A small story that doesn't seem to have made much waves. I guess that's partly because Chris Smith isn't much of a celebrity these days and partly too - I hope - because there's less hysteria about being HIV positive now, at least in the West. But its still a story worth noting because its remarkable how few politicians anywhere in the world have been open about being HIV positive. And in case you're thinking politicians are somehow immune to it, well... think again. South Africa probably offers the most bizarre cases where Prsident Mbeki's intransigent position on HIV being the cause of AIDS and that it was all somehow a white Western conspiracy made it impossible for politicians of his own party to talk about HIV even while they were dropping dead from it. When I was in SA a couple of years back, one of Mbeki's most fervent supporters, a man who had attacked "the AIDS mafia" on his master's behalf again and again, suddenly fell sick and died in hospital - from a backache, I think was the official explanation! Its in that context that Nelson Mandela's quiet acknowledgement of the cause of his son's death was an implicit rebuke to his successor and an important step. We're still not in the SA situation here in India, but its entirely likely we'll reach there if politicians continue to keep thinking about HIV only on Dec 1st every year. At least one Indian politician has died unexpectedly young from what strong rumours suggest was AIDS, but nobody talked about it openly then, and if anyone knows they are positive now - I wonder how many have even taken a test? - they aren't saying. And this silence builds into the way HIV is being treated in general - with support that's lukewarm at best and with none of the sense of urgency that the issue needs. I used to think that for people to take AIDS seriously it would need many more deaths, but many more deaths are now happening and its still not seen as urgent. Which leads to two somewhat dismal conclusions. Either it really isn't urgent for people, meaning that deep-Indian-sense-of-fatalism- ""its all Maya"-school of argument (which I loathe). Or you need to have well known people who are known to be dying of AIDS. Or at least well known people who are known to be positive. Its the Rock-Hudson-Magic-Johnson school of argument and while at the moment it might seem impossible, who knows, perhaps the efforts of people like Mandela and Chris Smith might make it happen one day, Vikram I'm HIV positive says Chris Smith Martin Bright Sunday January 30, 2005 Observer Former Labour cabinet minister Chris Smith has been HIV positive for 17 years, but did not tell Tony Blair when he was appointed Culture Secretary in 1997. Smith, 53, the first openly gay cabinet member in British history, said he was inspired to go public after comments by the former South African president, Nelson Mandela, about his son, who died of Aids this month. He said he had not felt it necessary to inform the Prime Minister of the infection because it did not affect his ability to do his job. Smith has been MP for Islington South and Finsbury in London since 1983 and was feted for his courage when he came out as gay a year later. He was diagnosed with HIV - the virus which can develop into Aids - in 1987, shortly before meeting his long-term partner Dorian Jabri, though he did not know how long he had been carrying the virus. When he developed the disease, public fear and prejudice about the illness was at its height, and drugs to halt the progress of the condition were in the early stages of development. Smith said he 'was lucky' that soon after his diagnosis he was put onto anti-retroviral drugs, which helped to halt the progress of the virus and prevented it from developing into Aids itself. 'When I first heard about it, I was really worried because there was hardly any treatment, but I was lucky and fairly early on I was put on AZT and later on to a combination of drugs,' he wrote in the Sunday Times. 'It was the uncertainty which clearly has an effect.' He has maintained his health since then through a daily mixture of daily drugs and a sensible diet, he said, adding: 'I've also been with the National Health Service all that time.' Asked if he had informed Blair, he responded: 'I didn't feel the need to tell people, except for a very, very few, as it was not in any way affecting my work.' Mandela called for an end to the stigma linked to the illness earlier this month, as he revealed that his 54-year-old son Makgatho had died of Aids. The former president said: 'Let us give publicity to HIV/Aids and not hide it, because [that is] the only way to make it appear like a normal illness.' Smith said that Mandela's comments had prompted him to speak out about his own condition. 'What Nelson Mandela said very much struck a chord with me,' he explained. Smith was sacked from the Cabinet in 2001, and has already announced that he is standing down from Parliament at the next general election, expected in May. Thanks to advances in drug treatment, it is now possible for people with HIV to live for many years in relative good health. For this reason, the term Aids is no longer used by some doctors, who prefer to use 'late stage' or 'advanced' HIV infection. A brave and candid stance from a courageous politician The former Culture Secretary helped change the climate of public life, says Ben Summerskill Sunday January 30, 2005 The Observer Damp Saturday afternoons in Rugby have left few marks on political history. But a 1984 announcement by Chris Smith, then a fledgling MP, to a union rally did much more than that. His understated observation - he hasn't changed much in the intervening two decades - that he was MP for Islington South and Finsbury, and that he was gay, shook the political firmament. Just 18 years earlier the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police would have dispatched officers immediately to Smith's home address to break down the door and start sniffing the bedsheets. Just six years earlier, Northampton MP Maureen Colquhoun had been hounded from office after lurid newspaper reports that she had 'moved in' with another woman. The frisson throughout the Labour party following Smith's announcement was felt immediately. A vanguard of polite homosexuals, told for years that theirs was an issue no voter would support, was energised into action. And the tabloid press - sales of the Sun under Kelvin Mackenzie were then in orbit - had one of its foxes dramatically shot. Suddenly Smith was suggesting that being a homosexual in public life wasn't something to hide. Smith's candour did something else too. It told three million people in Britain - lesbian, gay, bisexual, even those who weren't sure - that they were not alone. Smith had come out on his own terms, and that was historic too. Until then, political outings of MPs as gay or bisexual had been forced upon them by embarrassing circumstances - a Green Park encounter with a guardsman, a spiteful prosecution. A key weapon of the hater of homosexuals over the centuries, the threat to reveal their truth, had been wrestled from them. When Chris Smith first found he had HIV, the climate in public life about Aids was still poisonous. President Reagan had recently sent his old friend, Rock Hudson, a quaint card saying 'Get well soon', something unthinkable then for many who went on to develop Aids. So Smith was almost certainly right in the Eighties to keep that aspect of his private life private. It would have been used to foment prejudice, rather than sympathy, among opponents in politics and Fleet Street. But his courage now, when he could have kept quiet until his departure from the Commons at the general election, demonstrates exemplary candour too. When Erasure's Andy Bell revealed to Boyz magazine a fortnight ago that he had HIV, the tabloids had difficulty getting excited. Bell is, after all, a pop star. But Smith's admission will remind the wider world, and even those in politics who think their world is somehow different, that people with HIV are everywhere. The Department of Health suggests that, being gay with HIV, he is not among the majority of people in this country with the condition. And gay people are certainly not among the majority worldwide. But once again Smith will be telling tens of thousands of people in Britain that they are not alone. And that will have far-reaching consequences. When he came out, Smith's openness assisted a process of law reform which is still under way. Decriminalisation of same-sex relationships between teenagers, the recent passage of the Civil Partnership Act, this week's launch of a major Stonewall campaign, Education for All, addressing at last the bullying of gay children in British schools. None would have happened if Smith hadn't said 20 years ago that gay people were no longer prepared to remain silent. Let's hope that Smith's latest gesture - candid and once again almost impossible for the malicious to condemn - will have the same effect on Britain's willingness to be honest about the prevalence of HIV. · Ben Summerskill is chief executive of Stonewall ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> DonorsChoose. A simple way to provide underprivileged children resources often lacking in public schools. 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