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"Greater awareness needed"
The
Star (www.thestar.com.my)
(07/12/06)
HIV and AIDS. Now here is a topic that has never been covered by this column
before. And I won’t try and patronise anyone by pretending not to know why.
The reason is obvious.
There is still plenty of stigma and taboo attached to HIV, AIDS, sex and
sexuality (as there are about disability and disabled people), even after
more than two decades of active and aggressive anti-AIDS campaigns.
Every year, we are inundated with AIDS awareness campaigns every Dec 1 on
World AIDS Day. Last week was no different. But are we getting the message?
Is all the hard work being put in by non-governmental organisations paying
off? These are questions I frequently ask myself about the disability
struggle as well.
Are our target audiences simply becoming better at turning newspaper pages
to focus their attentions on something less dreadful happening in the world?
Incidentally, many people think about disability along the same lines too –
that it is mostly someone else’s problem – until it happens to them or their
family and acquaintance.
I first heard about AIDS on the Voice Of America international radio
broadcast in the early 1980s. The station reported it as a strange disease
that seemed to affect only gay men. Then, slowly came the facts – and the
fear – as anyone could get it. I read about how paramedics in the United
States were scared to perform emergency treatment such as mouth-to-mouth
resuscitation for fear of contracting the disease.
Thankfully, information about how HIV is actually transmitted became more
public and helped to allay the panic. “You can’t get HIV/AIDS by touching
someone, so please give a hug to someone with the disease,” was the clarion
call of many AIDS activists groups.
Ten years later, I went to the US for a disability leadership course. Unlike
the homophobic hysteria that AIDS created, I discovered, much to my pleasant
surprise, that some of the gay and disabled people whom I stayed with were
the nicest persons that I had ever met.
One gay woman in a wheelchair told me that she never celebrates Independence
Day on July 4 in the US because she never felt totally free in her country
as a gay citizen.
The most eye-opening encounter and lesson that I learnt about HIV and AIDS
during my short stay in the US however, came upon my visit to two churches
in San Francisco. One was an all-men gay church where I saw a scroll in
front of the altar. It bore the names of more than 200 members who had died
of AIDS.
The priest, I was told to my horror, also had HIV. When I whispered to a
member of the parish seated next to me on how he became HIV-positive, he
replied, “Why don’t you ask him yourself?” Embarrassed by his answer and my
own hidden prejudice, I never did ask the priest about his illness.
Then it was time to have Holy Communion, where consecrated bread and wine
were shared among the brethren. Once again, my ignorance and hypocrisy about
AIDS re-emerged its ugly head. I decided not to take part in the sacrament,
afraid that drinking from the same cup might make me pick up the disease.
Then I realised I was only being foolish. I practise this all the time at
home in my own church without any fear of getting AIDS because I thought
that no one had AIDS in my parish!
My experience at a second church made me realise how proper education was
needed to overcome ignorance, fear and prejudice. Just before the holy meal
was distributed, the pastor reassured his members that “because we are all
good people here and our members make our own bread, so you will never get
the disease.”
That was 15 years ago. Hopefully, people are more enlightened now. Whatever
the case, my US trip opened my eyes in ways I never imagined it would about
life and living – and that is, whether you have a disability, an incurable
disease or a sexual orientation that does not fit into the norm of a
particular society, the best way forward is to offer a hand of love and
understanding to everyone, no matter what.
One can never go wrong that way. Happy World AIDS Day everyone!
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