What's the answer?
I have a question. This is a pretty serious topic so if you're in the mood for light reading move on and come back later. We talked about this issue in my Current Events class and I need to air it out a bit.
There is an AIDS pandemic in Africa. One contributing factor to the pandemic is a myth that sex with a virgin cures a man with AIDS. Girls as young as nine months have been raped. There is little in this world more disgusting than this.
What would you say as an answer though? Would you say justice? Find the perpetrators and make them pay. But the question must be raised, how widespread is the myth? What if the justice system is infected by it? Some have answered by setting up support systems for vicitims. Agencies provide anti-viral agents that can stop AIDS if used shortly after the assault. Counseling for the victims is provided. This is a response, not a solution. I have a few outrageous solutions. One is to take all the women and children and move them somewhere else. Probably not going to happen. A typical answer I would give is education. But many who believe the myth also believe that AIDS is a foreigner's disease. That it is a ploy by outsiders to infect the citizens. And so the education is ignored. And people are hurt.
Here's my question. I tend to believe that Christians are called to be an answer to the pain in the world. I believe quite strongly in heaven and eternal life. I also believe that God calls us to advance his kingdom now. Life can be better right now because of God and his love. I think advancing his kingdom includes providing food for the starving, health care for the sick, and education for all. But is there any answer to this pandemic caused by myth other than God? I believe strongly that it is more effective to feed people physically first and then when they seek to know more, to share my beliefs with them. But education and justice cannot solve this problem. Is there anything but the gospel of grace that can answer this pandemic? What do you think?
3 comments:
Compassion for all. Ignorance is obviously not bliss in this situation, people are dying and hurting because of ignorance. So yes, education, but if they won't listen, compassion. Heal where you can, empathize where you can't. I can't think of anything else. Maybe this time there is just no good answer.
The search for a cure for AIDS has shown that no single approach has significant effect, so modern methods use a cocktail approach, they mix many different drugs to halt the disease's progress. Similarly, I think there is no single answer to your question. A cocktail approach is necessary.
Education can help to some degree. Education for the men and also for the women and children who may be complicit in the myth. At the same time, we need to address the reason why people don't trust us. Is it the legacy of colonialism? Our economic hegemony that pillages their resources without returning anything to the people? We need to rebuild trust by treating people as we would want to be treated. (Revolutionary idea,isn't it?) In the meantime, is it possible to dissiminate information through a trusted third party? Perhaps the mosque or church, but then you end up with people unwilling to talk about anything other than abstenance.
Clinton took a huge step by saying the US (the world's economic pitbull) would no longer enforce pharmaceutical copyrights in Africa, allowing affordable treatments to emerge. If research by the Indian pharmaceutical companies (the main source of affordable drugs in the Third World) was as heavily financed by government money as research at the American and Western European companies (much of which ends up being spent in the advertising budget--pharmaceuticals are the only industry that considers advertising part of R&D), then maybe we'd get somewhere. I mean, usually independent tests show the "illegal" Indian-produced version is more effective than the original.
Most importantly, I think that we need to stop trying to think of our solutions here in the ivory tower and listen to the people immersed in those cultures and working on the problem at the scene and give them the resources to implement their ideas.
That's what I wanted to say.
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