AIDS Workers: 'The Heroes Of The Day'

31 May 2002
A powerful photo gallery and audio commentary by Bono, all about the O'NeillAfrica trip is just live on USA Today.

It's here ad.usatoday.com

And here is the interview Bono gave to USA Today about his trip withSecretary O'Neill.

Q: Did you think either of you would change?

A: No ... but we're not disagreeing about the objective. Look: We talk, weargue, we debate, we fight. That's the kind of people I'm comfortablearound. I'm in a band. I miss the din of argument. I need to be around that.I grew up with that. Dublin is a city full of the din of argument.

Q: Was the trip worthwhile? Would you go again?

A: Yep. I've always been attracted to tough guys; (O'Neill is) anIrish-American tough guy. He's not in the back of the plane telling thepress corps that everything's possible. He's trying to reduce expectationsall the time. But I know that behind that, he is angry at the bureaucraciesthat are leaving these people behind. ...

I keep trying to get him to commit to more money because it's quite obviousthat we need a lot more money. He won't. He wants to go back to hispresident and he wants to go back to Congress. ...

But I am confident his business acumen can be applied to these quite complexproblems.

Q: What image will stay with you from this trip?

A: We met these women in Uganda. ... These were AIDS workers traveling townto town, proselytizing about safe sex and empowering women and men to comeout if they were HIV-positive. And I asked, "Where do these women get theirpassion from?" I was told they're all HIV-positive themselves. I looked atthem. They were singing with such great joy. I thought, "How could this be?"Then I realized ... these are the firemen running up the burning building.These are the heroes of the day. And they know, all of them, that they'regoing to die because they can't afford the dollar a day it would take tokeep them alive.

Q: You often speak and sing of the America you admire. How did the peopleyou met view America?

A: As the secretary of the Treasury goes around Africa and I'm with him,they don't know me from Adam. They're not playing U2 records on the radio.It's the reception the United States gets that is something to see. Thepeople see they're not being abandoned by America.

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