This is also the issue with AIDS. However, poverty is not an active virus. But the consequences of poverty are in a profound way linked with AIDS and the increasing hardships it constitutes for the poorest countries of the world.

The worst thing about poverty and the need that comes along with it is that so many of those problems are completely unnecessary. There is so much we already could have prevented and stopped yesterday – if we had had the will. We have the resources, we have the logistics. But still we live in the age of unnecessary problems.

Let me now talk about illiteracy. It is a disgrace for the whole world that we in the year 2008 have yet to eradicate illiteracy on our planet. Still millions of children are forced to enter life without knowing how to read and write. The fact that we deny so many children these elementary tools means that we render them defenseless on so many issues regarding AIDS. How can we expect a young person, who lacks the ability to understand written information, who is unable to grasp the essence of vital knowledge, to protect her- or himself from becoming infected? Of course people talk, of course there is radio. There are also theatrical groups who travel the country to inform people. But the fact remains that we live in a world where the ability to read is necessary to acquire information. 

It is important to see this connection. One of the most crucial instruments to control the proliferation of AIDS in the future must be to make sure that every child is given the right to learn how to read and write.

Being a writer myself I know that there is only one symbolic book which truly matters: the ABC-book. Whether it is written in a book or on a computer screen does not really matter.

Naturally, the fight against poverty is a war fought on many different levels simultaneously. And since we will be forced to make priorities I am convinced that to teach people how to read and write is decisive.

Poverty – AIDS – illiteracy. They all connect. And at least one of these issues we could have eradicated yesterday – illiteracy.

We did not.

Let us do it today.

Henning Mankell