Hope is strength and I’m gonna fight
For many, the acronyms 'HIV' and 'AIDS' invoke particular imagery: celebrities such as Freddie Mercury, or Gia Carangi, Princess Diana shaking hands with a patient in a hospital ward, or a Grim Reaper wielding a bowling ball. Distant memories of a tragedy the world has moved on from; a sad footnote to the end of the 20th century.
However, HIV remains a global epidemic. To date, more than 42 million people across the world have died of AIDS-related illnesses, and over 39 million people are currently living with HIV – including 30,000 in Australia. While the prognosis has improved, and advancements in medical treatment means that many with HIV can lead long and healthy lives, there is still work to do to safeguard the future and guarantee positive outcomes for those living with HIV/AIDS.
Started in 1988, World AIDS Day aims to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS, and honour those who have died of AIDS-related illness. The 2025 theme for World AIDS Day is 'No one left behind'.
In that spirit, we are highlighting one of our landmark collections – the Australian Response to AIDS Oral History project – and the valuable, vulnerable insights shared within it.
William Yang, The last candle, AIDS vigil [The Domain, Sydney], 1994, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-136864462
William Yang, The last candle, AIDS vigil [The Domain, Sydney], 1994, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-136864462
The Australian Response to AIDS Oral History Project was conducted in collaboration with the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations (AFAO). It features interviews on a range of subjects, with each interviewee exploring their personal relationship with HIV and AIDS in Australia. Politicians and policymakers, community leaders and activists, and those living with HIV/AIDS and their families – their stories are captured with powerful authenticity and candour. While some interviews are subject to restriction (as per the wishes of the interview subject), many are available online or can be accessed at the Library via our Catalogue.
Former High Court Justice Michael Kirby reflected on the early international and national reaction to the epidemic in a 1993 interview with Daniel Connell.
The then President of the NSW Court of Appeal spoke frankly about the early government response, and the impact of evolving societal attitudes towards transmission.
We had the instruments, with the media, of communicating knowledge about HIV/AIDS quickly. And I think, in the world, we've done that pretty well. But we also had these impediments of attitudes and inhibitions, some of them legal, to talking frankly and acting boldly to contain the epidemic.
He also discussed the development of a vaccine and a pragmatic approach to challenging the spread of the virus in an environment where a cure was not apparent.
…until we have a sure cure which is readily and cheaply available, if ever, and until we have a vaccine which will prevent infection or prevent the deterioration of a person already infected, then that basically is the only vaccine we have. The vaccine of knowledge and of self-protection and by self-protection the protection of others.
The late Bill Whittaker (1948 – 2024), former Chair and President of the AFAO and inaugural president of the AIDS Council of NSW (ACON), spoke with James Waites in 2002 for his second interview for the project. He discussed the changing landscape of HIV/AIDS advocacy, community disaffection, and the need to continue to push for prevention in lieu of a medical ‘cure’:
Prevention, overcoming discrimination, promoting awareness, building, generating community solidarity and community effort, political leadership. None of these things are as attractive as a pill or an injection. But that's what we need.
HIV/ AIDS: prevention is everybody's business, 2007 in World AIDS Day posters, 1986-2007, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3936262330
HIV/ AIDS: prevention is everybody's business, 2007 in World AIDS Day posters, 1986-2007, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3936262330
Les Taylor (1951-1994), staunch community advocate and one of the founders of People Living with HIV/AIDS Victoria, met with James Waites in 1992 to discuss his experience living with the virus and losing those closest to him.
I've lost 34 friends probably in the last 3 or 4 years, and that is one of the hardest things to cope with. Seeing your mates get sick and die—some of them that were diagnosed long after me. And you just look at them and think, 'Am I next? Am I gonna go that way?
He then spoke poignantly about his desire to fight the disease, vocalising a strength and resilience that resonates throughout the oral history project.
…you've got to keep fighting. Hope is strength and I'm gonna fight. And I'll fight right to the bitter end…
Finally, he beautifully summarised the power and lasting value of the project.
I think it's very important that this interview's taking place today and that other interviews similar[ly] take place. Because it's going to be history in the future. Hopefully that history will not be necessary in the fact that we find a cure or something very soon—tomorrow, today, now, in the next hour. But we just have to deal with the here and now—step by step.
It is a privilege to steward this oral history collection, and listening to these interviews affirms the continued relevancy and value of oral history as a format; enabling people to share their raw, personal stories in a way that is accessible for generations to come.
You can find further information on World AIDS Day in Australia on the World AIDS Day Website.
More to explore
Leigh Henningham, A tree decorated in face mask outside the National Gallery of Victoria, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Melbourne, Victoria, 26 April 2020, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2726498492
2024 National Library of Australia Scholar Jacinta Mackay
Loui Seselja, Portrait of Geoffrey Dutton seated in the Oral History collection at the National Library of Australia, 1992, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-151764316