Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (116450)	10/9/2003 11:06:10 AM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

> How can you say HIV won't spread in Iran? It will, but the spread will be limited to mostly certain segments of the society. Unfortunately, drug abuse and prostitution are rampant in Iran (compared to the recent historical norms and not other parts of the world). But there is no denying that monogamy is a great tool against AIDS. > It's not adultery or prostitution from their point of view, but from ours, there's no functional difference. This is because you have not done your homework, otherwise you would not have seen them as one and the same. Firstly, temporary marriages are the exception and not the norm. Secondly, after the marriage expires the woman is not allowed to marry again or have sex for another 100 days so that paternity of any child she may be carrying is established. If in fact she is pregnant from her temporary marriage, then the father is responsible for child pay and support. It is very different than our run of the mill prostitution, don't you think? > Homosexuality is allegedly illegal, but actually culturally quite common in Islamic countries. This is another misconception. Your sexual orientation is not a matter of choice (nor is your favorite color for that matter or any other basic thing you like or dislike). Cultural taboos prevent many contacts between men and women and promote other behaviors that in the West may be interpreted as homosexual (e.g. same sex [and not just men] kissing each other on the cheeks at greetings, dancing together, or holding hands). None of these behaviors indicate romantic feelings and do not affect the sexual habits of the people.

To: Ilaine who wrote (116450)	10/9/2003 3:25:39 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 281500

<How can you say HIV won't spread in Iran?> There is a very clear difference, very dramatic, between the HIV infection rates in Muslim and non-Muslim areas. There is no other logical explanation, between the different rates in non-Muslim Africa, compared to adjacent Muslim North Africa and SW Asia. HIV spread from Africa, mainly to the Americas and S. Asia. It didn't spread, except for tiny subgroups like IV drug users, into any Muslim areas of the world. It's a very clear pattern. The global epidemic now has a 20+ year track record, to follow it's spread. You can't explain the pattern of spread, except through the different cultural rules enforced by Islam. There are no other variables (ethnicity, wealth, anything) that explain where HIV has spread, and where it hasn't spread. If we were going to see any non-trivial infection rates in any Muslim nations, we'd have seen it by now. Even if the government of every Muslim nation were doing their best to hide it, there would be ways to tell: death rates higher in young adults and children than expected, use of certain drugs (which would have to imported, they aren't manufactured in Muslim nations, so Western drug companies would know), hospitalization rates for a group of infections associated with AIDS, profits at casket companies, a hundred other things that couldn't be hidden. Many African nations tried to hide their infection rates, denial has been the standard response in sub-Saharan Africa, but they all failed. The same applies in the U.S., to HIV rates among different populations. Wherever fundamentalist and authoritarian religions are strongest in the U.S., infection rates are low. Utah, and Mormon areas outside Utah, have low rates, for instance. I am not Mormon, and have little sympathy for their religion in general, but, as with Islam, I have to admit the facts: they have succeeded, where others have failed, at stopping the HIV epidemic. Yes, Shiites have their odd custom of temporary marriages. And the prevalence of prostitution, adultery, and homosexuality in Muslim nations is impossible to know, there isn't any good way to get statistics. But, with the long common border with sub-Saharan Africa, we'd have seen much higher infection rates if HIV was spreading that way in Muslim nations.