to the AIDS crisis, shining a still unjustly rare light on the specific experiences of low and middle income African patients during the 00s, when more affluent nations had all but relegated the issue of HIV/AIDS to their history books. As one of the most senior judges in South Africa and the first of his countrymen serving in public office to announce their status publicly, Cameron is overwhelmingly qualified to write this book, one which Mandela himself endorsed; however, his legal background is evident not only in the subject matter, but also in the style. A ghostwriter would have done wonders for this project.
January 24, 2025
I will admit that it is a little difficult to write a review of this book because I read it in scattered bits and pieces during a very busy period of life…
But I thought it was a very sincere and honest testimony about Edwin Cameron’s life and the mission behind his AIDS advocacy.
With the clear eloquence of a judge, he looks back on the milestones in his career and explains the real extent of AIDS denialism in the 80s and 90s.
This book is a fast read but because I read it so slowly it seemed a little slow. However, if you want to have a little more faith in people in the world, read this and you can be awe-inspired by the humbleness of the Judge Cameron.
But I thought it was a very sincere and honest testimony about Edwin Cameron’s life and the mission behind his AIDS advocacy.
With the clear eloquence of a judge, he looks back on the milestones in his career and explains the real extent of AIDS denialism in the 80s and 90s.
This book is a fast read but because I read it so slowly it seemed a little slow. However, if you want to have a little more faith in people in the world, read this and you can be awe-inspired by the humbleness of the Judge Cameron.
March 15, 2012
AIDS Denialism—An African Perspective
By Alina Oswald
Article originally published in A&U Magazine--America's AIDS Magazine
“AIDS is a disease. It is an infection, a syndrome, an illness, a disorder, a condition threatening to human life. It is an epidemic—a social crisis, an economic catastrophe, a political challenge, a human disaster,” Justice Edwin Cameron reads from his new book, Witness to AIDS, at the LGBT Center in New York City.
Called by some members of the audience “a beacon of inspiration,” and “a fighter,” Edwin Cameron is also an internationally recognized human rights and AIDS activist, and Justice in the Supreme Court of Appeal in South Africa.
Born in 1953, in Pretoria, South Africa, Edwin Cameron studied at Stellenbosch, Oxford and the University of South Africa, winning top academic awards at all three universities. In 1983 he joined the Johannesburg Bar and from 1986 he practiced as a human rights lawyer at the University of Witwatersrand’s Centre of Applied Legal Studies (CALS). While at CALS, he co-drafted the Charter of Rights on AIDS and HIV, co-founded the AIDS Consortium and founded and was the first director of the AIDS Law Project (http://www.alp.org.za/). He became a High Court judge in 1995.
After living with the virus for several years, he was diagnosed with full-blown AIDS in 1997. Justice Cameron is the first public official to reveal his HIV status in South Africa. He was a keynote speaker in Durban, 2000, at the thirteenth International AIDS conference.
Through his book, he’s also a messenger of hope. “Witness to AIDS is a story of hope,” Cameron tells me when we get to talk, “because it recedes the stigma and the fear of this disease, because it shows people that AIDS is medically manageable. I’m living proof of it.”
Witness to AIDS stands proof that miracles do happen… in this case, with a little help from modern treatment and medication. The read is bold, offering a lesson in life for those brave enough to confront their struggles. In a way, Witness to AIDS is the author’s own “Lazarus” story of miraculous recovery and documents his journey from the brink of death to the normality that living with AIDS allows.
Above all, Witness to AIDS is an expression of accurate acts about AIDS in Africa and what Cameron calls “the most tragic part of how South Africa deals with AIDS”—the South African politics of AIDS and President Mbeki giving credence to South African dissident views regarding the origin of HIV. Cameron finds this beyond imagination.
In essence, “[dissidents] compare themselves to Galileo,” he explains. “But the truth is that Galileo did apply scientific methods [and] it was because of the application of scientific methods that Galileo proved himself right.”
In Africa, AIDS is a racial agenda related in many ways to the white extremist racist conceptions of African-ism: African sex, desires, or intelligence. For this reason, African dissidents consider AIDS an insult to Africa.
“Now, why would it be insulting to say that a virus originated anywhere?” Justice Cameron concludes his brief explanation.
Viruses originated in China, or in Spain, or in South America, but none of them are linked to shame, stigma, or gender injustices. These factors still influence the pandemic evolution in Africa where AIDS is not only a medical disease, but also a gender and social disease.
Cameron believes that fighting poverty is central in the fight against AIDS. As he explains in Witness to AIDS, Jonathan Mann showed that poverty and subordination in society go together with the risk of AIDS. Mann believed that by remedying injustice and gender subordination, we remedy the struggle against AIDS.
“Living with AIDS is almost like a second career,” Cameron says, explaining his own struggle with the virus. Coming out has helped him refocus his energy on living. He calls it “an investment into the rest of [his] life.” But his action did not encourage others to follow in his steps. The reason is the stigma associated with an AIDS diagnostic.
Justice Cameron is the first to acknowledge that silence of the disease is the biggest problem in Africa. Denial also fuels stigma.
How can we fight stigma?
Cameron points out that the real question is: how much humanity has to perish for us to respond [to AIDS]. He emphasizes the importance of AIDS education because the more informed we are, the better we can defend ourselves.
“We need to have acceptance of the facts,” he says, because AIDS reveals a lot about the structures of the world—North and South, rich and poor—placing developed and developing worlds in close proximity, maybe too close for comfort.
“AIDS beckons us to the fullness and power of our own humanity,” Justice Cameron concludes his Witness to AIDS story. “It is not an invitation that we should avoid or refuse.”
By Alina Oswald
Article originally published in A&U Magazine--America's AIDS Magazine
“AIDS is a disease. It is an infection, a syndrome, an illness, a disorder, a condition threatening to human life. It is an epidemic—a social crisis, an economic catastrophe, a political challenge, a human disaster,” Justice Edwin Cameron reads from his new book, Witness to AIDS, at the LGBT Center in New York City.
Called by some members of the audience “a beacon of inspiration,” and “a fighter,” Edwin Cameron is also an internationally recognized human rights and AIDS activist, and Justice in the Supreme Court of Appeal in South Africa.
Born in 1953, in Pretoria, South Africa, Edwin Cameron studied at Stellenbosch, Oxford and the University of South Africa, winning top academic awards at all three universities. In 1983 he joined the Johannesburg Bar and from 1986 he practiced as a human rights lawyer at the University of Witwatersrand’s Centre of Applied Legal Studies (CALS). While at CALS, he co-drafted the Charter of Rights on AIDS and HIV, co-founded the AIDS Consortium and founded and was the first director of the AIDS Law Project (http://www.alp.org.za/). He became a High Court judge in 1995.
After living with the virus for several years, he was diagnosed with full-blown AIDS in 1997. Justice Cameron is the first public official to reveal his HIV status in South Africa. He was a keynote speaker in Durban, 2000, at the thirteenth International AIDS conference.
Through his book, he’s also a messenger of hope. “Witness to AIDS is a story of hope,” Cameron tells me when we get to talk, “because it recedes the stigma and the fear of this disease, because it shows people that AIDS is medically manageable. I’m living proof of it.”
Witness to AIDS stands proof that miracles do happen… in this case, with a little help from modern treatment and medication. The read is bold, offering a lesson in life for those brave enough to confront their struggles. In a way, Witness to AIDS is the author’s own “Lazarus” story of miraculous recovery and documents his journey from the brink of death to the normality that living with AIDS allows.
Above all, Witness to AIDS is an expression of accurate acts about AIDS in Africa and what Cameron calls “the most tragic part of how South Africa deals with AIDS”—the South African politics of AIDS and President Mbeki giving credence to South African dissident views regarding the origin of HIV. Cameron finds this beyond imagination.
In essence, “[dissidents] compare themselves to Galileo,” he explains. “But the truth is that Galileo did apply scientific methods [and] it was because of the application of scientific methods that Galileo proved himself right.”
In Africa, AIDS is a racial agenda related in many ways to the white extremist racist conceptions of African-ism: African sex, desires, or intelligence. For this reason, African dissidents consider AIDS an insult to Africa.
“Now, why would it be insulting to say that a virus originated anywhere?” Justice Cameron concludes his brief explanation.
Viruses originated in China, or in Spain, or in South America, but none of them are linked to shame, stigma, or gender injustices. These factors still influence the pandemic evolution in Africa where AIDS is not only a medical disease, but also a gender and social disease.
Cameron believes that fighting poverty is central in the fight against AIDS. As he explains in Witness to AIDS, Jonathan Mann showed that poverty and subordination in society go together with the risk of AIDS. Mann believed that by remedying injustice and gender subordination, we remedy the struggle against AIDS.
“Living with AIDS is almost like a second career,” Cameron says, explaining his own struggle with the virus. Coming out has helped him refocus his energy on living. He calls it “an investment into the rest of [his] life.” But his action did not encourage others to follow in his steps. The reason is the stigma associated with an AIDS diagnostic.
Justice Cameron is the first to acknowledge that silence of the disease is the biggest problem in Africa. Denial also fuels stigma.
How can we fight stigma?
Cameron points out that the real question is: how much humanity has to perish for us to respond [to AIDS]. He emphasizes the importance of AIDS education because the more informed we are, the better we can defend ourselves.
“We need to have acceptance of the facts,” he says, because AIDS reveals a lot about the structures of the world—North and South, rich and poor—placing developed and developing worlds in close proximity, maybe too close for comfort.
“AIDS beckons us to the fullness and power of our own humanity,” Justice Cameron concludes his Witness to AIDS story. “It is not an invitation that we should avoid or refuse.”
June 21, 2013
Candid, insightful and forthright. Excellent read for anyone interested in the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
October 27, 2015
Edwin Cameron recently gave a speech in Seattle. I wasn't able to attend, due to a scheduling conflict, but it did give me the impetus to re-read "Witness to AIDS." He has a remarkable story.
November 5, 2015
Fantastic!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews