Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1995. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The Associated Press - 1 December 1995
Spanning cultures and time zones, Friday was about bearing witness: It was World AIDS Day.
More than 4.5 million people have been infected with the human immunodeficiency virus since the late 1970s, but for Marge Martinez it was the death of one, her son, that drew her to San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.
"It means a lot," said Martinez, whose son died of AIDS earlier this year. "I love my son and I would like to help people with this thing."
Around the world, the call went out for people to help one another.
"Let us join hands and together bear the responsibility and make our contribution to controlling AIDS in China and the world," China's public health minister, Chen Minzhang, said in the Communist Party newspaper, the People's Daily.
A Roman Catholic nun praying at the center of a snowy bridge linking Ottawa and Hull, Canada, saw more linkages:
"It's a way of showing solidarity for people living with AIDS and also for their families and caregivers and everyone that's involved," Claudette Gravelle said as some 250 people formed a human chain across the bridge.
In New York, with more than 60,000 lost, thoughts were of unity as a lone reader began naming the dead at a midnight gathering in City Hall Park. Later, others took turns at five microphones, mingling their voices to suggest the devastation AIDS has wreaked on communities. They were to continue their somber task for 24 hours.
"We have to let the government know that we need help, research and that we are human beings," said one HIV-positive New Yorker at the demonstration, 34-year-old Minerva Soto.
Marking the Day Without Art, Auguste Rodin's sculpture of "The Thinker" in San Francisco was draped in black.
A less visual, if more practical, note was struck at the United Nations in New York, where Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said the UN's AIDS program will replace the World Health Organization's Global Program on AIDS on Jan. 1.
"UNAIDS will strengthen and expand national capacities to respond to the pandemic whose dangers and dimensions are yet to be fully grasped in many parts of the world," Boutros-Ghali said.
A variety of approaches to raising awareness about AIDS were apparent around the world on Friday.
Smiling, long-haired women wearing matching sweatshirts and short skirts paraded through Tokyo with a heart-shaped red balloon in a Stop AIDS march.
In Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City allowed an unusual social gathering that welcomed gays to the local Youth Cultural House. The event included a competiton testing people's knowledge of AIDS.
A more dour group took to the streets of Berlin, where men painted dark tears on their cheeks and carried wooden crosses labeled with the names of the dead in a march of mourning.
Moscow planned a huge Stars against AIDS show at the Luzhniki sports stadium, devoted to the memory of rocker Freddie Mercury of Queen and featuring leading Russian pop and rock musicians and dancers.
Such worldwide attention brought hope to some, like actor-producer Paul Michael Glaser of Los Angeles, who has lost his wife and daughter to AIDS.
"There is an opportunity here, there is a gift, there is a choice," Glaser said. "Whether it's AIDS or cancer or a hurricane, man's mortality is there to teach him, it's there to awaken him. As long as we keep learning, keep searching and trying to learn, that's a blessing."
Copyright 1995/The Associated Press. Reproduced with permission. Reproduction of this article (other than one copy for personal reference) must be cleared through the Permissions Desk, The Associated Press, 50 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10020.
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Copyright © 1995 - Associated Press. Reproduction of this article (other than one copy for personal reference) must be cleared through the AP Permissions Desk.
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