Galtung's Triangle: ACT UP

     A modern example of the Galtung's Triangle I wanted to explore was the ACT UP organization. In case you are unfamiliar with ACT UP, it stands for AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. They are an activist group on a mission to stop the AIDS pandemic. Within this organization, they would host protests, fundraisers, teach proper sex education, and even learn more about HIV/AIDS treatment to teach patients about their medications. This organization was formed because they felt that this issue was not getting proper attention.

    When choosing between Latent and Manifest analysis level, I struggled with this because the AIDS/HIV pandemic could be considered both. Manifest, because of the lack of funding, representation, and research, caused thousands of deaths. If people in higher potions (politicians, authors, so forth) gave this issue the proper attention, millions of people wouldn't have died and suffered for the years the US knew about it. However, this conflict could be considered at a Latent level through lack of media coverage and awareness. The stigmatization surrounded the disease as a "gay cancer," the issue got out of hand.

    It took the US seven years before the president (Go Regan!) realized his first statement about the disease. Of course, this was after the discovery that straight men and women could transmit this disease through blood transfusion/bodily fluids. In his statement, there was no mention that the virus was affiliated with gay people, which made things worse because that meant that he was aware of the virus for the past seven years but chose to ignore it until it became his problem. In those seven years, there was no medication, research, funding, and doctors wouldn't even be in the same room with someone who was HIV positive.

    I just threw in a lot of context for this next part, going back to Galtung's Triangle. The attitude/assumption: These were the people who refused to acknowledge the problem and actually made the problem worse. This was done through discrimination towards HIV individuals, unaffordable medications, and basically stripping these people's human rights away. This was also seen through the stigmatization of gay people, which at the time was already a taboo subject. The public made it worse by bringing religion and arrogance into the issue. Needless to say, it was a mess.

    Through the Contradiction point of Galtung's Triangle theory, the HIV/AIDS epidemic ultimately caused ACT UP to be extremely relevant. ACT UP assembled as a substitute for the people who were causing the conflict. This means people in power, lack media representation and unaffordable healthcare. ACT UP became this group of people educating, pushing for affordable medication, and fighting against the stigma of AIDS/HIV. This organization was peacefully creating alternative ways to inform the public and be a helpful resource to HIV positive individuals.

The last point on Galtung's Triangle theory is Behavior. I talked about this a little third paragraph, as I mentioned, there were many discriminatory actions against AIDS/HIV individuals. Peaceful protests turned violent, religious figures informing the LGBTQ community that this is "what they get", and so many other actions that are equally heartbreaking. In this stage of Galtung's Triangle theory, it talks about the building of peacekeeping, which could be argued to never have a breakthrough without the ACT UP organization.

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