What Is The Sense Of Community In Sizwe's Test

In Sizwe’s Test, Jonny Steinberg writes about his account of the implementation of HIV/AIDS treatment in the Lusikisiki district of South Africa. Steinberg’s guide and main subject throughout his research is Sizwe Magalda, a 30 year-old spaza shopkeeper from Ithanga, a small village within Lusikisiki. Throughout his 18-month stay in Lusikisiki, Steinberg questions Sizwe on his evolving beliefs and interpretations on HIV/AIDS, its perception, and its treatment in his community. Part One of the book develops the sense of community that Sizwe lives in, and it is quickly noted that the sense of community is not “community-oriented” at all: “Those who had tested positive were silently separated from the rest of the village” (Steinberg, 50). We would

As this is one of the many examples that portray this bitterness, there are several more instances in which members of the community have ill thoughts, whether nominally or harmfully, about others when these opinions are not necessarily warranted, i.e. how the Ithanga community views Sizwe’s success as a topic of envy (90). With this bitter sense of community joined with the Western antiretroviral (ARV) treatment for HIV/AIDS, the community itself is more harmful and has more malevolent consequences than HIV/AIDS itself in the following three ways. First, in regards to global and local relations, the local community is apprehensive in fostering relations with the global community. Second, the community promotes fear. Third, the community promotes perpetual segregation between HIV positive and negative

“To know who was positive and who was negative, [one] just had to stand and watch” (49). People standing in line to get tested were able to tell if others were positive or negative by how long others’ post-test consultations were. A long meeting meant that person was HIV positive and a short meeting meant HIV negative. After the testing day in Ithanga, the entire village knew who had HIV of those who tested. In the context of the village community, HIV is not only a sickness, but also rather a sign of bewitchment. “It takes many months before it sinks into my head that those who speak of the shame of the HIV positive are a hair’s breadth from speaking of the shame of witches [and/or bewitchment]” (188). And to be bewitched means that one can “lose the capacity to make money and to hold on to family assets” (172). Therefore, knowing that one is HIV positive invocates the negative social stigma of bewitchment onto the ill person. The harmfulness in the community is founded on the community knowing the private details about an individual’s life. Therefore, the individual can avoid this whole ordeal if he or she does not know, if he or she does not test. The Ithanga community implicitly promotes living in the unknown of their condition as it encourages the fear of the social stigma. People would rather sustain medical suffering even with the